Yeah, but you also have to admit that doubles have been around for no small part of that time frame now and there really isn't much excuse as to why it's not more popular here other than the fact that we don't take to things unfamiliar to us when we have the option to just ignore them. Now that we can't just ignore it, it's becoming important.
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Yeah, but you also have to admit that doubles have been around for no small part of that time frame now and there really isn't much excuse as to why it's not more popular here other than the fact that we don't take to things unfamiliar to us when we have the option to just ignore them. Now that we can't just ignore it, it's becoming important.
Let's not forgot that the Japanese go hog wild over doubles. They make up half of the player base of Pokemon and as long as this tournament keeps extending all the way to the Worlds level, doubles probably won't be going away.
This tournament is going to keep growing every year. When I spoke to Mike Liesik, he made it clear to me that he wanted to see many more stops and get tournaments down to the local level, similar to the TCG. These TPCI tournaments are going to grow and as a result, so will their influence over what metagame we'll all be (or at least should be, if we know what's worthwhile) playing, whether Smogon likes it or not.
Ten years, this game came out like 2 years ago, and people have only been 6v6ing eachother over wi fi for two years. I highly doubt a lot of people played competitvely in the R/B series.. Even if it was Local, probably wasn't competetive, competitive.
But yea, Doubles IMO, is the official metagame of TPCi/Nintendo/Japanese tornuments, which offer much more than a 6v6 shoddy battle match. Honestly, I think the official metagame should be VGC formats, because preparation/training/battling for this is much more rewarding and isn't as much of a waste of time as 6v6 standard singles. Now, it may not be a waste of time for most players but honeslty, at the end of the day I will feel much better when my VGC team goes through 20 straight wins then my standard team that goes through 20 straight wins, because I know the succesful VGC team will get me further..
EDIT: Now it may not be the metagame everyone wants, as most people are inexperienced in double battles, but shoddy should at least have an option for it..There's netbattle, but it is not as popular and if Smogon were to advertise the VGC format, and promote it, or let alone have it as a ladder, we could possibly expect better results at the TPCi tornuments. And maybe we wouldn't see as many people like this:
Therein lies your ignorance. Sure, there wasn't Wi-Fi or anything like that but Pokemon was played competitively. If anything, it was more competitive than it is now. I'd say that ten years ago was the heyday of competitive Pokemon.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2000_Sept_2/ai_64992542/
See Ian Garvey, our resident Pokemon RBY champion.
You may think it is ignorant, but I think it is improbable. Back then, we were only able to battle with friends that lived by us, there were no R/B/Y tornuments, and if you find one please tell me. We could only battle our siblings, now me and you can get a 12 digit code and battle right here. If someone claimed they were the best R/B/Y battler on the internet, there'd be no way to beat him and proove him wrong, without, going to his house, which is like 0.001% chance of happening haha. But most people here have only been here for D/P standard battling and great trades. Smogon is one of the best sites for this, but back then, who would care is someone on the internet had flawless pokemon if there's just no possible way of obtaining them.
Smogon, I don't think was as popular or as competitive as it is now. I like Smogon but I wouldn't have cared for this site in the R/B/Y days haha.
5K, Not to be a butt, but I don't contribute to Smogon really, so I don't really have a basis to answer that on. However I would like to point out that numbers generated by these website raters can be deceptive. It doesn't include the cost bandwidth, nor the fact that ad clicks aren't necessarily that people are clicking those ads. Smogon has a large base of "established" users, people who aren't likely to click on ads unless they do so with the sole intent of generating revenue to help cover the cost of this website. I could be wrong, but from my own experiences running websites is that estimated value very, very, seldom reflects the true value of a site.
drcossack
I'm everywhere, you ain't never there
There were RBY tourneys in 2000 - they were run by Nintendo though. I played competitively during that era, but at the same time, I didn't (because it was only done at Nintendo events.) The ruleset for them was both good and bad - 3v3 singles, sleep clause, self-KO clause, freeze clause, and you could use any of the 151 Pokemon (yeah, Mewtwo/Mew were fair game); Mew was even given to you at events, and you could level it up and feed it Vitamins no problem (in fact, some of the participants back then had Rare Candies and Vitamins already purchased. I remember talking to a few of them about it.) I have a few event Mews from RBY on my Pokemon Stadium teams, though the file my first one was on no longer exists. IIRC, Smogon didn't exist back then, but, when I look at the RBY era sets they have on there now, they're the same sets I used in Nintendo's RBY tourneys. I stumbled upon the Mewtwo set (Bolt/Beam/Psychic/Recover) completely by accident. Back then I used every tier except NFE - my Stadium Tour team had Uber, OU, BL, and UU in it. Tiers didn't matter to me. They do now though.
Otherwise, I agree, Netbattle, Shoddy, and D/P have all allowed battling to take off, as players can battle whenever they want. For 10 years or so, we all had to play standard battles, and let's face it, those are boring/getting boring. Double battles are relatively new and exciting, and whenever I go on WiFi, I find myself playing those more often than standard matches. There's so much more to teambuilding in double battles. In Standard, you can just put 6 Pokemon together for your team, and you can start beating the crap out of people. You can't do that in Doubles (as much); the team you make has to work well together or you'll get your ass handed to you.
But do the japanese go hog wild for doubles because that is how their much more accessible tournaments are held in or are the tournaments doubles because it's so popular? I really have to think it's the former. we would be more supportive of the tournament too if there were so many locations like in japan. Didn't they have a qualifier in like every prefecture? Imagine having a qualifier in every state? When you consider that japan is so much smaller than the us it still wouldn't be the same. The closest location for me was 10 hours away. I would be much more supportive of the crappy rules too if it was only a half hour drive instead.
WARNING: OPINIONS AHEAD
I am not going to quote anyone because I am just going to state my thoughts as a whole. This year's VGC was an outstanding success in some ways, and an absolute disaster in others.
This year's VGC had a terrible way to pick participants in the tournament, and even those who were lucky enough to be selected admit this. Numerous suggestions have been proffered to remedy this, my favorite being that the number of participants allowed in is raised, or perhaps no limit is set. Swiss format can be used in the preliminary rounds, as it is flexible as to how many players it can accommodate. Too many people traveled long distances only to be turned down. I travelled only slightly more than half the distance that IPL and OmegaDonut did (1800 miles as opposed to 3100), and I felt immensely disappointed. I can only imagine what it would have felt like to be them, to travel such a distance and spend so much money, only to not get selected. In that way, I was glad to see them succeed, but at the same time, I could feel only the nagging thoughts of what could have been.
The number and location of regionals left much to be desired, but it was certainly an improvement over last year. I would like to see several more locations added. JAA obviously had a massive number of tournaments compared to this year, but I would fine with 12-16, as opposed to the 26 of JAA or 6 of this year. Large cities would be the focal point, obviously including NYC, LA, Chicago, Houston, and Phoenix (the five largest cities in the US ranked by population). Region would also be taken into account, adding a Orlando/other Florida stop, Nashville for the northern southerners, Dallas for the northern/western Texans, Minneapolis for the northern Midwesterners, Detroit/Ohio city for the eastern Midwesterners, San Francisco for the northern Californians, Seattle for the Pacific Northwesterners, Philadelphia and Boston for other East Coast residents, Kansas City for Central US residents, and maybe Denver for the West-Central residents. This would make a total of 16 regional tournaments. I feel that this would bring in more people, as there would be a tournament within reasonable reach for almost everyone. This year, for example, the closest regional to me was Nashville, which is 869 miles from my house (one way), and there was also St. Louis, which is a mere 605 miles from my house (again, one way). These were also the only two I could even have a chance of attending because the others were held during the school year. Another reason more regionals would be better is because if a player didn't perform well at one tournament, they could make a trip, but not an obscenely long one (ala OmegaDonut/IPL) to get another shot.
The battling rules for this year were debatable, and some were not even enforced. The level 50 cap makes little sense, as it only constricts the kind of Pokemon that can be used and what moves they can use. Level 100 cap should be used, with no auto-level, due to the numerous level 1 strategies available. I have no preference between 2v2 and 1v1, but I do understand FiveK's point about 6 Pokemon 1v1's taking a long time. I think that IPL brings an interesting point with his suggestion of 3 Pokemon 1v1, which is how the 2005 tournament was conducted. I feel that this format can be very effective, but again, I have no personal preference. In the end, I just want to play Pokemon, a game I love, for the chance to win incredible prizes. However, I want to do so in a competitive environment, one in which all of the players are on a level playing field. This means that all hacking devices should be prohibited, and this rule should be strictly enforced. It is not fair for one player to put countless hours into building their team, only to have a player who put 30 minutes into building a team eliminate them. Some people do not have access to hacking devices, which means that in order to have a truly even playing field, all players must use only the game carts and themselves to train their Pokemon.
This year's tournament did succeed in bringing together skilled battlers from across the country. Not all of these battlers had the chance to compete, however, which is my biggest complaint of this year. Nonetheless, outstanding prizes were given out, and more are coming. The hosting of the tournament was done very well, as the tournaments were conducted efficiently and smoothly. The venues were well-sized for the number of participants at each event, with the exception of Philadelphia. This problem stemmed from the lack of East Coast regionals, however, not from the actual venue itself.
TPCI did a lot of things right this year, but they also have much to improve on. If the selection process is improved, the number of regionals increased, and the battle rules cleaned up and enforced to the fullest extent, I think that the VGC could be immensely successful for a long time to come.
I am not going to quote anyone because I am just going to state my thoughts as a whole. This year's VGC was an outstanding success in some ways, and an absolute disaster in others.
This year's VGC had a terrible way to pick participants in the tournament, and even those who were lucky enough to be selected admit this. Numerous suggestions have been proffered to remedy this, my favorite being that the number of participants allowed in is raised, or perhaps no limit is set. Swiss format can be used in the preliminary rounds, as it is flexible as to how many players it can accommodate. Too many people traveled long distances only to be turned down. I travelled only slightly more than half the distance that IPL and OmegaDonut did (1800 miles as opposed to 3100), and I felt immensely disappointed. I can only imagine what it would have felt like to be them, to travel such a distance and spend so much money, only to not get selected. In that way, I was glad to see them succeed, but at the same time, I could feel only the nagging thoughts of what could have been.
The number and location of regionals left much to be desired, but it was certainly an improvement over last year. I would like to see several more locations added. JAA obviously had a massive number of tournaments compared to this year, but I would fine with 12-16, as opposed to the 26 of JAA or 6 of this year. Large cities would be the focal point, obviously including NYC, LA, Chicago, Houston, and Phoenix (the five largest cities in the US ranked by population). Region would also be taken into account, adding a Orlando/other Florida stop, Nashville for the northern southerners, Dallas for the northern/western Texans, Minneapolis for the northern Midwesterners, Detroit/Ohio city for the eastern Midwesterners, San Francisco for the northern Californians, Seattle for the Pacific Northwesterners, Philadelphia and Boston for other East Coast residents, Kansas City for Central US residents, and maybe Denver for the West-Central residents. This would make a total of 16 regional tournaments. I feel that this would bring in more people, as there would be a tournament within reasonable reach for almost everyone. This year, for example, the closest regional to me was Nashville, which is 869 miles from my house (one way), and there was also St. Louis, which is a mere 605 miles from my house (again, one way). These were also the only two I could even have a chance of attending because the others were held during the school year. Another reason more regionals would be better is because if a player didn't perform well at one tournament, they could make a trip, but not an obscenely long one (ala OmegaDonut/IPL) to get another shot.
The battling rules for this year were debatable, and some were not even enforced. The level 50 cap makes little sense, as it only constricts the kind of Pokemon that can be used and what moves they can use. Level 100 cap should be used, with no auto-level, due to the numerous level 1 strategies available. I have no preference between 2v2 and 1v1, but I do understand FiveK's point about 6 Pokemon 1v1's taking a long time. I think that IPL brings an interesting point with his suggestion of 3 Pokemon 1v1, which is how the 2005 tournament was conducted. I feel that this format can be very effective, but again, I have no personal preference. In the end, I just want to play Pokemon, a game I love, for the chance to win incredible prizes. However, I want to do so in a competitive environment, one in which all of the players are on a level playing field. This means that all hacking devices should be prohibited, and this rule should be strictly enforced. It is not fair for one player to put countless hours into building their team, only to have a player who put 30 minutes into building a team eliminate them. Some people do not have access to hacking devices, which means that in order to have a truly even playing field, all players must use only the game carts and themselves to train their Pokemon.
This year's tournament did succeed in bringing together skilled battlers from across the country. Not all of these battlers had the chance to compete, however, which is my biggest complaint of this year. Nonetheless, outstanding prizes were given out, and more are coming. The hosting of the tournament was done very well, as the tournaments were conducted efficiently and smoothly. The venues were well-sized for the number of participants at each event, with the exception of Philadelphia. This problem stemmed from the lack of East Coast regionals, however, not from the actual venue itself.
TPCI did a lot of things right this year, but they also have much to improve on. If the selection process is improved, the number of regionals increased, and the battle rules cleaned up and enforced to the fullest extent, I think that the VGC could be immensely successful for a long time to come.
The reason for that is because Double Cup (the ruleset used in VGC) autobans legends not allowed in the Battle Tower and all pokemon over level 50, and forces players to stick to item clause. This means there are less mid game squabbles such as "that guy has two Focus Sashes!" or "that guy used an Arceus!" It prevents people from trying to cheat the system, and makes the tournament run smoother. And to be honest there isn't really much they can change about these rules until a new game is released with expanded and/or improved local battle rulesets.
There were simulators comparable to Shoddy for every generation, all the way back to RBY. RBY had the PBS, GSC had the GSBots and later Netbattle, RSE had Netbattle, and DPP has Shoddy. Just because *YOU* didn't play the older generations competitively doesn't mean they weren't played competitively. Your last few posts have done nothing but show how ignorant you are about competitive Pokemon history.
I suggested best-of-three or -five specifically for Stadium mode, which would take just as short an amount of time as 2v2 if not shorter. It may not be feasible to have 6v6 tournaments the way 6v6 is played now, which is why I suggested Doduo and Dodrio mode specifically if time is the actual reason that none of the tournaments are 6v6. "Best player coming out of top" is a wash, that is pokémon and we all know that. The main reason that the best player this time wasn't assured to come out on top had more to do with the reason that Philly had 1,000 competitors turned away at the door than the inherent luck in the actual game of Pokemon anyway.
You should address that before focusing on the flaws of every suggestion that's made (6v6 is too long, 3v3 is no guarantee) and ignoring the pros as if the way Nintendo currently does things is perfect when you admitted yourself it is far from it. And since I know that the only thing you can say to this is "This is a work in progress, being only year 2 of the VGC" I will explicitly state that this is no excuse at all since Nintendo was running tournaments before this (JAA) and even before that. Oh, and ask Ian Garvey and Teejay if 6v6 tournaments were "too long" ten years ago.
I'm pretty sure you're the only one who keeps saying this, 5KR. If no one else cared about "our metagame" we wouldn't have a community and we wouldn't constantly be growing, constantly be linked to by other leading sites in the pokemon community, and most importantly chaos wouldn't be hauling in all that money you continue to reference as an indication that he's profited so much from his slave article writers.
I disagree with you, even though at least you're stating this as an opinion.
Gosh, that's funny...I wonder what you would say if there weren't a website and community that had not devoted itself to becoming the undisputed #1 authority on the "inner workings of the game" for the past five years. You see that green feather under OmegaDonut's name? And mingot's name? You know what that means, right?
And even then, nobody knows everything about this game. But your implication that 2v2 players know more than 1v1 players is ridiculous. I "only play the Battle Tower" and I knew virtually off the top of my head that Scarf Adamant 252 Spe EV Metagross and +Speed 252 Spe Ev Azelf both have 183 speed. I cite this not to take anything from Worlds-bound OmegaDonut and ipl (as I've posted before, ipl knows I love him) but to show you that your enduring "knock" of me personally contrasted with your comment about the inner workings of the game is ironic since someone who doesn't even play shouldn't know crucial competitive details like that that our cream of the crop allegedly don't know even after they make it to worlds and win thousands of dollars' worth of prizes, right?
You missed the point, somehow. First, I made the argument, not Smogon. Second, I obviously know what I'm talking about where people like chaos or ipl or Aeolus wouldn't, because I actually know about the "anime", the movies and what goes on ingame in addition to what goes on competitively. No one else but someone like Misty or EeveeTrainer could make the argument I just did, because most people don't know for a fact whether Nintendo is doing anything to popularize 2v2 outside of just doing the tournaments. I do. I'm not arguing that since the cartoon doesn't feature 2v2 then neither does Smogon, you just want to hear that.
"Probably". Neither of us can say for sure (even though you've talked with the coordinator), but I still think there are ways 6v6 could work, and wonder if they've even considered some of the ways it could work.
Good. I'd like to talk with him too, as I reiterate that merely being an armchair-QB on this contrasts with everything I've done on this site for five years.
Yeah that's definitely the point, and not the thousands of families who could literally not afford to do this.
Ok lol, no one is just going to buy the new game just so they can play in the tournament. There is way, way too much that Pokemon offers for that to be the singular goal of the tournaments and nobody who works for TPCI or NOA thinks that. Again, they are never not going to do these tournaments, they are advertising pokemon in general and no dissent I or anyone else posts is going to stop that. You can't say you're not giving Smogon any credit here then honestly think TPCI or NOA is like reading our posts in this forum. They're far more concerned with Nashville moms than what the mighty Jumpman16 has to say about them on the internet.
Your opinion on this, again, appears to be singular. OD and ipl and basically everyone here that went to this tourney and has been cheered on in this thread and been proudly identified with Smogon actually recognizes "our" metagame and either contributes or play on Shoddy.
And if you're going to call yourself #1, you had better fix the inherent flaws in your tournament and no go backwards from tourneys held years ago, or those droves will get smaller amd smaller each year or at least more fed up with the tourney.
And I maintain that since this is the Official Tourney Nintendo should be held to a very, very high standard and that crucial, huge flaws should be pointed out when they occur. You will not be singing the same tune if Nintendo demonstrates further inconsistency next year, and if you do, you will be branded as an idiot.
Well, since you asked for a "brag"...a few days before JAA in NY, Fish, Articuno64, DM and I were at the NYPC, met with a few kids with their GBAs on the second floor and got to talking about pokemon. We asked what sites we were all affiliated with, and when we said we were from Smogon and stated our screen names, Arti and I were both recognized and the kids were almost awestruck. One actually asked me to rate his team on the spot, and Fish took a video of this (it was on this site for a while in the Mullet's Tale link that's remained in my sig for three years).
This happened expressly because of my contribution to Smogon, and nothing else. You dismissal of Smogon's competitive impact could hardly be more displaced.
Or, in your case, you can hypocritically play mind-numbing Shoddy Battles for hours a day for months on Shoddy on my Suspect Test Ladder, so that you might be able to have a say in the competitive tiers you don't care about and have repeatedly posted belong to a meaningless metagame that only Smogon plays. And then you can take the painstaking hours and hours it takes to prepare for the Official Tournament with your legit, unhacked pokemon, but, because of one of the most major flaws pointed out in this awesome tourney, fail to make it into even the Regionals round, after traveling hundreds of miles, twice, and have nothing to show for it but some hacked pixels of a UU pokemon or experiences that have nothing to do with competitive pokemon (I had a blast at JAA in 2006 and didn't once touch my GBA, ask Fish). Nice argument, 5KR.
There was absolutely no way to stall in RBY without getting your ass kicked. Granted, if all teams now ran full offense, we'd be in the same situation, but the best players don't. Even on Shoddy, battles between two full-on stall teams can approach an hour in length, if the players don't get bored of it and quit first. Though, the fact that they ban Celebi, the Rotom forms, and to a lesser extent, Jirachi, goes at least a decent ways towards fixing that.
This is a great news :DFiveKRunner said:
You're totaly wrong there :P
Paris' VGC got around 90 players, and I think there was only around 10 French competitive players in those, several foreign competitive players, and then a lot who were playing their first tournament.
At unofficial french tournaments, there is about 100 players, except the Pokémon in Paris which cap to 64 players.
These tournaments are in swiss pairings, in 6vs6, and there is a lot more competitive players... Obviously, when there are 2 stall teams the 40 minutes time-limit come in handy :P
The number of players is about the same, but the competitive level isn't the same at all.
Chansey could singlehandedly enable "stall" in RBY, at least to the effect that matches didn't take 10-15 minutes (which is why you and others are using the word stall). There were many 50-turn battles in RBY, they weren't short by any stretch.
Besides, that doesn't actually answer my question or address its implication. To be blunt, ET and TJ and I played the game in 2000 because we loved it. We didn't care how long games were, and players today wouldn't either. Or shouldn't if they actually like pokemon.
And the fact that they ban Celebi and Rotom definitely doesn't have anything to do with Nintendo addressing stall.
I was wondering all the time why so few of the Parisians showed up when there's obviously a great player base there... You said there are 100 players at unofficial tournaments so who are these people? Random kiddies? I just can't believe that when only some 60 Frenchs show up at a national tournament boasting a great prize...
But even Chansey could be defeated by repeated Psychics from Alakazam/Exeggutor, or else you can just switch in Golem/Rhydon on the T-Wave or Tauros on the Softboiled/Seismic Toss/Ice Beam and either force Chansey out, or kill it. Chansey didn't singlehandedly "enable" anything; Psychic's 30% chance of lowering Special meant that more often than not, it lost. Maybe it paralyzed a few things, but good luck finding something to switch into repeated Tauros Body Slams without taking a massive risk of getting paralyzed yourself. Lol Cloyster, but that's why Tauros learns Thunderbolt.
And Chansey + Cloyster + 4 other pokemon (maybe Tobybro/Amnesialax, but I'd argue they're more bulky sweepers than stall pokes, and Starmie's resistance to Water and base 115 speed meant more than likely it'd win with a crit Thunderbolt against Slowbro in < 6 turns, and Snorlax's horrid physical defense as well as an unboosted special stat of 228 means that it'll take massive damage setting up, and maybe kill one thing before going down or being forced to rest, at which time plenty of things destroy it) with no Leftovers, field effects, Sandstorm, Sleep Talk, Aromatherapy, and other 2nd-gen-onwards boosts to stall is nothing when you compare it to a full-on stall team in the DPPt era.
This is not theorymon or pbpwm; almost every team had at least 2-3 of the pokemon I just mentioned.
The fundamental difference between PBS/NetBattle/Shoddy and real life tournaments is that the former require no other investment on the part of the player except for time, while the latter requires time, money, transportation, and on the part of the younger players, parental involvement. If they started holding large-scale 6v6 tournaments and budgeted, say, an hour for each battle, it would easily last 2 or more days. That's twice the money for a hotel stay, twice the time off work (either for the participant or their parents), and twice the shittiness of it all if you didn't get in, because you'd be out the money for the hotel and other expenses anyways.
I realize that. Please notice I simply stated that it weakens stall teams somewhat, not that it was anyone's goal to do so by implementing said bans.
Nothing in the mail. They're e-tickets. Make sure to check your email regularly!
mattj
blatant Nintendo fanboy
mattj
blatant Nintendo fanboy
Dude, are you going to be an english major or something because every single post I've caught of yours has been extreeeeeemely well written?
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