Smogon Noir - The Underside of Smogburbia

By Lady Salamence.
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Introduction

So, uh, normally I do entertainment articles or mildly informative pieces. But this article will be different. Due to loopholes and laziness of certain members on this site, I can bring you a true story of lies, secrecy, and an alliance that would line the pockets of all the badgeholders for the rest of their lives.

Nintendo has always had secret communications with Smogon—they've always had an interest in the Create-a-Pokémon project, but passively contributed to other parts of the website as well. There has always been contacts of Nintendo since 1975, when Smogon was founded—or whenever it was founded, I dunno. Anyways, many major changes/happenings in the community were always given thought by Nintendo.

Also, that bastard Spaniard is an admin, out of nowhere. Not longtime supermods like Oglemi and kokoloko, but a "random" mod named Joim. Coincidence?

The reason this article is being printed is that the NDA ran out. Every badgeholder is required to sign a contract right before they get their badge. Standard fare is to not disclose the obscene amount of money you get from Smogon University (my last paycheck: 14,852.11), not to release any information on [This comment is for Smogon Gold users only.], as well as more generic stuff like badge nominations and the Inside Scoop NSFW thread and Nintendo's involvement. The only reason this can be printed is because I'm no longer legally bound to Smogon's contract, and RODAN isn't involved with IS at all. Well, he used to be, but now he isn't. Thankfully my contract is still unsigned, on my desk.

History

Smogon and Nintendo have been partners for as long as anyone can remember. They've been involved on varying levels with varying projects, but they've always been there, to some extent. A basic example of their involvement would be the now-defunct simulator, The Competitor. Before it was a consistently updated Tournaments feed, it was a battle simulator. Nintendo was a large force behind the making of the simulator, before it was ultimately cancelled to forge bonds with the Pokémon Online community, which is an article for another time, and another failed contract renewal.

One of the main areas Nintendo is involved in is the Create-a-Pokémon forum. While at the start it may not have been a Nintendo idea, Nintendo certainly liked it, putting shills in the community and moving concepts towards their own failed Pokémon concepts. Sometimes, ideas would be given to users from Nintendo, and those would get voted by numerous shill accounts and badgeholders until Nintendo got to see what their failed concept turned out to be.

On the flip side of the coin, one of Nintendo's projects that Smogon was involved in was the Dream World. Smogon is well-known for its distaste of anything flavorful and only cares about the competitive aspect of everything. Nintendo, at the basic stages of creating the Dream World, came to Smogon and asked for ideas. Naturally, it was received with great applause, and many competitive players threw ideas around for Dream World abilities.

As a quick last note, Nintendo was behind the Anti-Hax clause. It was an attempt at seeing how the community would react to it if Smogon would "remove" hax. It failed, horribly.

Personal Opinions

LS
Bad, bad, bad, bad. Nothing good will come out of this. Already Nintendo has about 20% of the Smogon stocks, and soon they'll run the company. I can't believe that the admins accepted the proposition. While it may have seemed good, only bad can come from this. If this were up to a vote, I wonder if it would have gone through. Too many people blindly accepted this announcement by the administrators, and it'll only get worse. Be very, very wary.
RODAN
at least $100,000
"senior staff" is taking
to the account
extradition

Smogon's Changes

The general consensus in Inside Scoop is that Generation 6, more well known as Pokémon X&Y, will be great. The game is all finished up, and now we're just waiting for release date to get our free, pre-ordered games. We've had heavy involvement in this game, more so than in previous games, and since we've had a lot of involvement, this game will be bone-dry flavor wise, but the best competitive game to ever exist.

The first and most obvious thing to talk about is the new type, Fairy. Dragon has always been a powerful type, at least since RSE. Thankfully, with the contributions of random Tiering Contributors and Smogon's resident "cute expert" jumpluff, as well as countless other contributors from Tournaments, CAP, and Pokémon Showdown!, Dragon-types will take a fall from grace, with Fairy-type being super effective against it and numerous powerful Pokémon and moves being retyped to the new "generic girly" type, which coincidentally beats the "manly man" type. Coincidence?

Here's where I planned to leak some information regarding the new features and such, but I don't want to ruin the game for you. I will say, however, that EVs and IVs will be very easy to work with, the storyline will be optional in lieu of a "Fast-track to Smogon Uni" setup, in which you're given a very basic teambuilder and put you against trainers with teams such as Tabloo, Sloop John B, and other teams from various tiers. Once that is completed, you're linked to smogon.com and given the option to restart.

I'd like to use this section to thank Smogon user and contributor TheMantyke for his excellent Smog article diverting attention to how we know all the new information. "Schoolyard kid" my foot.

Testimonials

FireMage
Well, it's great and all, I guess, but we were promised more Tournaments support eventually, and an official Nintendo simulator to run them on... What happened to those?
Molk
I'm really happy right now. I had a nice chat with a couple Nintendo game designers, specifically the ones that design the competitive sides of the Pokémon, and they understand the position my tier, RU, is in, and have promised to create a couple of Pokémon specifically designed for RU. This is for sure a positive change for Smogon.
dragonuser
That whole Steel-type nerf may have been Theorymon and the Ubers crew's doing, but it's certainly a nice touch by Nintendo, allowing us to make changes to their type chart without questioning too much. But Bisharp gets perfect coverage now, with Iron Head and Sucker Punch. Gratz, Nails.
jas61292
So I'll be honest, I'm not a big fan of this whole partnership thing. In CAP, while we love making great Pokémon, what we are really all about is the discussion and learning that the CAP process provides. Now, I won't lie, those guys definitely know how to make a Pokémon, and they do bring some great ideas to the project. However, the pressure this partnership puts on us to try and execute their failed ideas, well, it just creates an environment that is not really conducive to the goals of our project.
Jukain
This partnership is an embarrassment to the fine establishment of Smogon. chaos possesses a multitude of other options to garner cash, including but not limited to charging for badges and moderator status. Evidently, Nintendo has not pursued charges against Smogon so they could achieve their totalitarian goal of complete online Pokémon domination. Nintendo workers in C&C...come on, we're reaching <numbers user who shall not be named> tier here. As an addendum, is it optimal for Nintendo's legal oppression to view The Inside Scoop's colorful past? Any badged member with half a brain knows that there are secrets hidden in Smogon's beginnings that must not be seen! Once Nintendo sees our standards, they will be quick to withdraw their offer. Our efforts will be futile, and a cease-and-desist will be imminent. I rally you, fellow Smogon users, to rise up against the conquerors. For Narnia!

Outro

Well, that's that for me here. I've moved to Serebii, where the community is accepting of me, despite their dislike of certain types of users. If any Smogon user wishes to assist me in releasing more of this information, please send me donations here.

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