Let me preface this to any potential mods that are reading this by saying this might belong in the Local Tournaments subforum, but this is more of a discussion about promoting VGC on a personal level than an actual tournament. Please move this thread if you feel it is appropriate.
So, this originally was going to be a thread where I asked a few questions about organizing a local Pokemon scene, except I realized most of us haven't really done anything in that regard. Because of this, I created a thread where we can discuss tactics and methods for promoting local tournaments and communities for the VGC scene.
With Duy and I just starting work on the National Collegiate Pokemon Association, I realized that we need to foster our own local communities while we're busy linking different colleges together. As such, I've been playing around with some ideas. Give feedback if you can, and post your own ideas and questions!
Advertising
I think the advertising is going to be the most important thing in the success of local play. I'm a fan of lists, so here are the ways I'd advertise. If you can, please give your thoughts on the below:
Unlike the TCG, your tools aren't as pre-crafted in VGC. Particularly for the casual player, competitive Pokemon is a huge shock. This is going to be a huge obstacle in getting new players. This problem caused me many headaches for the past week, but Pokemon Stadium showed me the answer: rentals. However, instead of renting individual Pokemon, the player can rent an individual team. I envision DS games preloaded with two simple and easy to use teams of the common playstyles (rain, sun, TR, goodstuffs, etc). This way, you can easily throw two players into battle and have them explore the game on their own with minimal guidance.
Here, I shall keep a record of premade teams for use at any leagues looking to start up.
Trick Room (2 teams):
WIP by bearsfan092
Sun (1 team):
Rain (2 teams):
Rain team by JRank
Goodstuffs (2 teams):
WIP by bearsfan092
Skarmbliss Special by Infinity.Cypher
Hail (1 team):
Once the players have their feet wet, we can then worry about teaching them how to teambuild. Once that's done, we can show them EVing, RNGing, etc.
So again, please provide your thoughts on what I've shown here, and maybe ask a question yourself about setting up your own local scene.
So, this originally was going to be a thread where I asked a few questions about organizing a local Pokemon scene, except I realized most of us haven't really done anything in that regard. Because of this, I created a thread where we can discuss tactics and methods for promoting local tournaments and communities for the VGC scene.
With Duy and I just starting work on the National Collegiate Pokemon Association, I realized that we need to foster our own local communities while we're busy linking different colleges together. As such, I've been playing around with some ideas. Give feedback if you can, and post your own ideas and questions!
Advertising
I think the advertising is going to be the most important thing in the success of local play. I'm a fan of lists, so here are the ways I'd advertise. If you can, please give your thoughts on the below:
- Getting in contact with my university and starting an official Pokemon club. However, the problem is that you need a ten person group to make an official club. I also live in an area where you could walk to four different universities easily, and making a club may commit to one university in a detrimental way.
- Taking out ads in local school newspapers. These usually are pretty cheap, but I'm worried about people not reading them at all
- Attacking all the campuses with fliers and posting them on a weekly (or some other frequency) basis
- Getting in contact with a local store like Gamestop so I can put up a poster somewhere in their store. I figure with the release of BW2 in October, we have a ripe opportunity to get some VGC players involved.
- If anyone here is a graphic designer and could help with making a simple posters and fliers, I would love you forever. I am even willing to pay a small fee for professional looking stuff.
- Getting a regular meeting space will not be difficult for me if I can reach the ten-person number for a club. On Saturdays and Sundays, many classrooms are not in use and are designated for club use on those days. Failing that, meeting up on the ground floor of a dormitory is a viable option.
- For tournaments and such, utilizing the aforementioned Gamestop is probably the best idea. If a BW2 launch tournament was held, we could easily get Gamestop on board for at least one tournament, as it would bring in people looking to buy the game.
Unlike the TCG, your tools aren't as pre-crafted in VGC. Particularly for the casual player, competitive Pokemon is a huge shock. This is going to be a huge obstacle in getting new players. This problem caused me many headaches for the past week, but Pokemon Stadium showed me the answer: rentals. However, instead of renting individual Pokemon, the player can rent an individual team. I envision DS games preloaded with two simple and easy to use teams of the common playstyles (rain, sun, TR, goodstuffs, etc). This way, you can easily throw two players into battle and have them explore the game on their own with minimal guidance.
Here, I shall keep a record of premade teams for use at any leagues looking to start up.
Trick Room (2 teams):
WIP by bearsfan092
Sun (1 team):
Rain (2 teams):
Rain team by JRank
Goodstuffs (2 teams):
WIP by bearsfan092
Skarmbliss Special by Infinity.Cypher
Hail (1 team):
Once the players have their feet wet, we can then worry about teaching them how to teambuild. Once that's done, we can show them EVing, RNGing, etc.
So again, please provide your thoughts on what I've shown here, and maybe ask a question yourself about setting up your own local scene.
