Smogon: Why you came here and why you stayed

[Badal]

So here I was, re-entering the competitive scene. Googled "Pokemon Competitive battling".
Got Smogon.
Go on the website
Get my info
go to bed
next day, I come on the website again... and search a bit more, and notice the forums bar. I had already joined BMGF then and thus had an idea of how forums worked
So I joined smogon.

I have a few reasons why I stayed:
Tournaments
Other games
Firebot (its da best)
Earthworm
and Wi-fi userbase is good!

 

[Sy123]

How did I get into pokemon?
Ok, my story of how I got into this epic game is very unique. It began when I was 12 years old in the year of 2007. I was bored, and I asked my friend if there are any good games about. He told me about an online pokemon site, called Pokemon Crater. This Pokemon Crater, isnt the crapass one running at the moment. It was epic, everyone in my school at their free time was playing Pokemon Crater. It was so good, and I was one of the best in my school, I showed my friends my account with all my legendaries at lv100, all with ridiculous moves. And they wanted my advice and stuff. Then one day, the guy who ran Pokemon Crater, decided to go to university, so the site shut down. I was so devestated. All my pokemon were gone, and I went to find another game. My friend had told me that Pokemon was actually a proper game. And the latest game was, indeed Pokemon Pearl. Now most boys at my age would pick the blue one, not the Pink Pearl. But with my extensive experience with Pokemon Crater, I knew that Palkia looked better, looked cooler too. Unlike my friends who all chose Diamond. Now my friends all wanted to trade with me, for Palkia, since they all got Diamond. I am glad I never traded it away. :)
Ok, now things became boring, I was the first of my many pokemon friends who beat the Elite 4 (It was actually hard for them)
I restarted my game, and I beat it again, and again. Then I had enough, it was starting to get boring, and I didnt check the Internet for possible new Pokemon Games.
I ventured away from the pokemon arena, and found something amazing, the Ratchet and Clank series, it was very epic, and even now I think it is at the same level as Pokemon.
I kept playing them, never touching my dusty old Pokemon Cart, then Pokemon Platinum came out. And I went to pokemon again, I was in year 8, so none of my friends played pokemon anymore, but I wanted to play it one last go. When I finished the game, I found the frontier, and then I got into competitive gaming. I didnt pay much attention to the tower, since I got past Palmer the first time with pure luck, and never went there again.
I found the frontier, and I looked up on google, on how to beat the frontier, I read an article on Competitive Pokemon, EVs and IVs. I then made my own team, got a Wifi connection. And made an account on gamespot, long story shot, it was horrible, trolling everywhere and hackers and all that crap, once I had a good battle with a good person, I asked him, that I wished that every GameSpot member was as good as you. Then he recommended, some sites like Marriland, Serebii and Smogon, I chose Serebii, because it had a newbie friendly community. Then when I got more experience. Beat the crap out of some noobs. I joined Smogon, and I kept losing, yes I did, then I went back to Serebii, made a lot of RMTs, then went back, and got a bit better. But then I lurked, reading RMTs posting them. Then I am want I am now
What did the Smogon community do for me?
It has done alot for me. Sure it has made my internet lose alot of gigabytes, giving my family a huge bill. It made me less of a noob. I dont have much to say for this
What made me stay?
The dream that one day, I would win a Torunament with my mad skills. And look, I am in the top 8, of my first Tournament, the Close Combat tournament. And I am still going.
Some idiots of smogon make me sad, but the whole world cant be good. I still whole heartedly am a proud smogonite. But if the VGC ever comes to Australia, I will be there to knock you smogonites out! :)

 

[fohg]

i made an account here mostly because people that i knew from other forums had accounts here. i thought it a good idea to follow them, but i never actually used the account that much. now that the original forum i frequently visited is basically dead, i'm tryin to get some posts in and get a feel for this forum.

 

[Antny]

I came here because of my friend Mike. I've always been a casual player of pokemon. I'm excited to learn more from this forum and take my playing to the next level..I guess that's all for now!

 

[Philip7086]

I came here because of my friend Mike. I've always been a casual player of pokemon. I'm excited to learn more from this forum and take my playing to the next level..I guess that's all for now!

Hey everybody, this is my good buddy Anthony. Make him feel welcome :P

Come to think of it... I've never posted in this thread before. Maybe I'll make one sometime soon.

 

[TubaKing]

I came here because I accidentally found it on Google trying to find free ways to play Pokemon. I hadn't played Pokemon since GSC and I wanted to find a way to play DPP without having to buy a DS and the Pokemon cartridges. I somehow stumbled on Shoddy Battle and have been hooked ever since, I guess.
Also, welcome to Smogon, Anthony!

 

[Lucalibur]

When did i started playing Pokemon: It all started back in 2001...i was on school after class talking with my friends about the anime and one of them had a game called pokemon Red, i loved the game and he gave me his gameboy and the game in trade of 20 bucks, my lucky day. ever since i started to love pokemon and tried to update myself in a way or another.

How did i found smogon: back in 2007 when i used to play DP(and WOW those were the good days)i started checking some iv breeding and ev training guides for the lolz(already knew about those 2 ever since ADV) and a guy mentioned something called shoddy battle. after he mentioned the name 20 times i decided to google and check. after playing around for a while i checked the site itself(smogon of course) and decided to make a account here and oh boy, one of the best decisions of my life.

What made me stay: At first it was bad for me to get into smogon since i was a somewhat immature kid and my english was a horrible piece of crap(yeah it was even worst then now, though i was 13 at the time) and i often got mad easily. and a certain firebot acident was exactly what i was needing to become a little more mature. I learned so much around Smogon, not only about pokemon. i also became a better person and my english got better thanks to all the reading i did here. the reason i stay here is because i learn so much, both pokemon and life lessons and i know that i can learn a lot more. the moderators make sure to delete my bad posts and with that i learn what i am NOT suppose to do, grammar nazas help me fix my english i like or not and all the great players help to learn every little bit of pokemon i can. all of this together made a better person and Competitive Player.

P.S:special thanks to Stellar who was always a cool person.

 

[Nozizaki]

WARNING, Really long (And heartwarming)

Well, my journey here is kinda long, so I'll start at the beginning.

Pokemon Crystal was my first video game, I whined for all my endurance and then on a trip my parents gave in, and bought me a purple Game Boy Advance and Crystal. I played the hell out of that game. I was such a N00B I named my Rival ???, I got stuck in Ilex Forrest because I couldn't figure out that the bag had multiple pockets. My final game beating team was a Lv. 100 Typhlosion and Lv. 77 Pikachu. I racked up 200+ hours just playing alone.

Of course I played every new pokemon game that came out. I got more and more into it. Finally, Platinum came out. (I still had no clue about EP's), I named my Rival after a friend, and we battle over local play. I won, and another friend asked for a Wi-Fi battle. We battled, and he dominated me, so I started hanging out with him more often and then he said something that I may never forget. "...yeah, I accidently EV trained my Tyranitar in the Pokemon League." I heard EV as Eevee, and didn't realize something was up; but then on Serebii, I stumbled upon an EV training guide and it hit me.

By now HGSS were approaching and decided to raise a test team in it to try my hand at EV training. I picked 6 pokemon with good stats, and maxed their highest stat (Only off by 1-3, and I didn't breed for flawless IV's). I thought my team was amazing and had a rivalry (Similar to the Platinum one, but with a new friend.), our EV's and pokes pushed up to more competetive heights. I used Serebii for everything, even Tiers. Finally I resorted to Youtube, watching out battler for strategies, but that wasn't enough. I wanted a battler I liked, who I could always rely on. I stumbled upon (The now retired ) TheKillerNacho. On a video he asked his Question of the Day, "What do you think of Smogon Tiers?". That rung a bell, but I couldn't put my hand on it. I searched it on Google, and found this goldmine. I favorited and visited frequently for a couple weeks, then not being able to post in the forums broke me, and I joined.

I'm now putting the finishing touches on my first team. Thank you Smogon. I <3 you're pokemanz strategees!

 

[Starfawkingburst]

Sort of Lame, But Long

Well, I got into pokemon when I was like 6 or something. I thought Ash Pikachu were so epic that I just had to buy the game! (How Naive I was.) My first game was pokemon red and I still remember when I couldn't get out of the fucking house! Stupid thing being all black and white. -_- Anyway, from there on out I've played pokemon ever since.

I have pretty much all the pokemon games and understood the mechanics of every one, but I never knew about competitive battling till three years ago. I was on another site and a few of my friends spoke of shoddy. I investigated this shoddy and I started to like it, but I was a freaking noob. -__- So one of my buddies started to help me out and referred me to Smogon.

For those three years I was looking at the strategy dex and such to help me and basically taught the rest to myself. I got interested in your tutoring program, but I never had the guts to create an account and apply fopr it, since I though I wouldn't be applicable. So it was when I created a rather decent team that I made my account on Smogon and made an RMT. I know my fair share about pokemon battling and Rated some teams along the way, hence my few posts. Now, I'm looking to get tutored to see if I can improve my skill in battling because honestly, I'm not that great with this Synergy, strategy stuff.

So I hope Smogon will help me out with that and I also hope to stick around and be part of this grand community. =D

~SFB

 

[Twisted Kneebar]

been into Pokemanz since like 2000. stopped liking it like in 2004, got back to it after finding my old Crystal game, found this forum in 2008, posted for a year and called it quits because i thought the forum was shitty and i got bored of the new games. just 2 days ago i realized the Gold/Silver remakes came out and i played my crystal ga,me again and remembered i had an account here. im sticking around for the Off Topic threads.

 

[Hospy]

Probably fitting that this should be my first post after lurking awhile.

I first started being interested in Pokemon at the tender young age of... 12-13? In seventh/eighth grade. When Pokemon Red/Blue was released in America (which is a pretty good indication of how old I am). I was quickly engrossed in the love of carefully constructing teams, rather than the actual battling aspect, alas, there was only so much you could do in the first gen games.

I went on to other things throughout high school and college, picking up Platinum almost on a whim to relive my younger years, and was impressed at how far Pokemon has come from its early beginnings. The IV/EV system, items, 450+ pokes to choose from, vastly increased move pools, the ease of battling via WiFi, multiple viable strategies rather than just sweeeeeeep, it's a lot to play around with. I have to admit, it's probably the most complex/engaging game I play at the moment (with the exception of Eve Online), and it's a humbling experience to get utterly shamed by players half my age/read topics that I can barely understand what's going on.

I've got a lot of catching up to do (pretty much anything with a pokedex number above 151 confuses me), but I'm looking forward to being a part of this community.

It's only natural that I come to the place that provides the best information on the topic.

 

[Metal Gods]

When did I first discover Pokemon: It was about the year 1998, it was around this time my family and I for some reason I can't remember, were living in California. Sometime we decided to go back to Georgia. I discovered Pokemon because my older brother woke me up around six in the morning to watch some cartoon. That cartoon was an anime called Pokemon. It was the episode with a Sandshrew and a trainer trying to get one-hundred wins in a row. After that episode we became pretty obsessed with the anime and video games. Oh how the video games had us consuming so much time.

How did I find Smogon: My older brother would constantly beat me in Pokemon during our cable link battles (which later became wireless adapter battles in 2004 with the release of Fire Read and Leaf Green). I knew nothing about EV training, but started to understand the whole game mechanics of EVs and IVs about some years later. My older brother introduced me to the Smogon site in 2004, I didn't join the forums until some year later though. In 2006 I made second place in the Pokemon Journey Across America tournament in Atlanta, Georgia. I got a cool second place medal, an exclusive Game Boy Advance Micro, and a Skitty pillow. To this day that Skitty pillow is still with me.

What made me stay: What made me stay at first was to sharpen my skills at competitive Pokemon, but as of late I just lurk the Internet Renaissance.

 

[Randombobman]

How did I find Smogon?
Well I came to Smogon about 3 years ago, when I was still into Emerald. A friend and I had been arguing about stats, moves, etc. and so he found this place. We used if heavily for breeding pokemon with desired movesets and stuff. After a while I forgot about Smogon, but a few months back a couple of my friends bought HG/SS and so I decided to look this place up again. I don't got money to blow on $40 games so I found Shoddy battle and have been utilizing it ever since.

 

[Mihai]

The first days in school I heard about Pokemon Red/Blue because a later friend (he had birthday this time) has got Pokemon Red. Of course I wanted to have it, too. To play Pokemon was funny and I liked the story, the Pokemon, everything. With the releases of new Games my mother had to buy them for me. An then there was PMD (Mystery Dungeon). I talked long time on phone with another friend an he recommended me a page which I visited to get more and more information about every pokemon game. There were such strange things about EV's and IV's but at this time I didn't care about that. However, with Platinum I got interested in this and I read many articles about Competitive Battling. It was wonderful for me. Pokemon was my favorite game and I liked to use strategies. And these two things were combined! So I downloaded Shoddy and tried to build teams. But soon I saw that I wasn't good enough and I needed a tutor who could help me. On that recommended page I couldn't find anyone but in many articles I read "Smogon", "on Smogon they say this" and so on. I found a link and then I was here on Smogon. I signed up for the Apprentice Program and found a very good tutor. I became a pretty good player and team builder but then I had problems with my computer. Everything on it was deleted, my teams, too. So I didn't play Shoddy and lost my hang on building teams and playing right. But I still love Pokemon and I still want to become better. Thats why I stayed here, this is the best community and I think that I can just become better when I stay here and learn more.

 

[Celebeast]

First post FTW

Well I guess here is as good a place as any for my first post! Hi all!!

How did I get into Pokémon?
I've been playing since RBY. It was all over my school, and even though I was 14 at the time, I thought it was awesome. And I still find Pokémon awesome at 25! I have loved what each new generation has brought to the series, specifically shinies and online battling. Which bring me nicely to my next topic.

How I found Smogon
Well Serebii was where it all began, I would trade and battle over there, until one day someone called me a newb and DC'd on me, coz they said I had an Uber. I was like wtf? I lurked for a bit on their chat and forums and spotted the words 'tier' and 'OU' and 'UU' and was still like wtf? Eventually some irate child or other told me to go to Smogon and stop sucking. It was Google who brought me here in the end. This was a few years back mind you, I only just joined today because of the epic failure that is Serebii has gotten on my last nerve and I refuse to be accused of hacking and D/Cing by children anymore. I hope that the people here are more mature, for the sake of my sanity! After I initially learned of Smogon, I embarked on a 2 year lurkathon which ceased as soon as this was posted. I have downloaded Shoddy, made a team matching the one I have been using on WiFi, and even won a few battles! I expect to be put in my place in due course!

What has Smogon done for me?
I have used the site for moveset suggestions ever since I found it, I have used Diesel's amazing 'How to become a pro at chaining' thread to, well, become a pro at chaining, and I have read all of the the RNG research topics. Thanks to these most of my competetive Pokémon and competetive shinies exist. At first I would train the chained and SR'd shinies I had, to the best of their potential. Then I learned to IV breed, which lead to some pretty decent pokes. Once I ran into the RNG (Emerald first, then DPPT and now HGSS) the calibre of my in-game pokes improved markedly. In fact the only reason I ever started learning the RNG was because I was triple soft resetting on RS&E for shiny Lati@s at Southern Island, thanks to an Eon Ticket. So guess which game came up with a shiny first? Yup, Emerald. And guess which game didn't have a masterball on it? Yeah, Emerald. And guess which game had an underlevelled team and NO healing items? You guessed it, Emerald. That shiny Latias tore through my team and broke out of every ball I threw. Distraught I flew onto the internet, to Smogon, to learn everything I could about the Emerald RNG, until I reclaimed her. I was so glad to have such a comprehensive resource at my fingertips! The problem was that I had all of these great pokes, but no-one decent enough to battle with (i.e. someone who wouldn't DC in the face of a pasting) which means I'm not actually very experienced playing competetively against people, as opposed to the AI. I hope that being here will improve my battling skills and allow me to continue enjoying a game series that has entertained me for more than a decade.

Competetive battling and shinies aside, the other thing that Smogon has done for me is as follows... Once I got over my slight phobia of the Battle Frontier (Battle Factory, anyone?) I checked out the Frontier Records thread, which frankly blew my mind. Jumpman16 & Peterko's heated debates and fantastic strategies compelled me to give it a try. After a few weeks of toil, RNG abuse, EV Training and perseverence, I broke the 100 mark in a streak at the Battle Tower, and then again and agin etc. I now have Gold Prints at all facilities (except Factory >__<) on my Platinum, once again thanks to Smogon.

As for why I may or may not stay, well, this is day one... I have high hopes!

 

[Zacchaeus]

When a good friend told me about competitive Pokémon, I had no idea what it really was, so he told me about Smogon, I checked it out, liked it, made an account. I would really like to be a mod but that's probably not possible after all my infractions because people (I) won't stop fighting with me (people). Shame shame

This website has helped me a lot with competitive play and I think of myself as a decent competitive player now. I started playing RBY around 6 years ago and I've never really put down Pokémon since

 

[Oberon]

How it helped: beefed up my 'manz skills.

Why I stayed: I love Pokemon. Why wouldn't I be here for that?

 

[Levankua]

I've always been a pokemon kid...however, approximately 4 years ago I joined GameFAQs and tried submitting a Rate My Team for FR/LG. Needless to say, I was stupid and they tore me apart. I believe the guy I met was gbchaosmaster, who was a very intelligent player on the boards. I never really clicked with the competitive foray until D/P. Having joined the new metagame from the start, I learned and adapted. I became hooked on the metagame. Eventually it led me here, to the primary pokemon site. I looked up pokemon sets, downloaded Shoddy, and proceeded to engross myself in a new and exciting experience. Finally, I decided to join the Smogon boards as a member. Though I am still more lurk than member, I hope to slowly become a part of this community during my college years. And yes, I can proudly say I play pokemon.

 

[AerialLight]

Let's see...

I was first into Pokémon when I got a copy of Pokémon Firered. I started playing through it until I got sort of stuck at Mt. moon, so I searched up the internet for stuff, and found a lot of information. After that I kept on browsing the internet for Pokémon related stuff and soon encountered Serebii.net. I was particularly interested in their Pokémon of the week articles, so I read a lot of them. By then the 4th gen had already come out so I read the newer ones, and while I was reading slaking's article the page mentioned that it was listed as NU by Smogon. I didn't really know about tiers back then, so I searched the web for it until I found the tier list information from Smogon. I continued to read the site until I came across an article, the introduction to competitive battling. I became very fond of competitive battling so I downloaded Shoddy. Then I thought that it would also be beneficial to become a member of Smogon, so I came here.

 

[DarthChake]

How did I get into Smogon....


I've played pokemon since I was a young boy. I didn't know the signifigance of: ev's, natures, iv's or, characteristics/traits whatever they're called. One day my curriosity got to me so I decided to learn the signifigance of such and found a mysterious site...."www.smogon.com" At first I thought it was an actual college where I would learn to play competitive pokemon..silly me but I learned otherwise from quick inference. Learning about all this stuff on smogon was great but I didn't make an account on here for quite some time. In stead (yes you can use the words like that) of smogon I used gamefaqs. My time there was fun and I did quite well on wifi battle but all my friends eventually left gamefaqs, so I did too. I had heard mention of this mysterious "shoddy battle" but didn't have a comp to use it with at the time so I went on a pokemon drought for a bit. A few weeks later I received permission from my brother to use his comp so I immediatly downloaded shoddy and used a smogon account a made back when I first discovered it but never used. I have been around and found this site to be rather friendly and have many helpful and funny threads. I guess that's how...maybe

 

[R S E FR LG]

Why I came: I didn't know that the people here would be FREAKING OBSESSED with the STATISTICS and ANALYSIS of Pokemon. WTF?

Why I stayed: No idea. I guess the Weekly Spriting Contest and the HGSS and BW Speculation Threads.

 

[Rarthyr]

I can't be bothered with huge long story driven posts so... Basically I came here because a friend of mine who plays Pokémon told me about it. He said this website has rules of online battles and tiers and what not... Competitive battles interest me so I'd like to learn the rules and banned pokémon/moves so I can play fair online and hopefully here I can make some friends to play. I've only just got back into pokémon and have been playing soul silver on the DS it's fun. I watched it as a kid and played the old school games like yellow/blue. That is all.

 

[Aqueos]

When I started playing pokemon
Oh god this is hard. The answer is long. As a kid (like 6 7) I suffered from parents who did not understand what a gameboy color was, or a gameboy advance. However the instance I saw the anime, well I fell in love. My brother who was trying to get me off his back becuase he said he would get a gameboy got me off his back by introducing netbattle to me. At the age of 8 I could beat quite a few noobs on the game by abusing haxors like confusion. 3 years ago when I was ten I got a DS. The first game I bought was diamond and ever since I loved battling. I went through the whole MARRILAND ROCKS thing but never went on the forums. Recently I was re watching marriland's videos as I wanted to competitive battle again and in the game he's beaten mentions that really good battlers were at smogon. So I put in smogon.com I used the strategy pokedex for about a week before I lurked for about 15 minutes and joined. Smogon's been so nice, and I just don't see a reason to leave :P

 

[Shinxe]

UHHH

My ex was like "DID YOU KNOW" and told me about... EV training and IVs and holy shit Pokemon can be more than a kid's game and that must be why people have hardcore online tournaments and shit (I always just played it because I'm an 11 year old boy all the time).

SO that was neat and I got into it a bit and my ex and I would reference Smogon for good builds.

I broke up that relationship but I COULDN'T BREAK UP WITH SMOGON

Except I don't really play the game anymore (got bored of Platinum and just waitin for Black/White to come out). So I just draw guilty-pleasure Pkmn art and if you guys enjoy it too, well that is pretty awesome. Also I just love having a place where I can viably go by the name 'Shinxe'.

 

[Fatecrashers]

I discovered Shoddy Battle before I discovered Smogon. Back then it was just the one server with Colin(Cathy) moderating like 100 people. I was looking for a website with good Pokemon analysis and movesets and Smogon was it.

I registered an account to post a RMT and then basically left it alone for like 3 years. I would occasionally drop by Stark Mountain but I never really got into the community.

Now I'm back. Competitive Pokemon is getting stale. I'm waiting for the release of Black/White and I'm hanging around the socialization forums rather than the competitive ones. I've also rediscovered my love of drawing Pokemon and it's nice to be in a community where people recognize that you've drawn an Octillery, not just an orange octopus.