Data Renaming ASB

[TMan87]

As you all probably know, there is some current work to redesign ASB in order to both streamline its content and attract a new playerbase.

As it's been discussed on Discord, part of this effort will involve renaming and leaving the name "Anime-Style Battling" behind.
Therefore, we are asking the community to propose name or theme ideas that would become the new name of this game.
Keep in mind, this is the very first thing a complete newcomer would see, which means it'll greatly impact its first perception of the game.

With that being said, here are a few questions that may spark discussion:

• What should be conveyed with ASB's new name? What do you want a newcomer to think if they saw the name?
• Is the number of words important (maybe to make an easy-to-remember acronym)? If that's the case, should we focus on only one or two words to keep it simple, or allow more and potentially compact it in an acronym (basically the current version)?
• What do you want to emphasize with this new name? This question might sound similar to the first, but this one is focused towards analysis of the name, while the former appeals to raw emotion. Which aspects of the game do you want to accentuate in the name? Roleplays? Gyms? Community?
• Do we need a "mascot" Pokémon to really visually appeal to anyone that would come across the game?

You are obviously allowed to discuss stuff that isn't limited by these questions, as long as it's relevant, these are just questions I thought of on the spot.

Fire away!

 

[nightblitz42]

I, uh, must have missed the Discord discussion so here I go.



The name 'Anime-Style Battling' does two things that I feel a new name absolutely must do:

• It makes an obvious distinction from the vanilla videogame.

It's a bit of a joke among the Pokemon community how much the anime fights can contradict videogame mechanics, so having the name 'Anime-Style Battling' is effective in that regard. People need to know instantly from looking at our name that this isn't just some obscure Smogon tier list or something -- this is a completely different way of battling.

• It has a sense of mystery to it.

Personally, I won't be satisfied with a simple name like 'Role-Play Battling' because people will see that name and instantly think they know how it's supposed to work, or how they want it to work. A more vague name, when done properly, makes people curious. When I heard 'Anime-Style Battling' for the first time I kinda had to think to myself, "How does that work? What makes Anime-Style battling different from normal battling?" and that made me curious so I checked out a Smog article about it. That's how you sell people on the more convoluted mechanics like Combination attacks and Substitutions that make the game interesting to play.



Even if our vision changes, I think 'Anime-Style Battling' is going to be a very difficult name to beat. I'd rather not change it. If we must, I think we should keep the "Smogon ______ Battling" name format, keep it to 2-3 words (excluding 'Smogon'), and call it something vague like "Smogon Puzzle Battling" or "Expanded-Flavor Battling" or something. As long as we keep it short any acronym should work, so I wouldn't worry about that.

I don't know what our name should emphasize. But, I think we should only consider a mascot after we come up with a name, because the mascot should reflect what we choose to emphasize. If we choose to emphasize flavor, Slurpuff would be fun. An emphasis on competitive gameplay would make notable ASB mons like Sableye or Kecleon good picks. If we wanted to emphasize creativity and player freedom, we could even invent our own Pokemon specifically for ASB and use that as our mascot! Either way, it should absolutely be chosen to line up with our choice of name. In my opinion, the name should come first and the mascot (if we choose to have one) should come second.

 

[TMan87]

Something to ponder as well:

Should we mention the presence of CAPs in the name (that is, from the get-go)?

 

[nightblitz42]

Something to ponder as well:

Should we mention the presence of CAPs in the name (that is, from the get-go)?

My strategy would be to throw a 'CAP' in front of the name for official reasons but never really use it in discussion. As long as the official name shows up in a couple forum names or Smog articles, newcomers who care about CAP's will be able to find it with a quick google search.

 

[Deck Knight]

Just a little background, but Anime Style Battling was the term used throughout the early advent of this kind of battling. The first ASB League I ever played in was ThePokemasters league way back in 2000 (when I went by Deckbuilder14 there). I also played and led in another league at the now defunct Pokemon Fan Universe (PFU) and also on a totally different variant that was AOL Instant Messenger based (Yes younguns, I'm that ancient) housed out of IceWolf's forums back when EZBoards were everywhere.

All of which is to say the idea of an Anime-Style Battling League has been around a long, long time and the name stuck because prior to establishing this league, all the leagues I played in had much more subjective refereeing and flavor usage for moves, which I tried to replicate and retain in this system while increasing result objectivity.

Of course, I handed it over a while ago to the extremely capable team that was built up around it, and don't think the name is sacred or anything like that.

That said, the way I developed a lot of the mechanics, for example to make 2-turn moves execute in one turn but with reduced hit priority, to make similar speed Surf/Earthquake cancel out ally damage, rework some ineffective abilities to make them relevant without changing their core flavor, etc. was to try and give the game a more Active Time Battle element. It's still a forum game, but each move only occupies one space in an attack (bar combos which have a cooldown turn cost separate from Hyper Beam style attacks).

So the heart of the system is really Active-Time Actions. I don't think Active Time Action Battling is quite as as appealing and doesn't have the history ASB does, but it was the purpose I went in with. Try and make every move unique or useful in a situation, try to diminish the gap between cartridge Pokemon and people's unique favorites, and try to adapt every element of the RPG system to a different game that made the same RPG choices feel similar (i.e. +Spe natures being a natural competitive choice for fast mons.)

 

[LouisCyphre]

If we were to reduce the game to its absolute barest elements, it'd be called CAP Play-by-Post.

If nothing else, go for that.

Something to ponder as well:

Should we mention the presence of CAPs in the name (that is, from the get-go)?

There's no way around this besides deleting everyone's CAPs. The existence of CAPs at all is going to gain us some players and lose us others; we should be honest about their inclusion from minute zero.

 

[JJayyFeather]

and poof, all the CAPs were deleted

But I disagree. Our name including CAP makes it appear as if we are a subdivision of the CAP forum, which we are not. Being open about our inclusion of CAPs here is as simple as a note on the updated beginner's guide, resource compendium, and NDA.

 

[Frosty]

Originally the name was "capasb"

It was changed to just "asb" because, while at the begining we were a thread on the cap subforum, we've long since parted ways with it. We use caps as part of our roster, and much blood, sweat and tears were shed discussing whether that was desirable, but we arent a part of cap. And the name was changed to reflect that.

Just some food for thought.

As far as names are concerned I like Lou's "play-by-post". Its to the point, simple and doesnt say more than it needs to (unlike anime-style that, while it was indeed the term used everywhere back in the day, reeks of a fanboyism that we dont have for a long time).

 

[Maxim]

I mean, why not just call it Pokemon-by-Post (PbP), gets the idea across while also being flavorful generally.

Then we can get somebody to commission a drawing for a Pelliper or something holding mail as our mascot, so flavorful!

 

[JJayyFeather]

I'm a fan.

Also Pelliper carrying mail would be super cute.

 

[deadfox081]

I'm a fan of having Pokemon somewhere in the name so I think Maxim's suggestion is the best so far

 

[nightblitz42]

Speaking as somebody who's never heard the term "play-by-post" before, I think the term's approachably self-explanatory but shortening it to "Pokemon-by-Post" loses that clarity. Why not go with "Smogon Play-by-Post"? The little bit of extra identification will make our name less generic (easier to find on the internet) and help tell people where to look for us (on Smogon).

As for a mascot, the idea of a mail-carrying Pelliper is already strongly associated with the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series, so i don't see why we should jump to that species in particular when any other flying-type would be just as suitable. For example, Latias, Swoobat, Drifblim, Dodrio, or Delibird (off the top of my head) would be more distinctive imo.

 

[deadfox081]

Delibird mascot wearing Winter's Gift Hat yes yes.

Or maybe I'm just pining for Raids still

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

Play-by-post is a terrible name that tells you nothing about what the game is, the name needs to be self-descriptive to draw casual interest

Pokemon-by-post is decent

 

[LucarioOfLegends]

Not having CAP in the name is a good idea. This forum is not at all associated to CAP besides using CAPs inside it. CAPs are not the main focus, the ordering is.

As for names, I actually like the name Play-by-Post quite a lot. However, I do feel that it needs more clarification in the name and Pokemon-by-Post rolls off the tongue pretty not well. And while you could still say PBP instead, I think the full name absolutely needs to be stronger. I don't really have any good naming ideas besides like PokePost (which is also a terrible name that tells you nothing) or PostMons (which sounds like a rejected OM submission) but I think the name needs to be cleaner and more descriptive all in those three-ish words.

I think that nightblitz makes a fair point about Pelipper, and the heavy association with mail that it has doesn't really help clear up the image of the subforum. Honestly, I think that Oranguru makes a great mascot at least in a flavor sense. Oranguru are known to have battles of wits according to thier Pokedex entries, which sounds similar to the strategic abilities that ASB currently entails. They also give a strong image of ordering Pokemon as well through Pokedex entries as well as more directly ingame with Instruct. I think it works great at displaying the kind of core idea of ASB, and I don't think there is a more functional mascot out there.

 

[JJayyFeather]

alright late night idea spitball

Pokemon Play-by-Post: Seems the most specific
Pokemon-by-Post: Fits the acronym better

i like the latter better

and i fully agree with the points about we should make sure CAP isn't in our name.

 

[nightblitz42]

How about the name "Battle by Post"? It's got 'Battle' in the name, so it's exciting, but it also keeps the "by post" part for descriptiveness. And the acronym BBP is fun to say too.

In response to LucarioOfLegends, the mail association harkens back to ye olden days before the internet, when people would play board games like Chess by mailing each other letters. Kinda like the granddaddy of ASB. It would reinforce the idea that ASB is a game that brings people together. Though, perhaps a technological Pokemon like Beheeyem or Porygon would be more appropriate.

Oranguru would be great too. It really just depends on which aspect of ASB we think is most marketable.

 

[TMan87]

I like Battle By Post the best (maybe Smogon Battle by Post?) out of anyhting that's been proposed here: it's simple, states what the game is about, yet keeps some of the appeal with the word "battle".

Regarding potential mascots, Oranguru's a good idea for the reasons LucarioOfLegends explained. Other potential mascots with meaning behind them could include Alakazam (for these sweet 4000 IQ plays), Snorlax (to convey that the game is more lax than what PS! offers), Unown (cause, you know, text-based stuff), Smeargle (extensive movepools yay), Delcatty (cute mon + actual damn legit threat here), Budew/Cherrim (because you can blossom into a great Trainer... yeah that's corny), Chatot (to embody the community behind the game maybe?) and Scrafty (cause it's fighting but you still have to be deceptive and tricky).

e: This would be a good place to request our mascot once we're done choosing btw.

 

[TMan87]

Closing this in 24h to start the voting phase.

If you have a good name idea, now's the time to post it here!