Smogon: Why you came here and why you stayed

[PokeTrainerShirar]

how i got into Pokemon:wen the show was on TV i loved it to death well its still on tv but the older ones wer the best^^
but i never got the chance to buy any of the games witch really sucked but on Dec.24,2007 i got my first Pokemon game i no thats lame not having all of them but anyway
i loved it and i still do i love training in a game ware you no there is someone out there that is better then you and you try you hardest to be the best that is the game for me
how i found Smogon: i was searching the web on the official Pokemon website that would have battling but there wasn't one that had what i was looking for but then i came across smogon and after looking threw the website i really saw what i was looking for the battles are great and the info and help Ive gotten is so good
why i stayed: it just cant get boring for me there is so much to learn and so many people to battle there's no way someone could get bored of such an amazing website and the people here never stop planing for the pages and the forums witch is hard to find now days so yeah this place rocks

 

[Sir Chris]

Interesting topic, I guess I can post too.

How I got into Pokemon: It was on a school bus ride while I was in middle school, an old friend of mine had this old school style gameboy with Pokemon Blue inside of it, I had no idea what it was but he had a blastoise and it was cool as all hell. He let me borrow it, I really wanted a GB and Pokemon for Christmas, I got it, and it was love forever.

How I found Smogon: I knew the newbs that started the place <_<.

Why I stayed: Didn't really! I am in and out of here more often than uhh... well, very often. A friend just wanted some information from the site today and I figured I'd log in, no reason not to.

 

[serebii_attacker]

Hello everyone,

I am back. Hopefully for good this time. It has been a long time since I have been here. For those that do not know me, I am Serebii_Attacker. I've been away, in Iraq, for the last, long while. Its great to be back in the states again. Well, now that i am back, I've decided to get back to battling, and just enjoying pokemon with friends. It turns out that a disaster struck while over there. I no longer have a game to come home to due to an apparent misfortune with a flood. Not Good! So after re-buying pearl, I've decided to start over. It may be a long time before I ever get back to where I was, but i've prepared myself for that journey. I just would like to give a shout-out to some of the people I've got to know over the years...

• Anti- Been really good to me with Ev training, and trades. Not to mention all the advice.
• Bobdisgea- Great friend in real life. Good to be back home bro. Missed you man.
• Theforgottensoul- Thank you for all the advice you shared with me about my teams.
• Mr_Goodbar- Everything you done for me, be it trading, my teams, or just general chat, Thanks man for being there.

So in conclusion, everyone in general (including smogon itself), Its GREAT to be back!

 

[monkey-dude]

Why I stayed...(annd joined in the first place

Well I was into Pokemon from about the FireRed and LeafGreen generation of the games and I got a agme from each generation after that but never knew about Competitive battling until...well...Diamond and Pearl really.
I was looking around some websites fro information on how to prepare your Pokemon for battles and such..like moves and eventually when i found out about them...EV's....so here I am i found this cool website that I use SO much....recently joined the forums but havent posted until now...which reminds me i would like to say HI to everyone...people and moderators seem so kind too

Thx for being a good community

 

[QuickDraw]

i've been into pokemon ever since i tried it out on one of the game testing machines at target a few days after red and blue versions came out. i don't know what it is about the game but it just sucks me in each time i play which is almost always done with a team i have not tried out before.i remember it being banned from most of elementary school and Jr high and playing it in the bathrooms with friends during lunch and recess. eventually i hit the point that most of us hit where i was just too cool to be seen playing a childrens game but i grew out of that pretty quickly and have been playing ever since.

i found Smogon through serebii of all places. i remember i found serebii when i was looking for some information on finding out where the hell Bagon was in ruby version and after seeing the "wealth" of information they had there i started to log in regularily. after a while i came to realize that i HATED most of the people that were regulars on serebii...mostly because of those retarded ass fanfics and furry (BAN ME PLEASE). shortly after tht i found netbattle and started to spend a lot of time on that each day. unfortunately the only website i knew of for "competetive" pokemon information was serebii so i continued to visit when thinking up new teams..until that fateful day lol. i was perusing their forums, finding more and more information to fuel my dislike and saw a thread with some retard bitching about how his team was called infantile and noobish on a website called smogon, and how he hated everything about their elitist attitude. i sat there for a moment thinking to myself that if he hated smogon and i hated him i would probably like smogon. i also found myself agreeing with the remarks about his poorly constructed team. after i found this place and realized it had been exactly what i was looking for i never looked back and signed up.

i stayed here (off and on) because i like a lot of the people and the competetive attitude. plus most of the community is smarter than the average joe so i am rarely annoyed by morons...unless i venture into stark lol. unfortunately i have never really had the time to get to know anybody or participate in gathering data for the site. it seems like every time i try life throws me something new that eats up all of my time:/

 

[Niggachu]

I came here to post some teams to be rated because I know what a great competitive battling community it is and I stayed because you all are so handsome.

:jump:

 

[Kaito]

how i got into Pokemon: I always loved Pokémon. When the Anime was just in the Netherlands I found it the greatest thing (I was like 5 or so)
I began playing the games with Emerald, because I never had a GB or GBC, but when Pearl came out I saw on Serebii all those things about EVs and IVs and I wanted to battle and such.

how i found Smogon: Via a friend, he said it was great for Wifi stuff.

why i stayed: I just like this site really much, it's great, you have many possibilities and you don't get punished when talking about ARs or hacks xD and the wifi forum is great (Serebii is a bit too strict -.-)

 

[Alucard1]

<-- First post, woot!

How I got into Pokemon: I remember it was in the 4th grade. I loved the show and once the cards came out I really got into the battling aspect of it. I still have my Pokemon Blue, which is completely ruined from those Mew/Missingno cheats, though. =(

How I found Smogon: It was through one of Marriland's Youtube battle videos, back in August of last year. On his description of that movie, he claimed that he was no where near as good as the people at Smogon, so I googled the name. I've been visiting the site ever since. =)

Why I stayed: I registered just recently, after searching through tons of posts and trying to learn as much as I could about team-building, breeding, and IV's, and I plan to be very active in the RMT and Art forums. As I lurked for the past months, I noticed that the community was very helpful in the team-building posts and as well as the other topics on the forum.

Thanks for reading.

 

[thetorsoboy]

How I got into Pokemon: Probably the TV show, first of all. Competitively, I'll have to thank my friend Tim for showing me what EVs/IVs were, and Serebii. :D

How I found Smogon: I think that I wanted to find a specific forum for Pokemon, and I just searched Google. Serebii's forum was great and stuff, but the layout just looked... bad. D:

Why I stayed: Posting, activity, people to talk to. Sometimes it seems like I enjoy talking about games more than playing them. :P But, I like having a trade thread and stuff like that.

 

[sheep]

Smogon gave me something to live for. :<

 

[locopoke]

How I got into Pokemon: Pokemon Blue was my first game for gameboy color and I loved it, buying every game since (with the exception of emerald), and I've been interested in it ever since.

How I found Smogon: Some of my friends were talking about a site called Smogon so naturally I went to check it out and registered an account here. I wasn't very active, but later I was thankful that I registered because then I started to come more often.

Why I stayed: The battling. You can't really find tougher opponents anywhere else online than here on Smogon. There are always new and better battlers to talk with and battle against, and to be honest it's one of the things that still keeps me occupied with Pokemon. Since I came to Smogon, my skill level has improved a huge amount, and I look forward to getting even better and getting recognized as the great battler than I truly am.

 

[Staraptor Call]

How I got into Pokemon:
When I was younger, I would watch the Pokemon anime any time it was on and I could watch it. Eventually, however, it was cancelled. My sister had Pokemon Ruby Version, and one evening, after she had played through it and become bored of it, I asked to play it. She let me start my own game, and that was how I started playing Pokemon.
How I found Smogon:
When I was playing Ruby, I would sometimes look on the web for tips about it. I then found the IGN competitive battling page, which in retrospect was utter crap strategy-wise. I also went to Serebii, and found the much better Pokemon articles. Some time around then I got Pearl Version. Eventually, I went to the competitive battling section on the Serebii forums, and people were talking about Smogon and its Pokemon articles and strategy dex. When I wanted a Deoxys-f moveset for the Deoxys I got at an event, I went to Smogon for the first time.
Why I stayed:
I found that Smogon was a very helpful resource for competitive battling, especially after getting Shoddy Battle. With Smogon, I could keep up on the metagame changes. I also stayed to laugh at Firebot Development Lab. However, I went months without becoming a member, looking at the Smogon forums often, and just joined yesterday.

 

[SunshineCat]

How I found Pokemon?

Well, I first got into Pokemon when I was five and it was most surprisingly from the Anime which is more suited for the younger age. I started to lose interest as I didn't see the Anime anymore and only had two of those Pokedex books for any sign of Pokemon(I didn't know how to usethe Internet at the time).

I didn't get interest in the games until maybe 7-8 or so when a friend said they played the RBY and it was really good. But my parents didn't want me 'wasting my money' so I got an emulator on the computer. The game I chose was Gold, as Gold is my last name in Chinese(I'm Chinese). I was immediately hooked, I never wanted to leave the computer. And then I got RSE when it was out on ROM and still I was GBA-less. Finally my dad gave in and got me a GBA SP. I was extremely excited and could of stayed up all night if my dad didn't check on me.

It was maybe in a year or two that I started to get not bored of Gold, but feeling like there was nothing to do. I'd beaten the E4 who knows how many times and wasted Red and since I went berry collecting everyday had nearly 99 of all berries and more of normal Berries. Back then I wasn't n00bish but I was...not bad at the game but had practically no knowledge of it.

But then I discovered Psypoke(surprisingly not Serebii) and read all the information on it. I read of EVs and Natures and IVs and type charts and everything and took it all in. Read it over and over and over. I pretty much memorized everything on Psypoke that was game information(even about games I didn't/don't have). I then realised how horrible I was at the game and restarted and made a good type balanced team and put moves with good accruacy instead of reckless ones(Dynamic Punch etc) and be able to hit all types with Super Effective hits. That kept me busy for a while.

And that is that for that story.

How I came to Smogon?

Continuing from my other story...I began losing interest in that after I defeated the game again with the better in-game team. I thought I was pretty good at battling since I had never battled anyone competitive...

Smogon is quite well known and I heard of it somewhere(don't know where) and came here to see what it was like.

I was once again hooked by the complexity of Pokemon. It was amazing, I was born for this. I read all the smogon anlysises and guides at least 10 times of each Pokemon(maybe 20 for favorites) and lurked in Rate my Team and watched how others gave advice and everything. But I felt I wasn't good enough for Smogon and decided to go to Serebii for team rating...bad choice.

But after a while I did come here and post and LOVED it even more. I downloaded Shoddy and the Java I needed(I couldn't figure why Shoddy wouldn't work before) and did real battles. I won my first competitive battle against someone in my situation, a newbie that had never done competitive battling before. But I had done my reading. I had read of predicting. But somehow they didn't switch when they would of and everything so predicting didn't work. It was just a battle.

And here I am today at Smogon, learning and disscussing what I love most right now: The world of competitive battling.

You want to know why I stayed? Smogon is the competitive battling forum and is what got me into competitive battling. Also there don't seem to be many spammers/n00bs etc and more intelligent and well mannered people, quite a feat for a forum this size or at least in my forum experience.

I hope you liked reading this as typing this makes me happy at the memories and everything that happened in my Pokemon life is suddenly vivid clear. Pokemon fans forever!

 

[Fig]

I got into pokemon at the age of 11, right when Pokemon Red and Blue hit the markets and got hooked instantly. I took my Gameboy everywhere: on the bus, during class, recess, at home, etc. I moved through the generations up until Diamond and Peal today.

When the Advance generation came out, I didn't even know that a competitive side of Pokemon existed, until I was browsing Gamefaqs and read about Netbattle. Fueled by the thought of having real people to battle against, I eagerly downloaded the program and got stomped time after time again and I again turned to the internet for help. The first place I found was Pokerealm and from there, I learned about Smogon. I joined the community and improved myself not only as a battler but socially as well. Ah Smocon '07...such memories.

However, real life eventually caught up with me. Between two jobs, a baby, and a wife, the time I could dedicate to both Smogon and Pokemon dwindled to nothing. Now that I'm divorced (approaching the two year mark, ironically on my birthday) and working one job like a normal person, my interest has been coming back to me and I figure it's time I rejoined such an awesome community. (Provided I can pull myself away from World of Warcraft on a semi-regular basis of course)

 

[Erazor]

Well, I used to watch the anime when I was younger... then I bought the cartridge games.
I didn't know about competitive pokemon till I found Serebii.net. It was there that I learnt about game Mechanics, EVs, etc. Then , when reading their analysis of Scizor, they mentioned Smogon. So I checked it out... and here I am.

 

[Robo-Ky]

My 1st post!!!

Anyway, my interest in Pokémon really started with the anime. Then some kids down the street gave me my first trading cards, and I had loads of fun with those. For my sixth birthday, my parents gave me a Game Boy Color, and next Christmas, I got my first Pokémon video game, Crystal Version. Since then, I've bought every version of the main series (Ruby, FireRed, Emerald, and Diamond). Soon, though, I started getting bored of playing the game by myself, and thought about competitive battling. I was referred to this site by users on GameFAQs (where everyone is a jerk, I might add), and everything here is extremely helpful (especially the analyses). I'm still a noob, so I hope to join the apprentice program, but this site is great so far!

 

[Lugiamaster26]

Why I think smogon is great

I think smogon is great because the movesets are awesome and relly useful, the tiers keep everything in balance and its just fun to discover what smogon are going to do next
Truly, a excellent pokemon site

 

[yoshi!]

For those who are making their first few posts in this thread, I thought it'd be quite hard to stay somewhere that you've not spent very long on. :G

 

[Chad28]

Hi, I'm Chad28. I came because competitive battling is a big thing, and I heard I could easily make hwtaever team I wanted, at whatever level, and basically enjoy everything fun about pokemon battles without all the hours of work. I came, and I made a team, and it was cool.

I plan to stay, because I can easily make multiple teams withing a single day, and fight real people. I am disappointed in the lack of any animation or sound, though. It makes me wonder if continuing to play the handheld games for the sake of animation, sound, music, and other effects, is worth it.

I know a guy that battles on Shoddybattle by the name of HelmetFiend. I don't know if he comes here or not. He also used crab Helmet on another forum.

 

[piechieftain]

im new here, just call me pie :3

i googled "blazekin move set" trying to get my guy stronger then i get a link to hear and i see how far off i am from getting a perfect team like i've all ways wanted.

i will stay here because i see pokemon as being interesting enough to not give up on it after a month or two like most of my other (more expencive) videogames.

 

[Umbreon Dan]

Did anybody read yoshi's post at all?

Half of the point of this thread is about "Why you stayed". If your join date is April 2009, I am of the opinion that you should probably go post somewhere else.

 

[Shattered_Wings]

I've always loved games when it comes into training monsters and making them fight.. That's how I came into pokemon.

I got into smogon when I came across some random FAQ and I saw in the credits the address. I tried it and found information which are useful and I never knew before. Thus made pokemon and this site more interesting..

 

[gingbino11]

How I got into pokemon

Well I'm a late bloomer. Some of my friends bought their GBA's to school one day, and what game may they have in them, but pokemon. I'd always enjoyed the animie, but as soon as I saw those games I loved them. Fast forward 2 months to Christmas, and I get my first Pokemon game. Ruby. (told you I was a late bloomer) I played non-stop for the next month, doing everything I could to clock the game. I made the usual dumb choices, and when I went up against the flying gym I had a team of Sceptile, Hariyama and Breloom. I finished that one, then went out and got Leaf Green.
I continued to play non-competitively for a few more years. Then I hear that a new game is coming out, Pokemon Diamond/Pearl. I go out to the store and look at them. I ended up choosing Diamond because Dialga looked so damn cool.

How I found Smogon

One day I was playing, then I tried to remember at what level Ponyta evolved. I went onto Google, and the first result I got was Serebii. I was astounded when I found out all about these "EV" things. I kept playing, then posted a crappy team on the RMT forum. It sucked and someone recommended that I come hear to find out what it's all about. So I came and lurked for about a year, then finally got the guts to sign up and begin posting.

Why I stayed

One of the main sections I go to is the RMT, and on Serebii most of those were "First team", so I got a little frustrated at that. But here on Smogon all of the teams are well thought out, not just a team of favourites. I also enjoyed the more mature discussion and Firebot.

So that's my story.

 

[Bimmsta]

How I got into pokemon

I got into pokemon when I was 7 years old, It was Christmas day and like most kids, I was up at 5:00 AM to wake my parents up and rip those presents a new one. I started opening presents, and I got a brand new gameboy and Pokemon red! From that day on, I was captivated by pokemon and haven't missed a generation of these amazing games.

How I found smogon

Me and about 6 of my buddies all bought gen. 4 pokemon games, and since we're all highly competitive, we all wanted to do whatever we could to beat the others. So, one day, out of complete curiosity, I was looking for a tier list and BAM I found the smog. Although I rarely post here, I'm always lurking in the shadows, reading your postz!

 

[starfox]

How I got into Pokemon: My friend gave me a Gameboy Color and Pokemon Gold. So I played Gold and played it and I really enjoyed the game.

How I found Smogon: After DP came out I wanted to become the best pokemon trainer. So I googled pokemon stuff and found Serebii. Then I used the site for months and then I joined the forums. I got sick of how easily you could get an infraction so I left serebii forums forever. I saw on one of Marrilands videos that there were people better than him on smogon. I didn't go onto smogon for awhile untill one day i decided to go on. I loved everything about smogon so I joined the forums.
Why I stayed: Because smogon is awesome!