Thanks to everyone who participated in this. It turned out better than I ever imagined -- and I imagined it was going to be good!
Based on feedback in the
Curtain Call in Stark, the community doesn't feel any heartburn from being "tricked" -- in fact, quite the opposite. Everyone seems to really appreciate all the work we put in to dupe them completely! I think that's a testimony to the Smogon community, and the general sense of humor around here. Smogon loves a good joke.
The news about this prank has spread all over the internet, not just to other pokemon communities. I received PM's from people who want to know how we could orchestrate a joke like this, involving so many people over such a long period of time. Most people are very impressed, others are jealous. Either way, I think we came out looking pretty good.
There in the middle of the joke, I was a bit worried that Smogon's reputation would be harmed in this thing, since so many other communities were bad-mouthing us for making this "stupid anti-hax formula". However, it's ironic that the good news about the prank after the big reveal, spread much further in a single day, than the bad news spread over the entire month beforehand!
Here are my closing thoughts/reflections on this whole thing:
Badgeholders are pretty damn trustworthy. Considering how many people knew about this from #insidescoop, it's amazing how well we kept the lid on it.
The collective creativity in this community is fantastic. All the little touches and nuances the cast members brought to their posts -- that was fun to watch. I really enjoyed seeing how cast members fleshed out the general concepts in the script and cues. The arguments and logic that people devised to make this believable -- was nothing short of brilliant!
Thanks DM for your "pot committed" post here. I was ready to pull the plug on this thing, because it just didn't look like it was going to work. Several people spoke to me and asked me to keep going, but that phrase crystallized it for me. Since I play a lot of poker, it really hit home with me. Looking back, I'm so glad we saw this through to completion.
It was a lot of fun doing a project that involved such a huge cross-section of IS. I didn't realize it when I wrote the script, but this thing involved many different kinds of Smogoners, old and new. Seeing everyone join in and work together was pretty great.
I have no idea what we'll do next year, but I am not going to plan it. This prank has filled my lifetime quota for "complicated internet prank planning". Since this was such a big deal, I think we need a much simpler joke next year, anyway. It should be fun watching the community trying to second-guess everything we do next year, starting in early March.
Thanks again to everyone who participated. Not just the cast -- but also everyone who helped in IRC chats, on Shoddy, and those that gave advice/encouragement here. Everyone should take some credit for pulling this off successfully.