The Gossiper: Volume 2

Lobby Named Most Intellectually Stimulating Room

A public poll revealed that Lobby is considered the most intellectually stimulating room on Pokémon Showdown! The poll was open for a week and voters had the option of choosing any room on Showdown! The Academics room was a close second, and Debates and Discussions came in third.

The Lobby is by far the most populated room on Showdown!, often with three to four times more users than the next-most populated room. Its description is "Chat it up with friends, rivals, and foes in the Pokémon Showdown! Lobby!" It emphasizes that there is a distinct difference between a rival and a foe.

Pokémon Showdown! staff members were asked about their opinions on the result of the poll. prem, a Showdown! Moderator, explained, "I'm not surprised at all. I'm in Lobby every time I'm on Showdown!, and it's really a great place to be. I kind of feel at home there, you know?"

Reporters also asked Pokémon Showdown! Administrator The Immortal about his thoughts, as he is one of the most prominent figures in Lobby, but they got no reply.

"Lobby has a vibrant, diverse community, and the room always facilitates discussion of a variety of topics," said Pokémon Showdown! Moderator Goddess Briyella. "We discuss things from Pokémon battling to Pokémon Showdown! to Pokémon movies and TV shows!," she explained. "Lobby engages my brain in such a way that differentiates it from any course in school I've taken."

Goddess Briyella even conjectured that participating in Lobby's discussions is a good exercise to increase one's IQ.

When asked how being in Lobby has changed Pokémon Showdown! Driver Aelita's experience, he responded, "I can't really describe the Lobby. You just have to go there to understand, and it's an experience that you won't forget."

Official Ladder Tournament to Kick Annoying Friend Off Ladder

Smogon has launched a huge tournament that takes place on the Pokémon Showdown! ladder, called the Official Ladder Tournament, which started on September 8th.

Smogon Administrator and Head Tournament Director Bloo is one of the people hosting the tournament in order to "emphasize and promote a currently mocked, unemphasized but very active area of [the] competitive space: the Pokémon Showdown! OU ladder." He also mentions that "there is no incentive to ladder nowadays in addition to the quality of the ladder being bad. The implementation of this tournament aims to eliminate those negative perceptions many individuals have of our ladder by representing it in an official setting."

However, there is another reason why Bloo was motivated to host this tournament. Although every word in his announcement was genuine, Bloo elected to not share a personal reason for hosting this tournament in said announcement.

"One of my friends from school plays Pokémon somewhat competitively, and he knows that I'm very involved in the Pokémon community, so we talk about Pokémon a lot," Bloo said. "He plays OU and he's decent at it. He's always around the bottom of Showdown!'s top 500 OU ladder."

When asked about how this relates to the tournament, Bloo explained, "He hasn't been playing Pokémon for that long, so he's really proud that he's able to be on the ladder. Every time we talk about Pokémon, he brags about how he continues to keep his position. Every time he's about to drop out of the top 500, he battles some more to stay on the ladder, and his bragging has gotten pretty annoying."

"I figured that if he dropped really far out of the top 500, he'd stop bragging so much, since that really began to ruin the times when we'd hang out. Back when he was new and wanted to learn the OU metagame, we would talk about strategy and viable Pokémon, which was really fun for me," Bloo continued.

Bloo has said that he prefers not to "just tell [his friend] to stop bragging so much" and has declined to disclose his friend's real name or Showdown! username.

Slayer95 to Implement Flyswatters to Fix Bugs

An interview with Pokémon Showdown! Leader Slayer95 revealed that he was preparing for large changes in how Showdown! approaches its lag problems.

As the userbase of Pokémon Showdown! has continued to grow, the technical staff team has had to cope with a higher server load, which causes the server to slow and lag at times. Additionally, "bugs," as Slayer95 calls them, also negatively affect the server on a fairly common basis.

"We have a massive bug reports thread on the forums where people can tell us about the problems they have," Slayer95 explained. "Then, if the problem reported is an actual issue, one of Showdown!'s developers goes and tries to fix it. That's me!"

Slayer95 says that the team's traditional method of taking care of bugs by hand has worked for the most part. However, with a much larger user count than before, more bugs are popping up, so the programmers feel the need to improve their tools.

"The first upgrade we're going to use is the flyswatter. Right now I'll just get some regular ones at the store, but if we need better flyswatters, I'll order fancy ones online. Also, before implementing them, I'm going to light them on fire because Fire is super effective against Bug."

To work on the next upgrade, Slayer95 turned to Pokémon Showdown! user Shgeldz, who is a Room Owner of the Wi-Fi chatroom.

"We also want some venus flytraps," Slayer95 continued. "It's harder for me to buy those at the store, so Shgeldz is helping out by seeing if anyone in the Wi-Fi chat has any high-quality Carnivines that we can start breeding. Once we have a lot of strong, level 100 Carnivines, our bug problem should go away."

Afterwards, Slayer95 mumbled, "But why is Carnivine weak to Bug if it's supposed to eat bugs?"

Some Showdown Staff Usernames Untrue

Some of the Pokémon Showdown! staff are not what they appear to be based on the name they have chosen for themselves, reporters say.

"A username is an embodiment of one's person and is representative of that person's soul," cites one anonymous philosopher. It is no surprise, then, that Showdown! users were outraged to find out that the staff members that they interact with on a daily basis are not what they say they are.

Some staff members' nicknames are Pokémon, but they are not actually what they say they are. Showdown Administrator haunter is not actually a Haunter, Showdown Moderator Genesect is not actually a Genesect, shaymin is not a Shaymin, and similarly for the staff members Azumarill, Hippopotas, and Skitty. One user, who wishes to remain anonymous, is "thinking about leaving Showdown! forever after learning this."

Reporters asked Pokémon Showdown! Moderator MattL about his opinions on his fellow staff members' choices.

"Uhh, what? Who cares?" responded MattL. "I'm fine with people having whatever nickname they want, unless it's vulgar. It's really trivial; I don't understand why it matters. I only care if someone's username has racism, obscenity, or something of the like."

Reporters have determined without a shadow of a doubt that MattL was lying and logically concluded that his first name is not Matt and his last name does not start with an L. At press time, they are still in the middle of figuring out what his real name is.