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Smogon

Revision as of 20:43, 28 April 2023 by Plague von Karma (talk | contribs) (Much of the battle simulator information is available on other pages; replaced with more relevant information to Smogon itself. I've also given much of the other sections a sprucing up.)
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This article is about the fansite. For the Pokémon named "Smogon" in German, see Koffing.
Smogon
"Pokémon on the Internet: Let's make it happen"
Smogon logo.png
Language English
Status Active
Run 2004 - Present
Date opened December 18, 2004
Creator chaos
Current owner {{{owner}}}
Number of Articles 148*
Forum Smogon University
Mascot Koffing
Website Main Page

Smogon University, commonly shortened to Smogon, is a website whose content encompasses competitive Pokémon battling. It offers guides on battling strategies for people of different Pokémon knowledge backgrounds. The website was founded by 'chaos' (one of the developers of NetBattle) and is a considerably well-known website, visited by competitive Pokémon battling enthusiasts.

The Smogon motto is "Pokémon on the Internet: Let's make it happen" and their mascot is the Pokémon Koffing, the name Smogon itself being the German name for this Pokémon.

Site

Website & Forums

The official website contains various articles and information about competitive Pokémon battling, including a "Strategy Pokédex" with competitive movesets and analyses, occasional news articles under "The Flying Press", in-game guides, and more. It's also a hub to access the Smogon Forums; as of August 12th, 2022, it has over 421,000 members and 219,000 open discussions. It features discussion points for the Smogon metagame, VGC metagame, and any past generation metagame. It also has numerous workshop forums for making competitive documents and discussing tiering policies. It is also the central hub for tournaments, with its tournament subforum being where the premier Single Battles event, Smogon Premier League, is held.

During Generation IV, Smogon was affiliated with Shoddy Battle, and the official support and discussion forum of Shoddy Battle was a section on the Smogon forums. During Generation V, however, Smogon instead affiliated with Pokémon Showdown, the most up-to-date Pokemon simulator available. Members of the Smogon forum typically identify themselves as "Smogonites" or "Smogoners."

IRC and Discord

Smogon historically operated several IRC channels on irc.synirc.net, the most important being #pokemon for Pokémon centric discussion. Others included #othermetas, #ubers, #genvuu, #neverused, #littlecup, #adv, #vgc, #tcg, #smogonwifi, #mentor, #insidescoop, #cap, #grotto, #c&c, #grammar, #ratemyteam, #rarelyused, #ruinsofalph, #orangeislands, #smeargle, #circus, #warau, #fluodome, #doubles, #capasb, #tf2, and #showdown.

As of late 2016, Smogon's official central discussion happens on their Discord server, which maintains over 38,000 members as of April 2023.

Spriting

To accommodate their site and Pokemon Showdown, Smogon created the XY Sprite Project, which makes sprites in the style of Generation V, and has since continued for later titles. To date, the projects have front and back sprites for almost every new Pokemon released since Generation VI, and have animated sprites for a significant portion. This project has been borrowed by other community sites, fan games, and Pokemon Online.

Smogon has also been an area of ripping sprite icons from the 3DS games, distributed to other sites such as Veekun and r/pokemon.

Competitive Battling

The term 'competitive battling' within Pokémon refers to battling against other human players using either Wi-Fi Battling via the Nintendo DS or online battle simulators. Smogon tiering has historically been used on a variety of online battle simulators, including NetBattle, Shoddy Battle, Pokémon Online, and as of July 2012, Pokémon Showdown!. Pokémon Online formed the basis of its usage-based tiering since Generation IV. Experienced players, 24-hour servers, diverse communities and an opportunity to test out strategies are just a few advantages of online battling, but perhaps the most vital advantage is battling against sentient players rather than AI - which requires a significant amount more intelligence and strategy to succeed.

Staff

This is a list of Smogon's senior site leaders.

Notable staff members

  • chaos (Site Owner & Founder)
  • Quanyails & snake_rattler (Create-A-Pokémon Project Leader)
  • shiloh (Head Tiering Admin)
  • maroon & ironwater (Rate My Team Leader)
  • Lumari, martha, Astra, & DC (C&C and/or GP Leaders)
  • QuiteQuiet (Tours Head & Flying Press Leader)
  • Clementine, phoopes, & Siatam (Ruins of Alph Leaders)
  • Zarel (Pokémon Showdown Creator & Lead Developer)

Trivia

  • Contrary to popular belief, Smogon was not the first website to focus on competitive battling. In the past, websites such as Azure Heights and Marble Palace catered to competitive players.
  • The badges used on the Smogon forums are based on the in-game badges.
  • Smogon discovered the 'Masuda Method', a way to increase the chance of breeding a shiny Pokémon in Generation IV onwards.

External links


  This article is a part of Project Fandom, a Bulbapedia Project that aims to write comprehensive articles on every aspect of the Pokémon Fandom.
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