made you click lol
At first I thought about just saying this on discord and be finished with it, but it seems like literally all ex-community leaders made these posts on forums so I guess I'll do the same. I'm stepping down!
It's been a good ride all things considered. It was definitely a bumpy road but I got to meet a lot of good people both within this community and Smogon as a whole. I'm stepping down because I neither have the time nor motivation to really keep up with the bumpy road anymore, but I'll still be around on discord to chat with Smogon friends (DragonWhale#7346).
Ever since the beginning, my ultimate goal has been to bridge the gap between the two biggest competitive singles communities out there: Smogon and the Japanese BSS community. It might have been an impossible goal from the start, given that neither side really knows the other's existence and the minority that do don't think there are good singles players on the other side. What I was hoping to see from this goal was a world where Japanese players and Smogon players were competing together in each others' formats, heightening the competitive levels further than when they are separated as they are now. This is noticeable in VGC, where western players and Japanese players have been inspiring each other constantly. It's almost poetic that the world champion title has been bouncing back and forth between Japan and other countries every year.
The most obvious difference here is that VGC is united under the official support of TPCi with cash prizing and global tournaments, whereas what I can do to unite singles players from the two communities is nowhere near as impactful. There were only two possible paths to take: either promote Smogon tournaments to Japanese players or promote BSS on Smogon to the point where it becomes universally accepted as a highly competitive scene. Given that the Japanese community will only listen to top players and I myself was nowhere near that status, the former was not going to realistically happen so I decided to focus on the latter.
When I started to contribute there was no BSS tournament scene besides a one-off tournament that happened before I was mod. There were active discussion threads but nothing really showcasing people actually playing games. I set out to create a pilot tournament in 2016 and then created a full circuit for 2017, also being one of the few circuits with a playoff system at the time. This helped us greatly in letting us have ribbon rewards for the circuit in 2018, and we made several improvements to our circuit every year. To increase integration opportunities with other sections of this website, I created BSPL and hosted it every year for 5 years. Luckily, we were able to pull interest from several Smogon players and including VGC in BSPL brought a lot of interaction with the DOU community. During all of this, BSS became known to more and more people on this site and the overall player level in Smogon BSS was increasing. My biggest failure in building up the BSS scene was probably not being able to get BSS in LTPL earlier, but with its inclusion in LTPL III I am excited to see how much it will jump the scene further.
Needless to say, I was not able to accomplish my ultimate goal. We are still probably nowhere near achieving that goal, if it is possible at all. But I like to think that I was able to take the first few steps in the right direction. I was able to create a 1 from a 0, but I'm sure there are people out there who are better fit to turning that 1 into something bigger, which is why I'm stepping down for the next person to take the helm. Best of luck to cant say and to the future BS leaders.
Thanks for reading and thanks for the ride. If you have any questions please forward them to my secretary Psynergy
DW OUT
At first I thought about just saying this on discord and be finished with it, but it seems like literally all ex-community leaders made these posts on forums so I guess I'll do the same. I'm stepping down!
It's been a good ride all things considered. It was definitely a bumpy road but I got to meet a lot of good people both within this community and Smogon as a whole. I'm stepping down because I neither have the time nor motivation to really keep up with the bumpy road anymore, but I'll still be around on discord to chat with Smogon friends (DragonWhale#7346).
Ever since the beginning, my ultimate goal has been to bridge the gap between the two biggest competitive singles communities out there: Smogon and the Japanese BSS community. It might have been an impossible goal from the start, given that neither side really knows the other's existence and the minority that do don't think there are good singles players on the other side. What I was hoping to see from this goal was a world where Japanese players and Smogon players were competing together in each others' formats, heightening the competitive levels further than when they are separated as they are now. This is noticeable in VGC, where western players and Japanese players have been inspiring each other constantly. It's almost poetic that the world champion title has been bouncing back and forth between Japan and other countries every year.
The most obvious difference here is that VGC is united under the official support of TPCi with cash prizing and global tournaments, whereas what I can do to unite singles players from the two communities is nowhere near as impactful. There were only two possible paths to take: either promote Smogon tournaments to Japanese players or promote BSS on Smogon to the point where it becomes universally accepted as a highly competitive scene. Given that the Japanese community will only listen to top players and I myself was nowhere near that status, the former was not going to realistically happen so I decided to focus on the latter.
When I started to contribute there was no BSS tournament scene besides a one-off tournament that happened before I was mod. There were active discussion threads but nothing really showcasing people actually playing games. I set out to create a pilot tournament in 2016 and then created a full circuit for 2017, also being one of the few circuits with a playoff system at the time. This helped us greatly in letting us have ribbon rewards for the circuit in 2018, and we made several improvements to our circuit every year. To increase integration opportunities with other sections of this website, I created BSPL and hosted it every year for 5 years. Luckily, we were able to pull interest from several Smogon players and including VGC in BSPL brought a lot of interaction with the DOU community. During all of this, BSS became known to more and more people on this site and the overall player level in Smogon BSS was increasing. My biggest failure in building up the BSS scene was probably not being able to get BSS in LTPL earlier, but with its inclusion in LTPL III I am excited to see how much it will jump the scene further.
Needless to say, I was not able to accomplish my ultimate goal. We are still probably nowhere near achieving that goal, if it is possible at all. But I like to think that I was able to take the first few steps in the right direction. I was able to create a 1 from a 0, but I'm sure there are people out there who are better fit to turning that 1 into something bigger, which is why I'm stepping down for the next person to take the helm. Best of luck to cant say and to the future BS leaders.
Thanks for reading and thanks for the ride. If you have any questions please forward them to my secretary Psynergy
DW OUT
