Friday, February 22, 2008
To the webmasters and members of PokéGym and PokéBeach;
Hello. My name is Justin, and I have been within the Pokémon community since the Japanese announcement for Ruby and Sapphire – whenever that occurred. Whilst I have not been within the Trading Card Game community for particularly long, I have recently begun playing the Trading Card Game again. In real life, I have an extremely limited budget and an even more limited card collection, and thus, I have developed a strong liking for programs such as Redshark. However, upon getting involved in these two communities, it has become drastically apparent that very few people are online to engage in these online battles.
The boards on your respective forums that pertain to online battling are quite frankly, highly disorganized. This is disappointing and rather confusing for several reasons; PokéBeach, supposed supporter of Redshark seem to be failing in its duty to promote play within the program, and PokéGym, the community of seemingly serious battlers have few people who are indicating that they wish to engage in Redshark battles in order to test their decks. Many claim that an online community for battling is nearly impossible to formulate and maintain, but this could not be further from the truth – the competitive battling faction of the Pokémon fan base has an enormous amount of active players, and I have never been online and was unable to find a battle with another. The same applies for the Yu-gi-oh! Trading Card Game (despite its dying state) and its online counterpart, YVD.
Thus, I would like to propose that perhaps the administrators and the members of these two communities collaborate on creating some sort of unifying league or online community pertaining to using Redshark as a means of battle. This would benefit, as far as I can see, many Pokémon TCG players. Newcomers would get a chance to get a feel for the game without having to spend lucrative amounts of money on cards they may never use – whereas, experienced players will have a twenty four hour access to an opponent in order to test a new deck, rather than having to wait until every Saturday, when their local league takes place.
I would be more than willing to write up and create the blueprints for such a program, but before that begins, I would like to ask a few questions in order to formulate a design.
1. Are you a casual or competitive player of the Pokémon TCG?
2. How often do you play against other players?
3. Do you attend a local league?
4. If so, how often do you attend the aforementioned league and is the nature of the league competitive or casual?
5. How long have you been playing the Pokémon TCG under its current rule set? (DP-on)
6. How long have you been playing the Pokémon TCG in total?
7. Would you be interested in a Redshark based online league?
8. How often would you play in the league?
9. Would you prefer a league similar to the league(s) displayed in:
• the real life TCG,
• the animé and manga,
• the handheld Pokémon games, or
• real life sports
10. How old are you?
11. Would you like the league to be segregated in any way?
12. If so, by what factor would you like segregation to occur? By age? Skill level? Other?
13. Would you be interested in moderator or administrative position within the league?
14. How long have you been a member of the online Pokémon community?
15. How long have you been a member of the online Pokémon TCG community?
16. Are you a respected member of either community? If so, which one?
17. If this becomes a reality, how would you like to be contacted? Please keep in mind that instant messaging programs are the worst way to do so.
I would like to thank everyone for taking the time to fill out the above survey. I will personally read each response and follow up shortly.
To the webmasters and members of PokéGym and PokéBeach;
Hello. My name is Justin, and I have been within the Pokémon community since the Japanese announcement for Ruby and Sapphire – whenever that occurred. Whilst I have not been within the Trading Card Game community for particularly long, I have recently begun playing the Trading Card Game again. In real life, I have an extremely limited budget and an even more limited card collection, and thus, I have developed a strong liking for programs such as Redshark. However, upon getting involved in these two communities, it has become drastically apparent that very few people are online to engage in these online battles.
The boards on your respective forums that pertain to online battling are quite frankly, highly disorganized. This is disappointing and rather confusing for several reasons; PokéBeach, supposed supporter of Redshark seem to be failing in its duty to promote play within the program, and PokéGym, the community of seemingly serious battlers have few people who are indicating that they wish to engage in Redshark battles in order to test their decks. Many claim that an online community for battling is nearly impossible to formulate and maintain, but this could not be further from the truth – the competitive battling faction of the Pokémon fan base has an enormous amount of active players, and I have never been online and was unable to find a battle with another. The same applies for the Yu-gi-oh! Trading Card Game (despite its dying state) and its online counterpart, YVD.
Thus, I would like to propose that perhaps the administrators and the members of these two communities collaborate on creating some sort of unifying league or online community pertaining to using Redshark as a means of battle. This would benefit, as far as I can see, many Pokémon TCG players. Newcomers would get a chance to get a feel for the game without having to spend lucrative amounts of money on cards they may never use – whereas, experienced players will have a twenty four hour access to an opponent in order to test a new deck, rather than having to wait until every Saturday, when their local league takes place.
I would be more than willing to write up and create the blueprints for such a program, but before that begins, I would like to ask a few questions in order to formulate a design.
1. Are you a casual or competitive player of the Pokémon TCG?
2. How often do you play against other players?
3. Do you attend a local league?
4. If so, how often do you attend the aforementioned league and is the nature of the league competitive or casual?
5. How long have you been playing the Pokémon TCG under its current rule set? (DP-on)
6. How long have you been playing the Pokémon TCG in total?
7. Would you be interested in a Redshark based online league?
8. How often would you play in the league?
9. Would you prefer a league similar to the league(s) displayed in:
• the real life TCG,
• the animé and manga,
• the handheld Pokémon games, or
• real life sports
10. How old are you?
11. Would you like the league to be segregated in any way?
12. If so, by what factor would you like segregation to occur? By age? Skill level? Other?
13. Would you be interested in moderator or administrative position within the league?
14. How long have you been a member of the online Pokémon community?
15. How long have you been a member of the online Pokémon TCG community?
16. Are you a respected member of either community? If so, which one?
17. If this becomes a reality, how would you like to be contacted? Please keep in mind that instant messaging programs are the worst way to do so.
I would like to thank everyone for taking the time to fill out the above survey. I will personally read each response and follow up shortly.
