PXR Gym League Activity Gauge

[Neo Emolga]

I want gauge the interest level on the PXR Gym League idea to see if it's an idea we should consider developing further, or if we should consider something else. Also, if the idea is launched, I also want to see what kinds of roles people think they might be doing if and when the idea goes live. It's perfectly okay if you're not sure, just select the answer that you think would fit your feelings best, but definitely don't see it as a permanent commitment. If you selected "I like the idea, but I probably won't be creating/joining a gym. However, I would still like to try and earn badges from gyms as a freelance Gym Challenger" and then later decide if and when the event launches "whoa, I change my mind, running my own gym seems like a much better idea!" that's totally fine.

OPTIONS:

I like the idea and would like to be a Gym Leader and a Gym Challenger. - Means you plan on making your own Gym and would be the Gym Leader of it. Also, you have interest in being a Gym Challenger on a personal level and would challenge other Gyms to build a badge collection.

I like the idea, but would only be a Gym Leader. - Means you plan on making your own Gym and would be the Gym Leader of it. However, you plan on only defending your Gym and don't intend on challenging other Gyms to build a badge collection.

I like the idea and would like to be a Gym Trainer and a Gym Challenger. - Means you plan on joining someone else's Gym as a Gym Trainer to help defend the Gym. Also, you have interest in being a Gym Challenger on a personal level and would challenge other Gyms to build a badge collection.

I like the idea, but would only be a Gym Trainer. - Means you plan on joining someone else's Gym as a Gym Trainer to help defend the Gym. However, you plan on only defending your Gym and don't intend on challenging other Gyms to build a badge collection.

I like the idea, but I only want to be a Gym Challenger. - Means you only plan on challenging the Gyms to build a badge collection, but don't have any intentions on creating or joining any Gyms.

I'm not too fond of the idea and I think we should consider some other kind of summer activity. - Don't be ashamed to admit this! I would not think any less of a person who feels maybe there's a better idea out there to pursue.

In case you need to see the original idea description again:

So, I decided to comb through last year's WAR Discussion threads to get a better idea of what people would like. Since we're scrapping the entire WAR, I don't think too much focus on point distribution really matters. In fact, I'm trying to shoot for ideas where points aren't involved. Anyway, the basic gist I got from it was this is what most people would like:

Teams that are smaller, but evened out. I'm going to say 3-5 seems like a fair number and was what most people seemed to want.
More time for submissions. One week for everything all at once is too much.
More judges involved. Preferably, a panel of judges.
Not have everything going on at once, save for a few exceptions. Kind of like the Olympics.
Scoring revision. Modify or remove scoring entirely.

I think I might have brought up this idea before, but whatever, I'll bring it up again.

THE PXR GYM LEAGUE

Back in PE2K days, a member named Dani (I have no idea where she is now or how to properly give her credit...) came up with a neat Gym League idea where people create Gyms as teams, all with a theme and all that jazz. Dani made a gym, found people to be her gym trainers, and said if you could beat two of her trainers in art, writing, battling, whatever, and then beat her, you'd get a neat little badge that you had the right to display in your profile, sig, and so on.

We could easily do this same kind of thing here at PXR, and it checks on all five of the above bullets. Now, I've put in some of my own modifications here, but the idea is generally the same.

Anyone can create a Gym, but as a Gym Leader, you need to be open to several areas. Making GCEA or ASB your only challenge areas isn't quite fair to people who aren't in those things, but want to try and earn your gym's badge. Also, your gym can have 3 to 5 people in it. No more, no less. It's your job to defend your gym against all incoming challengers.

QUICK RUNDOWN OF HOW IT WORKS:

Let's say Harry the Epic Bulbasaur wants to challenge the Banana Fiesta Gym, which has Rocky Balboa as the Gym Leader, and has three trainers, Alvin, Simon, and Theodore. To get to Rocky, Harry has to beat at least two of his trainers, which can be Alvin and Simon, Alvin and Theodore, or Simon and Theodore. Any combination of two from those three. Harry chooses to battle Simon, and Simon's selected areas of expertise are spriting, creative writing, drawn art, and URPG. Harry beats Simon in a URPG battle, a URPG ref verifies the victory, no voting is necessary. So now he's 1 for 2.

Next, he wants to battle Theodore, who has his selected areas of expertise in GCEA, ASB, creative writing, and spriting. Harry selects spriting as the field of battle, but Theodore gets to choose the subject matter. Theodore chooses that both of them make a sprite of Pidgeot, and both of them have two weeks to make a sprite. Both Pidgeot sprites are sent to a League Official, who makes a new poll thread where it has something like "Banana Fiesta Gym Trainer Challenge - Harry VS Theodore - [Spriting]." The League Official posts both sprites, but no one knows which one is Harry's and which one is Theodore's. Only the League Official knows. Anyone besides Harry and Theodore is allowed to vote, and they vote on which one they think is the best. After a week (poll closes after a week), the results are tallied, and Harry is the winner!

Harry now goes on to face Rocky Balboa, the Gym Leader of the Banana Fiesta Gym, who has his specialties as drawn art, graphic art, RP creation, and creative writing. Harry chooses RP creation, but Rocky declares that they both make a fantasy, non-Pokémon RP. In two weeks, they send their RP sign ups to a League Official. The League Official creates a new poll thread: "Banana Fiesta Gym Leader Challenge - Harry VS Rocky Balboa [RP Creation]" and puts both RPs up, but no one knows which one is Harry's and which one is Rocky's. They vote, and in a week, they like Harry's the best! It's up to Harry if he wants to actually run the RP, or donate it to the RP board for someone else to use. Rocky is free to run his as well if he really wants to.

Now that Harry has won, he gets a Banana Fiesta Gym badge token in his profile. He could also put the same token (or a smaller version of it) in his sig or as a profile postbit.

And bingo, there you go. Harry can now go challenge other gyms, all while also belonging to a gym of his own. Now, if Harry had lost one of his gym battles against a trainer, he could challenge them in something else, or switch to another trainer to challenge. He could also pick another area to challenge them in. He could also challenge a trainer/leader in this gym and a trainer/leader in another gym at the same time.

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That's the basic idea of it.

Teams are smaller, and two weeks is plenty of time for people to people to get stuff done. People can also say "hey, I've got two people challenging me already, I can't take on any more." That's fine. Or you can be put on temporary hiatus if you need to go on vacation.

Also, the whole rest of the forum can be your judging panel. Anyone can hop in and say "hey, that's a cool sprite, I'm voting on that" even if they're not a spriting expert. Also, trainers and challengers can take on as much or as little as they want. They're not pushed to DO EVERYTHING AT ONCE in a week for four weeks! Also, no points involved! You simply beat the trainer/leader, or you try again with something else.

So yeah, I'm curious to know if other people think this would be a cool idea to try.

HEADS UP STUFF - THINGS OPEN FOR DISCUSSION

Things in blue and in ALL CAPS LIKE THIS are variable placeholders for now. If you think something would be more reasonable, hey, let your voice be heard!

Sections involved - We're still not sure what exact sections would be involved and how they would be formatted for this idea. That would be something PXR Gym League officials would need to decided, but you're free to give recommendations.
Section Participation - Each person needs to list FOUR sections they would be willing to take part in, such as URPG battles, Drawn Art, RP Creation, and that kind of thing. Chances are good the sections would be very similar to what was done in WAR, but they would just be 1vs1 scenarios.
Submission Periods - TWO WEEKS to submit something after a Gym Trainer/Leader declares the subject matter. If something isn't submitted before the deadline, victory goes to the party that submitted something.
Judging Period - If the challenge requires a judging panel, such as an art or writing challenge, everyone else has ONE WEEK to cast their vote.

[Chakramaster]

Neo Emolga Did the poll not go up correctly?

I'm definitely interested in joining something at least. I may not be very creative in art or imaging, but something RP based I could try now that I've got more experience under it. I may have to decide whether or not I'd want to lead or just join as a Trainer. If anything maybe as just a Trainer and challenge as well. Either way the idea sounds really great, but I know there's still much discussion that needs to go into such an idea

[Neo Emolga]

Neo Emolga Did the poll not go up correctly?

It should be fixed now, I was getting errors before because I went over 100 characters for the poll options. :P

[Chakramaster]

It should be fixed now, I was getting errors before because I went over 100 characters for the poll options. :P

Aweseom, yup. Looks like it's fixed now! The only reason I don't think I'd want to be a Leader is because for those sections I don't feel as if I would be enough to actually lead it. However, as a Trainer, I have more reason to help and not be super efficient at least xD. If anything it would help out with the team/gym even if it's a little.

[Chibi Altaria]

I would consider being a gym leader and a gym challenger, but as someone who primarily only does art and writing, I feel as though some people might have a hard time with that. 3': I don't participate in anything else to be really useful.

[Neo Emolga]

I would consider being a gym leader and a gym challenger, but as someone who primarily only does art and writing, I feel as though some people might have a hard time with that. 3': I don't participate in anything else to be really useful.

Totally not a problem, the whole idea is being tweaked and is just a rough draft, so anything is subject to change depending on what people feel is right. I'm also not a URPG, ASB, or GCEA official, but I would need to ask them if they'd be interested in getting in on this, or if they'd rather stick with their own events. So if those sections are not included, obviously the total number of section areas that a person would need to be involved in would be reduced.

As a side note, I would love to see what kind of Gym you create, Gem. :D

[Pokemon Trainer Sarah]

Still like this idea :D I'm probably going to have like 0 time but if I do end up participating, I would choose not to be a gym leader most likely. :) Would be cool to help defend a gym though!

[Chibi Altaria]

Totally not a problem, the whole idea is being tweaked and is just a rough draft, so anything is subject to change depending on what people feel is right. I'm also not a URPG, ASB, or GCEA official, but I would need to ask them if they'd be interested in getting in on this, or if they'd rather stick with their own events. So if those sections are not included, obviously the total number of section areas that a person would need to be involved in would be reduced.

As a side note, I would love to see what kind of Gym you create, Gem. :D

Oh, cool. xD I was a tad worried when I saw the whole 'four' sections thing. I was like "CAN I STRETCH THAT INTO WRITING AND ART ONLY? @.@" haha!

The only part that stumps me at the moment is the gym. XD But when you say create a gym, exactly how much, and what, are we creating?

[Pokemon Trainer Sarah]

Oh, cool. xD I was a tad worried when I saw the whole 'four' sections thing. I was like "CAN I STRETCH THAT INTO WRITING AND ART ONLY? @.@" haha!

The only part that stumps me at the moment is the gym. XD But when you say create a gym, exactly how much, and what, are we creating?



I think it's pretty basic, just like in the games. Pick a name and theme for your gym and design your gym badge. Then make a thread to recruit a few gym trainers? :D Then you can make pretty graphics and stuff. :)

[Chibi Altaria]

I think it's pretty basic, just like in the games. Pick a name and theme for your gym and design your gym badge. Then make a thread to recruit a few gym trainers? :D Then you can make pretty graphics and stuff. :)

Oh, awesome. xD I am so totally becoming a leader. Also, if we're picking Pokemon types, I SHOTGUN DRAGON. No one else steal it! Unless multiple gym types are okay. :3

[Neo Emolga]

Oh, awesome. xD I am so totally becoming a leader. Also, if we're picking Pokemon types, I SHOTGUN DRAGON. No one else steal it! Unless multiple gym types are okay. :3

Noes! But I wanna pick teh dragonz! As Sarah said, the gym theme can be based on anything and doesn't even need to relate to specific types of Pokémon. For example, you could create something like "The Nightshadow Gym" and make dark/ghost/poison Pokémon as your theme Pokémon, or something like "The Golden Aviary Gym" and just focus on bird Pokémon.

Then, like Sarah mentioned, design your Gym thread with graphics, design the badge to reflect the Gym theme, and recruit some fun people.

[Chibi Altaria]

Noes! But I wanna pick teh dragonz! As Sarah said, the gym theme can be based on anything and doesn't even need to relate to specific types of Pokémon. For example, you could create something like "The Nightshadow Gym" and make dark/ghost/poison Pokémon as your theme Pokémon, or something like "The Golden Aviary Gym" and just focus on bird Pokémon.

Then, like Sarah mentioned, design your Gym thread with graphics, design the badge to reflect the Gym theme, and recruit some fun people.

Cool! O: Well I still like dragons! But this gym will also focus on Pokemon that LOOK like dragons and probably should have the typing anyway. Sure sounds fun! :D *tries to think of an awesome name*

[Kentucky Fried Torchic]

This is just my two cents, but here goes:
Despite never really participating in an entire WAR, I will be the first to admit that my feelings are a bit shaded by the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia, but if a change is necessary going forward, than a change is what needs to be done.

I think that most of the logistical issues up for debate look fine to me, but, I would be interested in being a gym trainer and, for what it's worth, I'm going to echo the concern with requiring gym trainers to be willing to compete in four sections, although I will concede that I might be able to pull it off somewhat in a pinch if the sections are the same as last summer's WAR. I see no issue with the requirement of four sections for gym leaders however, that's why they get the titles after all.

In the other thread, you mentioned that this format would likely mean no Team RP, which makes me a little worried, not just about the scrapping of one tradition that I have always looked upon fondly upon (especially the example from one year's winter parody WAR), but also about how the RP section (or equivalent) for this league would be, i.e. would it be limited to RP creation or would there be some way for those with a greater interest in RPing over GMing to participate in a more comfortable environment. While I believe that creating a successful RP requires some level of understanding of your audience and possibly some collaboration and brainstorming with others, it still strikes me as a lonely solitary work that fails to account for the people-to-people interactions and reactions that firmly separate RPing from writing fanfiction or other written works where the amount of group input is limited.

This actually brings me to my biggest concern with this model, that being not necessarily the lack of teams, but the lack of the community that the WAR and those teams represented, even if the practice did not exactly line up with the theory. While I think that this is definitely an innovative model and will address some of the weaknesses of the WAR model, i.e. I am willing to concede that smaller and perhaps more focused gyms could possibly strengthen the bonds within the team, I feel that the idea of gym challengers is very individualistic, replacing interactions between teams with interactions between singular challengers and gyms, or, I fear, between challengers and gym trainers without any sense of real continuity between the pursuit of a badge. One idea that might help with that, if someone smarter than I could figure out the logistics of it, would be the optional organization into squads, similar to the traveling groups on the Pokemon cartoon or the ninja squads in Naruto, where each member complements the others on the squad? (That's one idea I have for combating this potential pitfall, but I think that there is a better one at the end of this post.)

Anyway, I feel that reducing the essence of the competition to a series of one-on-one match-ups in different categories, albeit with a panel of judges or an ASB or URPG ref, really limits the community aspect of this idea and therefore the nature of this being a special event. If this was to be a continuing feature on PXR beyond just a summer festival, I would be all in favor of the finished idea being implemented, but I would like to see something that offers more large-scale simultaneous participation at least accompany it to make up for the shortcomings that I personally believe are in the proposal.

Hence, my one idea that might actually contribute to the discussion: I think that it would be possible to construct a kind of Team (Gym?) RP, or even general event, story line that would allow for a greater interaction between "Gyms", giving a further incentive for people to join Gyms and to act as a gym and not merely a loose collective of individuals sharing a banner. I would be more than willing to offer up my meager skills in whatever service that goal requires as well.

tl;dr:
- I'm a little hesitant about number of categories required for gym trainers, but seems manageable personally.
- No Team RP makes me sad.
- Challengers and challenge model seem less community-minded and more isolated, so I think there should be a complementary event to address that.
- Maybe some kind of "Gym RP" (or other event) could fill that role?

[Neo Emolga]

I was actually going to wait until the 23rd to mention this (when the poll closed), but might as well do it now and address this while we're here. I also don't think a few more days is going to make all that much of a difference in the results, especially considering discussion has come down to a halt lately.


This is just my two cents, but here goes:

Definitely valid points.

Considering we only had nine people vote and only two of them (self included) wanted to be Gym Leaders, we can't run this idea anyway (a two-gym league just wouldn't work and that's not much of a badge collection to strive for). I was hoping for at least six as a minimum to give the idea a firm leg to stand on, because anything less just doesn't really feel a full league.

- I'm a little hesitant about number of categories required for gym trainers, but seems manageable personally.

Number of categories could have been adjusted. The reason for this was because if it was down to two and one person put GCEA and ASB as their own selections, a person who only specialized in art and writing could not challenge them without joining the GCEA and ASB first (and starting with zero stats would mean they'd have to play catch up just to challenge them). In fact, part of me was actually thinking of leaving off "RPG" sections that needed membership altogether.

- No Team RP makes me sad.

Yeah, I feel the same way, it was a hard thing to consider giving up, but it wouldn't have fared well if it didn't contribute to anything.

- Challengers and challenge model seem less community-minded and more isolated, so I think there should be a complementary event to address that.

Yeah, this was another thing that was iffy, but it would have reduced the strain and expectation of participation on people. WAR's model pushed people to sap every spare second they had into participating in something, and that was rough to handle for most of the participants. I figured this would be a lighter strain, but as you said, the sacrifice was something that involved being less community-minded.

- Maybe some kind of "Gym RP" (or other event) could fill that role?

I think we're going to need a whole new event. It's only March and we still have time, but given the poll, I don't think this would do that well given the poll results. It might be better to just go back to the drawing board and make something new that's more compatible with what people would like, but also still has the interest level to function well.