Introduction to the Smogon Discords: 2023 Edition
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Art by Kolohe.
Introduction
Discord has become our most popular online medium for communication, gaming, and even contributing in today's day and age. It boasts many features, but its biggest selling point is its great live chat capabilities. In a distant past, the Main Smogon Discord served as the main Discord representation of Smogon. But as time went on, other servers came about to represent different parts of our community, ranging from Official and Unofficial formats to more socially inclined Discords and much more! These are all now represented in our Smogon Discord Server Directory, a comprehensive list of our most important and affiliated Discords. With this article, we hope to update people on how we've come to use Discord in 2023 to fulfill our many needs.
Discord's many features
Discord boasts many new features as it continues to grow, so we'll go over some of the ones we've managed to take advantage of in our servers.
Forum Channels
A blend of both live chat and forums to create a more organized way of conversation. Forum channels are best used to house various discussions on different topics, but we've also managed to take advantage of the feature in other ways. #comp-read-me on the main server is a forum channel, with each post being a different resource. We've found this to be more helpful than listing it all out in one post due to being easier to reference. Similarly, our #rate-my-team channel is divided into various forum posts for the same reason, with each forum posts representing a metagame or major competitive section of Smogon.
Stickers and Emojis
Emojis and stickers bring a new experience to chatting than just an exchange of text. They can convey any kind of feeling or message to where our main server has over 200 emojis to choose from! Stickers are a much newer feature than emojis, but they cover a similar effect, with a larger scale to allow for more images with subtext.
Voice Chat Activities
You've probably known how to engage in a voice call with someone ever since you owned a phone, but social media has taken strides in improving the experience, particularly Discord. For one thing, these kinds of voice calls put focus on being group calls with multiple people to do various group activities, like streaming shows or playing a video game together while talking to each other live. Of course you may not always have either to do with your friends but you still might want to hang out with them, and that's where Discord steps up and introduces Voice Call Activities. These are basically built-in games you can enjoy with your friends in call anytime! Something more specific to our metagame-specific Discords are tournaments, and voice calls help enhance this experience by giving people a live place to share thoughts on ongoing tournament games or auctions in team tournaments. These help in hyping up engagement for the tournaments further and providing a fun experience for everyone involved.
Nitro and Server Boosting
Nitro is a well-known feature of Discord; pay for the subscription and you get a variety of perks. If you're subscribed to full Nitro, you'll get two free server boosts you can put towards a server. Of course, you can also pay for server boosts separately, but then you don't get all the fun perks of Nitro! Boosting any server can provide you with a number of perks; boosting the main Smogon Discord can land you quite a few, such as a custom role color, a role icon, and a custom emoji on our server as well as a custom title on our forum, so be sure to boost!
Smogon Discord Overview
The Smogon Discord is the forefront of Smogon's Discord representation. It's currently partnered with Discord and serves as a general hub to represent most sections of Smogon in live chat format, with section-specific Discords being used for more concentrated chats on the specific topic. Aside from representation, we've also been building the Discord as its own community, with its own set of members that engage with each other in the different channels. We've recently started doing various roles for popular points of interaction such as Super Smash Bros or specific manga/anime series. We also have plans to start hosting more server activities such as Super Smash Bros tournaments, Pokémon tournaments, and much more!
Of course, like with all things in life, there's rules! #read-me serves to inform all of our server-wide rules, while #comp-read-me contains rules specific to the competitive section of the Discord as well as helpful resources to aid beginners in getting into competitive play. We also have announcement channels to fill you in on the latest happenings on Smogon! #news showcases things like suspect tests, metagame shifts, Smogon Awards, and various other major announcements for any section on the forums. We also have #tour-announcements, which contains signups for any given tournament hosted on the forums. You can follow either of these channels for the latest updates in them, so be sure to do that if you're interested!
Now that all of the informative-type channels are out of the way, let's get into the more action parts of the Discord. There are three main categories the Discord is divided into: Competitive Pokémon, Casual Pokémon, and Other. Contributing to any of these sections can earn you a pathway to the Smogon Discord Contributor badge, a forum badge to recognize your contributions.
Competitive Section
To start with our competitive side, we have two #comp-general channels as catch-all chats for anything related to competitive play. Chatting in these channels can typically range from talking about metagames to popular ongoing tournaments . They also have a second purpose in providing help to beginners trying to learn competitive play, from tips to hands-on help for building and playing. Hanging out in comp-gen is a great way to learn about metagames you didn't even know existed or learn a whole new side of ones you play every day. We also have an RMT forum channel, with multiple posts dedicated to major metagames on Smogon. Our Competitive Helpers specialize in various tiers to help out in rating teams alongside providing any competitive help they can in the competitive general channels. Be sure to give them a ping if you're looking to get into a new tier!
Casual Section
Next is the more casual side for those who prefer just enjoying in-game elements, talking about the history and evolution of the franchise, and anything Pokémon-related. Uses of the channel can also expand beyond those to hold discussions on the anime, merchandise, and other major branches Pokémon has spread out to cover. When a new game releases, we have dedicated channels for discussion on them, including a spoiler channel and channels for any other significant activities that happen in-game that we can host on the server, like raid co-ops in SS and SV.
Other
Finally, we have the Other section, which covers off-topic channels like discussions on video games, current events around the world, sports, music, and entertainment mediums like anime, manga, TV, and books. And if none of these fit what you're looking for, then we also have catch-all off topic channels that cover any non-Pokémon related topic. We also have voice chats to talk with your friends live, but you probably already know that.
Smogon Discord Directory
The Smogon Discord Directory was touched on earlier, but let's break down its different sections so it can be easily navigated and to showcase alternatives to the Smogon Main Discord. Discord servers are typically featured here at the discretion of the Discord Leaders, but we try to be as inclusive as possible! The Directory is broken down into four sections, with the first three comprising Smogon's Current Generation Metagames and Past Generation Metagames, while the fourth section focuses on Discords not directly related to Competitive Pokémon.
Official Smogon Metagames
A more detailed definition can be found here on what makes a metagame official; regardless, you'll typically see some of the most popular metagames listed in this section. As such, we put extra importance on them and in running their respective Discords to ensure new users can find what they need in them. Notably, they also provide more concentrated conversations of metagames due to the specific tier each Discord caters to, which can be preferred over the Smogon Main Discord if you want to dive deeper into learning a tier or hang out and engage more with members of the respective communities.
Past Generation Metagames
Past generation Discords can be summarized into this section, with a Discord for each past generation (barring side generations like LGPE and BDSP as their own separate sections). Past Generation OU metagames are typically the most popular tiers currently, but certain Old Generation lower tiers also experience some activity via tournament play or contributions on forums and, as such, have the necessary support in their respective generation Discords. Similar to Official Metagames, these Discords can be preferred if you want to go more in depth in learning about specific metagames or getting to know the community members better.
Miscellaneous Metagames
This section covers all other metagame Discords that don't fall into the above two sections. This can range from official sections like BSS, VGC, CAP, and Other Metagames to unofficial independent metagames like 1v1, Anything Goes, and National Dex. Individual Discords are just as important for these sections, as they are for official ones to run their respective metagames and provide a community space to help newer players and build upon their metagames. They are especially worthwhile to visit if you're looking to get into new tiers, as they have way more experience with their metagame than you will likely find in the main Discord!
Other Forums
A very different section than the above three, this features Discords not tied to a metagame. One of the most notable entries here is the Smogon Tournaments Discord, which facilitates live discussions of our official tournaments as they happen live! The other listed Discords focus on specific sections of the site where support for activities within their sections can be found, like Smeargle's Studio, Social Media, and Grammar-Prose. In-game support is also represented here via Discords like Orange Islands, Battle Facilities, and a few others.
Get Out There!
That about covers everything. I hope this article helped you in becoming more well versed with our Discord network. There're many things to look forward to once you start interacting with a server, such as getting to know our community and making new friendships! So be sure to join any of our Discords that might have piqued your interest!
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