Friday, June 22, 2012

How I saved TSG from destruction

Okay, so I'm exaggerating, but we were still headed towards a huge loss of face when some brilliant dumbasses decided to argue about which Pokémon site was better, with mucho "That site sucks, this other one is so much better!"... when many admins from said sites were in the chat. Obviously that was a problem, because they wouldn't want to be associated with TSG in the future. So I took matter into my own hands, and used the perfect technique to derail the discussion - the same "Hi Chugga!" I tried a few days ago with a lot of success. And guess what, the fansite argument stopped. Right. There. Of course, Chugga spam is more annoying, but far less harmful to the community in the long run.

As for the chat itself, it was far worse than it usually is. Maybe it's because we were on the front page of so many sites, but it was bad. Spammers up the wazoo (including bible thumpers!), trolls whose vocabulary was limited to "sex", "virgins" and assorted words, and perhaps the worst, sexual harassers (yes, I just used that term). Whenever poor Ruju would come on camera, she'd be assaulted with obscene comments, and it would not stop until she disappeared... if we were lucky. There were the usual Chugga spammers, of course, but aside from my two bombshells they were surprisingly tame this time around. Maybe they were just too busy gawking at Ruju.

Nonetheless, this was a TSG marathon, and it came with its highlights. Britt's shoutcasting session while Lugia was being caught may well be the single greatest moment in the group's history, with a catchphrase that we'll remember for a while - and that I promise to milk for all it's worth in the future. The weird thing is that Britt sounded a lot like me when I try to catch a legendary in my LP, to the obvious difference that he might've just pretended to know his stuff a little. But that's part of the charm of the whole thing!

Once again, auctions brought in a lot of money. I won't mention them all, especially not the Groudon nickname and the Marill figurine since I already did so a few days ago, but the Terrakion nickname brought in several thousand dollars and ultimately went for over two grand (and I completely missed that, much to my everlasting dismay). I don't think anyone thought that was going to be topped, until the very end of the marathon where a Revolver Oshawott figurine went for over THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS, and ProtonJon himself was in the thick of it until the very end.

In the Pokémon catching department, it didn't look so good early on, especially after a power outage during the first night which saw a substantial loss of progress, but a huge rally in the last few days, and especially the last few hours, caused an epic comeback that caused us to go down to the wire. And just like how we barely succeeded in 2009 by factoring in the fact that the marathon started ten minutes late, we barely succeeded this time by factoring in the minutes lost by the power outage. And trust me, those last few minutes were nerve-racking, with an annoying happiness evolution (Lopunny) that took an aggravating amount of time and a Croagunk that just wouldn't show up on the binoculars of the Great Marsh. Bear managed to find one after a looooong while of looking, traded it away to whoever was playing the other version, then started looking for a Toxicroak while the Croagunk was being leveled up. Ultimately it was the latter that managed to get the elusive overgrown froggy in the nick of time. The good news is that the capital blunder of 2009, which resulted in a mad rush of trading, restarting and leveling a Chikorita to 32, wasn't repeated this time.

So in the end, that's 646 Pokémon caught in 168 hours, as well as over $57000 raised for ACT Today. A successful event across the board, which delayed my opportunity of playing Conquest by a few days, but that I would love to relive anytime. Conquest can wait. Such entertainment can't.

7 comments:

  1. Wow you braved through Chuggaa spam to help TheSpeedGamers? That Slowflake, is why you are a badass.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I enjoyed it, and the terrakion auction was one of the few parts i didn't miss. I can only stand so much of the chat though. If it wasnt bible thumpers, chugga ppl, or trolls, it was just a constant stream of "NOTICE ME NOTICE ME HEY CHASE DID U KNOW zzzzzzzzz" kind of comments. I found it to be alot more enjoyable when flashblock was preventing the chat window from opening in the first place. From what i've heard there were alot of major moments i did miss, but from what i did see i would definitely say it was a major success.

    ReplyDelete
  3. So far I was kinda interested by these kinds of event, but I never tried to take a look, because I knew I could never donate at all.
    ( I'm a French Canadian student after all, I'm not supposed to waste money on charity. *Heavy Sarcasm Cue* )

    And now, even if it was still fine for me to show up, I'm not even sure I would want to anymore... I don't need to hate people even more than I do now, it would be bad for my mental health.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I absolutely agree with what you and ganja said, the chat got so bad I had to leave the site, or I would snap, and either kicked or banned from the chat. What was bad about the instances that ganja said, they came at the worst times,mostly during auctions, or when something was occurring in the barn the commentator had to concentrate on. If i see another "Who won the $x,000 raffle","Wrong Badges",etc.it will be too soon. The faith in humanity that I lost from the chat, was somewhat gained back in the various four-figure auctions that I saw.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I wish I could've tuned into the marathon, but my internet connection is so hideous that it would've lagged to hell. Props on saving the chat. Lesser of two evils indeed.

    ReplyDelete
  6. The biggest problem with events this size is the horrible chat: way too crowded, not possible to have a discussion, just a constant barrage of spam

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Agreed. It seems to be a lot more tame early in the day, though. As for chat splits... well, we've had that as a glitch in the system before, and it causes most people to be ignored entirely, since they can only keep tabs on the main chat reliably.

      Delete