Cool Stuff to do at the Orange Islands

Introducton

'Sup, dudes! Hulavuta here, and I'm here to tell you about a few awesome community events going on in the Orange Islands. While Smogon is the premier website for competitive Pokémon battling and a great place to learn and play, sometimes the intense competitive discussion and inane site drama can make you forget why you fell in love Pokémon in the first place. So, what do you do when you want go on a nostalgia trip and regain your childlike love of Pokémon? Head to the Orange Islands, Smogon's casual retreat!

While most people know the Orange Islands forum as "that place we all went to to get Pokémon X and Y leaks," it is actually far more than that! Orange Islands is where all discussion of the Pokémon anime, manga, and games belongs. It's the perfect place to simply discuss all of the things you love about Pokémon, or play in-game challenges with other players. It's a place where you don't have to worry about being "right" or "wrong" and just have fun! As the user Governess eloquently put it, Orange Islands contains the heart of Pokémon.

While discussions pertaining to the newest games, Pokémon X and Y, are the main focus of most threads nowadays, there are a bunch of community events in Orange Islands run by community members that are a ton of fun. This article is going to give a little overview of most of them.

As with any community on Smogon, IRC is a big supplement to Orange Islands. Our IRC channel is #orangeislands on the synIRC network (the same network as all of the other Smogon channels) and it's where most of these events go down.

Movie Nights

Movie night is pretty straightforward as it is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: every Thursday at 10 PM EST, the community gathers on #orangeislands to watch a Pokémon movie or episodes of the anime, chatting in IRC as we watch. It's a terrific nostalgia ride for those who grew up with Pokémon and watched the anime growing up. Of course, with age comes experience, so a lot of the fun comes from making fun of plot holes and nonsense in the movies that we might have missed when we were younger.

Speaking of nostalgia, Movie Nights are very near and dear to me as they were one of the first things I did on Smogon. Kadew and I both got our start on Smogon here, and entered the community through it. We're both badged members now, and while I can't say going to movie nights directly causes badging, it is definitely a great way to start participating and make yourself known in Smogon's community.

Twitch.tv streams

Almost everyone is familiar with Twitch.tv, but for those who aren't, it is the most popular livestreaming website for video games. Smogon University has its own official Twitch stream where the Smogcasts and other series are broadcast, and here in the Orange Islands a few of our members have their own streams as well.

The most popular stream is run by Jimera0 and goes live every Friday afternoon around 5 o'clock EST. Most recently, he has just finished a Nuzlocke run of Pokémon Diamond, and is now onto a FireRed randomizer. The game is accompanied by live commentary and he is joined by an additional voice cast of Smogon users Kadew, TheMantyke, DHR-107, and Mekkah. Afterward, there is an encore stream by TheMantyke which features corrupting Pokémon ROMs to create hilarious graphical and dialogue glitches.

Mekkah has his own stream as well, although it does not have a set schedule. He streams his play of in-game challenges, such as the Orange League, and occasionally streams Fire Emblem as well. However, the most notable content he streams is competitive-level play on Pokémon Trading Card Game Online, the Pokémon Company's official “simulator” for the Pokémon Trading Card Game. For those of you interested in the Pokémon card game, this is likely the only place on Smogon you'll ever see or hear about it, so be sure to stop by!

The Orange League

The Orange League is a series of in-game competitions that is organized and hosted by Jimera0 and myself. Each round, there are ten days for players to join in and play the challenges, which range from speedruns, to minigame high scores, to battle facility streaks, and so on. Players submit their scores using photo evidence and are allowed to submit as many tries as they want to before the deadline. In the case of a tie, the winner is decided by early submission.

The top five scorers of each round get points and are put into the overall leader board. However, the greatest prize is likely the shiny “Orange League Champ” banner, awarded to the first place winner of a round until another winner is crowned. We might have started a trend with this; other site competitions are considering giving these out soon!

Although the current incarnation only started in December, The Orange League actually has a bit of history to it: it was originally created and run in 2012 by Jellicent and Texas Cloverleaf in a team-based format, but ended after the January 2013 round. Around that time, the Pokémon world was hit by the shocking announcement of the newest games in the series, X and Y, and Orange Islands began to become primarily about news and discussion of it. Months later, when it was almost time for release of the new games, Orange Islands leader Stellar held a giveaway contest using similar challenges as those in The Orange League.

Although I was not around during the run of the original Orange League, I did see Stellar's contest and thought it was interesting. So later on in November of 2013, while I was searching for things I could do to earn the Community Contributor badge (hey, I'm just being honest!) I came across the old Orange League and thought it would be a cool idea to bring that back. After discussing it a little though, I realized I lacked the experience to run a competition like this, so I partnered up with Jimera0 to help me manage it.

The Orange League has been going for a little while now, and so far it's been a blast! If you're into in-game challenges and want to win a fancy banner, definitely consider checking it out!

Orange Islands Plays

This is another community challenge event that I was not around for the original incarnation of. Co-hosted by its creator Deinosaur and Ultimathunder, Orange Island Plays is something like a massive community Let's Play. On a set time and date, the community gets together to play through a certain main series Pokémon game alongside each other. These runs often involve additional self-imposed challenges, such as monotype, randomizer, or the classic Nuzlocke, for example.

The original Orange Islands Plays took place over Skype and on our IRC channel, but with the creation of the Orange Islands Google+ group, the events have been happening over Google+ Hangout. Using hangouts, we're now able to do a really fun thing: screenshare! Now instead of just telling people all of the fun things that are happening to you, they can also see it for themselves, creating a more fun and connected experience for everyone.

The Scramble Challange

Managed by the Honedge swordsman, Its_A_Random, The Scramble Challange is one of the oldest and most popular threads in the Orange Islands. In fact, it's the only non-XY thread that gets about as much attention as one! Scramble Challanges offer a challenge to your run of any game: each Pokémon has specific limits and conditions assigned to it. These are unique as each of the six Pokémon and its specific challange is decided for you by another member!

Scramble Challanges take place mostly in the forum thread, but users regularly congregate on the #orangeislands IRC channel to discuss their challanges and brainstorm ideas for new Pokémon to give out. The Scramble Challange is a bit of its own community, regularly giving out Pokémon and posting updates, so it's a great place in the Orange Islands to get involved!

Competitive Battling

While Orange Islands is the casual side of Pokémon, it is still part of Smogon, and that means that its visitors are still competitive battlers! In the #orangeislands IRC channel, in addition to the usual Pokémon Showdown! shenanigans, there are also a ton of breeding activities and Wi-Fi battles going down. It's a great place to go if you enjoy competitive play on the cartridge, especially if you are into multi battles!

Conclusion

Whether you're into the anime, the side games, speed runs, self-imposed challenges, or even competitive battling, Orange Islands has something for everyone! We're all about making friends and enjoying Pokémon, so feel free to drop by the forum, or join our IRC channel and Google+ group and say hello!

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