Some questions about THE Alternative

[supercat]

Hey GGFan, I've some questions for you about THE Alternative:

-What made you decide to create it?

-When do you think it reached its zenith?

-What caused its downfall?

I've been on a couple of the RBY servers lately and it made me wonder about THE Alternative, since it was an important part of competitive RBY history.

[GGFan]

-What made you decide to create it?

There was no outlet for competitive RBY, ostensibly because of RSE, but moreso because--surprisingly enough--nobody even bothered to make a RBY community. THE Alternative is arguably the oldest competitive RBY community, for we offered analyses, RBY tournaments, and a RBY server. Other places such as Azureheights predate THE Alternative by several years, but I don't know in-depth it was a competitive forum, having spent my early years on GameFAQs.

-When do you think it reached its zenith?

Morale was definitely at its highest during the IRBYT (October-December 2006, I think). It was an important tournament because it showcased the abilities of other members besides myself. Moreover, because we defeated Pokemonexperte, THE Alternative gained credibility in our belief that we were the top RBY forum.

I'd say THE Alternative reached its maximum potential during TOS6. That was the biggest tournament we ever had; unfortunately, things could only go down from there.

-What caused its downfall?

Like with most forums, a lack of interest. Survival was contingent upon our older members (Slayer, Billtog, Yellow, SamG), because we almost always played. When we suffered from a lack of people, I had to be resourceful and find people from other forums who might have been interested in coming here. This worked very well to an extant; for example, TOS6's success was due partially because it was a convergence of people from four different communites (this one, Hell's Flames, PLDH, and the TP clan). Sometimes I'd get a person or two from elsewhere to play here. However, several things happened that ultimately forced me to shut down THE Alternative: lack of motivation from myself, motivation to seek out other resources, and a dearth of resources because of DP.

THE Alternative was great for what it was, a niche RBY community. If you look at its successor, RBY2K10, you'll see that they took THE Alternative's mission a step further, but suffer from the same problems that we did; that is, being a small community that depends on its members to be active. While RBY2K10 is more in-depth, it has been far less successful as a competitive outlet, in my opinion, because of how poorly many of their tournaments have been run. I think the only tournament I ever had to cancel was the 2008 RBY League, and that was after THE Alternative reached its twilight.

[gregoryfanta]

lol, I think this board is more active than RBY2K10.

[GGFan]

That makes me wonder if, you know....