The Gossiper: Volume 1

jdarden Opposes Health & Fitness, Room Created Anyway

Sources confirmed on Thursday that Pokémon Showdown! Leader jdarden vehemently opposed the creation of the new "Health & Fitness" public room during discussion with other staff members. Despite his complaints, however, Pokémon Showdown! Administrator haunter created the room anyway.

The room was created on June 21, 2014 and states, "Looking to get fit? Join us! Take all advice with a grain of salt." The goal of the room was to encourage and teach people about how to exercise right and eat well.

But jdarden was not happy about its creation and wanted to speak his mind.

"When I have free time, all I want to do is relax," jdarden told reporters. "My idea of a good time is to have Pokémon Showdown! open, Doritos on my left, and Mountain Dew on my right while sitting on my sofa." Taken aback by others' desires to create a room dedicated to such topics, he explained, "I don't understand why anyone would want to exercise. It's tiring, makes you all sweaty, and doesn't taste like nacho cheese."

He even admitted that he was reconsidering his friendship with Pokémon Showdown! Moderator SteelEdges, who used to be a Room Owner of Health & Fitness.

jdarden also told reporters key details of the lengthy discussion prior to the creation of the room. When the room was first suggested, he "thought it was a joke," only to be appalled when he realized that the others were serious. When the discussion began, jdarden allegedly "came out of the gate with guns blazing," angrily and adamantly expressing his distaste for the room. At one point, it appeared to him that he was about to win a couple of people over. Despite his efforts, though, he was unable to persuade the majority of the staff to oppose the creation of the "vile, wretched" room.

When asked about how this room's existence changed his view of Pokémon Showdown!, jdarden replied, "It's heartbreaking to accept, but I'll tough it out somehow. Maybe a bucket of ice cream will make me feel better."

Surprisingly, though, jdarden is currently one of the Room Owners of Health & Fitness.

"Keep this on the down-low, but here's my plan," he explained. "I'm pretending like this room is great, but eventually I'm going to prevent everyone from exercising or eating foods with fewer than 1000 calories and 15 grams of sugar. It's just one step in my plan to make Pokémon Showdown! a better place for everyone."

User Loses Ladder Match Due to Glitch

Multiple witness accounts state that Pokémon Showdown! user Brony4ever555 lost a battle on the ladder yesterday due to a glitch.

"It's not fair," exclaimed Brony4ever555. "I totally would've won, but stupid [Pokémon] Showdown! has bugs."

Brony4ever555 posted the link to his battle in the Lobby chatroom, expecting the battle to be an intense one. Five other users joined his battle, and all of them confirm that Brony4ever555 had control of the match up until the glitch. They are also unsure if Brony4ever555 will be compensated for his loss of 20 Elo points, which is the scoring system that the Pokémon Showdown! ladder uses.

"My Mandibuzz was against his Conkeldurr," recounted Brony4ever555. "When Conkeldurr uses a Fighting-type move against Mandibuzz, it's not super effective." Brony4ever555 further explained that "Mandibuzz is a Dark/Flying-type. Fighting is good against Dark but bad against Flying, so it's not super effective. I'm pretty smart, aren't I?"

Little did he know that he was on the verge of being cheated out of a win.

"His Conkeldurr used Drain Punch and it was super effective!" yelled Brony4ever555. "It killed my Mandibuzz and he recovered all of his health back!"

Following the glitch, Brony4ever555 made sure to let the authorities know that Pokémon Showdown! had glitched. "Mods!" said Brony4ever555 in the Lobby chatroom. "There's a glitch in my battle!"

Pokémon Showdown! Moderator Nani Man responded by joining Brony4ever555's battle and becoming acquainted with the situation. Nani Man gathered that Brony4ever555's Mandibuzz knew the moves Roost, Foul Play, Defog, and Taunt, but was unable to explain the glitch. Nani Man directed Brony4ever555 to the Bug Reports thread on the www.smogon.com forums in order to let Pokémon Showdown!'s programmers know about the glitch.

V4 to Implement New /win Command

Pokémon Showdown! Administrator V4 announced earlier today that he was working on a new command for Showdown!. The function, which will be accessed by typing "/win" into any battle chat box, will "allow a player who is losing due to bad hax to win the battle that he or she probably would've won without the hax," explained V4.

"Everyone knows that it's so frustrating to lose a battle due to stupid stuff like missing 90% accurate moves, your opponent getting two burns with two Scalds, and things of that nature," continued V4. "I'm in it for the players everywhere who want to break their keyboards due to bad luck."

V4 further explained that the command wouldn't always work. It would only force the win if "the person who typed the command had been getting haxed badly enough," but would fail to do so otherwise.

When the command is typed, three numbers are calculated and used to determine whether or not the battle will be forcibly ended. The first number, which V4 calls Alpha, represents "hax per turn." If Alpha is large, then the user "has been haxed a ton in a short time," said V4. Another number, which V4 calls Beta, is calculated in the same way that Alpha is, except Beta represents how badly the opponent has been haxed. The third crucial number is called Gamma, which is the ratio of Alpha to Beta.

"If Gamma is large, that means you've been haxed way more than your opponent has," said V4. "So the command will only work if Alpha and Gamma are large enough. If they're not, then typing the command will give the user an angry message about how they're whining over just a little bit of hax."

V4 is still currently unsure about which numerical values to restrict Alpha and Gamma to in order for the command to work. He is also unsure if "this whole command is a complete waste of time."

V4 expects this command to be finished "when pigs fly." After V4 has perfected the command, it will be implemented during the following server restart. Additionally, the entire ladder will reset during said restart, so Pokémon Showdown! users can enjoy a new, fair ladder that is "devoid of stupid luck, which nobody likes."

Ken Jennings Possibly Academics Room Frequenter

Pokémon Showdown! user Ruine suspects that Jeopardy champion Ken Jennings frequents Showdown!.

Ruine is one of the Room Owners of the Academics room on Pokémon Showdown!, which sometimes hosts mock Jeopardy games. Organized and held by the Academics room staff, all users may participate in these simulated Jeopardy games, which are designed to be similar to the actual Jeopardy television game show. Since the Academic room's creation last Summer, many Jeopardy games have been hosted.

However, "one user has been winning a suspicious number of games," said Ruine.

"I just don't get it. We have so many people who play in the Jeopardy games. There should be a large number of people who win one game or another," he expressed. "I've thought about it for a while, and there's lots of evidence that points to him being the legendary Ken Jennings."

Ruine then told reporters about why he was so sure about his suspicion. "First of all, he's won every single Jeopardy game he's played except for one. He doesn't play in every game we host, but when he is a contestant, he almost always wins," said Ruine. "Furthermore, in the one Jeopardy game that he didn't win, he lost in the Final Jeopardy round in which the category was Justin Beiber, who you can't expect Ken to know about."

When asked if this is enough to differentiate a very smart user from Ken Jennings, Ruine continued, "Not really, but there's another piece of evidence. I checked his rank, and here's the kicker: he hasn't played any ladder matches. This user clearly only comes on Showdown! to play Jeopardy. Who comes to Showdown! and doesn't battle?"

The final piece of evidence, however, is directly related to Ken Jennings.

"As if that wasn't enough proof, this user has been witnessed advertising novels written by Ken Jennings in the Academics room," Ruine said. "One of our Room Moderators caught him red-handed, lavishly praising the depth and complexity of the works. Why would anyone else but Ken Jennings himself go out of his way to so boldly complement these novels?"

Despite these leads, Ruine is "not absolutely certain quite yet" if the user is actually Ken Jennings and has declined to disclose this user's name.