Building a successful Pokémon GO community is about more than just catching Pokémon, it’s about fostering connections. Forte, founder of POGO Community Checkpoint, shares his journey of growing local communities through collaboration and friendly competition. He breaks down the key elements of organizing events and building strong relationships within Pokémon GO, offering valuable insights for trainers looking to create their own impactful communities.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
David Hernandez (00:00):
My name is David Hernandez, and you're
(00:01):
listening to As the PokeballTurns.
(00:44):
Welcome to As the PokeballTurns, where the stories are
real and people still play thisgame.
With Silph Road closing itsdoors, it left behind a huge
hole to be filled in Pokemon Go.
While yes, Project Zygarde isunderway, determined to promote
and grow the future ofgrassroots PvP.
What about the other side ofSilph?
The community building, theconnection that Silph Road was
(01:05):
able to do for so long.
You think of the Silph Map wherelocal communities had a place
where trainers could place theircommunity for others to find.
You think of the Traveler's Cardthat validated trainer's
attendance at events orcompleting raid challenges.
Not to mention, Silph Roadprovided infographics for
communities to use to promoteevents and give a professional
look for communities who may nothave a graphic designer readily
(01:27):
available.
In this episode, my guest isattempting to fill that hole
Silph Road left behind.
With a passion for hostingevents and growing his
community, he has been workingon developing tools to assist in
growing other communities andsharing his knowledge with
others.
from Peru, Indiana Here is hisorigin story into the world of
Pokemon Go.
This is Forte! Now today, I'mjoined by the founder of the
(01:50):
Pokemon community checkpoint,Forte.
Forte, welcome to the show.
Forte (01:54):
All right, thank you for having me.
David Hernandez (01:56):
Definitely.
And we've talked a lot just givesome background to people who
may not know who you are.
You have a lot of backgroundknowledge on the website and
you're even trying to start anew one based on the recent
announcement of the Silph Roadclosing its doors.
my question, just real quick,not to get too deep into it, is
like, what made you want tostart something like that for
the Pokémon GO community?
Forte (02:16):
The big thing was just knowing how easy it is to use
some of the basic resources andseeing how many communities
weren't doing it just becausethey don't know how easy those
resources are to get to.
So my goal has always been tohelp other communities not only
just know what's out there, butknow how easy it is to just add
another extra level of presencefor their communities and to
help build their communitybetter.
David Hernandez (02:34):
And in your opinion, how can having a
website set up help build acommunity?
Forte (02:39):
It's way more memorable to send someone to a website
domain like pogo.
community, which is our own,rather than discord.
gg slash whatever letters.
It's a lot more easy to rememberif you're hosting a community
day, you run into some randomplayers who you've never met
before, lot easier to just givethem your website than having to
go through all the fuss oftrying to get them into a
discord with some random invitecode.
David Hernandez (03:01):
let's start from the beginning of your with
Pokemon and your experience withbuilding the community.
So did you first start playing?
Forte (03:07):
So as far as Pokemon in general, since as far as I can
remember, I remember waking upon Sunday morning, watch WB4 and
watch Pokemon growing up.
as far as Pokemon go, I wasactually close to a few people
who beta tested it in the earlydays.
I was an Ingress player.
So a lot of the Ingress playerswho got to beta test it, I was
already friends with.
So I got to see some of theearly beta tests of the game and
(03:28):
I joined day one.
I've been around ever since I'vetaken a couple of hiatuses, but
it always draws me back.
This game has just alwaysscratched a particular itch that
no other Pokemon game ever has.
David Hernandez (03:39):
In your opinion, what's different about
Pokemon Go than like maybe amain series or a Pokemon Ranger
or a spinoff game?
Like, what was it about PokemonGo?
Forte (03:47):
it's a community like I honestly anymore.
I'm not.
I don't even really play allthat much.
at least not compared to someothers.
It's always been about thecommunity for me.
the whole aspect of Pokemon gobeing this in person game, it's
what drew me into Ingress backin the day and, getting in
person with people has alwaysbeen the highlight of my gaming
experience, regardless whatgame, like conventions and
(04:09):
whatnot, that was always myfavorite part of getting a nerd
culture growing up.
Pokemon goes, scratches thatsame itch.
David Hernandez (04:15):
Now, you said that you prefer the community
aspect, so did you feel likemaybe those are lacking in the,
regular Pokemon, like, videogame scene compared to, Pokemon
Go, or is it just different?
Forte (04:24):
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure it exists.
It was never something I reallygot deep into.
when it came to my nerd culture,the most I ever did really for
in person stuff was, when I wasreally little, I went to a TCG
tournament.
I was a little, so I got my butthanded to me, but, I never
really got deeper into thatbecause as I started to get
older and old enough to reallybe more into it, I also got old
enough to have to be responsiblefor buying my own cards, which
(04:45):
meant I fell out of that prettyquick.
None of the other games reallynaturally led to an in person
experience, the same way Pokémondoes.
I'm sure if you're looking forit, there are for the main
series games and for all theothers, but Pokémon Go, first
and foremost, was an in persongame, so it pretty much forced
me into that, which...
would be normally outside of mycomfort zone, but because of how
long I've been in Pokemon Go,obviously it's became my comfort
(05:06):
zone.
David Hernandez (05:07):
That makes sense, especially if you
consider, you've been playingPokemon from the beginning,
right?
Forte (05:11):
main series, yeah, as long as I can remember, one of
my first Christmases that I canremember was a Game Boy Color,
with Pokemon Silver.
David Hernandez (05:17):
Oh, so you started with Johto,
Forte (05:18):
I also played first gen Kanto.
I don't remember it very well.
I know that I had it, but Idon't remember it.
I don't ever remember receivingit.
I just remember already havingit.
David Hernandez (05:27):
think about the early days, right?
This is before the internetbefore video games had online
ability You were reliant justlike Pokemon Go in a way of
having people around you,especially at our age, right?
Like I don't know how old youare, but like we're like maybe 8
to 11 that age.
There wasn't really that ofscene after the fandom.
It died down in a similar wayPokemon Go was.
Forte (05:47):
even growing up, there was a bit of it, but I also grew
up in a small town.
So even when I was big into it,it was always a solo experience
for me, even when online playstarted to get bigger, online
play doesn't have the samecommunity feel, so I still felt,
it was still a solo experienceby far and large.
David Hernandez (06:02):
And then with Pokemon Go, you're strongly
encouraged go out and meet otherpeople.
Forte (06:07):
Yeah, and especially in the beginning, you were forced.
Trying to play this game fromhome, especially in the
beginning, is just not fun.
At least not for me.
I don't know, I can't speak foreveryone, but, even now, even
with remote raid passes, evenwith as much play from home,
even during the pandemic, Thatwas when I took my hiatus during
the pandemic phase, wheneverything was being, play from
home phase.
(06:27):
I did not enjoy that.
I know it's reallycontroversial, but I've actually
enjoyed some of Niantic's tweaksand actions in terms of
rebalancing the game.
I've Got mixed feelings on itbecause obviously as a player
who wants to be able to doremote raids, I don't like the
price going up either.
And on the few times when, I amin a position where I can't go
out, I share the same feelingsas everyone else.
(06:47):
But I also value the in personstuff so much that it's a trade
off for me that's been worth it.
David Hernandez (06:53):
So you said you took a break during the pandemic
was just Pokemon go had becomelike a one person kind of style,
like what made you have to takea break?
Forte (07:00):
yeah, it was mostly that.
it was a combination of a fewdifferent factors in my personal
life as well where...
I enjoy the game for thecommunity aspect, and during
that time, due to a combinationof everything that was
happening, I didn't have thatcommunity aspect anymore.
I took a bit of a hiatus, notthat I had to, it's just I
wasn't interested, I mean, therewould be weeks at a time when
I'm not even open the gameduring that time.
(07:21):
Right before lockdown started, Ihad just moved across to a
different state, which meansthat I didn't get a chance to
get established with my localcommunity before lockdown
happened.
So I very much alone in my playwith me having my focus being so
much on the local communityfresh after a move, getting into
that like, I didn't have acommunity day meet up for over a
year and There were times when Ijust wasn't motivated to even
(07:44):
open it.
It's not that I had to take abreak, it's that I didn't want
to play.
It's just that I got, I wasbored of it.
I didn't want to do it because Ididn't have that community
aspect there.
David Hernandez (07:53):
Well, let's talk about your old community
real quick.
So before you moved, during thepandemic, was your old community
where you started playingPokemon go?
It was like, that was day one upuntil you moved.
Forte (08:02):
That was the second.
I initially started playing inCharlotte, North Carolina.
That's where I was living at thetime the game came out.
they were a big community, butthey were fairly unfocused.
I love Charlotte and all respectto the people who run the
discord server and everyonethere.
It's just, difficult to managethat big of a community.
their servers were huge.
so I didn't, I did a little bitof event hosting when I was
there.
(08:23):
that was a couple years intothat.
I had hosted a handful ofevents.
I hosted a GoFest meetup wherewe collected information on like
how many Pokemon people havecaught throughout the day.
So I was able to post some groupphotos and some statistics in
terms of, Hey, as a community,we caught, however many thousand
Pokemon that day.
even back then, even beforeCommunity Day was a thing, I
would try to host regularevents.
(08:44):
One of the specific things thatwe did was I organized the
Pokemon Go 3rd Saturday.
So In Ingress there was amonthly community event called
First Saturday.
It was an event that wasdesigned to help new players to
the game get oriented.
You'd have old players of thegame come out and meet up and
bring any of their new playersthat they're recruiting into the
(09:05):
game, It was always a bit of, itwas always a community building,
event.
Details don't really matter forthe purposes of Pokémon, but
that community building was hugewhen it came to the way I see
community.
David Hernandez (09:16):
So basically it sounds like the third Saturday
would be the veteran playerswould invite newer players from
a discord or a Facebook orwhatever, have you, and what
would they do when they wouldshow up during the event?
Forte (09:28):
Sure, yeah, so we want to get more into the details of
that.
Yeah, sure.
so to, get the foundation withthe Ingress side, Ingress for a
lot of people was the first gamethat they played where it was an
in person focused game.
some of the mechanics of Ingressmade it far more likely for
people to run into each otherand actually talk to each other.
Ingress was far more of a, teamgame.
If you playing solo in Ingress,you're not going to have very
(09:49):
much fun.
So you're very much incentivizedto talk to other players when
you run into them.
Obviously, they can't lean intothat as heavy with Pogo just
because of the whole safetyaspect with it being more of a
family friendly IP than an adultIP.
so you'd have veteran players,running in and introducing
themselves to new players thatthey find and they'd invite them
to first Saturday and during theevent the veteran players would,
there's not really an analog tothis in Pokemon Go, the closest
(10:12):
I could think of is, let's saythe veteran players go through
and wipe out all the gyms andletting the new players come and
reclaim them to help train themand get them experience in the
game and help them level up.
That's effectively what theywould do.
David Hernandez (10:26):
okay.
And you would do this forPokemon go, right?
Forte (10:29):
Kind of.
So I took the same spirit ofthat.
Obviously, claiming gyms inPokemon Go is not really a great
grinding mechanic.
there's not really a ton ofbenefit to grinding gym
claiming, all at the same time.
That's more of something you doover time so you can get the
coins.
What I translated that to was anevent where we gave prizes and
incentives for people to dothings like leveling up, like
(10:51):
total Pokemon caught, differentways that we could award players
for coming out and having funwith the game and the types of
things that we would rewardpeople for the types of
competitions and winners wouldbe balanced in terms of there
are some that were way easierfor a new person to the game to
play, like leveling up.
It's way easier for someonewho's new to the game to level
(11:12):
up than someone who is a longtime veteran.
we weren't able to do as much ofthe whole like mentorship kind
of thing.
It was mostly the angle of thecommunity building is where it
leaned into mostly when it cameto the Pokemon Go side.
David Hernandez (11:26):
Well, I think it's an interesting idea because
one of the biggest problemswithin the Pokemon Go community,
and you've probably experiencedthis with Ingress, there's no
instruction booklet that comeswith this.
Um, I'm on Reddit, I'm onFacebook, I'm on everywhere, and
a lot of people just don't knowabout some of the simple things
that, myself, you, and evenother veteran players know, that
we've known for years.
And I like that concept to whereyou're doing the third Saturday,
(11:48):
similar to Ingress, to wheremaybe there's an idea to where,
and maybe this goes beyond me,maybe the people, maybe leaders
who are listening to thisepisode can figure it out,
there's an idea to where wethink of some of the more
complicated stuff that comeswith Pokemon Go that needs
better explanation that youcan't do online, and develop
some kind of, almost like aminiature community day but to
where we do, we invite trainersout, maybe do some raids
(12:09):
together, Tell about the game,and it also brings people
together and I think there'ssomething there that I had never
thought of until it's somethingso simple until you somebody
else brings it up.
I'm like, why didn't I of thatkind of idea?
Forte (12:20):
And we still do that kind of stuff as as an after party
for community day.
So every community day we havean after party.
And so like I actually taught abunch of the people how to do
quick catch,
David Hernandez (12:30):
Exactly.
That's that's one of them.
Yeah, because if you try toexplain quick catch on text,
it's near impossible.
That's something that's perfect.
That's one of the good exampleright there.
Forte (12:38):
Yep.
Yep.
And there are a lot of peoplewho are like, they were worried
that, that kind of thing wascheating or whatever.
or like they were duping balls.
And I was also able to addressthose concerns as well.
Like, no, Niantic has, made veryclear that in game glitches are
not cheating.
I would reference the old,community ambassador FAQ page
where it would describe, hey,what do we define as cheating?
and I'd explain like why, hey,no, fast catch while it is
(12:59):
technically a glitch.
Totally acceptable.
And we actually encourage it aspart of our community's way of,
encouraging players to, havemore fun, get more of a
challenge, people love that kindof stuff.
David Hernandez (13:08):
where would you host this kind of event for
Pokemon Go?
would you go to a community spotor would you just pick a random
park or a mall?
Forte (13:13):
generally, I have found that parks are the best one.
what I would do in Charlotteback when, before Community Day
was a thing, we just rent ashelter at a local Pokémon GO
Hotspot Park, Because that'salso the most likely place for a
Pokémon GO player to be, even ifthey're not even aware of our
event.
That made it so that peoplecould discover us organically.
which, At the very beginning ofour events, a vast majority of
(13:35):
people had no idea the event washappening.
They just happened to be in thepark, see what we were doing,
cause we'd, I'd set up some sortof sign that says Pokemon Go
event or something like that.
And they'd just walk up, askwhat's going on, and we'd invite
them in, Clue them into all thedifferent places the community
was and they eventually turninto regulars.
I still have someone who didn'tknow we existed, but ever since
(13:55):
they stumbled upon us they havecame to every single community
meet up.
David Hernandez (13:59):
Wow, dang, so they're really dedicated ever
since being involved with yourgroup.
Forte (14:04):
yeah, and you've got a lot of different demographics in
Pokemon Go.
got some of the younger kids, orsome of the younger adults they
were Pokemon fans as a kid, andthey play for Pokemon.
You've also got a bunch of theolder crowd who didn't really
care for Pokemon, they didn'treally grow up with it or
anything, but they justdiscovered the game and just
legitimately enjoy it as theironly Pokemon go experience or
Pokemon experience.
This is one of those players.
They're one of the older playersin our community that have no
(14:26):
idea what Pokemon is outside ofPokemon go.
they are also one of the otherplayers who the community is
what pulls them in, and, we wantto be that for them.
David Hernandez (14:35):
what's your favorite part besides the
setting of events?
what's your way to play PokemonGo?
are you a shiny hunter or PVPcollector?
Like,
Forte (14:42):
Well,
David Hernandez (14:42):
style?
Forte (14:43):
as odd as it is, I am an extremely casual player when it
comes to my actual normal day today gameplay, but if I had to
pick one, it would be Gyms.
the territory war of Gymsreminds me more of my old
Ingress days.
one of the things that I lovedabout Ingress was that the Team
Turf War.
The both collaborative withinyour team, but also competitive
(15:04):
with the other team.
I've always been a fan of bothcollaboration and competition,
and that's In Ingress it was theperfect mix.
Pokemon Go, not many people careabout the competition of gyms,
but I still get a kick out ofrolling through town, flipping
every gym yellow and being ableto just look over at everything
I've claimed.
the coins for me are a bonus, Iclaim the gyms just for the
(15:25):
satisfaction of the turf war.
it's good, clean fun in myopinion.
David Hernandez (15:29):
So you basically have free reign
because most of the timeinstinct is the minority when it
comes to these turf wars, it'susually a valor or mystic,
right?
Forte (15:36):
And it varies a lot.
I've been, Ingress would alwayshave me traveling a lot to
different areas.
So I have got connections in abunch of different, smaller
towns around and differentcities and states.
so it would have me travelsometimes and I'd flip over to
Ingress and it varies a lot.
I've been to some towns whereinstinct was by far the
dominating force.
but in general, yeah, instinctusually not.
David Hernandez (15:55):
where's the hotspot to go whenever, like,
you have a community day or araid day?
Like, where's the area you go inthe town you're currently living
in?
Forte (16:02):
So that's going to be, our Riverwalk.
So I live in a town of Peru,Indiana.
and we have a Riverwalk Park.
it's a strip about a kilometeror two long.
and I know that because you canhatch a single two kilometer egg
less than a lap.
I don't know exactly what it is,but it's roughly that.
it's dense with Pokestops.
It's probably the best PokemonGo grinding spot, at least in my
(16:23):
opinion, for at least an hour todrive.
It's a relatively small town,but the town has a decent amount
of mix of historic and also justinformational plaques along the
Riverwalk.
it's one of the places where ourpark budget goes the most too,
just because it's one of ourtown's favorite parks and so
there's a good amount ofnominatable stuff along it, and
we've been building it for awhile.
David Hernandez (16:44):
So, by building it, I'm guessing, are you
involved in Wayfair?
Is it like, there's some
Forte (16:47):
oh yeah, sorry, I should probably be more clear.
Yeah, back when it was stilljust Ingress, I nominated most
of the portals in this town.
between me and my father, weboth played pretty hardcore in
this town, and we nominated mostof the ones that the game
started with.
So when Pokemon Go firstlaunched, everything that was
already here, They were mostlythings that me and my father
nominated through Ingress, butsince Pokemon Go has gained
(17:09):
access to, nominations as well,the Go community has gone crazy.
There's been a lot of greatbuilding here.
I would consider myself layingthe groundwork, but the
community, the local community,especially a local player we
have called Iceberg, They havedone a great job of making sure
everything stays filled in,especially as new things get
built, they've been on top ofthings.
David Hernandez (17:27):
So you said you laid the groundwork, like you
started the city, but You seethese Pokemon Go players who are
building on top of what youbuilt.
what goes through your mind whenyou see these Pokemon players
being so active trying to addPOI to the city you and your
father first started?
Forte (17:41):
Yeah.
so when Ingress first started,they used a generic, it's called
a historical marker database.
HMDB.
I believe it's HMDB.
org.
They started with just theirdatabase.
And we only had I want to saythree or four POIs in our town.
we nominated a bunch.
and so yeah, there's thegroundwork there.
And then as far as seeing the GOcommunity take over, I'll be
(18:04):
completely honest, as an Ingressveteran, I was extremely
nervous, because anytime thatyou crowdsource something like
this.
While having a low barrier toentry is great for letting
players have fun, when it comesto doing things like building
the Wayfarer network, havingthat low barrier to entry also
means A lot more crap getsthrough, just to be blunt.
and so I was really nervousabout that and I have seen where
(18:25):
in some communities it's gonebad.
But, at least as far as my localcommunity, it's been awesome.
I have been extremely proud ofmy local community.
I have also seen some where it'snot been quite so positive.
I'm sure you've seenoccasionally on social media,
those areas where someone usesit, someone abuses the system to
cram like a hundred Pokestops ina really tight spot and it's all
(18:45):
fake.
It, those actual nominationsaren't there.
they've just been abusing thewayfarer edit system.
it's a mixed bag.
When you have that low barrierto entry, it's easy for people
who have good intentions, butit's also easy for people who
have bad intentions.
David Hernandez (18:58):
Now, with your experience with Pokemon, do you
have any favorite Pokemon atall?
Forte (19:03):
I always feel so basic when people ask me this
question, because it's alwaysbeen Pikachu.
just because he's always beenthe mascot, and ever since I was
a little kid, he's always beenthe one who I've been the most
emotionally attached to, becausehe's, he's the show made you
emotionally attached to.
Like, when I was a kid, theepisode in the, I believe it was
the first season of the anime,where Ash almost, said goodbye
(19:25):
to Pikachu.
David Hernandez (19:26):
I was a tearjerker.
Forte (19:27):
It was! even, so I have the song from that episode in
some of my playlists, and Istill get emotional listening to
that song.
David Hernandez (19:35):
you didn't know as a kid, like if this was
permanent and even the ending ofhow it ended, it's a happy
ending and you still getemotional about it.
So it was a mixed feelings.
I remember that episode veryclearly.
I couldn't it it always made mevery sad.
Forte (19:48):
Mm hmm.
Or the Butterfree one.
Yep.
but yeah, absolutely.
so anyway, the Pokemon companyat a very early age did a really
great job of imprinting Pikachuon me in such a way that it's an
informed favorite.
It's not necessary.
It's not just a basic favorite.
If though, I set that aside,I've always been a big fan of
Lucario and Shinx.
I like the blue color schemes,and.
they've just always been myfavorite for some reason or
(20:08):
another.
David Hernandez (20:09):
So, going back to your experience with setting
up events and trying to getinvolved with the community,
what makes you want to set upall these events?
Because it's a lot of hard work,you don't get paid for it, at
least I don't think you do.
what drives you to want to makethese events for people to get
involved, for people toexperience Pokémon GO?
Forte (20:25):
at first it was just, I want to be able to attend to
this event, no one around me isbuilding it.
I want to be able to attend.
So the only thing left to do ismake it myself.
that's how it started, butanymore, like I get so much
enjoyment out of theorganization like That
satisfaction of buildingsomething and being successful
at it.
That's become a very core partof my Pokemon Go experience in
(20:46):
general.
I'll lean more into my mostrecent community building
experience like I said, I livein a small town, in Peru,
Indiana.
When I first moved here, like Isaid before, it was around the
time the pandemic lockdownstarted and there basically was
no in person community.
By that time, everyone waspretty much staying home, the
game was mostly dead, and as thecommunity, as the people in the
area started playing more often,as the Discord server that did
(21:08):
exist started getting moreactivity, almost everyone was
just doing remote raids.
I didn't really engage withanyone in person.
It was always, hey, you guyswant a raid?
Sure, send me an invite.
And I'm like, that's not reallywhat I wanted, but sure.
As the pressure from COVIDstarted to loosen up a bit, I
started trying to just jumpright into it hosting a
community day event.
Basically no one showed up.
so I decided to re...
(21:29):
I decided to pivot a little bit.
I make these little...
You know the gifts that you sendto each other in game?
David Hernandez (21:35):
Yes,
Forte (21:36):
Niantic a few years back for GoFest released a little
paper version of that, but itwas really small.
If you were to have made it, itwas so small.
So what I did was I took thatbasic design and I scaled it up.
I redesigned it from scratch andscaled it up to where the final
gift box was about six inchestall.
And I hid those as scavengerhunt prizes throughout the park.
(21:57):
At first I made them reallyobvious where they were, so that
anyone playing Pokemon Go wouldsee them without even having to
look for them.
And I slowly started to hidethem a bit better, and
eventually, people in theDiscord community started asking
about them, like, Hey! You know,is that happening this month?
Are you doing that again thismonth?
And at that point, I knew I hadthe community like ready to
actually start being in personagain.
(22:18):
I knew I had enough peopleinterested that we could
actually host an event.
definitely still started outsmall.
I think our first community daymeetup was about 10 people.
But over time, it started to getbigger and bigger.
Our biggest event so far hadabout 60 people and that's
included.
David Hernandez (22:31):
That's crazy.
Forte (22:32):
Yeah, that's including kids.
To be fair.
if I weren't to include thekids, probably would be around
40 to 50.
we keep check in stats.
So I actually have a list ofevery player name who's attended
all of our events.
We check them in by player name.
but the satisfaction of beingable to build these events and
give people so much fun.
there are people who drive in toour meetup from over an hour
away.
(22:52):
They come from one of the biggertowns nearby that doesn't really
have much of an in personPokemon Go community, or at
least not a community daycommunity.
and so they drive in and it's,always been great.
Just to illustrate how my focusof the game has shifted so much
into the community organizingside.
Every month I buy the communityday ticket and I also will
randomly give it away to a fewof our locals through my friends
(23:14):
list, occasionally, justrandomly, I will gift them the
Community Day ticket, justbecause, I've got a budget I've
set for myself for in apppurchases, and if I've not
reached it by the time thatcomes around, I'll usually burn
it that way, just to give thelocals a bit more incentive to
come out and join us for theevent.
I don't have it in front of me,but I've got many, I've got
(23:35):
about almost a half dozencommunity day researches that
I've never completed justbecause I was so focused on
hosting that I forgot to play.
David Hernandez (23:43):
It gets very difficult whenever you're the
leader and you're trying to makesure everybody else has a good
time that you kind of take careof the stuff that you have to
do.
It's oh, crud.
I needed to take care of this isa year and a half old,
Forte (23:53):
yeah, but also it's that I'm having so much fun being the
organizer.
I'm having so much fun being theMC for the event that I mean, I
probably so I have a co adminand if I really wanted to
prioritize my own gameplay, Icould take turns with her.
my co admins DJ Raven Wolf,she's been instrumental to
building the community with me.
The first year or so I was doingit by myself.
(24:14):
But once I started beinginterested in Hosting again, and
actually started having thesemeetups again.
I reached out to another localwho was, pretty active in the
server and I'm like, Hey, you'repretty active.
Would you be interested inhelping with this?
at the time, this was shortlyafter Niantic had originally
announced the communityambassador program.
and I decided that, hey, I wantto get into this community
(24:34):
ambassador program.
Will you help me?
And from there we were able todo them.
So I could, the only reason Ibring her up was that if I
really wanted to, if I wasreally missing out on it, I
could probably organize with herto take shifts, so to speak at
the shelter.
David Hernandez (24:47):
right?
Forte (24:48):
I just have so much fun being there as the MC like it's
not that I'm so busy that Ican't do it.
It's that I'm having so much funhosting that I forget to do it.
David Hernandez (24:57):
there's two things that come to mind with
everything you said.
The first one was you saidsomebody coming from a bigger
city to your small townexperience community day.
That to me shows how much you'vespent time trying to build
something up because you alwayshear the opposite, right?
Of people from a small town haveto go to a big town.
And now for you, this 1 is theopposite.
(25:17):
the 2nd thing was I actuallylooked up Peru, Indiana.
So for those who are curious,the population is of 11, 073.
So you're not a, You really area small town and my question
really is this because one ofthe big counter arguments for
the remote raids is that itreally alienates a lot of the
rural small town areas which, itis difficult, I know using
(25:38):
English player, I'm a pogoplayer, I do Wayfair, I know
there's not much out there.
usually we have to go out thereto be able to build it up.
My question is this is What kindof advice could you give
somebody who maybe isn't a smalltown, who maybe not, doesn't
have either a community or anorganized community, is there a
way for them to build it up fromwhat your experience?
Forte (25:55):
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
at the end of the day, there'sonly so many people who already
play in your area.
So when it comes to buildingcommunities, I'll say like, when
I first got here, there was onlymaybe Two or three people who
were actually active in thediscord server.
so what you do is you work onbringing more people in.
One of my biggest pushes in theearly days of building my
(26:16):
community was Sharing my eventsinto not Pokemon specific
groups, but local specificgroups, peru events, Miami
County events.
I'd share it into there and Iwould pitch it to people as a
family activity.
Hey, even if you don't alreadyplay, come out, give it a shot,
it's a lot of fun.
It's a good family friendlyactivity.
and day, I still that.
I regularly share our eventsinto our local.
(26:37):
city groups, not specificallyjust the Pogo groups.
Our town, Facebook is theprimary platform as, as much as
I'm not a big fan of Facebookpersonally, it's where most of
our town does its onlinesocializing, there's not a
Reddit community for our town.
it's mostly Facebook groups.
every single month as soon as Ihad details posted in there and
pitch it to people as a hey,come out and have some fun with
(27:00):
your family.
one of the biggest things is wewould pitch it to the local
Facebook groups as a familyactivity.
and we would make sure thatwe're constantly, Hey, here's
the game, here's how to play.
recently, there has been fullfamilies that come out.
there's a, family of six, theynow come out for almost all of
our events and that's a full sixdifferent people that come to
the events now, that all playtogether as a family.
(27:20):
We recruited one family, but sixpeople.
That's a lot when you can, whenit comes to these kinds of
events.
And so by targeting that generalarea, you're able to build a
community faster because you'renot just relying on trying to
pull people in who already likePokemon go.
David Hernandez (27:35):
You're trying to get more people who maybe not
touch the game come in andthat's a really creative
strategy to be able to recruitpeople to come play the game to
where, yeah, you may be the onlyperson or maybe the only two or
three, but it doesn't have to bethat way.
There's a lot of people who'venever played this game before.
Forte (27:51):
Absolutely.
and not to mention the fact thatfamilies are a great way to
build a community or build theturnout to the events faster
because you're getting a wholefamily.
you're not just inviting asingle player.
You're inviting a whole family.
That's a great way to build yournumbers faster and once you
start to get to a certain numberfor your events, they're big
enough like if you see twopeople sitting at a shelter in a
(28:12):
park, you're not going to thinkmuch of it, but if you see 12
people at a shelter in a park,you're going to be more curious
of what's going on.
It allows you to have it so thatthe bigger you build the faster
you can build your community.
so much of our community growthis through people just seeing
our events during community day,seeing us as an event as a group
during community day and askingwhat's going on and joining us
(28:35):
that way.
David Hernandez (28:36):
You know, you talk about how you built a
community and now you're doingthat with the recent
announcement of the Silph roadyou're doing that through the
Pogo community checkpoint.
can you talk about that?
Like share what that's aboutpeople who are listening,
Forte (28:48):
Oh, absolutely.
as I was going through communitybuilding, there have been a
number of different ways that Ihave tried to share this
experience and the resourcesthat I've done and the knowledge
that I've learned the hard way.
there's been a few things thatI've definitely learned the hard
way.
Silph Road was always somethingI recommended people get
involved with if they want tobuild a community because the
Silph League resources weregreat.
(29:10):
Being able to have the travelercard system to be able to
motivate people to check in,hey, if you come to our event,
you'll earn a badge.
you have this like reward forattending these events that
Silph Road allowed us to be ableto provide.
That was a great resource.
And then on top of that, SilphRoad brought us together in the
Silph League Discord server ascommunity leaders, where we were
(29:30):
able to have a lot of crosspollination of different ideas
because I discovered theVancouver Pokémon GO community
through Silph League, I nowfollow them, and I regularly get
motivation or I regularly getideas from stuff that they do.
I will regularly have, thePokemon Go Vancouver Facebook
page pop up on my feed.
I'm like, oh, that's so cool, weshould try that.
(29:51):
The Silph League is what gave usa community where that cross
pollination of ideas was able tohappen.
Them shutting down without anysort of replacement is going to
severely negatively impactpeople's ability to grow their
communities.
Existing communities like myown, it's not going to be
affected that badly by Silphgoing away.
But Silph provided so manyresources for people who are
just starting out to make iteasier.
(30:12):
It's so much easier to make aFacebook event and attract
people if you already have areally pretty graphic to be able
to attach to it.
Silph Road putting out thosegraphics made it so that people
could have more inviting ways topublish their events without
having to be a graphic designerthemselves.
that's one of the ways you builda community is by being able to
put your best foot forward andSilph Road allowed a lot of
(30:32):
growing communities to do that.
and You know, fan fanboyingabout Silk Road enough as
unfortunately, they did announcetheir closure.
there was a project that I'vehad on the back burner for
years.
originally, it was called 3rdSaturday, which I touched on.
It eventually was renamed totrainer services.
But shortly after Silph Roadstarted doing Community Day, it
died out because it was largelyunnecessary.
(30:53):
Silph Road was already biggerthan us and they were already
doing it better than us at thetime.
that project eventually just,melted into the background.
over the past year or so, I wastrying to revive it with
something called Pogo Pages,Pogo Pages was, basically, I
wanted a domain name anactual...
proper website address that Icould direct people to during
community day instead of havingto try to remember a long
(31:16):
discord invite code, becausethere were a lot of people who
they weren't discord friendly.
They weren't Pokemon go friendlyalready.
They were Barely use theirsmartphone, but they were
interested in joining us becausethey saw what we were having
going on.
I bought the website pogo.
community, or the, I bought thedomain pogo.
community and started using itfor my own group.
I have a URL,7Pidgeys.pogo.community.
(31:38):
Way easier to remember that.
Way easier for people to typethat in when they're trying to
find us.
I realized that it costs menothing extra to add other
communities.
So anything that's before thatfirst dot, so sevenpigees.
pogo, let's say nyc.
pogo.
community, any community name,it doesn't actually financially
cost me anything to add, whatare called subdomains.
(31:59):
so I decided to start sharingthat with them, with some of my
other community leaderconnections.
I've got connections inIndianapolis.
I've got connections in St.
Louis.
so I've, reached out to them andI'm like, Hey, would you guys be
interested in having your own,actual domain website?
Not having to be on some sortof, discord.
gg slash whatever randomcharacters.
And there was enough interestthat I decided, well, hey, I
want to make this accessible toeveryone.
(32:20):
I don't want people to have toknow me to be able to get access
to this.
So I started the website,pages.pogo.Community, where any
Pokemon Go community could go torequest a free website and it is
completely free.
there are some limitationsbecause of how manually it has
to be set up.
I can only set up so many, so asthings start to pick back up,
there will likely be like a waitlist system or something.
I've not decided exactly how allthat exactly is going to
(32:42):
function.
But basically, you go to thewebsite, there's a gallery of
templates that you can get ofyour website, you choose a
template, you tell me what youwant it to be and I set you up
with a website that is based onGoogle sites.
It's really easy to use.
You don't have to be tech savvyat all.
If you know how to edit a Googledoc, you can set up this
website.
Really simple.
So I wanted to have people whohave access to that.
(33:04):
Well, fast forward a couple ofweeks, silph Road announces
they're sunsetting, they'reclosing down.
All those community cards wherepeople would, because a lot of
people use their Silph Roadcommunity page as their landing
page.
Hey, go to our Silph, SilphRoad.
com slash C slash theircommunity name.
at that point, they'd have linksto their, their Facebook, their
discord, their all that, butthat was going away, people
didn't have access to that.
(33:24):
So I.
decided to pivot that pagesproject into what we're now
calling pogo communitycheckpoint.
Silph in general is leaving alot of holes.
Silph Arena, the PvP side, SilphRoad, the website where they set
up things like the raids, thecommunity maps, the research
information, lot of differentspaces that Silph filled.
with this project, pivoting itto be able to, I don't want to
(33:46):
say replace because no one canever really replace Silph.
they were invaluable.
But I'm hoping to carry thespirit of Silph League on
specifically, where Silph Leagueis specifically that effort to
help those grassroots communityorganizers, give everyone in a
place where those crosspollination of ideas can happen,
and support people by doingthings like Publishing community
day assets, giving them accessto resources like a free
(34:09):
website, helping them with othersorts of things, like having a
place where someone can say,Hey, I'm trying to build my
community.
Here's what I've tried so far.
How can I do better?
what can I do to have acommunity day, allowing, people
with my myself who have theexperience in building that kind
of stuff and hopefully more,allowing a channel, allowing a
space where you can have thatcross pollination of ideas and
trying to foster it.
David Hernandez (34:30):
That's awesome, man.
there's so many amazing peopleworking behind the scenes who
take the initiative and think ofthese creative ideas they don't
just wait and just let thingshappen.
They really just take, we callit, take the bull by the horns
here in Texas and run with it.
And just hearing just howpassionate you are about trying
to cross pollinate ideas,because I learned so much just
hearing this just now.
(34:51):
I'm like, you clearly you'vebeen around people who work with
communities who live and breathetrying to build these areas up.
And that's the only way thatthis game is going to survive
is, People like you andeverybody else learn from each
other and be able to take theideas back to our communities
and try to build them back post2020
Forte (35:08):
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
I'll just say, I can shout outone person who is running the
Community Day League, if you'veheard of it.
Community Day League is like alittle competitive angle on
Community Day, where you cancheck in and compete on the
total number of Community DayPokémon you've caught, total
shinies, there's a whole scoringsystem.
MakoMW is their Discord handle.
I'm not sure what their in gamename is or what they prefer to
(35:29):
go by, but they run theCommunity Day League and It's
something that I am so proud oflike I wish I were more and I
wish I would have thought to dothat myself because it's such a
great way of accomplishingsomething that I've always
wanted to which was makeCommunity Day more of a
collaborative event rather thanjust a bunch of people in the
same place, If you're notfamiliar with Community Day
League, one of the things thatthey do is they allow
(35:51):
communities to compete againsteach other.
And you get a personal score,but also your personal score
contributes to your communityscore.
there's a big spirit ofcollaboration within your
community, on top of thatcompetitive within the
community, which, as I mentionedin Ingress, that mix of
collaboration and competitionhas always been something that's
been a really big motivator forme.
so if anyone listening hasn'theard of the Community to
(36:11):
League, I highly recommendlooking into it.
I'm hoping to collaborate withthem more with the Checkpoint
project because they are doingsome really great things.
David Hernandez (36:18):
forte that's the show but before we do go if
people wanted to get connectedwith you to set up the website
or to get involved with yourproject how can they get a hold
of you where can they go by allmeans please plug away.
Forte (36:30):
So our best place is to start is just pogo.community..
that's going to be the base forall of our other sub projects.
if you go there, you can getinto the discord server.
The banner at the top isacknowledging silver road
sunset.
And there's a link to actuallyjoin our discord server.
The discord server is where amajority of the activity is
happening as the activity startsto stabilize more.
(36:51):
It'll flow back to the website.
So if you don't have a discord,you can just keep an eye on the
website that will get updated intime.
David Hernandez (36:56):
Cool beans and I'll make sure to include links
to everything that he said inthe description of today's
episode.
Thank you for listening to Asthe Pokéball Turns.
If you want to support the show,consider becoming a patron by
either clicking the link in thedescription or going to
patreon.com/asthepokéballturns.
Now here's a sneak peek for thenext episode of As the Pokéball
Turns.
My name is David Hernandez, and you're
(00:01):
listening to As the PokeballTurns.
(00:44):
Welcome to As the PokeballTurns, where the stories are
real and people still play thisgame.
With Silph Road closing itsdoors, it left behind a huge
hole to be filled in Pokemon Go.
While yes, Project Zygarde isunderway, determined to promote
and grow the future ofgrassroots PvP.
What about the other side ofSilph?
The community building, theconnection that Silph Road was
(01:05):
able to do for so long.
You think of the Silph Map wherelocal communities had a place
where trainers could place theircommunity for others to find.
You think of the Traveler's Cardthat validated trainer's
attendance at events orcompleting raid challenges.
Not to mention, Silph Roadprovided infographics for
communities to use to promoteevents and give a professional
look for communities who may nothave a graphic designer readily
(01:27):
available.
In this episode, my guest isattempting to fill that hole
Silph Road left behind.
With a passion for hostingevents and growing his
community, he has been workingon developing tools to assist in
growing other communities andsharing his knowledge with
others.
from Peru, Indiana Here is hisorigin story into the world of
Pokemon Go.
This is Forte! Now today, I'mjoined by the founder of the
(01:50):
Pokemon community checkpoint,Forte.
Forte, welcome to the show.
Forte (01:54):
All right, thank you for having me.
David Hernandez (01:56):
Definitely.
And we've talked a lot just givesome background to people who
may not know who you are.
You have a lot of backgroundknowledge on the website and
you're even trying to start anew one based on the recent
announcement of the Silph Roadclosing its doors.
my question, just real quick,not to get too deep into it, is
like, what made you want tostart something like that for
the Pokémon GO community?
Forte (02:16):
The big thing was just knowing how easy it is to use
some of the basic resources andseeing how many communities
weren't doing it just becausethey don't know how easy those
resources are to get to.
So my goal has always been tohelp other communities not only
just know what's out there, butknow how easy it is to just add
another extra level of presencefor their communities and to
help build their communitybetter.
David Hernandez (02:34):
And in your opinion, how can having a
website set up help build acommunity?
Forte (02:39):
It's way more memorable to send someone to a website
domain like pogo.
community, which is our own,rather than discord.
gg slash whatever letters.
It's a lot more easy to rememberif you're hosting a community
day, you run into some randomplayers who you've never met
before, lot easier to just givethem your website than having to
go through all the fuss oftrying to get them into a
discord with some random invitecode.
David Hernandez (03:01):
let's start from the beginning of your with
Pokemon and your experience withbuilding the community.
So did you first start playing?
Forte (03:07):
So as far as Pokemon in general, since as far as I can
remember, I remember waking upon Sunday morning, watch WB4 and
watch Pokemon growing up.
as far as Pokemon go, I wasactually close to a few people
who beta tested it in the earlydays.
I was an Ingress player.
So a lot of the Ingress playerswho got to beta test it, I was
already friends with.
So I got to see some of theearly beta tests of the game and
(03:28):
I joined day one.
I've been around ever since I'vetaken a couple of hiatuses, but
it always draws me back.
This game has just alwaysscratched a particular itch that
no other Pokemon game ever has.
David Hernandez (03:39):
In your opinion, what's different about
Pokemon Go than like maybe amain series or a Pokemon Ranger
or a spinoff game?
Like, what was it about PokemonGo?
Forte (03:47):
it's a community like I honestly anymore.
I'm not.
I don't even really play allthat much.
at least not compared to someothers.
It's always been about thecommunity for me.
the whole aspect of Pokemon gobeing this in person game, it's
what drew me into Ingress backin the day and, getting in
person with people has alwaysbeen the highlight of my gaming
experience, regardless whatgame, like conventions and
(04:09):
whatnot, that was always myfavorite part of getting a nerd
culture growing up.
Pokemon goes, scratches thatsame itch.
David Hernandez (04:15):
Now, you said that you prefer the community
aspect, so did you feel likemaybe those are lacking in the,
regular Pokemon, like, videogame scene compared to, Pokemon
Go, or is it just different?
Forte (04:24):
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure it exists.
It was never something I reallygot deep into.
when it came to my nerd culture,the most I ever did really for
in person stuff was, when I wasreally little, I went to a TCG
tournament.
I was a little, so I got my butthanded to me, but, I never
really got deeper into thatbecause as I started to get
older and old enough to reallybe more into it, I also got old
enough to have to be responsiblefor buying my own cards, which
(04:45):
meant I fell out of that prettyquick.
None of the other games reallynaturally led to an in person
experience, the same way Pokémondoes.
I'm sure if you're looking forit, there are for the main
series games and for all theothers, but Pokémon Go, first
and foremost, was an in persongame, so it pretty much forced
me into that, which...
would be normally outside of mycomfort zone, but because of how
long I've been in Pokemon Go,obviously it's became my comfort
(05:06):
zone.
David Hernandez (05:07):
That makes sense, especially if you
consider, you've been playingPokemon from the beginning,
right?
Forte (05:11):
main series, yeah, as long as I can remember, one of
my first Christmases that I canremember was a Game Boy Color,
with Pokemon Silver.
David Hernandez (05:17):
Oh, so you started with Johto,
Forte (05:18):
I also played first gen Kanto.
I don't remember it very well.
I know that I had it, but Idon't remember it.
I don't ever remember receivingit.
I just remember already havingit.
David Hernandez (05:27):
think about the early days, right?
This is before the internetbefore video games had online
ability You were reliant justlike Pokemon Go in a way of
having people around you,especially at our age, right?
Like I don't know how old youare, but like we're like maybe 8
to 11 that age.
There wasn't really that ofscene after the fandom.
It died down in a similar wayPokemon Go was.
Forte (05:47):
even growing up, there was a bit of it, but I also grew
up in a small town.
So even when I was big into it,it was always a solo experience
for me, even when online playstarted to get bigger, online
play doesn't have the samecommunity feel, so I still felt,
it was still a solo experienceby far and large.
David Hernandez (06:02):
And then with Pokemon Go, you're strongly
encouraged go out and meet otherpeople.
Forte (06:07):
Yeah, and especially in the beginning, you were forced.
Trying to play this game fromhome, especially in the
beginning, is just not fun.
At least not for me.
I don't know, I can't speak foreveryone, but, even now, even
with remote raid passes, evenwith as much play from home,
even during the pandemic, Thatwas when I took my hiatus during
the pandemic phase, wheneverything was being, play from
home phase.
(06:27):
I did not enjoy that.
I know it's reallycontroversial, but I've actually
enjoyed some of Niantic's tweaksand actions in terms of
rebalancing the game.
I've Got mixed feelings on itbecause obviously as a player
who wants to be able to doremote raids, I don't like the
price going up either.
And on the few times when, I amin a position where I can't go
out, I share the same feelingsas everyone else.
(06:47):
But I also value the in personstuff so much that it's a trade
off for me that's been worth it.
David Hernandez (06:53):
So you said you took a break during the pandemic
was just Pokemon go had becomelike a one person kind of style,
like what made you have to takea break?
Forte (07:00):
yeah, it was mostly that.
it was a combination of a fewdifferent factors in my personal
life as well where...
I enjoy the game for thecommunity aspect, and during
that time, due to a combinationof everything that was
happening, I didn't have thatcommunity aspect anymore.
I took a bit of a hiatus, notthat I had to, it's just I
wasn't interested, I mean, therewould be weeks at a time when
I'm not even open the gameduring that time.
(07:21):
Right before lockdown started, Ihad just moved across to a
different state, which meansthat I didn't get a chance to
get established with my localcommunity before lockdown
happened.
So I very much alone in my playwith me having my focus being so
much on the local communityfresh after a move, getting into
that like, I didn't have acommunity day meet up for over a
year and There were times when Ijust wasn't motivated to even
(07:44):
open it.
It's not that I had to take abreak, it's that I didn't want
to play.
It's just that I got, I wasbored of it.
I didn't want to do it because Ididn't have that community
aspect there.
David Hernandez (07:53):
Well, let's talk about your old community
real quick.
So before you moved, during thepandemic, was your old community
where you started playingPokemon go?
It was like, that was day one upuntil you moved.
Forte (08:02):
That was the second.
I initially started playing inCharlotte, North Carolina.
That's where I was living at thetime the game came out.
they were a big community, butthey were fairly unfocused.
I love Charlotte and all respectto the people who run the
discord server and everyonethere.
It's just, difficult to managethat big of a community.
their servers were huge.
so I didn't, I did a little bitof event hosting when I was
there.
(08:23):
that was a couple years intothat.
I had hosted a handful ofevents.
I hosted a GoFest meetup wherewe collected information on like
how many Pokemon people havecaught throughout the day.
So I was able to post some groupphotos and some statistics in
terms of, Hey, as a community,we caught, however many thousand
Pokemon that day.
even back then, even beforeCommunity Day was a thing, I
would try to host regularevents.
(08:44):
One of the specific things thatwe did was I organized the
Pokemon Go 3rd Saturday.
So In Ingress there was amonthly community event called
First Saturday.
It was an event that wasdesigned to help new players to
the game get oriented.
You'd have old players of thegame come out and meet up and
bring any of their new playersthat they're recruiting into the
(09:05):
game, It was always a bit of, itwas always a community building,
event.
Details don't really matter forthe purposes of Pokémon, but
that community building was hugewhen it came to the way I see
community.
David Hernandez (09:16):
So basically it sounds like the third Saturday
would be the veteran playerswould invite newer players from
a discord or a Facebook orwhatever, have you, and what
would they do when they wouldshow up during the event?
Forte (09:28):
Sure, yeah, so we want to get more into the details of
that.
Yeah, sure.
so to, get the foundation withthe Ingress side, Ingress for a
lot of people was the first gamethat they played where it was an
in person focused game.
some of the mechanics of Ingressmade it far more likely for
people to run into each otherand actually talk to each other.
Ingress was far more of a, teamgame.
If you playing solo in Ingress,you're not going to have very
(09:49):
much fun.
So you're very much incentivizedto talk to other players when
you run into them.
Obviously, they can't lean intothat as heavy with Pogo just
because of the whole safetyaspect with it being more of a
family friendly IP than an adultIP.
so you'd have veteran players,running in and introducing
themselves to new players thatthey find and they'd invite them
to first Saturday and during theevent the veteran players would,
there's not really an analog tothis in Pokemon Go, the closest
(10:12):
I could think of is, let's saythe veteran players go through
and wipe out all the gyms andletting the new players come and
reclaim them to help train themand get them experience in the
game and help them level up.
That's effectively what theywould do.
David Hernandez (10:26):
okay.
And you would do this forPokemon go, right?
Forte (10:29):
Kind of.
So I took the same spirit ofthat.
Obviously, claiming gyms inPokemon Go is not really a great
grinding mechanic.
there's not really a ton ofbenefit to grinding gym
claiming, all at the same time.
That's more of something you doover time so you can get the
coins.
What I translated that to was anevent where we gave prizes and
incentives for people to dothings like leveling up, like
(10:51):
total Pokemon caught, differentways that we could award players
for coming out and having funwith the game and the types of
things that we would rewardpeople for the types of
competitions and winners wouldbe balanced in terms of there
are some that were way easierfor a new person to the game to
play, like leveling up.
It's way easier for someonewho's new to the game to level
(11:12):
up than someone who is a longtime veteran.
we weren't able to do as much ofthe whole like mentorship kind
of thing.
It was mostly the angle of thecommunity building is where it
leaned into mostly when it cameto the Pokemon Go side.
David Hernandez (11:26):
Well, I think it's an interesting idea because
one of the biggest problemswithin the Pokemon Go community,
and you've probably experiencedthis with Ingress, there's no
instruction booklet that comeswith this.
Um, I'm on Reddit, I'm onFacebook, I'm on everywhere, and
a lot of people just don't knowabout some of the simple things
that, myself, you, and evenother veteran players know, that
we've known for years.
And I like that concept to whereyou're doing the third Saturday,
(11:48):
similar to Ingress, to wheremaybe there's an idea to where,
and maybe this goes beyond me,maybe the people, maybe leaders
who are listening to thisepisode can figure it out,
there's an idea to where wethink of some of the more
complicated stuff that comeswith Pokemon Go that needs
better explanation that youcan't do online, and develop
some kind of, almost like aminiature community day but to
where we do, we invite trainersout, maybe do some raids
(12:09):
together, Tell about the game,and it also brings people
together and I think there'ssomething there that I had never
thought of until it's somethingso simple until you somebody
else brings it up.
I'm like, why didn't I of thatkind of idea?
Forte (12:20):
And we still do that kind of stuff as as an after party
for community day.
So every community day we havean after party.
And so like I actually taught abunch of the people how to do
quick catch,
David Hernandez (12:30):
Exactly.
That's that's one of them.
Yeah, because if you try toexplain quick catch on text,
it's near impossible.
That's something that's perfect.
That's one of the good exampleright there.
Forte (12:38):
Yep.
Yep.
And there are a lot of peoplewho are like, they were worried
that, that kind of thing wascheating or whatever.
or like they were duping balls.
And I was also able to addressthose concerns as well.
Like, no, Niantic has, made veryclear that in game glitches are
not cheating.
I would reference the old,community ambassador FAQ page
where it would describe, hey,what do we define as cheating?
and I'd explain like why, hey,no, fast catch while it is
(12:59):
technically a glitch.
Totally acceptable.
And we actually encourage it aspart of our community's way of,
encouraging players to, havemore fun, get more of a
challenge, people love that kindof stuff.
David Hernandez (13:08):
where would you host this kind of event for
Pokemon Go?
would you go to a community spotor would you just pick a random
park or a mall?
Forte (13:13):
generally, I have found that parks are the best one.
what I would do in Charlotteback when, before Community Day
was a thing, we just rent ashelter at a local Pokémon GO
Hotspot Park, Because that'salso the most likely place for a
Pokémon GO player to be, even ifthey're not even aware of our
event.
That made it so that peoplecould discover us organically.
which, At the very beginning ofour events, a vast majority of
(13:35):
people had no idea the event washappening.
They just happened to be in thepark, see what we were doing,
cause we'd, I'd set up some sortof sign that says Pokemon Go
event or something like that.
And they'd just walk up, askwhat's going on, and we'd invite
them in, Clue them into all thedifferent places the community
was and they eventually turninto regulars.
I still have someone who didn'tknow we existed, but ever since
(13:55):
they stumbled upon us they havecame to every single community
meet up.
David Hernandez (13:59):
Wow, dang, so they're really dedicated ever
since being involved with yourgroup.
Forte (14:04):
yeah, and you've got a lot of different demographics in
Pokemon Go.
got some of the younger kids, orsome of the younger adults they
were Pokemon fans as a kid, andthey play for Pokemon.
You've also got a bunch of theolder crowd who didn't really
care for Pokemon, they didn'treally grow up with it or
anything, but they justdiscovered the game and just
legitimately enjoy it as theironly Pokemon go experience or
Pokemon experience.
This is one of those players.
They're one of the older playersin our community that have no
(14:26):
idea what Pokemon is outside ofPokemon go.
they are also one of the otherplayers who the community is
what pulls them in, and, we wantto be that for them.
David Hernandez (14:35):
what's your favorite part besides the
setting of events?
what's your way to play PokemonGo?
are you a shiny hunter or PVPcollector?
Like,
Forte (14:42):
Well,
David Hernandez (14:42):
style?
Forte (14:43):
as odd as it is, I am an extremely casual player when it
comes to my actual normal day today gameplay, but if I had to
pick one, it would be Gyms.
the territory war of Gymsreminds me more of my old
Ingress days.
one of the things that I lovedabout Ingress was that the Team
Turf War.
The both collaborative withinyour team, but also competitive
(15:04):
with the other team.
I've always been a fan of bothcollaboration and competition,
and that's In Ingress it was theperfect mix.
Pokemon Go, not many people careabout the competition of gyms,
but I still get a kick out ofrolling through town, flipping
every gym yellow and being ableto just look over at everything
I've claimed.
the coins for me are a bonus, Iclaim the gyms just for the
(15:25):
satisfaction of the turf war.
it's good, clean fun in myopinion.
David Hernandez (15:29):
So you basically have free reign
because most of the timeinstinct is the minority when it
comes to these turf wars, it'susually a valor or mystic,
right?
Forte (15:36):
And it varies a lot.
I've been, Ingress would alwayshave me traveling a lot to
different areas.
So I have got connections in abunch of different, smaller
towns around and differentcities and states.
so it would have me travelsometimes and I'd flip over to
Ingress and it varies a lot.
I've been to some towns whereinstinct was by far the
dominating force.
but in general, yeah, instinctusually not.
David Hernandez (15:55):
where's the hotspot to go whenever, like,
you have a community day or araid day?
Like, where's the area you go inthe town you're currently living
in?
Forte (16:02):
So that's going to be, our Riverwalk.
So I live in a town of Peru,Indiana.
and we have a Riverwalk Park.
it's a strip about a kilometeror two long.
and I know that because you canhatch a single two kilometer egg
less than a lap.
I don't know exactly what it is,but it's roughly that.
it's dense with Pokestops.
It's probably the best PokemonGo grinding spot, at least in my
(16:23):
opinion, for at least an hour todrive.
It's a relatively small town,but the town has a decent amount
of mix of historic and also justinformational plaques along the
Riverwalk.
it's one of the places where ourpark budget goes the most too,
just because it's one of ourtown's favorite parks and so
there's a good amount ofnominatable stuff along it, and
we've been building it for awhile.
David Hernandez (16:44):
So, by building it, I'm guessing, are you
involved in Wayfair?
Is it like, there's some
Forte (16:47):
oh yeah, sorry, I should probably be more clear.
Yeah, back when it was stilljust Ingress, I nominated most
of the portals in this town.
between me and my father, weboth played pretty hardcore in
this town, and we nominated mostof the ones that the game
started with.
So when Pokemon Go firstlaunched, everything that was
already here, They were mostlythings that me and my father
nominated through Ingress, butsince Pokemon Go has gained
(17:09):
access to, nominations as well,the Go community has gone crazy.
There's been a lot of greatbuilding here.
I would consider myself layingthe groundwork, but the
community, the local community,especially a local player we
have called Iceberg, They havedone a great job of making sure
everything stays filled in,especially as new things get
built, they've been on top ofthings.
David Hernandez (17:27):
So you said you laid the groundwork, like you
started the city, but You seethese Pokemon Go players who are
building on top of what youbuilt.
what goes through your mind whenyou see these Pokemon players
being so active trying to addPOI to the city you and your
father first started?
Forte (17:41):
Yeah.
so when Ingress first started,they used a generic, it's called
a historical marker database.
HMDB.
I believe it's HMDB.
org.
They started with just theirdatabase.
And we only had I want to saythree or four POIs in our town.
we nominated a bunch.
and so yeah, there's thegroundwork there.
And then as far as seeing the GOcommunity take over, I'll be
(18:04):
completely honest, as an Ingressveteran, I was extremely
nervous, because anytime thatyou crowdsource something like
this.
While having a low barrier toentry is great for letting
players have fun, when it comesto doing things like building
the Wayfarer network, havingthat low barrier to entry also
means A lot more crap getsthrough, just to be blunt.
and so I was really nervousabout that and I have seen where
(18:25):
in some communities it's gonebad.
But, at least as far as my localcommunity, it's been awesome.
I have been extremely proud ofmy local community.
I have also seen some where it'snot been quite so positive.
I'm sure you've seenoccasionally on social media,
those areas where someone usesit, someone abuses the system to
cram like a hundred Pokestops ina really tight spot and it's all
(18:45):
fake.
It, those actual nominationsaren't there.
they've just been abusing thewayfarer edit system.
it's a mixed bag.
When you have that low barrierto entry, it's easy for people
who have good intentions, butit's also easy for people who
have bad intentions.
David Hernandez (18:58):
Now, with your experience with Pokemon, do you
have any favorite Pokemon atall?
Forte (19:03):
I always feel so basic when people ask me this
question, because it's alwaysbeen Pikachu.
just because he's always beenthe mascot, and ever since I was
a little kid, he's always beenthe one who I've been the most
emotionally attached to, becausehe's, he's the show made you
emotionally attached to.
Like, when I was a kid, theepisode in the, I believe it was
the first season of the anime,where Ash almost, said goodbye
(19:25):
to Pikachu.
David Hernandez (19:26):
I was a tearjerker.
Forte (19:27):
It was! even, so I have the song from that episode in
some of my playlists, and Istill get emotional listening to
that song.
David Hernandez (19:35):
you didn't know as a kid, like if this was
permanent and even the ending ofhow it ended, it's a happy
ending and you still getemotional about it.
So it was a mixed feelings.
I remember that episode veryclearly.
I couldn't it it always made mevery sad.
Forte (19:48):
Mm hmm.
Or the Butterfree one.
Yep.
but yeah, absolutely.
so anyway, the Pokemon companyat a very early age did a really
great job of imprinting Pikachuon me in such a way that it's an
informed favorite.
It's not necessary.
It's not just a basic favorite.
If though, I set that aside,I've always been a big fan of
Lucario and Shinx.
I like the blue color schemes,and.
they've just always been myfavorite for some reason or
(20:08):
another.
David Hernandez (20:09):
So, going back to your experience with setting
up events and trying to getinvolved with the community,
what makes you want to set upall these events?
Because it's a lot of hard work,you don't get paid for it, at
least I don't think you do.
what drives you to want to makethese events for people to get
involved, for people toexperience Pokémon GO?
Forte (20:25):
at first it was just, I want to be able to attend to
this event, no one around me isbuilding it.
I want to be able to attend.
So the only thing left to do ismake it myself.
that's how it started, butanymore, like I get so much
enjoyment out of theorganization like That
satisfaction of buildingsomething and being successful
at it.
That's become a very core partof my Pokemon Go experience in
(20:46):
general.
I'll lean more into my mostrecent community building
experience like I said, I livein a small town, in Peru,
Indiana.
When I first moved here, like Isaid before, it was around the
time the pandemic lockdownstarted and there basically was
no in person community.
By that time, everyone waspretty much staying home, the
game was mostly dead, and as thecommunity, as the people in the
area started playing more often,as the Discord server that did
(21:08):
exist started getting moreactivity, almost everyone was
just doing remote raids.
I didn't really engage withanyone in person.
It was always, hey, you guyswant a raid?
Sure, send me an invite.
And I'm like, that's not reallywhat I wanted, but sure.
As the pressure from COVIDstarted to loosen up a bit, I
started trying to just jumpright into it hosting a
community day event.
Basically no one showed up.
so I decided to re...
(21:29):
I decided to pivot a little bit.
I make these little...
You know the gifts that you sendto each other in game?
David Hernandez (21:35):
Yes,
Forte (21:36):
Niantic a few years back for GoFest released a little
paper version of that, but itwas really small.
If you were to have made it, itwas so small.
So what I did was I took thatbasic design and I scaled it up.
I redesigned it from scratch andscaled it up to where the final
gift box was about six inchestall.
And I hid those as scavengerhunt prizes throughout the park.
(21:57):
At first I made them reallyobvious where they were, so that
anyone playing Pokemon Go wouldsee them without even having to
look for them.
And I slowly started to hidethem a bit better, and
eventually, people in theDiscord community started asking
about them, like, Hey! You know,is that happening this month?
Are you doing that again thismonth?
And at that point, I knew I hadthe community like ready to
actually start being in personagain.
(22:18):
I knew I had enough peopleinterested that we could
actually host an event.
definitely still started outsmall.
I think our first community daymeetup was about 10 people.
But over time, it started to getbigger and bigger.
Our biggest event so far hadabout 60 people and that's
included.
David Hernandez (22:31):
That's crazy.
Forte (22:32):
Yeah, that's including kids.
To be fair.
if I weren't to include thekids, probably would be around
40 to 50.
we keep check in stats.
So I actually have a list ofevery player name who's attended
all of our events.
We check them in by player name.
but the satisfaction of beingable to build these events and
give people so much fun.
there are people who drive in toour meetup from over an hour
away.
(22:52):
They come from one of the biggertowns nearby that doesn't really
have much of an in personPokemon Go community, or at
least not a community daycommunity.
and so they drive in and it's,always been great.
Just to illustrate how my focusof the game has shifted so much
into the community organizingside.
Every month I buy the communityday ticket and I also will
randomly give it away to a fewof our locals through my friends
(23:14):
list, occasionally, justrandomly, I will gift them the
Community Day ticket, justbecause, I've got a budget I've
set for myself for in apppurchases, and if I've not
reached it by the time thatcomes around, I'll usually burn
it that way, just to give thelocals a bit more incentive to
come out and join us for theevent.
I don't have it in front of me,but I've got many, I've got
(23:35):
about almost a half dozencommunity day researches that
I've never completed justbecause I was so focused on
hosting that I forgot to play.
David Hernandez (23:43):
It gets very difficult whenever you're the
leader and you're trying to makesure everybody else has a good
time that you kind of take careof the stuff that you have to
do.
It's oh, crud.
I needed to take care of this isa year and a half old,
Forte (23:53):
yeah, but also it's that I'm having so much fun being the
organizer.
I'm having so much fun being theMC for the event that I mean, I
probably so I have a co adminand if I really wanted to
prioritize my own gameplay, Icould take turns with her.
my co admins DJ Raven Wolf,she's been instrumental to
building the community with me.
The first year or so I was doingit by myself.
(24:14):
But once I started beinginterested in Hosting again, and
actually started having thesemeetups again.
I reached out to another localwho was, pretty active in the
server and I'm like, Hey, you'repretty active.
Would you be interested inhelping with this?
at the time, this was shortlyafter Niantic had originally
announced the communityambassador program.
and I decided that, hey, I wantto get into this community
(24:34):
ambassador program.
Will you help me?
And from there we were able todo them.
So I could, the only reason Ibring her up was that if I
really wanted to, if I wasreally missing out on it, I
could probably organize with herto take shifts, so to speak at
the shelter.
David Hernandez (24:47):
right?
Forte (24:48):
I just have so much fun being there as the MC like it's
not that I'm so busy that Ican't do it.
It's that I'm having so much funhosting that I forget to do it.
David Hernandez (24:57):
there's two things that come to mind with
everything you said.
The first one was you saidsomebody coming from a bigger
city to your small townexperience community day.
That to me shows how much you'vespent time trying to build
something up because you alwayshear the opposite, right?
Of people from a small town haveto go to a big town.
And now for you, this 1 is theopposite.
(25:17):
the 2nd thing was I actuallylooked up Peru, Indiana.
So for those who are curious,the population is of 11, 073.
So you're not a, You really area small town and my question
really is this because one ofthe big counter arguments for
the remote raids is that itreally alienates a lot of the
rural small town areas which, itis difficult, I know using
(25:38):
English player, I'm a pogoplayer, I do Wayfair, I know
there's not much out there.
usually we have to go out thereto be able to build it up.
My question is this is What kindof advice could you give
somebody who maybe isn't a smalltown, who maybe not, doesn't
have either a community or anorganized community, is there a
way for them to build it up fromwhat your experience?
Forte (25:55):
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
at the end of the day, there'sonly so many people who already
play in your area.
So when it comes to buildingcommunities, I'll say like, when
I first got here, there was onlymaybe Two or three people who
were actually active in thediscord server.
so what you do is you work onbringing more people in.
One of my biggest pushes in theearly days of building my
(26:16):
community was Sharing my eventsinto not Pokemon specific
groups, but local specificgroups, peru events, Miami
County events.
I'd share it into there and Iwould pitch it to people as a
family activity.
Hey, even if you don't alreadyplay, come out, give it a shot,
it's a lot of fun.
It's a good family friendlyactivity.
and day, I still that.
I regularly share our eventsinto our local.
(26:37):
city groups, not specificallyjust the Pogo groups.
Our town, Facebook is theprimary platform as, as much as
I'm not a big fan of Facebookpersonally, it's where most of
our town does its onlinesocializing, there's not a
Reddit community for our town.
it's mostly Facebook groups.
every single month as soon as Ihad details posted in there and
pitch it to people as a hey,come out and have some fun with
(27:00):
your family.
one of the biggest things is wewould pitch it to the local
Facebook groups as a familyactivity.
and we would make sure thatwe're constantly, Hey, here's
the game, here's how to play.
recently, there has been fullfamilies that come out.
there's a, family of six, theynow come out for almost all of
our events and that's a full sixdifferent people that come to
the events now, that all playtogether as a family.
(27:20):
We recruited one family, but sixpeople.
That's a lot when you can, whenit comes to these kinds of
events.
And so by targeting that generalarea, you're able to build a
community faster because you'renot just relying on trying to
pull people in who already likePokemon go.
David Hernandez (27:35):
You're trying to get more people who maybe not
touch the game come in andthat's a really creative
strategy to be able to recruitpeople to come play the game to
where, yeah, you may be the onlyperson or maybe the only two or
three, but it doesn't have to bethat way.
There's a lot of people who'venever played this game before.
Forte (27:51):
Absolutely.
and not to mention the fact thatfamilies are a great way to
build a community or build theturnout to the events faster
because you're getting a wholefamily.
you're not just inviting asingle player.
You're inviting a whole family.
That's a great way to build yournumbers faster and once you
start to get to a certain numberfor your events, they're big
enough like if you see twopeople sitting at a shelter in a
(28:12):
park, you're not going to thinkmuch of it, but if you see 12
people at a shelter in a park,you're going to be more curious
of what's going on.
It allows you to have it so thatthe bigger you build the faster
you can build your community.
so much of our community growthis through people just seeing
our events during community day,seeing us as an event as a group
during community day and askingwhat's going on and joining us
(28:35):
that way.
David Hernandez (28:36):
You know, you talk about how you built a
community and now you're doingthat with the recent
announcement of the Silph roadyou're doing that through the
Pogo community checkpoint.
can you talk about that?
Like share what that's aboutpeople who are listening,
Forte (28:48):
Oh, absolutely.
as I was going through communitybuilding, there have been a
number of different ways that Ihave tried to share this
experience and the resourcesthat I've done and the knowledge
that I've learned the hard way.
there's been a few things thatI've definitely learned the hard
way.
Silph Road was always somethingI recommended people get
involved with if they want tobuild a community because the
Silph League resources weregreat.
(29:10):
Being able to have the travelercard system to be able to
motivate people to check in,hey, if you come to our event,
you'll earn a badge.
you have this like reward forattending these events that
Silph Road allowed us to be ableto provide.
That was a great resource.
And then on top of that, SilphRoad brought us together in the
Silph League Discord server ascommunity leaders, where we were
(29:30):
able to have a lot of crosspollination of different ideas
because I discovered theVancouver Pokémon GO community
through Silph League, I nowfollow them, and I regularly get
motivation or I regularly getideas from stuff that they do.
I will regularly have, thePokemon Go Vancouver Facebook
page pop up on my feed.
I'm like, oh, that's so cool, weshould try that.
(29:51):
The Silph League is what gave usa community where that cross
pollination of ideas was able tohappen.
Them shutting down without anysort of replacement is going to
severely negatively impactpeople's ability to grow their
communities.
Existing communities like myown, it's not going to be
affected that badly by Silphgoing away.
But Silph provided so manyresources for people who are
just starting out to make iteasier.
(30:12):
It's so much easier to make aFacebook event and attract
people if you already have areally pretty graphic to be able
to attach to it.
Silph Road putting out thosegraphics made it so that people
could have more inviting ways topublish their events without
having to be a graphic designerthemselves.
that's one of the ways you builda community is by being able to
put your best foot forward andSilph Road allowed a lot of
(30:32):
growing communities to do that.
and You know, fan fanboyingabout Silk Road enough as
unfortunately, they did announcetheir closure.
there was a project that I'vehad on the back burner for
years.
originally, it was called 3rdSaturday, which I touched on.
It eventually was renamed totrainer services.
But shortly after Silph Roadstarted doing Community Day, it
died out because it was largelyunnecessary.
(30:53):
Silph Road was already biggerthan us and they were already
doing it better than us at thetime.
that project eventually just,melted into the background.
over the past year or so, I wastrying to revive it with
something called Pogo Pages,Pogo Pages was, basically, I
wanted a domain name anactual...
proper website address that Icould direct people to during
community day instead of havingto try to remember a long
(31:16):
discord invite code, becausethere were a lot of people who
they weren't discord friendly.
They weren't Pokemon go friendlyalready.
They were Barely use theirsmartphone, but they were
interested in joining us becausethey saw what we were having
going on.
I bought the website pogo.
community, or the, I bought thedomain pogo.
community and started using itfor my own group.
I have a URL,7Pidgeys.pogo.community.
(31:38):
Way easier to remember that.
Way easier for people to typethat in when they're trying to
find us.
I realized that it costs menothing extra to add other
communities.
So anything that's before thatfirst dot, so sevenpigees.
pogo, let's say nyc.
pogo.
community, any community name,it doesn't actually financially
cost me anything to add, whatare called subdomains.
(31:59):
so I decided to start sharingthat with them, with some of my
other community leaderconnections.
I've got connections inIndianapolis.
I've got connections in St.
Louis.
so I've, reached out to them andI'm like, Hey, would you guys be
interested in having your own,actual domain website?
Not having to be on some sortof, discord.
gg slash whatever randomcharacters.
And there was enough interestthat I decided, well, hey, I
want to make this accessible toeveryone.
(32:20):
I don't want people to have toknow me to be able to get access
to this.
So I started the website,pages.pogo.Community, where any
Pokemon Go community could go torequest a free website and it is
completely free.
there are some limitationsbecause of how manually it has
to be set up.
I can only set up so many, so asthings start to pick back up,
there will likely be like a waitlist system or something.
I've not decided exactly how allthat exactly is going to
(32:42):
function.
But basically, you go to thewebsite, there's a gallery of
templates that you can get ofyour website, you choose a
template, you tell me what youwant it to be and I set you up
with a website that is based onGoogle sites.
It's really easy to use.
You don't have to be tech savvyat all.
If you know how to edit a Googledoc, you can set up this
website.
Really simple.
So I wanted to have people whohave access to that.
(33:04):
Well, fast forward a couple ofweeks, silph Road announces
they're sunsetting, they'reclosing down.
All those community cards wherepeople would, because a lot of
people use their Silph Roadcommunity page as their landing
page.
Hey, go to our Silph, SilphRoad.
com slash C slash theircommunity name.
at that point, they'd have linksto their, their Facebook, their
discord, their all that, butthat was going away, people
didn't have access to that.
(33:24):
So I.
decided to pivot that pagesproject into what we're now
calling pogo communitycheckpoint.
Silph in general is leaving alot of holes.
Silph Arena, the PvP side, SilphRoad, the website where they set
up things like the raids, thecommunity maps, the research
information, lot of differentspaces that Silph filled.
with this project, pivoting itto be able to, I don't want to
(33:46):
say replace because no one canever really replace Silph.
they were invaluable.
But I'm hoping to carry thespirit of Silph League on
specifically, where Silph Leagueis specifically that effort to
help those grassroots communityorganizers, give everyone in a
place where those crosspollination of ideas can happen,
and support people by doingthings like Publishing community
day assets, giving them accessto resources like a free
(34:09):
website, helping them with othersorts of things, like having a
place where someone can say,Hey, I'm trying to build my
community.
Here's what I've tried so far.
How can I do better?
what can I do to have acommunity day, allowing, people
with my myself who have theexperience in building that kind
of stuff and hopefully more,allowing a channel, allowing a
space where you can have thatcross pollination of ideas and
trying to foster it.
David Hernandez (34:30):
That's awesome, man.
there's so many amazing peopleworking behind the scenes who
take the initiative and think ofthese creative ideas they don't
just wait and just let thingshappen.
They really just take, we callit, take the bull by the horns
here in Texas and run with it.
And just hearing just howpassionate you are about trying
to cross pollinate ideas,because I learned so much just
hearing this just now.
(34:51):
I'm like, you clearly you'vebeen around people who work with
communities who live and breathetrying to build these areas up.
And that's the only way thatthis game is going to survive
is, People like you andeverybody else learn from each
other and be able to take theideas back to our communities
and try to build them back post2020
Forte (35:08):
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
I'll just say, I can shout outone person who is running the
Community Day League, if you'veheard of it.
Community Day League is like alittle competitive angle on
Community Day, where you cancheck in and compete on the
total number of Community DayPokémon you've caught, total
shinies, there's a whole scoringsystem.
MakoMW is their Discord handle.
I'm not sure what their in gamename is or what they prefer to
(35:29):
go by, but they run theCommunity Day League and It's
something that I am so proud oflike I wish I were more and I
wish I would have thought to dothat myself because it's such a
great way of accomplishingsomething that I've always
wanted to which was makeCommunity Day more of a
collaborative event rather thanjust a bunch of people in the
same place, If you're notfamiliar with Community Day
League, one of the things thatthey do is they allow
(35:51):
communities to compete againsteach other.
And you get a personal score,but also your personal score
contributes to your communityscore.
there's a big spirit ofcollaboration within your
community, on top of thatcompetitive within the
community, which, as I mentionedin Ingress, that mix of
collaboration and competitionhas always been something that's
been a really big motivator forme.
so if anyone listening hasn'theard of the Community to
(36:11):
League, I highly recommendlooking into it.
I'm hoping to collaborate withthem more with the Checkpoint
project because they are doingsome really great things.
David Hernandez (36:18):
forte that's the show but before we do go if
people wanted to get connectedwith you to set up the website
or to get involved with yourproject how can they get a hold
of you where can they go by allmeans please plug away.
Forte (36:30):
So our best place is to start is just pogo.community..
that's going to be the base forall of our other sub projects.
if you go there, you can getinto the discord server.
The banner at the top isacknowledging silver road
sunset.
And there's a link to actuallyjoin our discord server.
The discord server is where amajority of the activity is
happening as the activity startsto stabilize more.
(36:51):
It'll flow back to the website.
So if you don't have a discord,you can just keep an eye on the
website that will get updated intime.
David Hernandez (36:56):
Cool beans and I'll make sure to include links
to everything that he said inthe description of today's
episode.
Thank you for listening to Asthe Pokéball Turns.
If you want to support the show,consider becoming a patron by
either clicking the link in thedescription or going to
patreon.com/asthepokéballturns.
Now here's a sneak peek for thenext episode of As the Pokéball
Turns.
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