Smashboards
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (September 2011) |
| Smashboards homepage. Smashboards homepage | |
Type of site | Forum / Gaming Community |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| URL | www |
| Commercial | No |
| Registration | Open to everyone ages 13+ (Parental permission required for new users under the age of 13) |
SmashBoards (Smash World Forum) is a popular online community where players from around the world can gather and participate in discussions relating to games in the Super Smash Bros. series at: Smashboards. This community hosts discussions of techniques, news, and professional players of the game Super Smash Bros. of all generations. It is a highly interactive website with a large sense of community. They share techniques that are not openly revealed in the actual game manual, and they participate in the organization of tournaments. Users on the website also discuss tournament rules and lists that rank playable characters in all three games of the Super Smash Bros. Series.
Most of the users of this website (community members and visitors) are between the ages of 18 and 24. Additionally, users typically spend an average of 3 minutes per visit.[1]
History
Smashboards.com started off as a simple site named Smash World that a teenage boy in Pennsylvania created in dedication of his favorite game. The boy called himself Gideon and little did he suspect his site to become one of the largest independent competitive gaming communities in the world.[2] At September 28, 2008 Major League Gaming acquired Smashboards.com.[3]
Tournaments
Smashboards has been cited as an independent "scene" for Smash tournaments.[4] Members of the site's "Brawl Backroom Committee" organize tournaments throughout the world. Navigating to the site's tournament listings, it is possible to find tournaments by region in the United States, and by general region internationally, such as Europe, Australia, Canada, Central & South America, as well as "Other International Countries." It is also possible to browse online tournament listings, for tournaments being held over Nintendo Wi-Fi.
The Smashboards Brawl Backroom Committee oversees and regulates these tournaments, enforcing rules and regulations. On certain occasions, they have punished participants for breaking tournament rules, one recent occasion being the KTAR5 tournament. Three players were given "yellow cards" for splitting the tournament prize money. One of the players forfeited twice, once from the winner's bracket, and then from the rest of the tournament, possibly resulting in the advancement of the other two players. [5]
Community
As the self-proclaimed "Largest Smash Bros. Community" [6], the Smash World Forum website provides guidelines for their members to follow while posting and participating in forum discussions under their "FAQ" section. Additionally, members who post frequently will rise in status and possibly become moderators for their respective forums [7]. This idea of rewarding community members for posting frequent, high-quality posts is a technique in promoting contributions in online communities. Robert E. Kraut is exploring these techniques and will be sharing results from his research in his upcoming book: "Building Successful Online Communities: Evidence-Based Social Design" [8].
Forum discussions range from in-game techniques to collaboration projects such as the user-made PC version of Super Smash Bros. entitled "Super Smash Land." This is a free demake that is supposed to play on your PC as a gameboy game and was discussed among members of the SWF community resulting in the addition of several features[9]. Additionally, players frequently discuss the rankings (or "Tiers") of each playable character and the administrators release forum posts that officially list them [10]. These lists are generally accepted among community members and can be found at Smashboards.com, for each game in the series.
- Super Smash Bros. Tier List: http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=250563
- Super Smash Bros. Melee Tier List: http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=294748
- Super Smash Bros. Brawl Tier List: http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?p=12965223
Influences
Smash World Forums (SWF) due to its large size and active community has had a great influence both on and off the internet. Sites such as AllisBrawl.com were created as a branch off of SWF by a SWF member nealdt [11] to concentrate specifically on Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
Off the internet, SWF has been a center for members to find new techniques and moves that were never listed in manuals or guides until they were discovered on SWF. One of the most famous being 'wavedashing'. It was first discovered by accident by a member called rob1out in SWF around December 2001 [12]. Now it is known by even casual SSBM players are aware of the existence of 'wavedashing'.
References
- ^ Alexa the Web Information Company
- ^ "Why Smash Rocks Part 2". May 10, 2005.
- ^ "Major League Gaming Acquires Smashboards.com". September 28, 2008.
- ^ Myers, Andy (2005). "Smash Planet". Nintendo Power. 195: 76–79.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ "Smashboards committee punishes three for splitting prize money". May 24, 2011.
- ^ http://www.smashboards.com/
- ^ http://www.smashboards.com/faq.php?faq=vb3_reading_posting#faq_vb3_posting
- ^ http://kraut.hciresearch.org/content/research
- ^ http://www.1up.com/news/play-super-smash-bros-pc-game-game-boy
- ^ http://www.ssbwiki.com/Tier_list
- ^ "Nealdt's Profile".
- ^ "GameFAQ: Quote of Original forum post". March 25, 2008.