Wolfe and the Wolf Pack

Wolfe:
But I saw your tweets and wanted to chat in a more private setting
With the goal of understanding your side better and also offering you some of my perspective
My goal in general is to grow Pokemon and grow VGC to gain more exposure, and so I am slightly concerned with a witch hunt mentality behind hacking mons
 Wolfe Glick
 But I also respect that my perspective doesn't account for everything so I wanted to hear your thoughts

Verlis:
I'm just an oldschool Pokemon fan. I play for the passion and spirit of the game, as with any game I would like it to be a clean scene. I don't care if its about being a "Goodie two shoes" to the rules, any competition trying to take themselves seriously should not allow hacking in any way. Unless it is written as allowed by the game developers/rulemakers I feel there is no justification for it in any way. Rulebreaking takes away from the spirit of Pokemon and sportsmanship, so I will use my pull without hesitation to get the toxicity out the official competitive scene. I know there are many fans and probably a few fringe top competitive people that are fans that have evidence of others cheating so why not using. Sure its seen a witch hunt but I don't see a point in covering up the illegitimate players. The point of it is to take the pompous people that think it isn't wrong and teach them a lesson in not cheating. I know we could go back and forth about how "legal" stats should be ok and it makes VGC more accessible, but at the end of the day its breaking the rules. Rules and laws can be unfair with society in general and unless there is a reform, ya gotta follow them. Its not fun for the person that isn't breaking the rules as well, why should the legitimate player have his enjoyment of the game interrupted by having all his work be undermined by the rulebreakers? I dont see any good that can come from allowing it

Wolfe:
Okay cool, we have different philosophies here but I want to challenge you on a few things. I guess the biggest question I have for you is: how does the way another player plays the game have an impact on how you enjoy it? I would argue that there is no "best" way to play the game in general (ie competitive vs casual), and I think you could definitely argue that there is no "right" way to play the game. With that in mind, I have a hard time understanding how the way another plays the game affects your enjoyment.

I also notice a slight contradiction in your argument - you portray yourself as "just a casual fan" but then make extremely specific statements about how top level competitive Pokemon should be played. If you truly feel that you are just a casual fan who plays for love of the game, where do you draw your authority from to make these claims?

You talk about the spirit of Pokemon and sportsmanship as a central pillar to your justification here, but I want to challenge you that going out of your way to target players for complying with a different set of (subjective) ethics than you seems to me to also conflict with spirit of the game and sportsmanship. To me it feels like losing a soccer game and then trying to get your opponents DQ'd for having shoelaces that were too long.

You talk about "getting toxicity out of the official scene", but do you really believe that creating a culture based on accusation and anger towards one another is the right way to do that?

Ive got some more thoughts but Ill leave you with this for now: you talk a lot about rules and laws in your argument, but in general in society it seems to me (and this could be too broad) that most change and progress happens outside of "the rules" - look at racism and stuff like Jim Crow laws for example.

Thanks for discussing, this is interesting

Verlis:

With the first question its all about the rules, rulebreaking undermines the hard work and investment. No rule, no problem, but that isn't the case and rules are not made to be broken. Much how people are expected to give the description of someone that commits a crime, I feel its expected to expose people that break the rules. I feel the questions of "whats different about the pokemon" and "what do you lose" are pretty invalidated by it being against the rules in the first place. It is definitely an interesting debate topic... except that there is something that trumps it all immediately. THAT argument is to give to the rulemakers, not me.

Also I am not casual, I consider myself competitive but not hardcore. I certainly have enough experience playing this game competitively since the start of 4th gen to know what the game is about, I just choose to not stress myself and focus on the larger fanbase of people wanting fun over competition. My authority, again, comes in following the rules. Im not a cop but I feel that if I see someone rob a bank I should point that out to authorities.

The problem is I have a hard time understanding subjective ethical issues when it comes to people that dont follow the rules. Moral philosophy is a bitch like that, but in the end I follow the established right and wrong and just go with what is happening. Not to say I dont think one man or a small movement can change the world, I just see no issue in a 3rd party, unlicensed, separately bought, device being unreasonably to normal gameplay, so this kind of jumped into your last point. Again, go after the people making the rules I just follow. If the rules are that ludicrous, then there should be a way to get it changed. However, I feel the rules should be changed to meet the needs of using hacks and not hacking to justify the rules being bad. Either way, the developers control us, I want to keep to their idea for the spirit of Pokemon.

as for the soccer thing since I kind of skipped by it with the point. Stuff like that will happen, people faking fouls or looking for the sneaky way to edge over someone not following the rules. I think it is fair. In serious competition, you need to have your shit together. Maybe it shows a lack of empathy, but when it comes to rulings and judging, there can't be bias of how "right" a rule is. rules are rules, beat em' before you cheat em

Wolfe:
Ok, so reading your response I don't really feel satisfied that you've adequately answered a lot of the questions I raised. The points I felt weren't addressed were primarily:
- How can you make an argument against toxicity by using tactics that are tangibly more toxic?
-How do you invoke a "sportsmanship" argument while actively seeking to make people worse off with no provocation?

To be honest with you, I don't think the answers to the questions are the most significant at the moment. My real point is as follows:

Your entire justification is built off the concept of "rules" as absolute, moral laws. However, one common theme you brought up strikes me as rather interesting. You said " Again, go after the people making the rules", implying that the  ultimate "law" so to speak comes from the people "making the rules". But here I want to pause, and listen to me closely here because this is actually extremely significant - If it is Pokemons job to make the rules, why do you not feel it is YOUR job to enforce them?

In any society, the people who make the laws are typically the ones who enforce them - sure, civilians can help out (in our example, if I see someone with a sheer cold Machamp at an official tournament I can notify a judge), however there is a reason vigilante-ism (is that a word?) isn't legal in the United States. Your actions go far beyond the boundaries of a concerned citizen (again in our example here) because you are actively going out of your way to seek out people who have allegedly broken the rules in the past and are taking it upon yourself to prosecute them - something, by the way, we don't see any official Nintendo function doing.

To be completely honest with you, I don't know much about you - I've never watched one of your videos and I don't know anything about who you are as a person. However, I do think that the point I've raised is a very real contradiction in your thinking, and while I expect that in all likelihood you will read this message and respond automatically, I urge you to actually listen to what I am saying here. I didn't enter this conversation to change you - it was my goal to understand better your stance. I guess what I'm saying is I expect to just get an automatic response here but I think it would be beneficial for both of us if you actually internalized my central argument here.

Verlis:
I don't see it as being a vigilante either since I am not banning people or dropping the law on them, I see it as snitching. I don't see a problem in tattling to expose the people playing the rules. The Pokemon company cant monitor every competitive person, especially since hacking has become very complex to sneak around the rules. I feel that I am doing my job as a sportsmanlike player to report those breaking the rules to the people that enforce them, thus making the game better for all of the other legitimate, sportsmanlike players. The question to you is can a serious competitive game have integrity with cheating being accepted? Its the same back to you, I am only having this conversation to get you to think critically about following the rules to the game you play
As for the answer to the first 2 questions
 Verlisify
 Toxicity - I don't think that my behavior is toxic, reporting rulebreakers is very justified as a sporting act and should not be seen as negative to want fairness in a competitive game

How is it Sporting - I can't see how it isn't. If someone is breaking rules, they deserve punishment. The old saying "cheaters never win" is the idea, they deserve to be worse off for not playing legitimately in the first place. Its objectively being unsportsmanlike to break the rules to gain advantage over the rule followers, so by doing the opposite of cheating and playing by the rules is showing sportsmanship. Same with reporting players that can only be seen as good sportsmanship to keep the fairness in the game and improve it for everyone by following the rules

Wolfe:
So to be completely honest here I don't see much point continuing this discussion - I don't feel as if the points I'm making are getting through, and honestly that's ok, but I don't want to waste either of our time here. I'm glad we got to have this discussion and I wish you the best going forward

Verlis:

At least answer my questions since I answered yours. How can a competitive game be taken seriously or have integrity if there are cheaters and how is it not sporting to enforce the rules?

Wolfe:
Alright dude, so the way I see the world is there are two types of things more or less - things that actually exist in reality, and things that don't. For example, the laptop I'm typing on exists - it exists whether I believe in it or not, whether I want it to exist or not - it exists.

The concept of a competitive game being unable to be taken seriously in this situation is not something that actually exists in reality. It is a concept born out of your subjective mentality. I am a high level VGC competitor, and I can tell you that if you were allowed to use hacked Pokemon that don't meet regulations (Sheer Cold Machamp), VGC could not be taken seriously as a competitive game. But you make absolutely no distinction between those type of hacked Pokemon and "legal" hacks, which give no competitive advantage. Combined with the fact that nobody knows whose Pokemon are hacked and there are official hack checks at events, the integrity of VGC is not challenged by programs such as Pokegen or whatever people use nowadays.

As for enforcing the rules, as I mentioned above, VGC DOES have hack checks. Also, you can do actions that theoretically should be sportsmanlike in a way that is unsportsmanlike. For example, using your logic, something such as doing your best to win is "sportsmanlike" because you're showing respect to your opponent and not breaking any rules. However, if you do your best to win while being incredibly disrespectful, it's not being sportsmanlike even though it technically isn't against the rules and you're still within the original vague constraint

Verlis:
the issue with your second point is that I do make the distinction, the pokemon are not legal by the rules. Even if they pass hack check, they have just been created to do so... they are still cheated regardless. If someone admits to using pokemon that pass hack check but are hacked, then that rulebreaking needs to be brought to officials to preserve the game's integrity. Also integrity is not subjective. if it was, there would be no rules at all. Rules create what is defined as competitive and have always been used to represent what sportsmanship and fair play is.

Wolfe:
That's all subjective - like integrity is literally defined as "the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness." and morals are absolutely subjective, so I have absolutely no idea how you can argue that it is't subjective you say these things about what "needs" to happen but it's 100 percent just your opinion

Verlis:

This is about sports and their rules, they have been defined much differently. Morality is enforced by the officials in an objective way, the means to getting to those morals is subjective but due to the enforcement it doesn't matter. Following the rules shouldn't be seen as subjective when there is enforcement, that is why rules exist. There is no right and wrong to following or breaking rules in this contained environment. You can disagree on a rule's fairness but until then the rules are the rules and should be followed. Change the rules or don't get upset by those seeking to make sure they are followed.

Wolfe:
dude honestly we're getting nowhere with this - I think we should stop discussing, we're just going to go in circles

Verlis:
thats because you apparently believe rules are made to be broken, that is a mindset that will always circle itself

Wolfe:
Rofl