An Interview with Monotype Room Owner Omega-Xis14
interviewed by scpinion, posted on 11/28/2014
Lets start with some basic questions. Tell us a bit about yourself IRL.
Location? Still in school? Job? Other generic information you're willing to share?
Hey scp!
For starters, I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I've been around quite a few different places, as I have moved many times since I was born: Milwaukee to Houston, Texas, to Bourbonnais, Illinois, to Appleton, Wisconsin, to Florence, Kentucky, to Chicago, Illinois, and the last move has taken me to where I reside now, Salt Lake City, Utah. Presently, I attend the University of Utah and am in my 3rd year. In the spring semester, I'll be considered a college senior with regards to credits although it will only be my sixth semester. I work a lot of odd jobs for cash, the last one having been working as an usher for my University's football games (read American hand egg for anyone outside of America :P).
With regards to other generic information, I guess a few things about myself are that I just in general love RPGs. It might comes as quite a shock that Pokémon isn't my favorite (BLASPHEMY!), but it's still up there. I'm a huge Mega Man fan, my favorite series being the Battle Network series. After Mega Man, my other interests include Final Fantasy, the Tale of series, Kingdom Hearts, and Pokémon. I've only played Tales of Xillia, but I really want to play Symphonia and Grace as well. I simply haven't gotten around to purchasing them yet.
That's awesome! This seems fitting...
I have a feeling many of us are going to sympathize with the RPG love. Perhaps the most challenging question you'll face comes next: What is your favorite FF game? Why?
Oooh that's tough. I have to admit that I haven't played some of them, most notably Final Fantasy 7-9. I was really young when those games were on the original PlayStation and I don't have a Steam account, and they're available there to my knowledge.
Of the Final Fantasies I've played, I unabashedly think X is the best. I have watched Let's Plays for some of the games I haven't played myself, but I think X has the best storyline. The evolution of Tidus from a somewhat selfish young man who only thought of himself and how to return to Zanarkand from Spira into a mature individual who would stop at nothing, even sacrificing himself, to prevent Yuna's death from performing The Final Summoning was truly touching. While I have grown to like Battle Systems such as the Gambit System in XII and the ATB in XIII, sometimes an old classic Turn Based System is nice too. There was so much to do after defeating the Final Aeon is well with the Monster Arena and maxing your characters' stats to 255.
Another game from the series I loved was Dissidia Duodecim. I liked how there was at least a few characters from every game and how the battle system made it feel like a traditional fighting game like Tekken or Streetfighter. Basically, it felt like a fresh approach to an old franchise to me; it was neat to see.
You could quite literally have described my own experience with FF. I haven't played 7-9 and X is hands down the best. I dumped hundreds of hours into that game in high school. Alright, lets switch gears a bit before getting into Pokemon stuff. What do you like to do outside of the internet/video games? Also, tell us one thing you feel is awesome about yourself!
Outside of the internet and video games, I absolutely love learning foreign languages. I'm a Spanish Teaching major at the University. I would absolutely love to pick up a third language at some point in my life. Last year I studied Dutch for a bit and picked some up, I only remember a little bit but while I was studying it I felt it kind of came to me. I feel like studying other languages is just something I kind of have a knack for. Languages I currently have an interest in and would consider picking up as a third include Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Arabic, or Japanese. I'd really love to study one of these at some point in the future when I'm not quite as busy as I am now.
One thing I find awesome about myself is that I feel I'm a very adaptable/flexible individual. I find myself able to be laid-back when a situation doesn't necessitate seriousness, mature when someone talking to me is going through a difficult time, and funny when someone needs a laugh. These are just several examples, but I really think that experiencing so many different environments while growing up molded me into a fairly easy-going person.
I'm sure those qualities helped you rise through the ranks on PS! as well. Shifting back into the world of Pokemon, what got you started on Smogon/PS and how did you end up in the Monotype room?
I started on Pokémon Showdown back in January of 2013, and I had poked on Smogon a little while before that learning about EVs and IVs early 5th gen. One day I just got the itch to spam a Swift Swim team in Ubers, and I ran into some pretty cool people who had a group on Facebook, so I joined. This group initially shifted to a forum, and the forum got a league going. I had used a Monotype Psychic team in UU for awhile, but I was a bit late on requesting a gym or testing, and there was this one guy who was starting a Flying gym. Everyone made fun of him because "FLYING TYPES GIT REKT BY STEALTH RAWKS LOL."
I started talking to this guy (his name is MonoType Man, if you ever see him around, shoot him a message!) and I decided that I wanted to be his understudy. I had never really looked at flying before and I was overall new to Monotype, so I thought I'd give things a try. It was about the middle of summer when I started going on rooms in Showdown, and Monotype was basically the one I stuck with. After about a half hour in the room, I started asking people to test my Flying team. My first battle was against Capuccino Cincinno if memory serves correct, and they had a normal team. The name gave that away a bit I suppose, haha. I won that battle and the other tests I had. I laddered a bit and went 5-1. I found the user base overall knowledgeable and big help in getting me going, and the room just seemed like a funny, albeit somewhat chaotic place, overall.
The funny thing was, it was around 3-4 months I had been in the room and I was about to let everyone know I'd be taking a break for awhile to get school work done. It just so happened that as I was about to log off, I was promoted to Room Voice. I felt very honored that my contributions had been recognized, and I've been around ever since.
#MonotypeFTW
We have had a number of user-submitted questions about things related to Pokemon.
Many people want to know:
What's your favorite Pokémon?
What is your favorite type?
What type do you specialize in?
My favorite Pokémon is Mew. I made a really lengthy write up about it on the viability thread and early on when I was doing MonoPsychic in UU, I loved the WoW set. It's my favorite Stallbreaking/Physical Crippling mon.
I don't have a favorite type per se, but the types I've used a lot and/or specialize in would include Flying, Steel, Ground (I need to revisit this lol, I'm so rusty), Fighting, and Bug.
A more serious question from MegaMamo: what do u bring to our room?
xLive55: Why do you like/love monotype?
Miku Sanjo wants to know: i was wondering what made omega love or like pokemon as much as he does and why?
I feel like MegaMammo's, xLive's, and Miku's questions all kind of tie together, so I'll try and answer them in one fell swoop. I love Pokémon because it was one of the first RPGs I played. I still remember being 7 years old and my mom bought me a Game Boy Color and Pokémon Silver for Christmas. I played the hell out of that game. At this point, it's really nostalgia for me and I always found the Pokémon Universe captivating overall. In regards to what brought me to this room and why I love Monotype, I feel that I bring an open-mind and overall positive personality to this room. I enjoy making the room a more comfortable environment for people to share their ideas. It's been great to see the user base grow lately, as I think we're routinely the 5th or 6th most occupied room. I love Monotype more than any other tier or meta (except for maybe randbats :P) because I feel that it's a huge accomplishment to beat your type disadvantages. There was nothing quite like getting to 1500s with Fighting and beating the plethora of Flying teams spamming TFlame, as TFlame was still around back when I used to run Flying more often. It's neat to see other people do this as well, as I always enjoy seeing Dark defeat Fairy. That might become a bit more commonplace now however with Greninja getting access to Gunk Shot, but we'll have to see.
From Matt: Omega, I know you've said you didn't necessarily care about getting ranked up when you were a mod. So how did it feel becoming a room owner?
And I'll ask: You recently became our newest RO, what's that like? How has that changed your activity in the room? On Smogon?
To address the RO questions from yourself and Matt, I think I would say it was really a great honor to become Room Owner. I honestly always looked up to Chandy, Nani Man, and shaymin, and did my best to emulate them as far as a policy standpoint goes, and Chandy and shaymin's chillness and Nani's OP Rof shenanigans. I wouldn't say I feel a lot different as a Room Owner compared to mod. Yeah, there's a few more commands I have access to and things of that nature, but I try to still embody the same traits that moved me up the ranks and made me a distinguished user. I would say that I have become more active on the forums, mostly on the Viability thread, but I do provide input here and there on the Meta Discussion thread. Honestly, a lot of the time I feel that the users say everything that needs to be said. We have a very knowledgeable user base. That being said, I do still talk to other auth who may be more active on the forums than I am and give them my two cents on what I think and they'll usually do the talking for me if I can't get around to it, haha.
QueenKaty asks the all important question: Who is Omega bae? ~_~
Omega bae is a gentle giant who likes everyone to be happy, so happiness is what he projects! He also likes to get to know you all better because honestly, you all are some of his better friends ^_^
If you could change one thing (literally anything) about the metagame what would it be?
If I could do anything to change the metagame, it would probably just be to balance everything more. I know that might sound really basic, and while I feel like Monotype is not as uneven as some people might make it out to be, I think we can always strive through innovation and proper suspecting/testing to make things more balanced than what they are. Things are rarely ever perfect.
Thanks for taking the time to do this mate! To conclude, do you have any words of wisdom or sage advice for all the Monotypers out there?
My words of wisdom for the user base, especially regs, would be this: Don't be afraid to PM someone voice and up. Just because we have a silly symbol attached to our name doesn't mean you're bothering us by talking to us or that we think we're "too high up" to communicate with you. We like getting PMs from you all to learn more about you and to address any concerns we might have to make this room an even better place to come chat than it was before. That being said, if you ever have any concerns or you want to get to know me even better than you have from this interview, just PM me. You all are great and I love talking to you!
That time is upon us and I'm the first interview, so I'd like to just say now, happy holidays!
It was great talking with you scp, and you did a great job with the interview!
Thanks mate! It was great chatting with you too. I'll second Omega's sage advice about pm'ing the staff, especially if you have a concern. We are all friendly and will always help if we can!
Location? Still in school? Job? Other generic information you're willing to share?
Hey scp!
For starters, I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I've been around quite a few different places, as I have moved many times since I was born: Milwaukee to Houston, Texas, to Bourbonnais, Illinois, to Appleton, Wisconsin, to Florence, Kentucky, to Chicago, Illinois, and the last move has taken me to where I reside now, Salt Lake City, Utah. Presently, I attend the University of Utah and am in my 3rd year. In the spring semester, I'll be considered a college senior with regards to credits although it will only be my sixth semester. I work a lot of odd jobs for cash, the last one having been working as an usher for my University's football games (read American hand egg for anyone outside of America :P).
With regards to other generic information, I guess a few things about myself are that I just in general love RPGs. It might comes as quite a shock that Pokémon isn't my favorite (BLASPHEMY!), but it's still up there. I'm a huge Mega Man fan, my favorite series being the Battle Network series. After Mega Man, my other interests include Final Fantasy, the Tale of series, Kingdom Hearts, and Pokémon. I've only played Tales of Xillia, but I really want to play Symphonia and Grace as well. I simply haven't gotten around to purchasing them yet.
That's awesome! This seems fitting...
I have a feeling many of us are going to sympathize with the RPG love. Perhaps the most challenging question you'll face comes next: What is your favorite FF game? Why?
Oooh that's tough. I have to admit that I haven't played some of them, most notably Final Fantasy 7-9. I was really young when those games were on the original PlayStation and I don't have a Steam account, and they're available there to my knowledge.
Of the Final Fantasies I've played, I unabashedly think X is the best. I have watched Let's Plays for some of the games I haven't played myself, but I think X has the best storyline. The evolution of Tidus from a somewhat selfish young man who only thought of himself and how to return to Zanarkand from Spira into a mature individual who would stop at nothing, even sacrificing himself, to prevent Yuna's death from performing The Final Summoning was truly touching. While I have grown to like Battle Systems such as the Gambit System in XII and the ATB in XIII, sometimes an old classic Turn Based System is nice too. There was so much to do after defeating the Final Aeon is well with the Monster Arena and maxing your characters' stats to 255.
Another game from the series I loved was Dissidia Duodecim. I liked how there was at least a few characters from every game and how the battle system made it feel like a traditional fighting game like Tekken or Streetfighter. Basically, it felt like a fresh approach to an old franchise to me; it was neat to see.
You could quite literally have described my own experience with FF. I haven't played 7-9 and X is hands down the best. I dumped hundreds of hours into that game in high school. Alright, lets switch gears a bit before getting into Pokemon stuff. What do you like to do outside of the internet/video games? Also, tell us one thing you feel is awesome about yourself!
Outside of the internet and video games, I absolutely love learning foreign languages. I'm a Spanish Teaching major at the University. I would absolutely love to pick up a third language at some point in my life. Last year I studied Dutch for a bit and picked some up, I only remember a little bit but while I was studying it I felt it kind of came to me. I feel like studying other languages is just something I kind of have a knack for. Languages I currently have an interest in and would consider picking up as a third include Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Arabic, or Japanese. I'd really love to study one of these at some point in the future when I'm not quite as busy as I am now.
One thing I find awesome about myself is that I feel I'm a very adaptable/flexible individual. I find myself able to be laid-back when a situation doesn't necessitate seriousness, mature when someone talking to me is going through a difficult time, and funny when someone needs a laugh. These are just several examples, but I really think that experiencing so many different environments while growing up molded me into a fairly easy-going person.
I'm sure those qualities helped you rise through the ranks on PS! as well. Shifting back into the world of Pokemon, what got you started on Smogon/PS and how did you end up in the Monotype room?
I started on Pokémon Showdown back in January of 2013, and I had poked on Smogon a little while before that learning about EVs and IVs early 5th gen. One day I just got the itch to spam a Swift Swim team in Ubers, and I ran into some pretty cool people who had a group on Facebook, so I joined. This group initially shifted to a forum, and the forum got a league going. I had used a Monotype Psychic team in UU for awhile, but I was a bit late on requesting a gym or testing, and there was this one guy who was starting a Flying gym. Everyone made fun of him because "FLYING TYPES GIT REKT BY STEALTH RAWKS LOL."
I started talking to this guy (his name is MonoType Man, if you ever see him around, shoot him a message!) and I decided that I wanted to be his understudy. I had never really looked at flying before and I was overall new to Monotype, so I thought I'd give things a try. It was about the middle of summer when I started going on rooms in Showdown, and Monotype was basically the one I stuck with. After about a half hour in the room, I started asking people to test my Flying team. My first battle was against Capuccino Cincinno if memory serves correct, and they had a normal team. The name gave that away a bit I suppose, haha. I won that battle and the other tests I had. I laddered a bit and went 5-1. I found the user base overall knowledgeable and big help in getting me going, and the room just seemed like a funny, albeit somewhat chaotic place, overall.
The funny thing was, it was around 3-4 months I had been in the room and I was about to let everyone know I'd be taking a break for awhile to get school work done. It just so happened that as I was about to log off, I was promoted to Room Voice. I felt very honored that my contributions had been recognized, and I've been around ever since.
#MonotypeFTW
We have had a number of user-submitted questions about things related to Pokemon.
Many people want to know:
What's your favorite Pokémon?
What is your favorite type?
What type do you specialize in?
My favorite Pokémon is Mew. I made a really lengthy write up about it on the viability thread and early on when I was doing MonoPsychic in UU, I loved the WoW set. It's my favorite Stallbreaking/Physical Crippling mon.
I don't have a favorite type per se, but the types I've used a lot and/or specialize in would include Flying, Steel, Ground (I need to revisit this lol, I'm so rusty), Fighting, and Bug.
A more serious question from MegaMamo: what do u bring to our room?
xLive55: Why do you like/love monotype?
Miku Sanjo wants to know: i was wondering what made omega love or like pokemon as much as he does and why?
I feel like MegaMammo's, xLive's, and Miku's questions all kind of tie together, so I'll try and answer them in one fell swoop. I love Pokémon because it was one of the first RPGs I played. I still remember being 7 years old and my mom bought me a Game Boy Color and Pokémon Silver for Christmas. I played the hell out of that game. At this point, it's really nostalgia for me and I always found the Pokémon Universe captivating overall. In regards to what brought me to this room and why I love Monotype, I feel that I bring an open-mind and overall positive personality to this room. I enjoy making the room a more comfortable environment for people to share their ideas. It's been great to see the user base grow lately, as I think we're routinely the 5th or 6th most occupied room. I love Monotype more than any other tier or meta (except for maybe randbats :P) because I feel that it's a huge accomplishment to beat your type disadvantages. There was nothing quite like getting to 1500s with Fighting and beating the plethora of Flying teams spamming TFlame, as TFlame was still around back when I used to run Flying more often. It's neat to see other people do this as well, as I always enjoy seeing Dark defeat Fairy. That might become a bit more commonplace now however with Greninja getting access to Gunk Shot, but we'll have to see.
From Matt: Omega, I know you've said you didn't necessarily care about getting ranked up when you were a mod. So how did it feel becoming a room owner?
And I'll ask: You recently became our newest RO, what's that like? How has that changed your activity in the room? On Smogon?
To address the RO questions from yourself and Matt, I think I would say it was really a great honor to become Room Owner. I honestly always looked up to Chandy, Nani Man, and shaymin, and did my best to emulate them as far as a policy standpoint goes, and Chandy and shaymin's chillness and Nani's OP Rof shenanigans. I wouldn't say I feel a lot different as a Room Owner compared to mod. Yeah, there's a few more commands I have access to and things of that nature, but I try to still embody the same traits that moved me up the ranks and made me a distinguished user. I would say that I have become more active on the forums, mostly on the Viability thread, but I do provide input here and there on the Meta Discussion thread. Honestly, a lot of the time I feel that the users say everything that needs to be said. We have a very knowledgeable user base. That being said, I do still talk to other auth who may be more active on the forums than I am and give them my two cents on what I think and they'll usually do the talking for me if I can't get around to it, haha.
QueenKaty asks the all important question: Who is Omega bae? ~_~
Omega bae is a gentle giant who likes everyone to be happy, so happiness is what he projects! He also likes to get to know you all better because honestly, you all are some of his better friends ^_^
If you could change one thing (literally anything) about the metagame what would it be?
If I could do anything to change the metagame, it would probably just be to balance everything more. I know that might sound really basic, and while I feel like Monotype is not as uneven as some people might make it out to be, I think we can always strive through innovation and proper suspecting/testing to make things more balanced than what they are. Things are rarely ever perfect.
Thanks for taking the time to do this mate! To conclude, do you have any words of wisdom or sage advice for all the Monotypers out there?
My words of wisdom for the user base, especially regs, would be this: Don't be afraid to PM someone voice and up. Just because we have a silly symbol attached to our name doesn't mean you're bothering us by talking to us or that we think we're "too high up" to communicate with you. We like getting PMs from you all to learn more about you and to address any concerns we might have to make this room an even better place to come chat than it was before. That being said, if you ever have any concerns or you want to get to know me even better than you have from this interview, just PM me. You all are great and I love talking to you!
That time is upon us and I'm the first interview, so I'd like to just say now, happy holidays!
It was great talking with you scp, and you did a great job with the interview!
Thanks mate! It was great chatting with you too. I'll second Omega's sage advice about pm'ing the staff, especially if you have a concern. We are all friendly and will always help if we can!