Pokemon Black and White Rules

Tournament matches will take place via Infrared Connection. Players must provide their own Nintendo DS systems and Pokémon Black Version or Pokémon White Version Game Cards and cannot share systems or Game Cards with another player at the event.

It is strongly recommended that players bring chargers for their Nintendo DS systems, as we will not have chargers available for loan. Power outlets will be provided in the game play area.

Prior to the start of the battle, the Pokémon on each player’s team will be displayed to their opponent briefly. Moves and held items are not displayed.

A 15-minute time limit for each match will be enforced by the tournament boss, beginning at the start of each battle. If the outcome has not been determined by the end of the time limit, the boss will apply tiebreakers to determine a winner.

Players may use Pokémon found in the Pokémon Black Version or Pokémon White Version Unova Pokédex, from No. 001-148, and No. 151, that are caught in the game, or received by an official event or distribution. Pokémon from the Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, or Sinnoh Pokédex cannot be used.

All Pokémon that are Level 51 or higher will have their level reduced to 50 for the duration of the battle with the following parameters:

• Each Pokémon retains all of the moves that it knew before being auto-leveled
• Pokémon that evolve after Level 50 do not devolve when auto-leveled
• Pokémon below Level 50 remain at their actual level rather than being auto-leveled up to Level 50 for the battle
• The Pokémon’s stats are adjusted to what its Level 50 stats would be

A player’s team may not contain two Pokémon with the same Unova Pokédex number

Each Pokémon on a player’s team may use held items, though no two Pokémon may hold the same item during battle

• Only items acquired in Pokémon Black Version or White Version, or received at an official Pokémon event or promotion, may be used

Players may not enter two Pokémon with the same nickname

Players may not enter a Pokémon nicknamed with the name of another Pokémon character (for example, an Unfezant nicknamed “Pidove”)

Players found to have inappropriate/offensive Trainer names or Pokémon nicknames, as determined by the event staff, will be disqualified from the event.

Pokémon may only use moves that have been learned through one of the following methods:

• By leveling up
• By TM or HM
• As an Egg move, through breeding
• From a character in the game
• Already learned by a Pokémon that was received at an official Pokémon event or promotion
• Pokémon cannot use the move Sky Drop during battle

Notify me if you think someone has hacked their copy and I will do a hack check.

Item Clause: No pokemon on your team may have the same item.

Free Games and Software Column – #1

Hello VandyCS Faithful! I finally happened upon some free time, so I wanted to go ahead and get started with this column.

What I intend this column to accomplish is to provide resources for free software to those who frequent the site. Any time I happen upon a source for some useful and interesting free software, I’ll write about it in this weekly column.

When it comes to free games, I’ll try out a specific game and give it a review. I have a wide array of interests, so I hope I’m not going to be too biased in doing so. However, I will also try to link to reviews performed by other people and by companies to give a broad outlook.

For this first column, I decided that I would provide a couple very useful links as opposed to reviewing any single product.

First up: http://giveawayoftheday.com/
Giveaway of the Day is a very cool website that offers premium software for free. The organization provides this free software for the benefit of visitors and for the company producing the software. GOTD pays for the licenses that are downloaded, and the community reviews each giveaway and suggests changes that the producer should make in order to improve the software. The producer can use this valuable advertisement and feedback in return.
I’ve seen some software that is usually sold at around $500 on there, so there is a large amount of savings every time you download a giveaway.
A lot of the software offered, though, is hit and miss. Personally, I haven’t downloaded very many programs from GOTD as a lot of them don’t interest me, and there are quite a few that get very negative reviews. Still, it’s free premium software, so one can’t really complain.

Second: http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=244468
This is “Megazell’s Free And Legal PC Games! 1,857 Games Listed!” (1,857 as of this column). You won’t see abandonware here, but you will see a pretty actively updated list of free games, each of them updated. This list contains a lot of both old and new titles, from games designed for Win95 or older to games released in the last couple months. Every game is categorized into genre, subgenres, and graphics (whether or not it includes the third dimension). It also has a small free software section, but these are all related to gaming.
There are some really awesome finds here, and I’ve enjoyed quite a few titles I downloaded from this site. I will likely be reviewing some of the more popular titles from this site.

I hope these two links will see some use and become helpful for the VandyCS community. Here’s to next week’s column.

Google+ Overview

Google+ is picking up a little steam as invites continue to go out and more people join the site.  Some people may be on the fence, or have questions about this new site.  Here is an overview of how the system works, and my assessment will follow.

Overview

• Circles- A cross of Facebook friends and following someone on Twitter.  Circles effectively works like a group of friends, where you have your basic “Friends”, “Family”, etc.  In addition, you can also easily create new circles.  However, like Twitter, just because I add you to a circle does not mean you have to add me to a circle.  This allows the user to decide whose posts they want to see, and what content appears on their stream.
• Chat- Uses the same type of interface as Gchat does, but the difference is you first have to enable which circles you want to talk to.  So if you have a circle of acquaintances that you don’t necessarily want to talk to, you do not have to enable chat for this circle.
• Hangouts- Video chat with up to 10 people.  This feature comes with YouTube integration so your group can easily share and watch videos.
• Sparks- Sparks are a way to get news stories that interest you.  Give Google+ a topic, add it as an interest, and it will post news articles under that spark pertaining to your topic.  Allows for easy browsing of these articles, and can read at your own discretion.
• +1s- +1s on the actual Google+ site work like the “Like” system on Facebook.  However, if you Google something (say ESPN) and find a particular page you like from that search, you can also +1 that page.  What this does is: 1. The page will show up on your profile page for only you to see. 2. Whenever your friends search for ESPN (or whatever page it may be), that page will be higher up the list saying that you had +1’d that page.  So your friends can easily see things you recommend.

Google+ Interface vs. Facebook

• Google+’s interface is nice, simple, clean, and efficient.  Facebook has its moments, and some iterations have been fairly nice, but overall the system continues to become more convoluted and frustrating to use.
• Google+ has the stream (news feed) that you can easily filter by circle, whereas Facebook has you hide individuals.
• Circles page that allows you to easily move people from one circle to another, and allows for simple removal of people from your circles.
• The one thing I do like more about Facebook is the ability to directly post to someone’s page.  That feature is missing in Google+, and there are ways to simulate the same effect, but it doesn’t have that personal feel to it.  It is a minor thing that most people probably won’t miss, but it does feel strange at first.

Privacy

• Google+ makes it easy to determine who will see what posts.  When posting something on Google+, you must decide which circles will be allowed to see your post.  For those that have Spring Break pictures you don’t care for your parents to see, when you post those pictures you just click which circles you want to see the posts.  So you can just leave out that pesky “Family” circle and they will never know about those pictures.
• Hangouts work the exact same way as posting.  When you start a hangout, you can send invites to whichever circles you please.  So if, for example, I wanted to chat with some of my VandyCS friends.  I would just start a hangout, invite VandyCS, and only the people inside that circle would know about the hangout.

Google+ Security (Credit to Matthew Shea on this one, I almost left this out)

• Google+ does not BS you on their privacy features.  Changing settings is straightforward and can be done without going through a ton of menus.  It is very easy to determine what content comes up when people search for you on Google+.
• Unlike Facebook, Google+ automatically uses HTTPS, a higher level of security used by secure email clients and banks (thanks again to Matthew for the bank piece).

The big question is: Do I think Google+ offers enough to make people switch from Facebook?   Yes, without a doubt.  It takes a little bit of learning, but once you understand how all the circles and other features work, most people will love what Google+ has to offer.  A more reliable chat service was all it took to sell me, but the amount of content that is easy to access is just astounding.  Hangouts is a really fun feature that I recommend everyone tries.  Overall, I feel really good about this new social network, and Google’s constant reliability is even more reassuring.

Invites are opening and closing periodically, but if you would like an invite to Google+ you can just message me on Facebook or email me at bconway2012@gmail.com.  All you need is a Gmail account or an email account that connects with some other Google service (like Blogger or Youtube).

VandyCS Blogs

“Blog.”  What a simple, yet incredible buzzword that has taken the internet by storm over the past few years.  Frankly, everyone who’s anyone on the internet has a blog.  So, why shouldn’t we have a system for blogging?

Welcome to VandyCS Blogs, a new concept that’s being introduced along with some other reforms to the club.  Here, various members of VandyCS will have the opportunity to discuss technology, video games, computer science, news, or whatever they feel like on any given day.

So, you probably have some questions.   Here’s a simple Q&A:

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Q:  Why are you doing this?

A:  This is an idea that we’ve had floating around the club for a while, and it seems like a great way to engage all members of the club and bring some more depth to what we’re doing.

Q:  Who will be allowed to blog?  Officers, coordinators?

A:  Good news!  All club members are invited to blog with us!  More information to how you can join will be coming later, but rest assured that anyone in the club who has something to contribute will be able to do so.

Q:  Are these blogs centered more around video games or technology?

A:  As I said earlier, both of these topics will be introduced along with many others. When blogging, consider what kind of topics would be relevant to the scope of the club.  Usually, that’s video games, technology, and Computer Science.  However, it’s certainly not limited to that.

Q:  What is “Soap Box”?

A:  Soap Box is where we’re going to be putting our blog posts for the time being. Since this is a brand new concept, we want to make sure we’re doing it right. Therefore, all blog posts will be going here until we have beefed up our blog infrastructure.

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If you have any more questions, feel free to leave a comment below, or send an email to our Webmaster and new Vice-President, Russ (russ.amos@vanderbilt.edu).

Happy blogging, everyone!