Platinum World: The Beginning

In November of 2009, I was pretty excited with the release of Pokemon Platinum earlier that year. It was the first time I've played a 4th generation game in more than a year due to me losing my Diamond version.

I decided to use a site called "SocialGo" and create a Pokemon Community for battling, trading and chatting and much more. The site is still accessible if you want to check it out. This truly is the first ever "PokeOrb" if you will:

http://platinum-world-forums.socialgo.com/

I hung out around Serebii for a while here and there, getting battles and trying to get better. In the chatbox at Serebii, I learned that they were "clans" of battlers who were quite good. This gave me the idea to create my own clan. I shut down the original Platinum World, and then created a new forums only site using a free forums provider. The original link to Platinum World was http://www.platinumworld.bestbb.net but unfortunetly, it's no longer available.

I do however have a few screenshots of the forums:

 

 

 

 

From Platinum World to PokeOrb

Platinum World had a few members. I remember it maxing out around 30 or so. Some were active, some weren't. We had some good times there. This is where I met some of the very first PokeOrb members, who still occasionally come around here every so often. They have VIP status on the site as they've been with us since the beginning.

-PokemonFreakEevee
PokefreakPearl
SilentKeeneyes
LucarioGods (no longer here sadly, due to a fight)

I came up with the idea with some of the guys in Platinum World's chat (http://www.xat.com/platinumworld) of creating a new site. I got my own domain. PokeOrb.com. If I recall, it was Silentkeeneyes who helped me come up with the name.

I got the domain and launched PokeOrb on December 14th, 2009.

The original PokeOrb didn't do very well. I ended up closing it in January of 2010. I managed to affiliate with two other big sites at the time. Floatzel.net and Glaceon's Palace ( Closed)

After the closing of PokeOrb, I stuck to uploading YouTube videos. I stayed out of web building for a while, and waited for HeartGold and SoulSilver to come out. I will admit, the release of HG/SS must have been the most excited I've ever been for Pokemon Games.

In the hype, I decided to try to create another Pokemon site. This time, I just spent a bit of my free time working every few days on a freewebs site.

I named it PokeFreakPlatinum.TK and opened it the night before HG/SS were launched. I advertised it on YouTube and such and it started to get going.

One of the old members of PokeFreakPlatinum.TK found the site and we reunited after a while. He had brought one of his friends in the chat and they were advertising and getting new members. I realized here that this was the start of something pretty big, and sure enough I was right.

Silentkeeneyes came up with the idea to host Tournaments. I decided that we'd start out with Tournaments every Friday Night. After a few weeks, this was changed in coherence to my real life schedual. It soon became Saturday Night Tournaments. We started in March 2010 and are still doing it to this day!

The Tournaments were really amazing and we continued to grow and grow on the site. New members were coming in and we continued to host Tournaments as we got the name known. Some of the Tournaments lasted 6 hours!

In Summer of 2010, somewhere around June-July, I decided to move PokeFreakPlatinum.TK to PokeOrb. I realized that this could curse us once again, but I couldn't stick with the freewebs site. The template was getting overused by other people, and the limitations were rather obnoxious.

I re-did PokeOrb, fitted it out with a new template, added more features and content and decided to release it. We moved from PFP.TK and switched to PokeOrb and continued to grow.

This is what we moved to:

Our real claim to fame was the tournaments we hosted every Saturday Night. We'd offer a prize to whoever won in our knockout style tournaments. Our chatbox was almost always busy with a good 8-10 acitve people around the clock (except after 2AM)

After a few months, I once again, decided to change up PokeOrb. Some people in the chat commented that the style PokeOrb was didn't look very Pokemon-ish. I agreed and began re-doing PokeOrb once again.

Finally, we launched PokeOrb again, with the final design, which you see here. I still update the color scheme, but it's the same template.

Our Tournaments were gaining a lot of popularity. We got an easy 30+ people in our tournament chat every Saturday Night. The Tournaments lasted a good 4+ hours at least.

 

Our Final Word

PokeOrb has alwaus been fun. For me, it's been a lot of fun to work on and chat with the great people who've come to the Orb.

We hope PokeOrb will contiue to thrive with what it's been known for: Tournaments and the updates that I continue to throw out to put an exciting twist to the fun here at the Orb.

 

Thanks to everyone who's made this site possible.

-Daniel

Site Owner