PokeRealm was a server on Netbattle that ran from June of 2005 to May of 2007. It occasionally threatened for the top position on the registry, but was usually beaten by Smogon, the premier NetBattle server. The original founder of PokeRealm was Zeroality, whose main goal for the server was to provide people with an all-in-one place for cybersex and Pokemon Battling. Some of the more prominent PokeRealm members were msw0 aka Master Sword Wielder Zero, Dragonator, and Tek aka Knightmare.
Early Success and Setbacks
PokeRealm debuted on the server registry in June of 2005 to little fanfare. It had a moderate amount of about 15-20 people in its first few days and was viewed as somewhat of an anamoly. Partly due to hype and both Smogon and Paradox Arena being down, PokeRealm reached the second position on the registry and suddenly had ambitions to be the top server on the simulator. The leaders of Paradox Arena had other plans and began a series of spambot attacks on PokeRealm, nearly destroying the community in the process. After about a week of being off the registry, PokeRealm came back and with the help of an old Paradox Arena leader, retialated against them. Spambot attacks would continue back and forth for about a week or so, until the host of Paradox Arena left for summer vacation. This left no competition for PokeRealm and it quickly became the second most popular server during the summer.
Sex is the Word
Many servers promote regulars to moderator or administrator status because of their battling skills or their devotion to the server. PokeRealm, however, determined promotions through cyber sex auditions. Some people decided to pretend that they were female while others pretended to be gay, it depended on who the judges were. It was through these auditions that Explodus and Zion became moderators on the server and it would lead to a number of copycats. For the first time in NetBattle history, cybersex became an accepted way of advancing in a server's hierarchy.
Smogon vs. PokeRealm
Smogon had already been the leading server for nearly a year when PokeRealm began a new section of analyses on their website. It wasn't until PokeRealm claimed that they started the Analyses concept that Smogon started to feud with them. A number of Smogon authority claimed that PokeRealm took their idea and demanded that they remove the analyses from their site. Zeroality and Tek stood their ground and accused their attackers that they were the thieves. Shortly after this showdown, Smogon botted PokeRealm and caused it to lose over half of its members within a matter of minutes. PokeRealm, in turn, launched a counterattack, but was unable to make a significant dent in Smogon's numbers. Many players moved to Smogon because of these crashes and PokeRealm was left a former shell of itself for a few months.
Smogon vs. Pokerealm 2 - The Rise and Fall of PokeRealm
PokeRealm, having lost the vast majority of its regulars to Smogon, was in a state of limbo. Zeroality had become disillusioned with the idea of hosting and so handed over the reins to Tek, his right-hand man in early 2006. It would be during this time that tournament scripts were developed. Many players who were unable to win Smogon tournaments participated and at times, the server would top the registry. A number of well-known Smogoners, such as Groudon80 and Aeolus, got their starts in these tournaments and it seemed that PokeRealm might become the permanent number one server. However, Smogon eventually got the tournament script and negated PokeRealm's slight edge, again becoming the dominant NetBattle server. New players would get their feet wet at PokeRealm, but eventually went to Smogon. After again losing a large amount of their regulars, PokeRealm shut down in Fall 2006. It would sporadically appear on the registry, but would never came close to its past success, shutting down in May 2007 with little fanfare.