As The Pokeball Turns
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As The Pokeball Turns
"Over-whale-ming Battles Under Pikachu's Hat" ft. R2theOldy from The Wailordz Podcast | TRAINER'S EYE #28
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
From Pokemon GO PVP battles to podcasting, R2theOldy dives into his Pokémon GO journey and how his students helped shape the Wailordz Podcast. He shares what it’s like co-hosting with itslikecrackyo and how their show connects with the Pokémon GO community. This episode is a must-listen for fans of the game and those interested in the behind-the-scenes of a Pokémon podcast.
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Sources
Opening Song: "Forget You" by Alex_MakeMusic from Pixabay
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Disclaimer: This podcast is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by The Pokémon Company International.
Introduction
David HernandezI fucking love all of you, tony, Brendan. Fuck all that. That's how I, sir. I'm gonna have to cut you and your friends off. Uh, but we're not done yet. This is part two. But you each have had 28 shots. I know. I know, I know. I know. But the podcast keeps saying Pokemon, and we have to take a shot every time they say Pokemon shot. Sir, I can't. Richard said Pokemon.
itslikecrackyoI did say Pokemon.
David HernandezThat's two more right there.
itslikecrackyoOh, shit.
David HernandezQuit saying Pokemon.
itslikecrackyoYes. Say it again.
David HernandezOh fuck. I'm not giving you any more to drink. Please. The podcast must continue.
itslikecrackyoHey, David, I think rollie's dead.
David HernandezDon't be stupid. If he was dead, he'd be a, he'd be a skeleton.
itslikecrackyoBut he doesn't moves.
David HernandezI'm gonna have to ask you and your friends to leave now.
itslikecrackyoWake, are you alive? Dude? No. Roll eight. Roll eight. Wake up.
David HernandezNo. Hey, wake up. I'm sober. I'm sober. I'm sober. I'm sober.
itslikecrackyoOh, I love this song. How dry I am, how dry I, how dry. Nobody knows how dry I am.
David HernandezRound two. Baby narrat. Play my shit.
itslikecrackyoNo. Play my shit.
David HernandezMy shit.
itslikecrackyoMy shit.
David HernandezMy shits.
itslikecrackyoHe's my co-host.
David HernandezIt's my show.
itslikecrackyoIt was your show, but you got replaced.
David HernandezOh yeah. Who
itslikecrackyoThe Way Lord's podcast. That's who
David Hernandezyour co-host is. Dead,
itslikecrackyonot chill. He's asleep.
David HernandezHe could have just asked us nicely.
itslikecrackyoRight?
R2theOLDYWelcome to another episode of the Whaler's Podcast of richard and Rollie, where we talk t p Pokemon Go. Whatever shenanigans we are up to. This is as the Pokemon Ball turns.
Interview with R2theOldy
David HernandezToday I'm joined by the other half of the Wailordz Podcast, Roldy. Roldy, welcome to the show.
R2theOLDYYo. What's up David? Can I call you David? What do I call you?
David HernandezYeah, you can call me David. That's fine.
R2theOLDYOr do they call you As the Pokeball Turns?
David HernandezDavid would probably be a little bit more easier.
R2theOLDYOkay. But then your Twitter name is something else.
David HernandezYeah. So there's a story behind that. So
R2theOLDYLet's get into that. That's me interviewing you now.
David HernandezI know, right? So when I first, basically it was a discord admin, he hated Hamtaro, so I'm a bit of a troll. So I decided to change my profile pic to Hamtaro. And then he played along and he made my name Ham taro and it stuck ever since.
R2theOLDYGot it. What is Hamtaro? I don't know what that is.
David HernandezIt's an anime that came out back in the nineties. It's like about a hamster.
R2theOLDYOh! That's what your profile picture is?
David HernandezYep. That one.
R2theOLDYI thought it was, I thought it was a Pokemon. That's how little I know about Pokemon. That was, I was like, I don't know which Pokemon that is, but that's interesting. No wonder man, you have too many aliases.
David HernandezI know! That's why I stuck with my main name now like it's the easiest thing for me to do.
R2theOLDYFor the longest time I didn't know that you were the guy that hosted this podcast cuz I would see your tweets cause you're an avid tweeter. I think you tweet a lot. Not you tweet too much, but you're very active in Twitter, so I never put two and two together. I think until like, maybe Richard mentioned it or something, and I was like, "oh!" Cause I had came across your podcast just from searching Pokemon Go podcast on the podcast app.
David HernandezHopefully it's not the earlier episodes, the earlier episodes were way rough.
R2theOLDYDefinitely the earlier episodes. I like that, um, you're very scripted, it felt like at the beginning.
David HernandezYep. I was completely nervous as hell and didn't know how to talk to the mic.
R2theOLDYBut no, I liked it because it felt like you prepared, unlike... us. We don't prepare anything. I good. Agree. So I was like, he's well prepared. This is like, it's almost like hearing an audiobook it felt like, which is nice cuz like the news was easy to digest that way.
David HernandezRight?
R2theOLDYAnd it's not just someone off the cuff fucking regurgitating something they saw on Twitter or like on some blog thing, which is what we tend to do. So I, I, I actually enjoyed it. I didn't know that that was you though. I did listen to episodes here and there. I don't listen to as many Pokemon Go podcasts as I used to anymore, but I did follow you for a while, never knowing that you're the a little hamster guy Hamtaro.
David HernandezWhat kind of podcast would you listen to?
R2theOLDYThe Pokemon Go ones.
David HernandezYeah,
R2theOLDYI started off with Pokemon Go Radio, which doesn't exist anymore or they started doing something else. And then I came across GoCast. So I still check out Gocast periodically. I've been listening to Battlecatz since the beginning and that's probably the only one I consistently listen to now. That's a straight PVP. It used to be with Zyonik and Caleb Pang, but now it's Caleb Pang with SpeediestChief. There was also the stadium go cast I used to listen to, but they stopped doing that one. And Lured Up. I used to listen to a lot of Lured Up. Don't as much anymore. Sorry, Ken. But yeah, those are some of the ones I've listened to in the past and I've always checked out episodes of all the podcasts. I think I've listened to at least a few episodes, a handful of every podcast that are Pokemon Go related. Sometimes it's good as just to hear like other perspectives and hear production value compared to your own and see like, how can I improve this and that even like yours is like really well written. I mean, the first time I heard yours was like, damn it, maybe we should like really start spending some time scripting stuff because everything is off the cuff. I've always wanted to start a podcast even before Pokemon Go. I just didn't know about what. Almost started one about punk rock music with my friend like we would always joke about it cause he went to UCLA and he had UCLA radio. So we would go, he would invite me over, we would just go and talk about punk rock stuff and then play music and then talk about punk and then play music and then take calls. We always joked about starting a pod, and then we became educators, so we were talking about having a teacher podcast, what kind of angle will we take? So it's interesting and not boring. Never got it off the ground. And then Pokemon Go, obviously that's something that I spent a lot of time doing and learning and where's all this useless knowledge gonna go? Podcast! So that's kind of how it transitioned that way, but yeah, I've been in the podcast game for a long time, since the Blackberry days.
David HernandezSo The Wailordz podcast eventually allowed you to start your own podcast.
R2theOLDYYeah and it was because it just almost felt like I had to with Richard cuz we would spend a lot of time talking about Pokemon Go, cuz his partner and my partner, we would all go on a lot of double dates, usually Pokemon related, cuz his partner plays. Then my girlfriend at the time played, but she wasn't like super like, obsessed with it and his partner was like really into it. But then we would be so into it and talk about it so much that we annoyed our respective partners. We would geek out as soon as I saw Richard. I was always, because I was originally friends with his partner David. Every time we hung out I was obviously talk to David but then I would be excited to see Richard cause I was like, I want to hear everything Richard has to whatever take he has on the certain event. And Richard used to be like really into going on Reddit and learning everything through Reddit and I used to learn everything, through YouTube watching, you know, like Trainer TIps, Mystic7. I don't like watching his content anymore, but I used to watch Trainer Tips like every episode. So I used to get all my information from him and Richard would get it all from Reddit, and then we would always spend too much time talking about Pokemon Go events and geeking out about like random raid stuff. It wasn't until PVP came out that, you know, that's when I think I was the first one to get really into it. My first GBL battle or my first PVP battle was with Richard. He texted me, it's about to drop" or something like that cuz he is like, he always has pulse on all the news cuz of Reddit. So once it dropped, you know, we tested it out, sent me a battle request. I don't remember who won, but I wanna say that I won I wanna say that I beat him, but I don't remember. And then I was hooked and I started like really getting into PVP and he wasn't at first. He was still like heavy in on Raiding, he loved to Raid and geek out about that stuff. And eventually when I got him into it, cause I started a YouTube channel before the podcast because I needed to have some outlet for how, like, obsessed I became with PVP at the time. I had a YouTube channel started making videos and then all my absorption of content changed to PVP content, but eventually, once Richard got into it, he got really like nerdy and obsessive over it too and I was just like, "Hey, we should start a podcast cuz I'm tired of editing YouTube videos, takes too long. Let's do a podcast!"
David HernandezExactly!
R2theOLDYLittle did I know though, that editing a podcast is actually more work.
David HernandezReally? You think so?
R2theOLDYWhen you're trying to edit Richard's audio, yeah.
David HernandezOkay.
R2theOLDYIf it was just my own audio, it'd probably be a lot easier. No, it was funny our first episodes, they are tough to listen to cuz his audio is so bad and I tell him all the time anyways, and it was a mic that I gave him that I bought for my YouTube channel, when I started my YouTube channel, it was like a $40 mic on Amazon and then I gave it to him and I was like, wait, this mic sounds even worse when you're only recording audio. Sounds like you're inside of a Pringles can. Anyways, yeah, I used to spend a lot of time editing because I also didn't know how to edit audio, but I kind of learned some tricks in how to improve it, so it's a lot smoother and easier now. And I also don't care as much as I used to cause I used to be like really obsessed with making sure it sounded really good. I would cut out little pauses and spend hours, hours editing, which I think the guys at the Incensed podcast still do, they spend a lot of time editing, but there's like four of them, so it's a lot of work. I still shout out to them. I do, listen to them periodically, Richard listens to every single episode. I just sometimes don't care about Pokemon sometimes to be honest. I guess
David HernandezYou went from a Best to Burn out.
R2theOLDYYeah. Yeah. I'm like burned out sometimes. I'm like, when you get outta work, I'm like, I don't care about Pokemon right now. Let me listen to something else. Yeah.
David HernandezWhat was it about Pokemon Go early on that got you hooks as much as you were playing?
R2theOLDYI didn't wanna play it. I, I think I was anti hype when it came out, so I was like, this is dumb and it's gonna go away soon. And my little brother, who is 10 years younger than me, cause at the time, he was still in high school. He got really into it and then, you know, I think it was a good way for him and I to bond. He was trying to convince me to take him to the Exposition Park, which is by USC, which is a place to play around here where we grew up. And it was the middle of the night too, or it was like 10:00 PM I'm like, "dude, I'm not taking him to the Rose Garden right now. It's super late." And he is like, "come on like everyone's gonna be there." So I was like, "all right, well if I'm gonna go with you, I might as well just download the app and play cause I'm not gonna be bored watching you catch Pokemon." So that's how I started and actually it was a lot of fun and we went to the Rose Garden, we had to like sneak into it, but there was actually people there playing at night, luring up the Pokestops there. They don't let people go at night anymore because of Pokemon Go. It would get crowded with people. It's really easy to break into it cause you really just have to hop a little small fence or little, concrete thing. But yeah, that's kind of how I started and then I got really into hatching eggs to be honest. Like hatching eggs became an addiction cuz I was a runner, I enjoyed the fact that it like, "okay, I gotta hatch this five kilometer egg", and then the excitement of seeing what you're gonna hatch, even though it was usually 10 times outta 10, it was a disappointment. And then by September of that year, I started like dwindling down. The hype had calmed down since that summer and then I stopped playing altogether, and I got a girlfriend at the time. So other girl that I was talking about earlier, but I met her like towards the end of that summer into the fall and then she didn't play, so then I didn't play and then my brother stopped playing. I just stopped playing and I picked it up again in 2018, because I started running a lot, I forgot. I remember something happened, I read about something and then made me like think like, "maybe I should redownload the app?" So I did and then, same thing, I got obsessed with running and hatching eggs, but then it was Raiding was already out and I didn't really know what Raiding was and then I met a bunch of people at my college that were Raiding and then that became like its own like exciting part of the game. Ever since then, I had never stopped playing and I had to make a new account cause I couldn't figure out how to log into my old account. So I started from scratch and that was exciting kind of to start all over from the beginning.
David HernandezEverything was new and fresh quite literally.
R2theOLDYNew and fresh. I think the first time I played with David, Richard's partner, was Zapdos Raid Day. The first one they ever did in 2018 and he was level 37 at the time and I was level 27. And I had been going pretty hard trying to like rank up as fast as I could. And he's like, "oh, what level are you?" And I was like, "oh, 27." He's like, "haha, that's cute." And then that's what tr triggered me to be like, I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna fucking surpass you. You just, you don't know how competitive I am. And then that ignited some grind in me and I literally flew through all the levels I surpassed Richard, Richard's been playing since the beginning, same account, and I got to level 50. I was like a hardcore grinder. A lot of raids, a lot of egg hatching, and that's kind of where the Wailordz name came from cuz I thought that I was a whale, but then once I got on Twitter, I saw that I'm not really a whale. Not spending anywhere near as much as a lot of other people, but the grind was real, man.
David HernandezWho's the bigger whale between you and your co-host?
R2theOLDYNow it's Richard. At that time it was myself. Richard he used to not even remote raid. During the pandemic, I was Remote Raiding 24/7, PVP-ing, I was going ham, but not so much anymore like I try to give myself little mini goals of not spending money in the game anymore. I definitely have chilled out on how much money I give Niantic. Part of it was also just, losing the excitement, like the Raiding not as exciting as it used to be. I think I used to like that grind of going in person and coordinating with people like that was always exciting and fun. Where now like remote rating is just, do I wanna spend a dollar on a Terrakion?"
David HernandezWould you do speed Raiding over where you live?
R2theOLDYOh no, I didn't know that many people, like, the people that I knew were like nothing compared to the people that Richard hung out with. So I was always excited to go to Richard's area. We had HMLondon on and he was one of the coordinators of that group. They would do like real WAFU Raiding where my group was embarrassingly pathetic compared to them, so, I remember once time I invited Richard over for, I forgot what Raid day it was, might have been Suicune and he was like really annoyed of how slow we were Raiding. I thought we were like really efficient and he's like, "okay, why are we still standing here catching like, let's go to the next Raid already." And I'm just like, "oh, well we're all gonna walk there." He's like, "you guys are not gonna drive there?" And I was like, "well, we didn't, we didn't know you should do that." So, definitely, like what we did was not as crazy as a lot of other people. So that's why I said like I thought I was a whale, but there was nothing compared to like people that are just gonna spend all day at wahoo Raiding or WAFU Raiding, whatever it was called when you spend all day going raid to raid. You don't even catch the Pokemon, sometimes we would spend time catching it and he's like, "why are you guys gonna' catch it? It's not a hundo!" That was Richard. He was very elitist at the beginning. And I'm like, well, I want the, I want the candy. So, yeah, it wasn't as hardcore and it was just like the few people when I used to live in East Los Angeles, like a group of like 10 core members and then maybe 20 people total sometimes. That would be it, but we would walk everywhere, which I actually enjoyed. We just walked, talked, and Raid. It was always fun.
David HernandezWe had somebody who used to do walking raids here in Downtown Dallas and I did it once and it was a different experience cause I'm used to driving around, but it was nice to be able to walk, be able to get the fresh air, chat with on the way.
R2theOLDYYeah, I never liked the, I liked the drivings. It would be exciting during those three hour Raid Days, like it was always exciting. But I really enjoyed just the walking, like we would always coordinate for raid hour. We would meet at a certain park and then we would just hit like the five, six gyms that we could hit. Same thing at my, my university where I used to go to, at the time. We had a group of people, oh I was in the Instinct group. So we had a group chat and we would always meet at the same Raid and we'll do like the five, six gyms at the university campus and it'll take an hour if you're walking to do the whole thing, so that was always so fun too cause I met a lot of cool people. It was always cool to meet people through the game, through the app, and I think that's what I used to like really enjoy. Where now yeah, it's fine, it is kind of evolved like everything's digital and we'll meet people through the podcast scene and stuff like that.
David HernandezBefore Pokemon Go, what was your experience with Pokemon? Did you used to play the main series games at all?
R2theOLDYWell, no, actually I didn't. I played Pokemon yellow when I was in fourth, fifth grade and I had Pokemon Red and I played those religiously. I used to even trade with my friends in class when had to connect your Game Boys. I remember my teacher took away my game boy once.
David HernandezOh no.
R2theOLDYI was super upset about that. I don't remember how I got into it. I dunno if it was the cartoon. I was also really into the cartoon when I was a kid and then I got really into the cards. All of elementary school, when Gen one was out, I was all Pokemon Gungho. By the time Gen two came out, I was completely out of it and I think the last game I remember playing was Pokemon Stadium
David Hernandezmm-hmm.
R2theOLDYwhich was actually cool, I enjoyed that one a lot. And I played Pokemon Snap.
David HernandezWow.
R2theOLDYSo the answer is probably no, I didn't play any real main series after that. Pokemon GO brought me back into Pokemon
David Hernandezmm-hmm.
R2theOLDYAnd now like everyone, knows me as a Pokemon guy like they'll gimme gifts and stuff cause they think I've been obsessed with Pokemon my whole life, but it was really just Pokemon Go.
David HernandezI heard That you like to collect Pikachu. Is that true?
R2theOLDYI do. See Niantic knows, like they know their audience, like they know like little trickle things that they do to bring back some of the people like that just kind of trickle off for a while, so they throw in a new Pikachu with a hat, most people are annoyed by it, I'm like, fuck, now I gotta get that Pikachu
David HernandezWhat about the Pikachu that entices you like?
R2theOLDYI don't know, I think it's now like become like an OCD obsession that I have to have every Pikachu with a hat shiny, even though I don't have that impressive of a collection cuz I don't get them all. But I will be like, "all right, I can't, this will never come out again, so I gotta go out and get it.
David HernandezNow is it just a Pikachu with the hat or is it also the costume Pokemon as well that we've seen over the years?
R2theOLDYJust the Pikachu with the costumes. It's only Pikachu. I cannot, get my brain to fall into the same trap with all the other costume Pokemons or I'll lose my mind and never, never be happy again. So, yeah, I'm similar to Gengar too, if Gengar has a hat, I like, I go kind of ham for it. I spent like over $50 Raiding that thing to get the shiny and I never got the shiny of the witch hat one. I got the hundo, but I didn't get this shiny.
David HernandezOh man.
R2theOLDYSo, Gengar I'll go ham for; Pikachu bring me back outside so I can catch more of those things. I get kind of obsessive over catching them, and if anybody wants to trade me any, I'm always happy to spend a million Stardust for one I don't have. I'm missing one more of the, you know, there was the Rayquaza, then there was the Lucario, and then the Umbreon, oh, wait, no, I need two then. I only have Rayquaza and Umbreon. The Umbreon, A student traded it to me. I felt like I ripped him off, but he insisted I gave him a shiny Rayquaza. We had a, we had a lucky trade and he really wanted shiny Rayquaza and I was looking through just shinies and I was like, "oh wow, you have the Pikachu with the Umbreon hat", which I caught, but it ran away from ,me or I found, but it ran away from me, so I was devastated that day.
David HernandezOh my God.
R2theOLDYAnd I was like, I cannot believe this happened. Like ruined my whole day, cause I was so excited to catch it and it ran away from me. But then he had it and he was like, "oh, you, can have it." And I was like, "no, I don't want this. It's really rare." He's like, "no, I really don't care for it. You can have it. Just gimme the rayquaza." And I was like, okay."
David HernandezHow much do your students know you play Pokemon Go?
R2theOLDYSo when I was a teacher, I would only tell the kids that also played and I could trust them. Now as an administrator, only one kid, cause I was a special ed teacher, so I like gravitate towards students with special needs and become like a lot more friendly here with them. There's one that plays and I was trying to give him tips. He was there PVP-ing and I was like, and I was like, Hey, you're using the wrong move man cause he was doing, he was, he was using a Whiscash, opponent had a Trevenant, he's using Whiscash and he's throwing Mud Bombs. First of all, you don't wanna Whiscash not wanna see Trevenant. Second of all, you don't wanna throw mud bombs at it, so you wanna go for Blizzard. He's like, not even trying to bait, he's just gonna straight Mud Bomb. So I was like, so he, yeah, he's a great kid. But anyways, he's the only kid I've added and he's not gonna tell anybody that I play, so I keep it low key now my new job.
David HernandezRight. Especially cuz you're now more in a higher position
R2theOLDYRight, right, right. Yeah, definitely a higher position too, so I definitely don't want word getting out, especially that I have a podcast where I curse and drink the entire time.
David HernandezSo, speaking of PVP, how did you first get involved with PVP? Like what enticed you about it?
R2theOLDYI've always been like really into mathematics and I didn't even mention, I listened to a lot of like space podcasts about astronomy. So I've always just liked numbers and stuff, So PVP was very numbery and learning all that stuff was just a lot of fun. I got really into typings, I didn't really care about typings that much. You didn't really need to be so savvy at it before PVP, you just needed to know that Rock is weak to Water and Grass and then you wanna max out your Pokemon in order to take down the Raid boss. But with PVP you gotta know what's neutral, you gotta know what's resisted. So like that extra challenge and depth of the game really I think what drew me in to getting really into PVP. And I also tried Silph Tournaments. I went to one and I got destroyed. The Jungle Cup was my first one and I remember like having, making flashcards to learn typings, like I had that girlfriend quiz me cause I was trying to learn all the typings that, I don't think anything prepared you for that unless you were playing competitively prior, you didn't really need to know a lot of that stuff, so I got really into it, so I was like, I gotta learn, I gotta be good at this.
David HernandezI heard there was a tournament you tried to attend that they wouldn't let you attend cuz they thought you were a spoofers cuz they would only allow Pokemon within that area.
R2theOLDYOh yeah. This was a tournament put together by my local East LA community and I used to always give 'em a shit about it later cuz they were very anti spoofing. The only rules to the tournament where you have to use Pokemon caught in Los Angeles. So they would have to have the Los Angeles tag. The stupid thing about it is where we lived in East LA, any Pokemon you caught didn't say Los Angeles, it said Commerce, California, which is like those little city next over. So none of those even said Los Angeles. But then I had stuff that I would catch in Santa Monica, which is Los Angeles, Santa Monica Pier. Even to this day, there's some bug with the Santa Monica Pokemon. All it does is say, it just says California. It doesn't even say the city, it just says California. So they were like checking all this stuff and I'm like, what the fuck? You guys should have been explicit that it has to say Los Angeles. Also any Pokemon we catch here at the tournament are not even eligible cause none of them say Los Angeles, they all say Commerce, California. So I argued my way into allowing me to use whatever the, whatever I wanted.
David HernandezSo they actually let you play?
R2theOLDYYes. They were not gonna not let me play. They were just like, oh, you can't use this specific Pokemon because it doesn't say Los Angeles, or you can't use, I think at that time, I was really excited, my fight was because I wanted to use my Medicham. I think my Medicham said, Pico Rivera or something, which is a city in Los. I'm like, these aren't cities I'm gonna spoof to. If I'm spoofing, I'm gonna fucking spoof to the other side of the world. I'm gonna spoof to the next town that's only like two miles away. you know, you know, these are all within Los Angeles County per se. And if I'm really spoofing, I'm gonna actually get something cool. I'm gonna spoof to Germany and go to those spots with all those Pokestops everywhere, but anyways, I think, cuz I was like, I spent so much time grinding for this Medicham that I was not gonna not use it. I was like, I'm gonna use it. Anyways, I didn't win the tournament, but I think I got top four or whatever and yeah, that was a story behind that and I always gave them shit after that cuz I became like much better at PVP than all those guys. And you guys are all fools for trying to stop me.
David HernandezWith your experience with PVP, what's your biggest concern moving forward with it outside of Niantic glitches?
R2theOLDYWell, right now it's looking, I think what we were looking for for a while, we have like tournaments regularly, which is kind of cool. It's now like an official eSport. which is kind of wild, you know, to think about. My concern, what I really don't like about G B L currently is just how much emphasis there is on XL Pokemon, or how necessary they are. Realistically, you can't really battle in Master League unless you have XL Pokemon, obviously that comes at a cost. Even Ultra League, you can't do well unless you have XL Pokemon. Those you can probably get for free, but you gotta grind it out, right? And then same with Great League. You know, Medicham is it's always as good as it's always been, but now you need an XL Medicham. So my biggest concern is just like how necessary XL Pokemon are because that just creates a bigger barrier of entry for a lot of new people...
David Hernandezmm-hmm.
R2theOLDYand will just make new people not play at all. Whereas it's just gonna get stuck with the people that already have been grinding out for years cause also on top of that, you need a lot of Stardust. So it is just really hard to just start playing the game and then get into PVP and I think that's something that might never get figured out by Niantic cause it doesn't align with the rest of the games. I mean, you can play the video game, you know, everybody can buy the video game and just spend your 60 bucks, grind it out, build your Pokemon, and you can go to tournaments. As opposed to us, we're gonna spend 60 bucks on one Pokemon. I just don't want it to be a thing where people need money because very pay to win.
David HernandezSomething I meant to share with you and I forgot to tell your co-host this. So y'all were actually the first Pokemon Go podcast I listened to.
R2theOLDYNo way!
David HernandezYes, so I had to look through my history. The reason why is because of y'all's artwork, because Wailord is one of my favorite Pokemon. Yeah. And my type of Pokemon Go, you know, I was scrolling through all of 'em, I saw the two Wailords, and I'm like, "oh, I gotta listen to this, it has a Wailord!" Just cause I love Wailord so much.
R2theOLDYThat's wild, man.
David HernandezYeah and I don't know what episode it was, I'd have to look through it again, but I know the Whalers podcast was the first one I ever listened to and it's pretty casual and very chill.
R2theOLDYVery casual and chill. That artwork was done by one of my students.
David HernandezReally?
R2theOLDYYeah.
David HernandezDid he know that you were doing a podcast? Or how did that happen?
R2theOLDYHe did. he's a really good artist, that kid's a, that kid's a trip. You know, people draw with their iPad and the pencil? He did all that. He would do it with his finger on like some shitty ass Samsung phone, like some old Galaxy phone.
David HernandezHe did the artwork y'all had on the Samsung phone with his finger. You gotta be kidding me.
R2theOLDYI'm not kidding.
David HernandezWhat?
R2theOLDYYeah. I eventually convinced his parents to buy him an iPad with a pencil and like he's doing these fucking incredible art pieces like that kid's amazing. But I was like, "Hey, can you make me something, but you cannot tell anybody what it's for? And he is just like, "okay." You know, he is just a sweet kid and I knew he wouldn't tell anybody, but he was really excited about the fact that he did this top secret art project for me. And, you know, I bought him, I don't know, I think I gave him a gift card for something and I bought him lunch a few times, so I think we called it even. But yeah, it was one of my students that made that. I still think like I want to redo some of the artwork or if I ever wanna want a better print of it, I would have to like reach out to him and be like, can you update it or can you sent me, I don't even think he has the original file anymore cause he did it on, like I said, on this really old phone like he would zoom in all the way and be like scratching away with his finger and that's how he drew it.
David HernandezThat's crazy! Like, I thought y'all hired somebody to make that like, I did not expect this
R2theOLDYNo, it was a high school kid with a busted phone and just his fingers. He is really, really, a true artist. I'm glad the artwork brought you to the podcast. I was very, I'm very proud of that artwork, I think it's cool. He did the artwork for my Twitter guy, which is me with a Drifloon. He did that too.
David HernandezThat guy's going places, man. That's some amazing art.
R2theOLDYYeah. He did all that on his phone. This is all pre iPad. The iPad stuff he made was pretty crazy.
David HernandezHow long did it take y'all to do the podcast from when y'all thought about it to actually starting it? Like was there a delay or did y'all just do it right away?
R2theOLDYNah, it took, uh, it took a while. I would always jokingly tell 'em that we should start a podcast cuz we just spent too much time talking about Pokemon. I would say it still took like a year before we actually sat down and recorded. I had the idea for the podcast before I started making YouTube videos. So I started making YouTube videos and then I would ask Richard to send me footage and I would like shoutcast his footage on my YouTube channel. Then I was like, we should just make a podcast, I wanna start a podcast, I think you would be the perfect co-host because you know about Pokemon and I don't, so I need someone that knows about Pokemon
David Hernandezand it works so well, it's crazy. Uh, you would think that both of y'all know about Pokemon, but then you hear your story and it's like, oh, you don't know as much because of course you left after Gen one and he's played the entire time. Y'all compliment Each other pretty well.
R2theOLDYYeah, like I'm the PVP nerd and he is just a Pokemon in general nerd.
David HernandezWho gets frustrated with pvp.
R2theOLDYHe gets frustrated. I used to spend a lot of time, like unofficially coaching him. He doesn't ask me for tips anymore, but he used to ask me for a lot of tips back in the day but, uh, yeah, now I think he's gotten the hang of it now. We used to get on Zoom and I would coach him as he did his battles.
David HernandezYou've had a lot of guests like JRE, Battlebill, Pokedaxi, Incensed, of course, FishonaHeater, so many, Do you have a favorite guest out of all that you've had on the show that you would like to maybe have on the show again, or just in general?
R2theOLDYYou had this person on, you had BirdPower, I really enjoyed having BirdPower on the show. It was just her innocence about everything was just so genuine and she's so into the game, she was great. I would like to have ChillisFM back on because I felt like he was on an episode with just me and no Richard and I was off my game, I didn't know how to be a one man co-host. So I felt like I needed to bring em back on and add some of that Richard charm and spontaneous venting that Richard does, so I would like to have Chillis FM back on, but everyone's great, we've always talked about bringing everyone back on at some point like JRE. He's always someone you would've liked to have back on just for the fact that he's an expert of all things PVP at this point. Who else? I would like to have Lachlan on whenever the hell he wants at this point but again, it doesn't work with time zones all the time. But I, I, I think the most, to this day, the most exciting, like the most nervous I'm always having guests on and most excited was when we had the Incensed guys on because, well, what I was nervous was just so many of them when I was like, and they're British and I don't, uh, but I was excited cause I knew Richard would be really excited cause I remember booking that without telling him.
David HernandezDid he know before the recording happened or did he find out?
R2theOLDYYeah, yeah. Yeah, because I was like, we're, yeah we have to record it in fucking at noon to adjust to their time zone. I eventually told him, but he was super stoked. But at the time of, I didn't listen to their podcast either like I had listened to maybe two episodes just to prepare, but that's the only Pokemon podcast I think he listens to still. Obviously it worked out cause they became kind of our buddies and then they had us on theirs for a while and then we met them at Seattle. They're always cool lads. I would like to have them on any, anytime, have those blokes on anytime.
David HernandezAwesome. Who's somebody you want on this show that you haven't had yet?
R2theOLDYYeah, they forgot who asked us this question. I think the Incensed guys has asked this question. I still think to this day, it's the same person I would like to have PokeAK on.
David HernandezOh, good luck.
R2theOLDYYeah, I've actually tried messaging him, he hasn't responded, but I, I'll figure it out. He's gonna be in Arizona, maybe I'll go find him. Go,
David HernandezGo find the guy in Arizona?
R2theOLDYGo find him. Yeah, I know he's a controversial figure, but I would like to just sit and talk to him and I also was like, in the beginning of Pokemon, like I forgot to mention this, but watching, I used to watch TrainerTips and PokeAK, like I watched all his content before it was PVP content like I would get all my news from him. So it would just be cool to like talk to him. He would be an interesting person to talk to, I would like to, to see what's up with PokeAK, and no one's really had 'em on a podcast, so I think it would be hype.
David HernandezI agree and I don't think you can shy away from the controversy. Sometimes the controversy's there for a reason and that's kind the fun part to have 'em on the show to kind of dig more deep into why.
R2theOLDYFor sure. I, uh, I try not to shy away from just asking the things that might be uncomfortable or, not. Yeah. I think that comes from like listening to so much WTF with Mark Marinn. Mark Maron's really good at that. It's like, "Hey, let's just hash it out. Let's talk about this." In a way that doesn't feel like aggressive or offensive in any way. But yeah, PokeAK probably still the guest that I would eventually get on the Wailordz and that will hopefully be his first podcast debut.
David HernandezHey, that'd be awesome, dude. I'm pretty sure a lot of people be hyped to hear that. Hopefully I wish you the best of luck.
R2theOLDYYeah, I knew Lured Up, booked them once and then I heard the story that they didn't end up recording the episode with him cuz I guess his audio sounded bad. I mean, I don't care, I mean, I've recorded with Richard, he's, his audio sounds terrible so it's just
David HernandezI don't think it's that bad. I've heard worse.
R2theOLDYIt's good now. It's good now, but uh, our first episode is god damn, that was bad. I preferred him to just call in from his phone at that point.
David Hernandezlike you said, we all start somewhere. I was scared of my shits and you had bad audio, so Oh, so one thing I told him, y'alls first theme song, not the one y'all have now, I told your co-host that it sounds like a novella that's about to play
R2theOLDYShit, do you know what? I don't remember what it was. Let me try to remember what the first theme song was. That's funny, like a, like a Spanish novella. Like
David HernandezYeah, that's what I got when I first listened to it.
R2theOLDYThat's hilarious. I actually liked it. I forgot about that song. My buddy made it. The one I used to have the radio show with, he's a musician too, we used to actually be in a band together, but he made it, off the cuff real quick, I just asked him like, can you make me something by tomorrow? And he just like, put it together on his keyboard or something and then his little brother is the one that made the current theme song.
David HernandezOh, okay. And that's the one y'all play right now?
R2theOLDYYeah, with the outro too. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Sorry. Sorry. I'm wrong. Nevermind. My friend, the one I'm talking about is the one that made the current one, his little brother made the outro song. That original song was made by one of my students. He made it on his fucking computer, but he didn't know that I used, he never knew that I took it to use for the, I just needed a clip, there he did it for a project for some class.
David HernandezMm-hmm.
R2theOLDYAnd I was like, all right, let me take a snippet of this song, it was like a 10 minute long song that he made and I used that as the intro, so that's what that was. So the whole thing was like created by my students at the beginning, the song and the...
David HernandezYour students have been the free labor of this podcast.
R2theOLDYYeah, exactly. Yeah. I gotta figure out how to exploit them a little bit more now where we are. Need you guys out there promoting this, but yeah, that's, that's what that song was, now I remember.
David HernandezPotential marketing options maybe?
R2theOLDYYeah, yeah, yeah. Flash cards like go pass this out to people, be good. No, the current theme time is my buddy Melvin, he did it on his guitar.
David HernandezIt's very catchy and then you have the voiceover and then smooth on into the whole conversation, it's perfect.
R2theOLDYRight, it was his idea the way it was supposed to go. He's like, here, you're gonna talk and give your intro, then there's gonna be a pause, and then there's hell. All right. Let's do it.
David HernandezNow your podcast is coming on two years did you ever expect to make it past two years? Or make...
R2theOLDYnot at all. No, no way. No way. Especially how much me and Richard fight, I was like, we're only gonna make it past two episode. Yeah. No, I, no, I didn't think we'd be keep doing this, you know? But you never know. And then this game lasts forever. We've been playing it now stop now for at least me for the last four years, and Richard for the last, you know, six years. So, as long as we're still playing, there's always something to talk about. As long as you have the, passion's still there. You know, always trying to figure out ways to make it exciting again and how do we reinvent what we have and make it better? So I think that's part of the conversation we'll have like here's what we accomplished Because it's either we, make it better or we stop doing it all together. That's how I think about things that you're either trying to improve or you shouldn't do it cuz at that point that means that the passion might be dead. But yeah, I didn't think so, I didn't think we'd be doing it this long.
David HernandezWhat was it that y'all were trying to improve for this year? Do you remember?
R2theOLDYI think audio quality. So I think we're there a little bit better now. Not drinking as much, so that's not working.
David HernandezThat's the best part though.
R2theOLDYI'll say I've been sober this whole time. This is probably why I'm talking so much, I think when I drink I'm like a lot more slow, obviously, and I'm not as talkative. What else did we tr we wanted to get guests on, that was the thing too. We didn't have guests for a long time. I think for a long time it was just me and Richard. So that was like something that we wanted is to have more guests on to help us just like increase our audience more, which we semi accomplished. I still don't think we had as many guesses we wanted to cuz it takes a lot of preparation and all that stuff and coordinating and sometimes we're just like, Hey, we haven't done a episode, can you record today? And then that'll be it. That's how we get a new episode out. I would say we need to be a little bit more consistent. We used to also drop episodes always on a Friday and then that fell apart. So we would record on Thursday, I would stay up all Thursday night, drop it Friday morning, go to work, super sleepy, but that was like our routine for a while. So there are things that we used to do better at the beginning. There's a lot of things that we do better now, and it's improving on those things together to make it better
David HernandezDefinitely I look forward to seeing what y'all make and what y'all podcast evolves into, but That's the episode my friend. If people wanted to check out your content, where could they go? Like by means, please plug away.
R2theOLDYSure. You can follow me on Twitter @R2theOldy. You can follow our podcast @TheWailordz with a Z and you'll find our links on there for how to download the podcast, but we are on pretty much all podcast platforms, The Wailordz with a Z.
David HernandezAnd I'll make sure to include all the links he mentioned with Twitter, in the description of today's show.
R2theOLDYAnd our OnlyFans, make sure you put that on there too.
David HernandezAnd his only fans cause how much is it to subscribe?
R2theOLDYIt might change by the time this comes out.
David HernandezOh, that's right. Inflation.
Thank You For Listening! :)
David HernandezThank you for listening to another episode of As The Pokeball Turns. You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Feel free to follow me on all my socials by clicking the link in the description of this episode, and I'll see you next time. Here's the sneak peek for the next episode of As The Pokeball Turns.
