Pokemon Go ARG by Niantic (a Google company)

Just explained to a cop at the park what Pokemon Go is. Also explained to him the whole Philando Castile issue, but that's for a different thread. He then decided to troll his former partner who is a major nerd. He live-texted whichever Pokemon we (a bunch of high schoolers and I) were catching (lured Pokestop), only he'd claim the catches as his own. And for a "coup de gravy," he then claimed that he had just caught a Mew.

This game doesn't really work so well if you live in the middle of nowhere, huh? And you have to have the app running and your screen on in order to get it to buzz when pokemon are around? That's kind of lame.

Chaz wrote:

This game doesn't really work so well if you live in the middle of nowhere, huh? And you have to have the app running and your screen on in order to get it to buzz when pokemon are around? That's kind of lame.

Nope. It's pretty much useless for me. Once I was out of pokeballs it's pretty much like what now? No pokestops or gyms within miles of my apartment. Few at work so I could technically get a few pokeballs every day at lunch but it's not really worth the effort for about 10 pokeballs.

My gf and I go on some long rides so I figure I could at least stock up while she's driving but it's nearly impossible to collect from a pokestop while the car is moving at even moderate speeds. Too bad because I think this could be an interesting concept. Just doesn't work for my situation.

You also have to keep it running in order to hatch eggs. The eggs I've gotten so far require me to walk 5k. It's been painful, since there have been so many server issues.

But power-saving mode turns the screen off if you put the phone upside-down, so there's that. But it still kills the heck out of your battery.

For me, the most annoying part is that every time the servers crash, I have to log into Google again. And I've got 2-factor authentication, so that means switching to the Google authenticator, then back to the Pokemon Go app.

sometimesdee wrote:

For me, the most annoying part is that every time the servers crash, I have to log into Google again. And I've got 2-factor authentication, so that means switching to the Google authenticator, then back to the Pokemon Go app.

This. I've switched to my kids accounts which are linked to addresses without 2-factor auth., so that I can actually get back into it when that happens.

I like the idea of the battery save feature, buuuuut in action, I've noticed that it flip-flops the "up" direction if you accidentally lock the screen. Then you have to force-close (on iOS), reopen, and it'll reset the "up" direction.

I do find it interesting, my wife has been out of Pokeballs for the last day, but I've still got over 150 to go.

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My son and I just downloaded the app last night and have been enjoying it immensely.

Very bizarre having the need to walk half a block to the nearest Pokestop only to run into some 30-something guy with his phone out walking to the same spot. My son had to ask him, "Going to the Pokestop?" He replied, "Yeah! What team are you guys on?" Very bizarre and awesome all at the same time.

I also had to remark to him that this wasn't creepy at all...three guys loitering at a church on the corner 11 o'clock at night. We had a good laugh. Geek bonding for the win.

I'm still having fun with it. My daughter has waffled. My son is on board now. All my geocaching buddies are playing as well.

I drove my ten-minute Pokeball run tonight before going for a walk with the dog. In the ten minutes I was out, I saw another car driving the same route I was, and saw another car parked at a gym. It's really amazing how popular this has become in such a short time.

Servers seemed much better today, but I didn't get a chance to play during the day. Busy with life.

I went for a haircut with my family at a local shopping area. All the Pokestops had the special incense items activated (little petals floating everywhere). We caught Pokemon non stop. Everyone was catching Pokemon, well, about 50% of people had phones out and were catching them, including kids and adults.

Yeah, not two weeks ago my interest in GeoCaching piqued again, and given I dug Ingress but fell off because nobody I knew was playing...

I've now been playing Pokemon Go for 24 hours, pretty hooked but I'll only stay onboard if they continue to develop and change/improve the game I think.
I've hit the 'choose your team' option but can't make up my mind. I was blue in Ingress, and it seems like Blue is very strong near my house (there is a nice walking track with seemingly two strong blue gyms and a bunch of PokeStops and plenty of Pokemon) and it seems going with your local colour can help net more coins and dust... But I also tempted to go with the least common group in my area just to keep it interesting (which would be Yellow).

Decisions decisions...

DSGamer wrote:

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Heh, they forgot Play Coins

Also, the app is raking in an estimated $1.6 million / day (possibly in the US alone)

Never underestimate us old guys who are gamers...

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I live in wooded suburbia. Catching anything other than Zubats is a fluke. Jusy finished a 4km walk, got 4 non-Zubat Pokemons. At least I'm getting healthier.

Oh well, tomorrow it's still school holidays so I'll take my boy out to the city where he can go wild with all the Pokestops.

The suburb north of Austin where I live now has a sort of "old town" area that's maybe the size of a large city block. It has had an unusually huge number of Ingress portals for some time (a five minute walk nets you like 20-ish portals), so it wasn't too surprising that the area has a bunch of stops and a few gyms in the same spot. Some friends and I decided to go kinda-bar-hopping there and farm the spots and kill some time for a few hours last night, but apparently we weren't the only ones who thought it was a good idea. On a Saturday night, it's usually busy in the area from like 7pm til 10pm or so - typical family dining out hours. When we got there around 7:30, there was probably something like 40 people sitting on the benches, low walls, and so on at all four corners of the central intersection. Popped open the app and, sure enough, it happened to be the best spot to just sit on four of the stops. People kept lures on all four stops til at least 11 (when I decided to go home), and when I was heading back to my car, the crowd had really only dwindled to like 30 folks.

I passed a bunch of parked cars where parents and children were both sitting inside with the AC going and listening to the radio while talking and playing. This was on top of me seeing families still walking around playing and chatting as well. Earlier the same day, I drove by a city park and I saw two old women standing way, waayyy off of the trails, waving their phones around. One of them was flicking the phone and then stopped, got very still, and then started doing a little hop. I'm pretty sure I know what happened there.

This is some next level stuff, folks.

Was on my way back from the store, stopped at a pokestop and noticed there was a pokestop with a lure at the church nearby where services were just starting. Hahaha.

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This is literally my first post in G&P. Apologies if these links are already posted.

I downloaded the game primarily because I felt like I had completely lost touch with the world based on my newsfeed. I've always liked the concept of geocaching but never actually downloaded an app or anything.

1) Pokemon GO is getting people who are suffering from depression out of beds in the morning. It is, from their own admission, improving their mental health.

2) People are getting so much exercise playing Pokemon GO their legs are sore.

3) A bar nearby has been dropping lures regularly and giving people a dollar off a drink if they post a screenshot of a pokemon in their building.

This is just the best.

edit: is there a way to petition a new pokestop be added? I want to drop lures at my place of business.

Pokestops and Gyms correspond to Portals in Ingress (Niantic's other game). Ingress allows you to submit locations for Portals.

Not every Portal seems to be a Pokestop/Gym, but if you sign up for Ingress and submit your building there is a chance it might create a Pokestop as well.

Pokestop and gym locations are based off of nodes from Ingress, Niantic's first AR game. To my knowledge there's no way to submit new locations for Pokemon Go yet, but it's almost certain there will be, and it will likely be similar to adding them to Ingress. For that, you'd take a picture of the location, and upload it with the name/coordinates of the location for approval. Generally landmarks and parks are preferred over businesses (which are much more likely to close or change names. So you'll see municipal buildings, churches (an abandoned church is still more of a landmark than an empty storefront), fountains, parks, and memorial statues/benches/plaques more than businesses. You're more likely to get a business approved as a location if the surrounding area is pretty sparse, or if it's got a well-established history (bars and restaurants are more commonly spots than gift/clothing stores). I haven't been up to see if it transferred into Pokemon Go yet, but when I tried Ingress a few years ago there was a dog groomers as a location.

There's a Pokemon Go crawl on Wednesday in San Francisco that has 2600 people signed up so far.... I doubt the cell towers will be able to handle it but I'm going anyway because it will be amazing.

Can someone explain the hype behind this? (I'm being serious, not sarcastic). I installed the game, captured a couple pokemon, and uninstalled. I did hit level 2 but realized that I missed a lot with the pokeballs and that I'd end up having to spend real money on them. I don't mind spending real money on things I enjoy but not sure why there is such a craze toward this. Is it because you are all rabid pokemon fans? Is it the thrill of the hunt?

DeThroned wrote:

Can someone explain the hype behind this? (I'm being serious, not sarcastic). I installed the game, captured a couple pokemon, and uninstalled. I did hit level 2 but realized that I missed a lot with the pokeballs and that I'd end up having to spend real money on them. I don't mind spending real money on things I enjoy but not sure why there is such a craze toward this. Is it because you are all rabid pokemon fans? Is it the thrill of the hunt?

I've never played a Pokemon game, and wasn't a fan of the cartoon show, (Edit - about the only Pokemon-related things I like are Jared and Mr. Fish from Manly Guys Doing Manly Things). I liked the idea of Ingress, but the execution of it sucks for rural areas. The hunting aspect of being able to track down Pokemon even when you're nowhere near a pokestop is what's keeping my interest, that and seeing lots of stories about it bringing strangers together.
A fair number of those stories have been about people having the cops called on them or stopping on their own to see why people are hanging out in weird places or walking late at night where the cops end up being really cool about it or even players themselves. Given the past week, hearing stories where cops and civilians are getting along has been much needed.

I deleted it today. If they gave you a decent supply of poke balls daily I might have stuck it out even though I think the basic mechanics are garbage (battle system). Having to pay for poke balls is gross. I could see how it would be cool to run into people playing if I wasn't such an introvert. Those kind of interactions with random strangers is actually a complete turnoff for me. Stresses me out.

I think it has some great concepts though. I'd love for a Pokemon game from Nintendo to actually incorporate the system of finding Pokemon in the real world with the more traditional gameplay along with it. Toss out the pay to play mobile junk and you have my money.

I'm not particularly into Pokémon, but I like apps that encourage me to move around. The scenery around me is pretty boring, but because I'm near 3 different colleges and a downtown area, it is Pokéstops and Gyms galore. 11 stops and 2 gyms just on my normal short dog walk route. On Saturday a 5 block each way walk that I headed out on with my dog turned into a 4+ mile wander with lots of stops, multiple conversations, and a heck of a sunburn.

Until they give people a way to add stops, it will be awful for rural areas.

A few things that I picked up from reading the Niantic Help page and a few random articles:
• When you spin the photo at a Pokéstop, you don't have to wait for things to pop out, just click the x to close the stop and you'll get the items. Great when riding as a passenger.
• Pokémon occasionally appear outside of your trainer "ring", but I've been able to click them and catch them. So if you see them in a backyard, try clicking before trespassing.
• To save battery, kill the AR mode, there is a small toggle icon at the top right of the screen. I also find this makes it easier to catch the Pokémon, as they stay centered on the screen no matter how my phone is oriented.
• On my iPhone 5s IOS 8.4, the Niantic batter saver mode makes it so I can't interact with the screen when I raise it back up. Turns on, but won't take input. Instead I've just taken to turning my brightness way down until I get a vibrate.

• Wear sunscreen.

JeremyK wrote:

I deleted it today. If they gave you a decent supply of poke balls daily I might have stuck it out even though I think the basic mechanics are garbage (battle system). Having to pay for poke balls is gross. I could see how it would be cool to run into people playing if I wasn't such an introvert. Those kind of interactions with random strangers is actually a complete turnoff for me. Stresses me out.

I think it has some great concepts though. I'd love for a Pokemon game from Nintendo to actually incorporate the system of finding Pokemon in the real world with the more traditional gameplay along with it. Toss out the pay to play mobile junk and you have my money.

If you swipe at Pokestops, you get free items, such as pokeballs. They refresh every 5 minutes. So you shouldn't have to be paying for them. I can understand if you're in a rural area, and pokestops are much father away. There is discussions that Niantic will open up the pokestop/gym request in order to fix the areas that are lacking in those.

Pokemon isn't owned by Nintendo, it's just their biggest IP. They certainly helped the game become popular, but otherwise it's not theirs. Nintendo is going to get in the business of phone mobile games, but any of the current Pokemon phone mobile games are not from them.

My wife isn't the greatest when it comes to catching Pokemon, and has consistently run out of Pokeballs the last few days. She did end up dropping some money on coins to buy a big batch of balls this afternoon.

Meanwhile, if you've got a park nearby with a handful of memorials / statues / plaques that are set up as Pokestops, as others have mentioned those refresh every 5 minutes. Dropping a Lure Module on one, and then making a loop that takes a little over 5 minutes to complete means you're hunting Pokemon AND farming items at the same time.

Pokemon is partially owned by Nintendo. Nintendo is one of the three companies that share the copyright on Pokemon (Gamefreak and Creatures being the other two), and The Pokemon Company was founded by all three (to handle licensing and merchandising the Pokemon brand), which it turn licensed Niantic to make Pokemon Go.