Pokémon GO

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Maggie Maxwell

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Welp, I am finally going to have to get a smartphone.

Now, Pokemon lovers are going to be able to catch pokemon out in the wild on their cell phones.

John Hanke said:
For the first time, with this game, Pokémon are going to roam free in the real world. Pokémon GO will allow players to capture Pokémon who inhabit parks, shopping areas, sidewalks, and the countryside in places all around the world. Imagine discovering a Squirtle hiding along the waterfront in San Francisco, or a Bulbasaur at Shinjuku Station, or even Pikachu, hiding by the Eiffel Tower.

Last year, Google unveiled a Pokemon augmented reality game as an early, elaborate, and cruel April Fools prank. Was it a prank or a premonition? Either way, last year's joke is this year's reality, and I myself am eager to find out what Pokemon will make their homes in my area.
 

ShaunHorton

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The question is, do you then get to train them and battle other players?

Otherwise I can see this sliding down the drain like Pokemon Snap after the initial "OMG!! IT'S POKEMON!!" frenzy wears off.
 

Osulagh

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I wouldn't make any moves whatsoever towards Pokemon GO before the game releases and confirmation that there's no pay-to-win microtransactions or restrictions on gameplay. Yes, I'm betting Nintendo will try to milk this for every last drop. They're one of the greediest entertainment companies out there.
 

ErezMA

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The question is, do you then get to train them and battle other players?

Otherwise I can see this sliding down the drain like Pokemon Snap after the initial "OMG!! IT'S POKEMON!!" frenzy wears off.

There is a way to train and battle them. That has been announced. I just don't exactly know how to train them, other than battle them. For battling, I'm sure wifi/data or maybe bluetooth could work.
 

Maggie Maxwell

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I wouldn't make any moves whatsoever towards Pokemon GO before the game releases and confirmation that there's no pay-to-win microtransactions or restrictions on gameplay. Yes, I'm betting Nintendo will try to milk this for every last drop. They're one of the greediest entertainment companies out there.

How? I'm legitimately curious here, because compared to other game companies, Nintendo has almost never done anything at the level most other companies do like microtransactions, massive amounts of DLC, pay-to-win, or even forced system upgrades. They've always been backwards compatible at least one generation of games, the systems are generally durable and have a long lifetime. The only thing I could consider remotely "greedy" about them is the re-release of various popular games on virtual consoles that're entirely optional and the double releases of pokemon games, but even then, buying more than one copy is never necessary. Compared to any other video game company, I'd consider them one of the LEAST greedy.
 

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Pokemon Go is being developed by Niantic, which is supposedly part of Google. Nintendo is going to be the distributor.
I've actually found Nintendo to be the purists of console gaming. They sort of do their own thing on the side while Sony bludgeons everyone to death. Greediest gaming company, IMHO, is probably EA.
That being said, Pokemon Go is free, so it's got to have micro transactions. Hopefully just pay-for-convenience, or pay-for-fancy-bling, and not pay-to-win.

I'm just really curious about how GPS is going to affect Pokemon distribution. Do we need to road trip to collect Pokemon? I'm pretty sure where I live only has Pidgeys and Rattatas. I don't want to have go to China just to get a Pancham.
 

Osulagh

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How? I'm legitimately curious here, because compared to other game companies, Nintendo has almost never done anything at the level most other companies do like microtransactions, massive amounts of DLC, pay-to-win, or even forced system upgrades. They've always been backwards compatible at least one generation of games, the systems are generally durable and have a long lifetime. The only thing I could consider remotely "greedy" about them is the re-release of various popular games on virtual consoles that're entirely optional and the double releases of pokemon games, but even then, buying more than one copy is never necessary. Compared to any other video game company, I'd consider them one of the LEAST greedy.

Nintendo has a closed ecosystem around their consoles and games, Pokemon GO being one of the few outside of their consoles. They allow very little third-party support, and everything must meet their standards. This has gotten them into lawsuits in the past. They also milk their IPs like crazy while releasing very few new IPs out onto the market. Mario and Zelda(Link) have been beaten like a dead horse. One of the reasons why Nintendo aren't already involved with micro-transactions is because their main consumer demographic don't have money of their own and have to ask their parents. Not very good for those quick buys.

What I'm really afraid of is that Niantic is known for a totally free, similar game, called Ingress, but there's a lot of talk of micro-transactions. That would be Nintendo's choice, and since they're controlling that aspect I'm not very hopeful.

What I'm afraid of is this:

1) Pokemon GO is free. Nothing is free. What's the cost or how to we "pay" for the game? Information collection? Ads? Micro-transactions (if no combination with the formers, this would be enforced as pay-to-win). If Pokemon GO was $30, with no microtransactions other than cosmetic, and played like a pokemon game, I'd buy it. I'd buy the shit out of it.

2) Mobile games have a simple formula: Hook the player with quick advancement, slow the game down, force them to stop playing and return at certain points, provide no end-goal for an infinitely continuous game, and provide them with easy "outs" in the form of progression microtransactions (pay-to-win). Any form of this is bad, especially being forced to stop playing to return to it. Can you think about Nintendo implementing their current level-cap system to a low standard so defeating a gym leader is hard and only allowing you to battle them once a day (or unlock for $3)?

3) Any part of the game being region locked. Ingress has this problem. If you can't get past a certain part of the game, or collect certain pokemon, or do certain things because you're not in the correct area of the world,and you want to sell this to younger children who have little to no control over their mobility and surroundings, it all goes south for me.
 

Maggie Maxwell

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Fair enough points and concerns. I was looking at this more as a market for teens to adults who've grown up loving the pokemon games or kids with parents who have. Ingress, geocaching and the like have always struck me as a more adult-directed hobby because of the amount of travel in them. As far as the closed ecosystem in Nintendo, I understand, but they have been moving out of it the past few years with games such as this, Hyrule Warriors, and Pokemon Conquest (Being a fan of Dynasty Warriors and Nintendo, the latter two literally made me squeal. Like, teeny girly shrieks of joy). There hasn't been much movement into the mobile gaming market for them in the past, so we don't really have much to base speculation on. I'm taking a "wait and see" perspective. But an eager one. Probably more eager than I should be as a grown woman.
 

Maggie Maxwell

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Well, just short of a year later... it's here.

And it's wonderful. The game plays fine on my hand-me-down HTC, although I have yet to manage to find a pokemon on the camera function. However, it's not necessary.

The game itself is free with optional microtransactions and a $35 peripheral that allegedly makes finding/catching pokemon easier, but again, it's optional.

I was expecting it to be a case of "You have a pidgey around your house, and that is all you'll ever have," but I've found that the local pokemon vary every time I turn my phone off and on, as well as their locations. For example, when I first booted it up at 11:30 last night (and picked Charmander for my starter), there were spearows and zubats in the area of my home, but nothing right there. After a restart to try and get the GPS to find me, there was a Pidgey in my house, which became my first catch. Allegedly there was also an eevee around, but I was already in my pyjamas and not willing to go wandering around at midnight. Plus my phone doesn't have a data plan so... yeah, no outside anyway.

You start off with 50 pokeballs, two incense, which draw pokemon to you, and an incubator, which you use to hatch eggs. They're unlimited use, but I guess it means I can only hatch one egg at a time. You get more items by going to pokestops, specific locations marked on your map, usually public areas and safe zones. There are also gyms, which can be captured and controlled by three various teams. If you're near a gym owned by your team and you're level 5 (Oh yeah, your customizable avatar levels up based on how your catching is going), you can train. If it's not owned by your team, you can fight for ownership of the gym.

I work on the edge of a downtown area, so I checked in at my office. My office courtyard has a pokestop (whoohoo!), there are three gyms within sight of my avatar on the map (all owned already good grief, people), and on top of seeing a Krabby (from the fountain for the check-in? I don't know where there's any lakes around here...), I captured a pair of Rattata, another Pidgey, and a Fearow. The spare Rattata and Pidgey earned me points towards being able to evolve both the first ones. You're given the option to keep them or transfer then to the new Professor for more evo-exp. They also had different move sets, so keep an eye on those if you catch duplicates before you transfer them. Make sure you get the moves you want.

All in all, it's simple and still having some server issues from time to time, but I'm enjoying it. I'm eager to see what else I can find and eventually be able to use those gyms.
 

Lissibith

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I'm going to have to get this, if only to see what pokemon are where around downtown DC :)
 

R.Barrows

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My daughter (17) has been running around the neighborhood for the last hour trying to capture something called an 'Eevee.' She had to give up at one point because it was in someone else's house. Then she went out again and just came back to tell me she'd successfully 'caught' it. Now she says she has to train it.

Ever since our dog died, she's wanted a pet, so I hope this will make her happy. I am, however, a little concerned that she'll get run over by a car looking for these things.
 
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ASeiple

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It's definitely fun strolling around your neighborhood or usual haunts, and seeing which landmarks have been tagged. I picked it up because I was curious to see what sort of Pokémon they put in my area, but it's deep enough that I'll probably keep playing it.

Hopefully they'll sort out the technical issues after a week or two... it's the usual MMORPG woes; "What do you MEAN we didn't anticipate this many people playing?"
 

ASeiple

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Yeah. This happens every time an online game with a decent license launches. They get about two or three times as many people as anticipated, and have to scramble to load-balance and cope until more hardware gets prepped and the software gets fixed.
 

Maggie Maxwell

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Yep, what ASeiple said. It's up and down for me. There are also some bugs to work out, clearly, as I've had the game lock while trying to catch a pokemon. Apparently other people have encountered this problem too. It went in the ball, but nothing happened. I had to restart the app and didn't get to keep my Oddish. :( Oh well, there'll be more. Plus side, the pokestop in my office gave me an egg! I'm going to have to walk 5k to hatch it. :cry: There are three distances required to hatch eggs depending on the pokemon's rarity, and it tells you how far when you start it in the incubator. There are 2ks, 5ks, and 10ks. 2ks are commons like Pidgey, Rattata, and Magikarp, 5ks are the starters (whoo!) and midrange rarities, and the 10ks are Eevees (cute little fox-dog-like creatures, R.Barrows), fossil pokemon, and other rare ones.
 

tiakall

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Yeah, the server froze on me yesterday just as I was trying to take out the gym across the street from work. XD The underanticipation amuses me because you'd think they'd overanticipate - it's freaking Pokémon as run by a division of Google. They should've been able to come up with better expectations. Ah well, I'm used to an online feature of Pokémon crashing whenever it first comes out - Dream World? Pokémon Bank? (One of the folks on my Twitter feed commented that it reminded her of the early-years November 1 Nanowrimo crashes. XD)

There's a *ton* of stuff at the local mall where I go walking, so I'm looking forward to my lunch break today. Also, Go is going to make my Fitbit very happy with me. Downside - it's pretty hot out and the GPS seems to have occasional issues indoors.

Good to know about the eggs. Haven't seen any 10k ones yet, but just hatched my first 5k last night - a Ponyta. With the ridiculous amount I walk, I should have most of these knocked out in no time.
 

ASeiple

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An evening walk around the park nearby netted me several landmarks, a Gastly, and a nice mix of bug and plant pokemon. Got a few water ones wandering around now and again, too. Because of the river, maybe? Possible. Had a shot at an abra, but he vanished before I could find him. Typical. :D Also saw a Scyther pass by in the distance, and oh, how I was sad to see him go.

Up to three eggs so far, all of them 5Ks. Shouldn't take more than a few days per egg to hatch'em. Found some interesting spots... turns out there's TWO gyms on my street, one in the church right across the road. I can battle for the gym without leaving my bedroom. Come on level 5! Daddy needs to brawl!

Wife's giving it a whirl too. We're planning a trip to the Air Force Museum at some point...evidently it's crawling with stuff. I'm wondering about the Dayton Art Institute myself...
 

arikdiver

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It's school holidays. I've been worried about how I was going to get my kids to walk the dog with me. Problem solved. For those interested, a one hour walk used 9Mb of data.
 

kuwisdelu

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I'm probably going to wait a couple weeks to get into this.

Boston will probably have more Pokemon anyway.

My daughter (17) has been running around the neighborhood for the last hour trying to capture something called an 'Eevee.' She had to give up at one point because it was in someone else's house. Then she went out again and just came back to tell me she'd successfully 'caught' it. Now she says she has to train it.

Eevees are the best.
 

ASeiple

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Managed to nab an Eevee yesterday. The real prize was going driving a roundabout way home with the app open and parking whenever my phone exploded. Managed to nab a Tauros, a Zubat, and a Nidoran female that way.

Then came home and did a bit of exploring, and found that the nearby woods are full of Paras.

...aaaaand the servers are completely blitzed for me today. Yeah, this is probably gonna be unplayable for another couple of weeks.
 

shortstorymachinist

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Oddly enough, Japan doesn't have it yet, but I'm having a riot watching everyone I know online go bonkers over Pokemon Go.
 

Maggie Maxwell

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I knew this would be what made me give in.

I activated my smartphone today. There was a Bulbasaur outside last night and absolutely nothing I could do about it because no data plan. So now I have a working smartphone and watch, I'm not going to see a Bulbasaur in the wild again for weeks.

I did catch a Jigglypuff at the mall, though.
 

Ravioli

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I'm no gamer. I mean, I got a PS3 and a Wii Mini and an assault rifle for both, but I barely play. Then I found out about Pokémon Go because a girl on the Facebook neighbourhood group complained that someone stole some Poké-thing from her on.. a treet around here? So now I own a Bulbasaur I caught hiding behind my puppy in the stairwell.

But uh... is this game an attempt at a population trim? Because it seems like they want kids to run into the road to catch that Eevee.
 
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