What, no Pokemon Go thread?

[Bubble181]

I dunno, I honestly don't see all that much that's world-shatteringly original in this. I admit, they definitely have most experience in this sort of thing with Ingress, but...Combining camera, GPS/maps, and a basic overlay isn't that hard. A local group's had a somewhat similar thing on a much much smaller scale as an IT group project a while ago - walk around the city, identify cultural points of interest, "scan" them, get a soundbyte with some info about the monument you're looking at, score points.

Anyway, their basic fuck-ups aren't technological - the AR side of things works (though, does anybody use it, besides for the occasional cute or pornographic picture? It's easier and less of a battery drain to catch them with AR off). It's the "game" side that's utterly lacking and in a shambles. Hiding IVs behind a CP value that's next to useless, the way difficulty ramp-up affects catch odds (it's ridiculous that catching a 10CP Pidgey is harder for a level 20 than it is for a level 1), the broken Gym battling system, the lack of a sparring system or direct battle system (which would seem to be the "point" of a Pokémon game for many, no?), the horrible balance of spawn points/locations,...

Some of these are (partly) understandable - I understand wanting to streamline stats to an easier system so as not to scare off non-Pokémon-fans. But none of them work, and that would've been easily spotted with some play testing.

 

[Dei]

They aren't years ahead of shit. As I've stated before, my friend Don and his startup had a game remarkably similar to this before Niantic was a company, only it used Super Heroes & Villains instead of Pokemon. But since they didn't have the Pokemon name it didn't do shit.

They aren't innovative at all.

They already had the world mapped from Ingress, which is also theirs, which is their biggest advantage though.

 

[MindDetective]

Yup, it is the Google Maps code (which the founder of Niantic ran) that is their advantage.[DOUBLEPOST=1470069473,1470069317][/DOUBLEPOST]

I dunno, I honestly don't see all that much that's world-shatteringly original in this. I admit, they definitely have most experience in this sort of thing with Ingress, but...Combining camera, GPS/maps, and a basic overlay isn't that hard. A local group's had a somewhat similar thing on a much much smaller scale as an IT group project a while ago - walk around the city, identify cultural points of interest, "scan" them, get a soundbyte with some info about the monument you're looking at, score points.

Anyway, their basic fuck-ups aren't technological - the AR side of things works (though, does anybody use it, besides for the occasional cute or pornographic picture? It's easier and less of a battery drain to catch them with AR off). It's the "game" side that's utterly lacking and in a shambles. Hiding IVs behind a CP value that's next to useless, the way difficulty ramp-up affects catch odds (it's ridiculous that catching a 10CP Pidgey is harder for a level 20 than it is for a level 1), the broken Gym battling system, the lack of a sparring system or direct battle system (which would seem to be the "point" of a Pokémon game for many, no?), the horrible balance of spawn points/locations,...

Some of these are (partly) understandable - I understand wanting to streamline stats to an easier system so as not to scare off non-Pokémon-fans. But none of them work, and that would've been easily spotted with some play testing.

As I said, this is new territory. Nobody has designed a game overlaid on the world before. Pokemon Go is seriously flawed, but it is also first generation. You, all of us playing, are early adopters. When will people stop being surprised that early adopting will result in this kind of experience more often than not?

 

[CynicismKills]

Also apparently Nintendo dropped literal millions of dollars in Niantic's lap after making the deal for this game. Nintendo may not have their name in lights for this game but they've still got a big stake in it.

 

[MindDetective]

Also apparently Nintendo dropped literal millions of dollars in Niantic's lap after making the deal for this game. Nintendo may not have their name in lights for this game but they've still got a big stake in it.

I think I read that they get about 30% of the take? I don't remember where.

 

[figmentPez]

It's the "game" side that's utterly lacking and in a shambles. Hiding IVs behind a CP value that's next to useless, the way difficulty ramp-up affects catch odds (it's ridiculous that catching a 10CP Pidgey is harder for a level 20 than it is for a level 1), the broken Gym battling system, the lack of a sparring system or direct battle system (which would seem to be the "point" of a Pokémon game for many, no?), the horrible balance of spawn points/locations,...

Exactly. The game part is like an alpha version. The graphics and infrastructure look like beta, but all of the mechanics and UI are barely there. There is just a huge level of incompetence shown in how this game is designed.

 

[MindDetective]

Exactly. The game part is like an alpha version. The graphics and infrastructure look like beta, but all of the mechanics and UI are barely there. There is just a huge level of incompetence shown in how this game is designed.

Incompetence? Within what frame of reference? In comparison to...console games? Board games? The sparse selection of other (mostly unknown) AR games? Programming in general? They are literally making this all up as they go.

 

[figmentPez]

As I said, this is new territory. Nobody has designed a game overlaid on the world before. Pokemon Go is seriously flawed, but it is also first generation. You, all of us playing, are early adopters. When will people stop being surprised that early adopting will result in this kind of experience more often than not?

Most of the flaws have nothing to do with the fact that it's overlaid onto the world. Sure, the rarity of pokemon in rural areas, and the haphazard placement of interactive locations are related to the AR nature of the game, but the UI, the gym/fighting mechanics, the evolution/training system, the leveling, the character customization, the item drops.... etc, etc, etc are all game design decisions that are well established, and this game does not do any of particularly well, and some of them it does horribly.

 

[CynicismKills]

This game was likely not designed with exclusively Pokemon enthusiasts in mind. Odds are the relative simplicity of the game system is to attract the very casual mobile gaming market to download and try the game. More intricate systems like PvP battling and the like could be introduced down the line as newcomers are given time to get accustomed to the game and Pokemon in general.

 

[figmentPez]

Incompetence? Within what frame of reference? In comparison to...console games? Board games? The sparse selection of other (mostly unknown) AR games? Programming in general? They are literally making this all up as they go.

Aside from having people navigate a real world map instead of a fictional one, there's nothing new about collecting items from locations, and hunting down collectibles in a world. The majority of the game is based on mechanics that other games have done since the NES era. And Niantic has blatantly ignored a lot of the refinement that's been made over the years to video games. The UI especially is really half-assed.

 

[MindDetective]

Most of the flaws have nothing to do with the fact that it's overlaid onto the world. Sure, the rarity of pokemon in rural areas, and the haphazard placement of interactive locations are related to the AR nature of the game, but the UI, the gym/fighting mechanics, the evolution/training system, the leveling, the character customization, the item drops.... etc, etc, etc are all game design decisions that are well established, and this game does not do any of particularly well, and some of them it does horribly.

Well, I don't think it is fair to dismiss the UI as being entirely unrelated to the AR aspects of the game. It has to exist around that framework, for one. That said, the UI isn't entirely horrible.

As for the game mechanics, that is entirely dependent on 1.) the AR aspects of the game (since gyms are location based) and 2.) the casual MMO nature of the game. Combining both of these together hasn't been tried on this scale before. They got it wrong, sure, but who has gotten it right?[DOUBLEPOST=1470076291,1470076036][/DOUBLEPOST]

Aside from having people navigate a real world map instead of a fictional one, there's nothing new about collecting items from locations, and hunting down collectibles in a world. The majority of the game is based on mechanics that other games have done since the NES era. And Niantic has blatantly ignored a lot of the refinement that's been made over the years to video games. The UI especially is really half-assed.

But the real-world nature of the game enacts limits that other games can circumvent with teleporting, unrealistic travel speeds, and an unrealistic density of POI. On top of that, the game needs to have a quick and casual gameplay, unlike something like Fallout. It isn't a fair comparison, really. If they basically made it like Skyrim, it would be broken in so many other ways because the rules are different now.

 

[Dave]

They already had the world mapped from Ingress, which is also theirs, which is their biggest advantage though.

Ingress: 2013

Plan X: 2011

 

[Bubble181]

The UI really does need work. I can think of 10 things they should have known beforehand, that would be fairly simple things to fix, and have absolutely nothing to do with the AR aspects.
Let's see. Off the top of my head, and I'll only give myself 5 minutes to think of them:

1. Allow healing from the Pokémon page instead of the Item page
2. An indicator that you can receive items from a gym (again)
3. A way to Transfer several Pokémon at once (I can understand not allowing several evolves at once for balance reasons during eggs)
4. Show your amount of Stardust elsewhere than when clicking on a specific Pokémon
5. An indicator what eggs are older/newer (and thus, which will give which level Pokémon)
6. A colorblind version of te map and menu
7. Allowing sorting of your Item list
8. Allowing zooming in/out on the Pokémon list - there's no reason to only allow 3 by a side

Huh, didn't actually make it to 10 in 5 minutes. Oh well. Anyway, UI/QoL wise, there's lots of little things that could be fixed with very little effort. Heck, putting the Transfer button somewhere you don't have to scroll to every time (which they've done in the last update) was a no-brainer, too.

 

[figmentPez]

This game was likely not designed with exclusively Pokemon enthusiasts in mind. Odds are the relative simplicity of the game system is to attract the very casual mobile gaming market to download and try the game. More intricate systems like PvP battling and the like could be introduced down the line as newcomers are given time to get accustomed to the game and Pokemon in general.

I'm not complaining about the simplicity. The gym system is anything but friendly to newcomers. If you're someone who just got to level 5 today, and your gym is owned by a CP 1,500+ whatever there is precisely jack shit you can do at the gym (unless you've got friends who knew to pick the same Team as you).

Other things that are flawed when it comes to attracting non-Pokemon enthusiasts:
- The character customization is bizarrely limited. Seriously, they couldn't even let you choose the colors of stripes on your pants independent of the style? What incompetent designed this system? Even with what they have there could be so much better options, but it's either limited arbitrarily, or they didn't even think of how to make the content they worked on more flexible!
- Item drops make no sense. Why do I get so many more revives than I do heal potions?
- The game doesn't tell you anything of importance. You can talk about how "intricate" systems would drive people off, but obscure systems aren't any better. There is so much more they could have done to make the game welcoming to newcomers. Like telling you what Pokemon would have bonuses against the defending Pokemon at a gym, instead of making you Google the info and then memorize it.
- Why does clicking on an incubator in your items list just tell you "you can't use that here", why doesn't it take you to the eggs you can incubate?
- Pokestops turn pink when you've visited them, but they turn blue again before they reset. WHY? Why not just stay pink until you can visit them again?
- Why is the gym defender bonus practically hidden? And why is that the only way to earn Pokecoins?
- Why is it so much more "expensive" to train up a Pokemon than to just wait to catch a more powerful one? Holy crap! This seems to go so very far against the themes of the show and the game that it blows my mind. Never mind trainers lovingly caring for their Pokemon, naming them and watching them grow, screw that. You'll be throwing out your starter Pokemon if you know what's good for you! Maybe we are the bad guys in Pokemon Go after all.

And all that isn't counting all the performance issues I've encounted, since that could just be my phone. I don't know how common it is to have to tap on a Pokemon a half-dozen times for it to register. Or for it to register the tap with a glow and a sound, but to not realize I was trying to tap on the Pokemon that is right there. Maybe other people don't have trouble with simply scrolling through any given screen, because the game is horribly unresponsive on my phone, and its very inconsistently unresponsive, too. (Whoops, game just crashed again while I was typing this.)[DOUBLEPOST=1470077751,1470077442][/DOUBLEPOST]

As for the game mechanics, that is entirely dependent on 1.) the AR aspects of the game (since gyms are location based) and 2.) the casual MMO nature of the game. Combining both of these together hasn't been tried on this scale before. They got it wrong, sure, but who has gotten it right?

The only difference having the gyms tied to locations in the real world makes is the user "input" that takes you there. Moving your phone there to get to the gym versus using a gamepad/keyboard/touchscreen to navigate. That's the only difference from a game mechanics perspective.

<SARCASM>Yeah, no casual MMOs have ever been on this scale before...</SARCASM> Seriously? The only interaction between players is at gyms, and that's such a horrible system. I mean, there are entire MMO games that are based around player conflict, like Clash of Clans. It may not have as many players as Pokemon, but it's an order of magnitude different in how much interaction players have. The only thing Pokemon's popularity excuses is the server problem. It doesn't excuse any of the shitty design decisions.

 

[MindDetective]

Ingress: 2013

Plan X: 2011

My laptop is chugging a bit, so I could only get through a couple of the images. It looks like it is iOS only? At least, according to their website. I haven't checked Google Play. I also cannot see how they use AR, although they do seem to be "location aware". I am guessing as a means to battle other players. It does look like it could be a fun game, but one that also uses location in a limited way (although I admittedly cannot tell very well from their site without diving deeper). They are at the very least a 1st gen AR game too. The exciting stuff is going to be second and third gen games.[DOUBLEPOST=1470078180,1470077987][/DOUBLEPOST]

I'm not complaining about the simplicity. The gym system is anything but friendly to newcomers. If you're someone who just got to level 5 today, and your gym is owned by a CP 1,500+ whatever there is precisely jack shit you can do at the gym (unless you've got friends who knew to pick the same Team as you).

Other things that are flawed when it comes to attracting non-Pokemon enthusiasts:
- The character customization is bizarrely limited. Seriously, they couldn't even let you choose the colors of stripes on your pants independent of the style? What incompetent designed this system? Even with what they have there could be so much better options, but it's either limited arbitrarily, or they didn't even think of how to make the content they worked on more flexible!
- Item drops make no sense. Why do I get so many more revives than I do heal potions?
- The game doesn't tell you anything of importance. You can talk about how "intricate" systems would drive people off, but obscure systems aren't any better. There is so much more they could have done to make the game welcoming to newcomers. Like telling you what Pokemon would have bonuses against the defending Pokemon at a gym, instead of making you Google the info and then memorize it.
- Why does clicking on an incubator in your items list just tell you "you can't use that here", why doesn't it take you to the eggs you can incubate?
- Pokestops turn pink when you've visited them, but they turn blue again before they reset. WHY? Why not just stay pink until you can visit them again?
- Why is the gym defender bonus practically hidden? And why is that the only way to earn Pokecoins?
- Why is it so much more "expensive" to train up a Pokemon than to just wait to catch a more powerful one? Holy crap! This seems to go so very far against the themes of the show and the game that it blows my mind. Never mind trainers lovingly caring for their Pokemon, naming them and watching them grow, screw that. You'll be throwing out your starter Pokemon if you know what's good for you! Maybe we are the bad guys in Pokemon Go after all.

And all that isn't counting all the performance issues I've encounted, since that could just be my phone. I don't know how common it is to have to tap on a Pokemon a half-dozen times for it to register. Or for it to register the tap with a glow and a sound, but to not realize I was trying to tap on the Pokemon that is right there. Maybe other people don't have trouble with simply scrolling through any given screen, because the game is horribly unresponsive on my phone, and its very inconsistently unresponsive, too. (Whoops, game just crashed again while I was typing this.)[DOUBLEPOST=1470077751,1470077442][/DOUBLEPOST]

The only difference having the gyms tied to locations in the real world makes is the user "input" that takes you there. Moving your phone there to get to the gym versus using a gamepad/keyboard/touchscreen to navigate. That's the only difference from a game mechanics perspective.

<SARCASM>Yeah, no casual MMOs have ever been on this scale before...</SARCASM> Seriously? The only interaction between players is at gyms, and that's such a horrible system. I mean, there are entire MMO games that are based around player conflict, like Clash of Clans. It may not have as many players as Pokemon, but it's an order of magnitude different in how much interaction players have. The only thing Pokemon's popularity excuses is the server problem. It doesn't excuse any of the shitty design decisions.

<RESPECTFULLY NOT SARCASM> That is why I said it requires both and that requiring both hasn't been tried on this scale before. And you seem to be again criticizing the fetal nature of AR games. It really should not be a surprise that overlaying a game onto the real world is not easy and there is no template yet to do it right. As I asked above, "They got it wrong, sure, but who has gotten it right?"

 

[figmentPez]

<RESPECTFULLY NOT SARCASM> That is why I said it requires both and that requiring both hasn't been tried on this scale before. And you seem to be again criticizing the fetal nature of AR games. It really should not be a surprise that overlaying a game onto the real world is not easy and there is no template yet to do it right. As I asked above, "They got it wrong, sure, but who has gotten it right?"

I'll admit that the work Niantic put into making a database of real life land marks, and then tying that database into a game system is pretty impressive. I think its clearly obvious their staff has spent a lot more of their effort on making this database than they have in making the game mechanics to interact with it. But you know whose done that better? Google maps. Well, I mean, that's not exactly a "game", but basically it's app events based on your GPS location. OH, and they can successfully tell you how far away points of interest are from your current location (re: 3 pawprints bug). Honestly, Google Maps is a lot better "game" than Pokemon Go, but in fairness Google probably has a ton more people working on it than Niantic has.

I've already admitted that some of the problems with Pokemon Go are related to the AR nature of the game. The lack of Pokestops in my area is definitely related to that. The difficulties with the 3 step bug, guarding against spoofed locations, Pokemon population densities, etc. All those are related to the AR nature of the game. However, I've already given you a long list of things that are in no way related to that. They are game mechanics issues that apply to any video game, and UI issues that apply to any application.

 

[Bubble181]

I'll admit that the work Niantic put into making a database of real life land marks, and then tying that database into a game system is pretty impressive. I think its clearly obvious their staff has spent a lot more of their effort on making this database than they have in making the game mechanics to interact with it. But you know whose done that better? Google maps. Well, I mean, that's not exactly a "game", but basically it's app events based on your GPS location. OH, and they can successfully tell you how far away points of interest are from your current location (re: 3 pawprints bug). Honestly, Google Maps is a lot better "game" than Pokemon Go, but in fairness Google probably has a ton more people working on it than Niantic has.

You are aware the Pokestop/Gym list is literally a copy of the Ingress database, which was made based on recommendations and additions by the players, right? This is also the reason the database is currently considered "racist" by some - Ingress had far more white players, resulting in an over-representation of monuments in "white" areas, and an under-representation of monuments and landmarks in "black" areas. Anyway - Niantic themselves had very little to do with creating the database - they made the framework, the actual logging of locations and names and pictures was done by Ingress players.

 

[Dei]

In regards to the not nurturing your Pokemon thing... If Pokemon Go was played the way hardcore Pokemon people played it, it would be a lot of selective breeding for perfect IVs while throwing away the trash. Nurturing your Pokemon to be the best only applies if your name is Ash Ketchum.

 

[figmentPez]

In regards to the not nurturing your Pokemon thing... If Pokemon Go was played the way hardcore Pokemon people played it, it would be a lot of selective breeding for perfect IVs while throwing away the trash. Nurturing your Pokemon to be the best only applies if your name is Ash Ketchum.

What percentage of Pokemon players are hardcore battlers, compared to average players who go through the story-mode and get really attached to their favorite Pokemon? I certainly know more people who pick their team based on which Pokemon they love, than I do people who are into getting the most powerful Pokemon possible.

Unless I've got a completely wrong impression of how the main RPGs work, there's a big difference between how the non-meta game treats progression, and the way Pokemon Go does. If you try to raise your "starter" Pokemon in Go up to be your strongest, you'll quickly run out of Stardust and realize that you're going to have a hard time of things. In other Pokemon games, your starter is usually your most powerful Pokemon for a good portion of the game, if I'm not mistaken.

 

[Bubble181]

In regards to the not nurturing your Pokemon thing... If Pokemon Go was played the way hardcore Pokemon people played it, it would be a lot of selective breeding for perfect IVs while throwing away the trash. Nurturing your Pokemon to be the best only applies if your name is Ash Ketchum.

Most bots and True Players (tm) already auto-chuck anything under 95% IVs, anyway. Why breed them when you can find 100% IV Pokémon out in the wild easily? (for a given value of "easy")

Anyway, MD - most of the complaints made aren't in any way related to the AR section of the game - which is tiny, anyway. Some of the problems - server issues, AR issues, some of the other issues related to spawn locations and so on - can be excused by saying they're 1st generation of a new genre.
You tell me, though - "fixing" a bug by completely removing the feature, then refusing to put it in the patch notes- how is that in any way due to this being an AR game? Having less anti-cheat software active than the game this one's based on - Ingress - so that spoofing and botting is so easy - in what way is that related to it being an AR game? It's literally a piece of code to copy from one server to the other, they knew about this type of cheating before the game even released, and they...didn't bother to copy the defenses against it. Going from a "hunt Pokémon" game to a "walk around aimlessly hoping to run into Pokémon" game is pretty crappy. Shutting down the APIs that were providing the service the original game had but letting cheaters completely nullify the end game is just bad business. Not communicating about or acknowledging bugs and errors is bad business.
Did you know that "minor text fixes" includes reducing the Pokémon sighting range by 50%? I can understand why they'd do that - I'm sure it seriously reduces server stress - but they might want to say so. And perhaps do that when the tracker is working again, so one can again successfully hunt for Pokémon.
Most of the problems here are design or business related, not programming.

 

[Dei]

What percentage of Pokemon players are hardcore battlers, compared to average players who go through the story-mode and get really attached to their favorite Pokemon? I certainly know more people who pick their team based on which Pokemon they love, than I do people who are into getting the most powerful Pokemon possible.

Unless I've got a completely wrong impression of how the main RPGs work, there's a big difference between how the non-meta game treats progression, and the way Pokemon Go does. If you try to raise your "starter" Pokemon in Go up to be your strongest, you'll quickly run out of Stardust and realize that you're going to have a hard time of things. In other Pokemon games, your starter is usually your most powerful Pokemon for a good portion of the game, if I'm not mistaken.

But at the same time, you aren't going to find copies of starter Pokemon in the wild in the actual game.

If you want to play actual Pokemon, that option still exists. This is a fun mobile distraction for the casual gamer market. It might get better. But getting super vitrolic about it seems ridiculous.

 

[Bubble181]

I'm not super vitriolic about it, to be clear. I'm just a bit disappointed. And judging by the thousands of people requesting refunds, I'm not alone.

I knew it was a casual distraction - and that's exactly what I wanted it for. My GF is training for a 100km walk next month, and now I have an excuse/reason to go along with her on her daily exercise walks. Occasionally catching a Pokémon, having a reason to go left instead of right, having a reason to go to this or that park instead of always following the same route. It's fun. Other people can play the meta and be the Very Strongest or whatever, I don't particularly care. The game in its current state is sadly not working as it should, and provides neither for the casual gamer like me, nor for the hardcore gamer who wants to strive to be the best.

 

[Dei]

I'm not super vitriolic about it, to be clear. I'm just a bit disappointed. And judging by the thousands of people requesting refunds, I'm not alone.

I knew it was a casual distraction - and that's exactly what I wanted it for. My GF is training for a 100km walk next month, and now I have an excuse/reason to go along with her on her daily exercise walks. Occasionally catching a Pokémon, having a reason to go left instead of right, having a reason to go to this or that park instead of always following the same route. It's fun. Other people can play the meta and be the Very Strongest or whatever, I don't particularly care. The game in its current state is sadly not working as it should, and provides neither for the casual gamer like me, nor for the hardcore gamer who wants to strive to be the best.

I am talking about Pez being mad that it isn't a clone of the actual game.

 

[GasBandit]

Nurturing your Pokemon to be the best only applies if your name is Ash Ketchum James.

FTFY

 

[Bubble181]

"We need someone to shovel mountains, mountains of shit. Like, burning shit. Literal feces delivered to our door, that is. Oh, and I *think* we have about 500,000 unread mails in the "complaints" file, probably. We don't know 'cause w're afraid to open it".

 

[Tinwhistler]

This game was likely not designed with exclusively Pokemon enthusiasts in mind. Odds are the relative simplicity of the game system is to attract the very casual mobile gaming market to download and try the game. More intricate systems like PvP battling and the like could be introduced down the line as newcomers are given time to get accustomed to the game and Pokemon in general.

I agree. Take my nerd card if you'd like, but I've never played pokemon before this game. And except for tracking disappearing, I'm not unhappy with the game play.

 

[Shakey]

The game is OK. It's a bit boring in rural areas. I've caught about everything that is going to actually spawn here, so I don't know what else to do. I don't want to grind pidgies or whatever to level up. So I'm probably done until they get more pokemon to spawn in my area.

 

[MindDetective]

I'll admit that the work Niantic put into making a database of real life land marks, and then tying that database into a game system is pretty impressive. I think its clearly obvious their staff has spent a lot more of their effort on making this database than they have in making the game mechanics to interact with it. But you know whose done that better? Google maps. Well, I mean, that's not exactly a "game", but basically it's app events based on your GPS location. OH, and they can successfully tell you how far away points of interest are from your current location (re: 3 pawprints bug). Honestly, Google Maps is a lot better "game" than Pokemon Go, but in fairness Google probably has a ton more people working on it than Niantic has.

I've already admitted that some of the problems with Pokemon Go are related to the AR nature of the game. The lack of Pokestops in my area is definitely related to that. The difficulties with the 3 step bug, guarding against spoofed locations, Pokemon population densities, etc. All those are related to the AR nature of the game. However, I've already given you a long list of things that are in no way related to that. They are game mechanics issues that apply to any video game, and UI issues that apply to any application.

Yeah, the founder of Niantic headed up Google Maps for something like 7 years (at Google...I don't know how long he ran Keyhole before that). And Google Maps has had 12 years to evolve (no pun intended)![DOUBLEPOST=1470086727,1470086585][/DOUBLEPOST]

"We need someone to shovel mountains, mountains of shit. Like, burning shit. Literal feces delivered to our door, that is. Oh, and I *think* we have about 500,000 unread mails in the "complaints" file, probably. We don't know 'cause w're afraid to open it".

Not vitriolic, eh?[DOUBLEPOST=1470086764][/DOUBLEPOST]

I agree. Take my nerd card if you'd like, but I've played pokemon before this game. And except for tracking disappearing, I'm not unhappy with the game play.

I bet it is just offline while they fix or replace it.

 

[figmentPez]

I am talking about Pez being mad that it isn't a clone of the actual game.

It's not about if it's a clone of the original game, it's about if it's game mechanics thematically match the tone of the game/anime/etc.

 

[Tinwhistler]

I bet it is just offline while they fix or replace it.

I meant to say that I've never played, but the point still stands.

So, I've analyzed the problem, looked at the api that the client uses...and here it the sticky wicket in a nutshell:

The server knows where all the pokemon are. They send you exact GPS coordinates for those with 50 yards of your location. To find out the distance is a simple matter of displaying one footprint on your phone for these particular pokemon. However, the phone doesn't have GPS coordinates for pokemon further away. Therefore, to update the footprints, the servers have to do haversine formula math for the pokemon on your nearby list (up to 9) for every player logged into the game on whatever schedule that list updates (every few seconds?) and then send that information (2 or 3 footprints) to your phone.

It's a lot of work that can't be offloaded to the client side without exposing the GPS coordinates of all pokemon within say 300 meters to the handheld. Exposing all those pokemon would definitely make the data more ripe for abuse than it currently is--right now, to find all pokemon within about 150 years, I have to make something like 25 calls to the api, instead of 1. But it would also tremendously increase the amount of network traffic (and thus mobile data) than you phone consumes.

It's not a super simple problem to solve, and developers probably never even noticed it as a problem until millions of people started playing the game.

 

[MindDetective]

I meant to say that I've never played, but the point still stands.

So, I've analyzed the problem, looked at the api that the client uses...and here it the sticky wicket in a nutshell:

The server knows where all the pokemon are. They send you exact GPS coordinates for those with 50 yards of your location. To find out the distance is a simple matter of displaying one footprint on your phone for these particular pokemon. However, the phone doesn't have GPS coordinates for pokemon further away. Therefore, to update the footprints, the servers have to do haversine formula math for the pokemon on your nearby list (up to 9) for every player logged into the game on whatever schedule that list updates (every few seconds?) and then send that information (2 or 3 footprints) to your phone.

It's a lot of work that can't be offloaded to the client side without exposing the GPS coordinates of all pokemon within say 300 meters to the handheld. Exposing all those pokemon would definitely make the data more ripe for abuse than it currently is--right now, to find all pokemon within about 150 years, I have to make something like 25 calls to the api, instead of 1. But it would also tremendously increase the amount of network traffic (and thus mobile data) than you phone consumes.

It's not a super simple problem to solve, and developers probably never even noticed it as a problem until millions of people started playing the game.

Best bet is to replace it, then.

 

[Sparhawk]

This was all I saw at lunch today....

 

[Bubble181]

Not vitriolic, eh?

No, that's "joking". About their horrible customer service, not the game. Y'know, the customer service for which they're being held as "not upholding the Google Play TOS"? For which Google is authorizing automatic refunds to anyone who asks right now? I mean, if you're going to tell me I'm not allowed to joke their CS is shit if even Google agrees....

 

[GasBandit]

Goddammit... Nidorino is now gonna be that onomatopaeic engram forever, in my brain.

 

[Krisken]

This was all I saw at lunch today....

You have a rat problem. And a bird problem. But mostly a rat problem.