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Pokémon Go loses its luster, sheds more than 10M users

arstechnica.com

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Re: Pokémon Go loses its luster, sheds more than 10M users

#141

Post by betadreamer »

fl0wenol wrote: post #129
betadreamer wrote: post #59

I still play regular but it is getting pretty mundane. But that is not because pokevision and other 3rd party was banned. In fact they were supposed to be banned a lot earlier. The map users (myself included) will never pay for pokemongo but might pay for the map. This is not a good business model for them and in fact it defeats the purpose. Instead of hunting or seeking you are basically shopping. The reason why it…

Agreed. The process by which you fortify gyms is broken. Leveling up your gym is very time-consuming and can too easily be undone, especially by other players nearby. There needs to be a better way to handle gyms and battles that scales with local user activity... perhaps a shunt to a PvP mode that grants the winner or the winner's color a certain amount of exclusive access time to fortify. The game is not similar en…

This is a great idea. They should have an item that buffs the gym for 24hr. This will create a nice mechanics where you want to put your pokemon on these buffed gym (more incentive to train) and it will be challenging to beat in general. Players that beats the gym also gets more XP.

Re: Pokémon Go loses its luster, sheds more than 10M users

#143

Post by khedoros »

ldjb wrote: post #136
khedoros wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a competitive game, though. Again, we're playing very different games ;-) > By "unlimiting" yourself you're changing the rules for competitive play for everyone. Again, what competitive play? I'm not competing against you or anyone else, by any reasonable metric. > It's a very selfish way to play the game. It's a relief you've stopped. No more selfish than being relieved that other people aren't having fun any…

Pokémon Go does have a competitive element to it (or you could say it's possible to play it competitively). You can compete over who can fill up their Pokédex first (okay, just the 145 that are currently available). You can play the game for longer to catch more Pokémon. You can go out of your way to catch rare Pokémon. Even when you and a friend are in the same place catching the same Pokémon, you're not guaranteed…

Fair points. I'll clarify: I don't play in a competitive way. I have no idea how many Pokemon any of my friends have caught. I don't know their levels. I've never tried to hold a gym. Honestly, I was never a heavy map user, either (I discovered them late, and my home apparently doesn't have many nests around it, so there wasn't anything interesting to see).

It seems like a philosophical debate: If I'm playing a game where players can optionally compete (but I don't), while using a tool that gives me a theoretical edge (even if I'm using it ineffectively), have I ruined someone else's game just by the perception that I could have?

Re: Pokémon Go loses its luster, sheds more than 10M users

#144

Post by hkmurakami »

stormbrew wrote: post #127
jmcdiesel wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not their IP though, is it? Its the Pokemon Company, and nintendo only gets a small percentage of the licensing...

Nintendo owns 33% of TPC. But they also own some amount of Creatures Inc, which owns 33% of TPC (Gamefreak is the other third share). So it's not clear how much control they have over pokemon, but it may in fact be a controlling interest. Never mind that not all shares are voting shares. I'd be pretty surprised if Nintendo weren't at least de facto in control of Pokemon, personally.

In addition, Pokemon is not the only strong IP that Nintendo has in its arsenal.

I was in the audience at a Hironobu Sakaguchi interview recently, and one of the things that has stayed with me was that Nintendo told the FF team back in the 90's, "You need to take better care of your characters." Nintendo has certainly done that for itself over the course of many decades, and it's always paid off for them despite many short term troubles they've encountered.

Re: Pokémon Go loses its luster, sheds more than 10M users

#146

Post by khedoros »

calsy wrote: post #117
khedoros wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see a problem with that. Different strokes for different folks. What I'm enjoying is available to you, but you've chosen to limit yourself to a constricted set of abilities, because you (apparently) enjoy the limitations. Let's ignore the maps; pretend they never existed. I can drive wherever I want, but my time is limited. A child's time is less limited, but their location is more limited. A college student…

Cheatings cheating doesn't matter who, what, where or how you play it. All games are bound by rules set for ALL players. No one gets to bend the rules of a game because of their circumstance for e.g. 'I work all day, so I should have access to tools that give me an advantage over others'. Games are not an equal opportunity endeavour where everyone gets to be a winner. Those who play by the rules and practice (or grin…

> No one gets to bend the rules of a game because of their circumstance

Sure they do, and for any other reason that they want to.

> Games are not an equal opportunity endeavour where everyone gets to be a winner.

My point exactly. I still don't get to be a winner, because I don't have the time to put into it. But at least I get to enjoy the time that I have.

> Those who play by the rules and practice (or grind) should be rewarded, those who cheat should be penalised, simple.

"Should" perhaps being the operative word. "If wishes were fishes..." and all that. If it makes you feel better, there've been a lot of stories recently about those nasty, nasty GPS spoofers getting their accounts banned.

Re: Pokémon Go loses its luster, sheds more than 10M users

#147

Post by Shorel »

wcarss wrote: post #16

The loss and subsequent banning of maps and map users made nearly everyone I know stop playing, especially in the total absence of an official replacement or a compelling reason to continue. Hearing my map ding was enough cause to make me leap out of my chair and run to the nearby park at midnight to catch something I wanted, and there'd usually be the usual lure-users and a few map-users out there at the same time.…

After the ban-hammer fell, I enjoy playing a lot more, and I have managed to capture gyms.

That was impossible before, with all the bot-accounts at level 30 holding them.

Re: Pokémon Go loses its luster, sheds more than 10M users

#148

Post by seangrogg »

As a developer it was the fact that they were so close to the chest with their API that ruined it for me. The game had a lot of cool potential and I really enjoyed it for a while, but eventually it hit the point where there was backlash from the company for doing anything with their (admittedly non-public) API.

They should have spent time celebrating what the public was making or even possibly trying to produce an alternative API optimized for consumption (instead of blasting their servers with hundreds of fake accounts to get the necessary data).

Re: Pokémon Go loses its luster, sheds more than 10M users

#149

Post by calsy »

wonder_er wrote: post #126
calsy wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheatings cheating doesn't matter who, what, where or how you play it. All games are bound by rules set for ALL players. No one gets to bend the rules of a game because of their circumstance for e.g. 'I work all day, so I should have access to tools that give me an advantage over others'. Games are not an equal opportunity endeavour where everyone gets to be a winner. Those who play by the rules and practice (or grin…

This is fascinating to me. Your assessment is entirely defendable, yet in this situation I end up with the opposite assessment: "this is a make believe world with arbitrary rules - bend them as much as you can, because why not" >No one gets to bend the rules of a game because of their circumstance Again, I come to the opposite conclusion, that _because the rules are there_ they are fun to push, modify, bend, break. I…

Its a matter of fair play. I can setup bots to create level 40 characters with high CP pokemon with just a few eggs, walking half as much as other users. Then I'll just take over gyms with my OP pokemon and say 'hey, bending the rules, all good'. In most people's eye that's just dirty play.

Same with maps, they are third-party tools used to shortcut success. Yes, the tracking sucks in game (im sure it will improve soon), but that doesn't justify having tools that say 'rare pokemon over here' without performing the actual hunting aspect of the game. That is no different to bots. What's the fun in everyone having rare pokemon without earning them.

I'm not dissing maps, Niantic might even make their own official version in the future. But when people cry foul when their preferred method of 'bending the rules' is removed, I don't have much pity for them.

Re: Pokémon Go loses its luster, sheds more than 10M users

#150

Post by Larrikin »

mixedCase wrote: post #100
jampa wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would hope so, but the CEO already said he was against it: F: How do you feel about Poké Radar and things that tap into the code and show where Pokémon are spawning? JH: Yeah, I don’t really like that. Not a fan. We have priorities right now but they might find in the future that those things may not work. People are only hurting themselves because it takes some fun out of the game Source: http://www.forbes.com/sit…

>People are only hurting themselves because it takes some fun out of the game Well it sounds like they were wrong about it.

I feel the opposite about that. To me it very much felt like cheating, atleast with the way the mapping apps were setup. In the real game even if you're using a guide, certain Pokemon appear in certain areas, but for most of them theres no real way to find all of the Pokemon in an area without wondering around until you find them, a feature I felt was necessary to recreate the actual game.

The feet feature being removed hurt the game, but those maps that posted the exact location of the Pokemon seemed to go counter to the actual game.

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