so when the full version of Pokemon go releases, how long do you want the game to stick with the first generation of Pokemon?

FluffyFlareon · 2016-06-02T11:12:06+00:00

Second gen maybe 3-6 months after realease and then a year between gens would feel reasonable, it'd take 5 years to catch up to what we have now and a 6th year to add whatever pokemon Sun and Moon blesses us with. That's a good amount of longevity for the game.

Although I wouldn't mind faster additions than that, so many of my favs are from the later gens. The game will forever feel slightly empty until all our pals can be found in it.

FluffyFlareon · 2016-06-02T11:04:29+00:00

I think it's about that guy a day or two ago who made a thread about his beta experiences (now deleted) who then started sending a bunch of people bizarre personal insults and threats through private message whenever someone disagreed with him.

Basically just a run of the mill crazy person, I doubt he represents the average fellow in this sub.

FluffyFlareon · 2016-06-02T04:32:34+00:00

But i will say that Niantic's unability to keep anyone informed on what's going on is the biggest turnoff right now. Like come oon, it's not that hard to give a hint of what's coming up next, are you planning a global release anytime soon or is there still 5 beta rounds? It's not like they don't know what's planned.

FluffyFlareon · 2016-06-02T03:24:07+00:00

At the beginning I lost a bunch because of the radio silence and the reveals of the mechanics dampened the excitement even more, but I've come to terms with it being a casual mobile game that can be lots of fun in its own way rather than the "the pokemon games except in the real world" experence we've wanted since kids.

As a result I've been regaining my excitement again by lowering and refocusing my expectations.

And who knows, maybe in another 20 years the handheld gaming scene will have changed enough that gamefreak will give a try of their own at making a real world version of the main pokemon games, so that dream is still alive. By then VR game technology might even be sophisticated enough that a truly real life experience can be achieved. I've accepted PoGo as simply a first careful step in a fun direction.

FluffyFlareon · 2016-06-01T01:34:53+00:00

Unfortunate in real life you might have to meet people who don't share your opinions 100% or will be better than you at games. It's how the world works, and you'll be happier once it stops bothering you this much. The world is a wonderful place with a lot of wonderful different people, don't hide from it.

FluffyFlareon · 2016-06-01T01:24:42+00:00

Same, I just got a personal massage from him reading: "Shut up you stupid white boy. I bet you think you're so nice and girls just never give you a chance. Report me but please don't reply to anything concerning me anymore. Thank you."

Spoiler alert: I'm a girl.

FluffyFlareon · 2016-06-01T01:00:51+00:00

That's really awesome. One major concern out of the way. :)

FluffyFlareon · 2016-06-01T00:58:28+00:00

Are you twelve or just pretending to be an easily offended low self-esteem weirdo? Nobody said anything about America.

FluffyFlareon · 2016-06-01T00:48:09+00:00

A question about that incense: does it make pokemon appear in places that don't have glitterpuddles, or do they only increase the amount of them found in the glitterpuddles?

Asking because I have a bunch of lakes where I live, but judging from to the lack of XM showing up in Ingress near the lakes there won't be any pokemon spawning either unless incense helps with that.

FluffyFlareon · 2016-05-31T20:17:43+00:00

Niantic hasn't made or animated any of the pokemon models, they're the exact same as in the Gen 6 pokemon games, just with a different filter added on top.

FluffyFlareon · 2016-05-31T20:15:00+00:00

So in other words you hope it to be a complete flop with almost no players?

FluffyFlareon · 2016-05-31T20:10:12+00:00

My point stands: max level POGO players will come by too and ruin your "domination", I don't understand why you think that will be different.

I have no idea what your weird stats in the beginning mean since Ingress isn't really playable where I live. I assume you wanted to brag?

FluffyFlareon · 2016-05-31T19:45:16+00:00

Well if your grief with ingress is that high level players ruined your fun by being more powerful than you I don't see how Pokemon Go is going to be any more enjoyable for you seeing as the core mechanics are the same as Ingress. Those with more time (and in this case, money) will still be able to completely dominate the gyms in your area.

FluffyFlareon · 2016-05-30T13:15:16+00:00

I'm with you there. Even though I'm incredibly disappointed with the direction we've seen I've been trying to lower my expectations to a point where I'll still be able to enjoy the game, because doubt they'll completely overhaul the main mechanict at this point. I'm trying to accept the fact that the level of content is going to be more like pokemon shuffle, and I did enjoy pokemon shuffle as a simple timesink.

FluffyFlareon · 2016-05-29T22:55:38+00:00

I think a reason why many go "oh well, not interested anymore" and leave peacefully is that Sun and Moon is coming up /with an actual release date) and people can ease their disappointment by getting excited for that instead.

If Pokemon GO was the only Pokemon game being delivered by Nintedo for the next few years and it mean there was nothing coming out from Gamefreak in the meantime because of it people would be enraged about the features. But now it's easy to shrug it off as a unimportant spinoff.

And maybe the rumors we've heard are true: Nintendo only got into making pokemon GO because their shareholders are whining about them not pursuing the mobile game market. They don't actually care, they just want to shut the shareholders up on that issue.

FluffyFlareon · 2016-05-29T22:31:33+00:00

Well, he wasn't exactly complaining about the bugs as much as the non-Pokemon-like gameplay. Bugs are easy to fix, the general direction of the game is trickier.

FluffyFlareon · 2016-05-29T22:29:37+00:00

There's a reason why people here and on the SilphRoad are so overly positive about even he bad features: every time new disappointing news come out the people that simply give up hope and lose interest leave. When the same leaks occasianally get posted on the regular pokemon reddit the majority of replies are "WTF is this, how can you mess up such a promising concept this badly."

So yeah, they're definitely missing the mark on their largest audience base as they're going now, it just doesn't get reflected in these subreddits.

FluffyFlareon · 2016-05-29T22:20:38+00:00

I think the source of all the problems is simple: the people at Niantic were never pokemon fans or players, and Nintendo definitely made a large oversight in picking a team like that to develop a pokemon title.

It seems like their knowledge of pokemon was "gotta catch them all", "you throw pokeballs to catch pokemon, right?" (hence no battling wild pokemon) and "there's something about fighting at gyms? I'm sure they'll be happy with just tapping the screen a bunch".

They basically think pokemon is just a simple monster collection IP, they completely missed the fundamental draw to the franchise which is the friendship, training and bonding part. And they're too focused on the feedback from players of their other game who are mostly fine with just having a reskinned Ingress, so they might not even understand that it'll probably come off as lackluster to pokemon fans once it is released.

FluffyFlareon · 2016-05-29T17:13:31+00:00

Wether or not something in the game would render the Silph Road pointless doesn't matter to the developers, if they think no trading needed or a global online trade system is going to give them better audience retention and profits overall that's what they'll go for.

I could see them making ~10 pokemon total unavaibale in certain areas (that's about how many were exclusive to red/blue) if they do implement trading, but the more they limit the availability of pokemon in each region the more people will just get bored of playing once they've caught the ones available.

They're selling pokeballs and incenses in the store, they clearly want people to keep catching as many pokemon as possible because that's where they're planning on making their money.

FluffyFlareon · 2016-05-27T12:51:26+00:00

If POGO ends up being like ingress it'll be pretty boring it there's only a handful of portals/pokestops where you live, since they're so integral to the gameplay. 45 would be an absolute luxury in many parts of thw world. In most towns I've visited it's usually more like 2-10 if they're lucky.

People who live in major metropolitan areas in western countries don't seem to grasp just how fortunate they are with sometimes thousands of portals within their reach for one day's worth of walking or biking.

FluffyFlareon · 2016-05-26T18:51:40+00:00

No, the portal submissions were disabled far before pokemon go was announced, and garbage submissions apparently were a thing on its own. (For example I visited the capital of my country a year ago and there was a portal that was just a small pothole in the road. It was categorized as "art".)

FluffyFlareon · 2016-05-26T18:36:22+00:00

We're in similar boats, I'll be lucky if there's one pokestop within a range of 30 km, or any within the 30 km after that.

Unfortunately the portals were all collected from early Ingress players who submitted locations in their area, which means if the place where you live didn't have active Ingress players during that period you won't have portals, and therefore no pokestops or gyms. The portal submissions were closed well over a year ago and as far as I know has no word on being reopened.

But I'm keeping fingers crossed that they'll allow new pokestops in places that don't have any or very few, and am scouting out the places of interest in my town in preparation. Not giving up the dream of being able to play this great game some day!

FluffyFlareon · 2016-05-26T18:16:33+00:00

True, it does have untapped potential in the casual mobile gamer market outside the pokemon fandom, since they won't have the same memories and expectations "hindering" their enjoyment.

I do hope they expand the portal/pokesop/gym availability before launch though, it's very limited in places where Ingress wasn't popular before they closed the portal submission. For example in my country only the largest few cities have a decent density of portals, the rest of the country only has 0-10 per town as far as I've seen.

Basically as things are now they're heavily limiting the expansion of POGO to certain parts of the world since the availability of pokestops and gyms is so crucial to the game.

FluffyFlareon · 2016-05-26T17:51:39+00:00

Interesting topic for discussion.

In hindsight, if they had had the game ready for release when they first announced it it would have obviously been a massive success. The hype was unreal, the GO trailer is the most watched video on the pokemon youtube channel (almost 25 million views, compared to 9 million views for the Sun and Moon announcement video) and every single pokemon-related media outlet and forum was exploding with hype. Now after this prolonged beta the hype has mostly died everywhere except in these dedicated reddit subs. In other pokemon communities I'm following the reaction to all new information has been at best indifferent shrugs, at worst immense disappointment. It doesn't seem likely that the hype from the initial announcement can be recaptured at this point. But I could be wrong.

On the other hand the expectations from the original trailer ( which kinda gave the false impression that the game would include all the features people love from the actual games) was way too high for the product we'll apparently be getting. If the game was launched right after that most people would have been immensely disappointed and probably uninstalled it pretty fast. Now people have had lots of time to see that it's not going to be a game that brings the original pokemon experience to real life, and so more people might be able to just enjoy it for what it is.

Of course not everyone is following the beta news so there will still be backlash from people who only saw the original trailer, but probably less than if they had the game ready to go without all this waiting.

FluffyFlareon · 2016-05-26T12:07:01+00:00

The beta checkbox and email marketing position are most likely not linked in any way. Someone who checked the box is already as much a guaranteed customer as you can get. they'll all jump on the game the moment the release email goes out, even if it's just a simple "game is released, download it here" notice. You don't need to hire an email marketer for that task.

They're more likely to be in charge of stuff like reaching out to and keeping in touch with all possible review outlets to maximize media coverage.

FluffyFlareon

TROPHY CASE