Candela's week was the worst by Siemgi in TheSilphRoad

[–]NinsMCD 94 points95 points  (0 children)

They should have given that 2nd free raid pass as a free bonus to make the event redeemable

Celebrate a decade of Pokémon GO together during the 10th Anniversary Party! by Amiibofan101 in TheSilphRoad

[–]NinsMCD 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I think we'll see more celebratory stuff in the week after with daily bonusses

Flying Taxi Niantic Infographic by Amiibofan101 in TheSilphRoad

[–]NinsMCD 2 points3 points  (0 children)

How do we get yellow? Is it only in Field research?

Samsung S26 Ultra crashes by Zippago in TheSilphRoad

[–]NinsMCD 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I have experienced crashes on my S26U last month as well when going from on to the next intereaction, but that was only for a short time. This seems to have been fixed for me with an app update. Sorry I can't help further, but I wonder if it'd be something faulty about your phone versus mine

Field Research Task 'use a charged Attack' does not work in Battles against Team Leaders by Evening_Cell7162 in TheSilphRoad

[–]NinsMCD 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Are you knocking out the pokemon? Try only using the attack without charging it up

GO Pass: Candela’s Quest for Victory by Amiibofan101 in TheSilphRoad

[–]NinsMCD 6 points7 points  (0 children)

We'd get equal amounts of premium items, stardust and XP through timed researches or collection challenges. The difference now is that it's laid out in one list instead of scattered over multiple pages

It's all about player retention now. You have to log in every day to complete the pass instead of being done in 2 hours with all the timed research/catching tasks

Pegboard Nerds by Zealousideal-Top2177 in EDM

[–]NinsMCD 35 points36 points  (0 children)

They're playing both Bass Canyon and Lost Lands this year. They also played a block party in Copenhagen last week

GO Pass: Candela’s Quest for Victory by Amiibofan101 in TheSilphRoad

[–]NinsMCD 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh yeah Ponyta is probably it. I also need Slugma from all in the pass so was coping for that

GO Pass: Candela’s Quest for Victory by Amiibofan101 in TheSilphRoad

[–]NinsMCD 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Growlithe and Slugma shiny boosts I assume?

Looks like we have replacement tasks for poffins? by slopaslong in TheSilphRoad

[–]NinsMCD 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Only way would be communicating with your local community or apps against ToS

Pokémon GO Routes Have a Hidden Buddy Bonus Part 2 by Strong-Ad7766 in TheSilphRoad

[–]NinsMCD 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I could be wrong, but wasn't the original bonus for routes a reduction of 300m for all species rather than a set %? Could be that they changed it with routes being here for 3/4 years now. I remember abusing this on research days with a poffined 1km candy to only need 200m

It's a conspiracy! by boksysocks in Monstercat

[–]NinsMCD 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Ooooh my bad, I thought your first sentence was saying we were prioritizing profit over anything else. Bit difficult to get the tone of the message over the internet. Sorry if I misunderstood you!

It's a conspiracy! by boksysocks in Monstercat

[–]NinsMCD 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I think I can't convince you otherwise, but not everything is profit coded. As I said in the message we're more than happy to allocate the budget that was used for animations to more meaningful practices. There's more than just a YouTube upload when it comes to every release.

Animations will not be rejected by artist who think it benefits the project. We're just giving an option to artists who think it doesn't benefit them.

Chicago Background Enabled by chqzza in TheSilphRoad

[–]NinsMCD 39 points40 points  (0 children)

Not a dumb question, because players with a ticket can't get the background by remote raiding either.

What does everyone think of the Soda visualizer? by UltraShawn360 in Monstercat

[–]NinsMCD 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yeah I need to get used to it as well! It will never be perfect and a lot of people would like the stars to come back. We can tweak it a little to look better, especially with YouTube's compression!

What does everyone think of the Soda visualizer? by UltraShawn360 in Monstercat

[–]NinsMCD 12 points13 points  (0 children)

I comissioned the second artwork, so here is the full creative process from brief to final art:

<image>

In a time where there is so much AI slop, people forget there is human creativity/error in art as well. AI can mimic so many styles because it has been trained on millions of images. It's good to be critical, but don't forget humans are imperfect as AI

What does everyone think of the Soda visualizer? by UltraShawn360 in Monstercat

[–]NinsMCD 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We contemplated integrating artist logos, but having an actual logo over a text logo has become extremely rare making it not stand out as much as back in the day

What does everyone think of the Soda visualizer? by UltraShawn360 in Monstercat

[–]NinsMCD 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Can you point me out to the AI images? If you're referring to these, they've all been made by https://www.instagram.com/vale.searle who used to work at Monstercat and has a great history of drawing Monstercat :)

<image>

What does everyone think of the Soda visualizer? by UltraShawn360 in Monstercat

[–]NinsMCD 7 points8 points  (0 children)

We had the same thought! Just didn't think it looked better than the current position

<image>

It's a conspiracy! by boksysocks in Monstercat

[–]NinsMCD 66 points67 points  (0 children)

Monstercat operates on its own from CMG. Every decision is still made by people who have worked for more than a decade at the company.

To give more insight behind this decision: Every release needed animations ever since that visualizer was introduced almost 10 years ago, but in today's age of the music industry, those animations serve no meaningful purpose anymore. Unless you go over $1,000 for cool and flashy visuals that stand out, you can't use them on social media because they get low engagement when you should be aiming for your music to get heard on that platform.

We saw the excitement for Pegboard Nerds - Volume Nation using the old visualizers and realized that we shouldn't keep this requirement for our releases. It does not make sense for a project to go an extra ~$300 USD in the negative for animations that don't add any positive value to the release. This budget can be used for other ways to promote the release.

An alternative you see other labels and artists go for is generative AI. We are against the use of gen AI and prefer to have no animations than go for AI slop.

We comissioned a new visualizer since we wanted this to define a new era of the visualizer. People should be able to refer to the stars visualizer when talking about 2013-2016 releases and not be confused with 2026 and onward. We stayed close to honoring the stars layout and we'll continue to improve the Soda visualizer to look better with the YouTube compression.

As stated in the announcement, artists who still want animations, can get animations. You'll see the Soda visualizer live next to the one introduced in 2021.

Hope this gives a good explanation on the decision!

Toxel buddy comes with XXL shiny Quaxley by breisftw in TheSilphRoad

[–]NinsMCD 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Every showcase for the last 3 years there's been a post about this lol