Pokemon GO

[Vulpes Absurda]

Things that are pokestops:

 

Every church except the Jehovah's witness, es? Witnessi? The local tribute the the classic film Newsies outside the icecream place:

 

The local fine art gallery:

 

 

Things that are gyms:

 

*Sound of crickets chirping*

 

[rohlfinator]

For some reason, there's a gym at the front of my office building. Once I finally hit level 5 I'm going to get rid of that damn Drowzee that's been sitting there.

[TheLastBaron]

Things that are pokestops:

Every church except the Jehovah's witness, es? Witnessi? The local tribute the the classic film Newsies outside the icecream place:

The local fine art gallery:

Things that are gyms:

*Sound of crickets chirping*

There's definitely Johova's Witness churches by my house that are Pokestops.

San Francisco is absolutely packed with stops, I can stop at most street corners and get 4-5 different stops.

[karubo]

Weirdly, one of the gyms near me is a restaurant that closed down about 5 months ago.

[eRonin]

So I was walking in the park, both because I like to, and for Pokemon GO. I was tracking down a geodude, and it led me off the paved path. I take a step and I hear a squelching sound, and see there's mud all in front of me, but I had already ventured quite far from the path behind me, and the path wound in such a way that it was actually closer in front of me. So I decide to lightly step through the mud to get to the path.

I slip and fall flat on my back.

My phone is muddy.

My back is muddy.

My butt is muddy.

And I didn't even catch the geodude.

[Merus]

Pokemon Go is less interesting than I hoped - battling and training Pokemon is fairly rudimentary - but the big difference is that Pokemon Go went fuckin' huge. I went out to a birthday dinner, and when I get off at the bus stop near the park I see at least a dozen people wandering around the park visiting PokeStops and catching pokemon. Coming back literally half the people I see looking at their phones are playing PoGo. There was a bouncer showing his friend. I saw a joke on Twitter about how if this was a movie we'd be amused by the idea that there could possibly be a game so popular that its release made the news and there'd be a whole bunch of people in the street playing it.

 

Someone organised an event to wander around Sydney catching pokemon and it got such a big response they had to get a police permit

 

Someone headed for a lake to catch pokemon and found a body

 

There's a pokemon gym at the White House and it's held by a Fearow named Merica

 

What even is this game

Niantic must be celebrating/shitting themselves.

[Vasari]

There's a gym near where I live that's located on a boat. I tried to get to it today.

 

 

From where I was standing, it was barely out of reach. The only way through that fence is to go into the museum and pay for a tour of the boat. I am really considering finally going to see that stupid boat if it means I can take that gym.

[Bjorn]

The world is a weird fucking place y'all. 

[TheLastBaron]

I was going to say basically the same thing on account of the fact that the cemetery I previously mentioned is now constantly swarmed by tons of teens walking around with their phones out. But yeah that link beats that.

[prettyunsmart]

My group of friends who don't play games (or more accurately only a couple of them do regularly) are all in on this thing. They basically spent all weekend scouting out the city for the best places for catching em all. Basically, it confirms Austin Walker's take on the whole thing, that the game isn't particularly good, but it doesn't really matter.

[Vulpes Absurda]

I deleted this today based the fact that it is both A: A bad game at the moment. and B: tracks me more then I am comfortable with and has some huge security risks laid out here: https://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/heres-all-the-data-pokemon-go-is-collecting-from-your-phone?utm_term=.hs5vmXbka#.sop1JqkRz

[Cordeos]

I deleted this today based the fact that it is both A: A bad game at the moment. and B: tracks me more then I am comfortable with and has some huge security risks laid out here: https://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/heres-all-the-data-pokemon-go-is-collecting-from-your-phone?utm_term=.hs5vmXbka#.sop1JqkRz

I deleted last night after realizing how much cell phone data it was using and how fast it eats my battery. I also hit a wall on caring about catching them all. The game feels very shallow.

[Twig]

I installed it today after realizing it's fun to run around like idiots with some friends catching pokemon during lunch hour.

 

threw forty fucking pokeballs at a butterfree and didn't even catch it in the end. ):<

[Dewar]

I deleted this today based the fact that it is both A: A bad game at the moment. and B: tracks me more then I am comfortable with and has some huge security risks laid out here: https://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/heres-all-the-data-pokemon-go-is-collecting-from-your-phone?utm_term=.hs5vmXbka#.sop1JqkRz

 

Thanks for the reminder. Since I can't use it anyway I just removed it from my Google account.

[rohlfinator]

It's a pretty shallow game, but I've been hooked by the gimmick. It's been a fun diversion during my walk to work.

 

Hope they add more to do though, preferably in a more "PvE" direction.

[Roderick]

I've seen Pokémon Go with a couple of people now and, it's weird: it looks like a pretty ugly / visually uninteresting game with mechanics that don't terribly appeal to me beyond the gimmick aspect of augmented reality. Yet, everyone goes nuts about it, which must be a combination of Pokémon and the adventuring vibe? Like, it's just inherently fun to go outside to do an actual goddamn quest in real life, wandering around - no matter how shallow or ugly or iffy the game itself is?

[manny_c44]

I've seen Pokémon Go with a couple of people now and, it's weird: it looks like a pretty ugly / visually uninteresting game with mechanics that don't terribly appeal to me beyond the gimmick aspect of augmented reality. Yet, everyone goes nuts about it, which must be a combination of Pokémon and the adventuring vibe? Like, it's just inherently fun to go outside to do an actual goddamn quest in real life, wandering around - no matter how shallow or ugly or iffy the game itself is?

 

Yeah I think that's it. Also I assume most of the people who are into Pokemon Go don't normally play games? People also like a fad to latch on to.

 

Oh well, hopefully it'll shut up the Nintendo investors long enough that they can make some real games in the background.

[TheLastBaron]

So as I've mentioned across the street from me is a cemetery that is a gym and also has a bunch of stops in it. It's also directly across the street from a middle school. My friend went over there today and sent me a picture showing me all the stops with lures and saying how it's just packed full of middle school kids walking all over on their phones and oh yeah it's in the middle of a funeral.

http://i.imgur.com/RaJU7nl.jpg

[Vulpes Absurda]

Quick PSA Niantic has issued a patch that fixes the account access issue (according to them but I don't see any reason to doubt them) so anyone who quit because of that can hop back in.

[tabacco]

They did fix the Google account scoping, but you'l have to deauthorize the app in your Google account and then reconnect from the app. You won't lose any data doing so.

[Mawd]

I don't have a phone plan atm + lazy so I haven't played it yet but my friends are.

I hear a good tip is to download your area's google map to save on data.

Also the poke lures are kinda creepy. Some friends were placing them around and random people were coming up to them while they were still wandering around.

Something like that is probably going to be used to lure people away to mug them at some point.

[BigJKO]

Something like that is probably going to be used to lure people away to mug them at some point.

 

Has already happened, btw.

[BigJKO]

We still don't have the app in Denmark, so I can't be blamed if I can't see the Pokémon in my backyard when I mow the lawn. Sorry! I'M SORRY, ALRIGHT! :(

 

[Thrik]

 

I've seen Pokémon Go with a couple of people now and, it's weird: it looks like a pretty ugly / visually uninteresting game with mechanics that don't terribly appeal to me beyond the gimmick aspect of augmented reality. Yet, everyone goes nuts about it, which must be a combination of Pokémon and the adventuring vibe? Like, it's just inherently fun to go outside to do an actual goddamn quest in real life, wandering around - no matter how shallow or ugly or iffy the game itself is?

 

It's basically just what we all dreamed of as children, right? Being able to go out in the world and catch Pokemon. Not some virtual world in a console — the actual world. Just like the earlier games' characters' adventures would just be random shit that happens to them while out and about, the same can happen to you while playing this game. Will you find some rare delight? Nearly get eaten alive by a bear? Meet wonderful new companions? Get mugged? It's all part of the adventure.

 

Of course the game is ropey as hell. It's noticeably rough for an iOS game, with lots of blurry textures and UI elements. Animations and transitions feel clunky and overly time-consuming. The overall performance of the application is bad even on an iPhone 6S Plus. But see my previous paragraph for why none of that matters.

 

Personally I'm basically done with it after one morning since it came out in the UK. I can see younger people absolutely loving this, and clearly many older people are too. I'll probably delete it soon. It's been a fascinating fad to see happen though, one that seems to cross generations like few other phenomena.

[tabacco]

I don't have a phone plan atm + lazy so I haven't played it yet but my friends are.

I hear a good tip is to download your area's google map to save on data.

Also the poke lures are kinda creepy. Some friends were placing them around and random people were coming up to them while they were still wandering around.

Something like that is probably going to be used to lure people away to mug them at some point.

 

The Google Map thing is a myth, at least on iOS. Google Maps' offline maps aren't available to other iOS apps.