This Week in Pokémon Go News + Weekend Free-for All

[inkstone]

Sorry, yesterday got away from me so it's a news + free chat combo post this week. Unlike the past couple round-ups, a lot happened this week. I'm going to try to organize things to make them easier to parse, so here we go.

Game Updates
• PokeGo has launched in over 40 new countries. Due to the number, I'm not going to list them individually but you can see the full lists here and here. Sorry, India and South Korea are not among the new launch territories. I know they've been waiting a while.

• Niantic added a server side update where new-to-you pokémon sighted in gyms are now registered as being seen in your pokedex. So if you're like me and still don't have a dragonite but your local gym meta is dominated by the orange Barney, you will see its silhouette in your pokedex.

• Look alive! Nests have migrated again!

• In a future update, the medals you've earned will now make a difference! More specifically, the medals you earn for catching specific types of pokémon will make catching future pokémon from that category easier. For example, earning a gold medal in catching pidgeys will make it easier to catch gyarados. (more details)

• Also in a forthcoming update, the way you train friendly gyms will change. You will be able to bring 6 pokémon (like if you were attacking a rival gym) and the CP of defenders will adjust to your level, which will allow lower level trainers to participate in the gym scene. (more details)

• Niantic continues its efforts to block third-party apps. (source)


PokeGo & You
• Despite the slowdown and userbase stabilization, PokeGo has earned over $470 million in less than 3 months. (source)

• Some of you might be familiar with The Silph Road. If you're not, I recommend checking out the site for its crowdsourced nest atlas. Anyway, Business Insider spoke with TSR Executives here.

PokeGo in the Real World
• We've heard a lot about the bad things that've come out of PokeGo. (Car accidents, trespassing, etc.) In Japan, though, the game has deterred people from killing themselves at one of the country's top suicide locations. (source) ***obviously, content notes apply here***

• Norway's Prime Minister was caught playing PokeGo during a Parliament briefing. (source)


That's it for this week!

Any thoughts about the latest in-game updates? What about the other newsbits? And how was your week in PokeGo?

Let's talk about it here.

Comments

[inkstone]

I'm torn on the changes to gym training. Making so that trainers from all levels can participate in the gym scene is always a good thing. I've always been concerned by the fact that newer players are effectively locked out. That said, this is really going to affect the way I train up gyms! I intentionally pick mon with lower CP to train against gym defenders! Like a 1000CP Wiggly will earn 850 prestige points if it defeats a 1700CP Gyarados!

I guess we'll have to see how the mechanic will actually work in practice. I trust people will discover strategies to make the process more efficient. I'm not even talking about bubblestrating. I'm just talking about using type advantages.

As for my week in PokeGo, nothing too exciting. I did evolve a sandslash so that's another entry in my pokedex!

[recessional]

http://www.macleans.ca/society/health/how-pokemon-go-helped-heal-my-brain/ seems appropriate to link given the article on Japanese suicide.

[inkstone]

Thanks for that link. I've read lots of anecdotes about the game helping people with depression and agoraphobia. It's interesting to see that it can help people with brain injuries.

[recessional]

Yep.

I mean it's nothing uniquely inherent to the game as such: it helps because, as noted in the article, it rewards you for going out and doing gentle exercise on a consistent basis. It's just those of us with certain kinds of mental illnesses, and many people with TBI, are seriously hampered in doing so by our illnesses, and the silly-fun-collecting-competitive (but still fairly gentle) nature of the game provides us a tool to overcome that.

[senmut]

I think they realized the neighborhood I was in was over-spawning... and duly set the rate UNDER where it had been. Walked one of my shorter routes that should have given me 5-6 sightings... got 2.

[inkstone]

Sorry. I went from seeing 3 sightings from my house to 6.

[pseudo_tsuga]

All of the gyms around me are Valor that are at least Level 6 with 2000+ Dragonite scattered about which makes it tedious and frustrating. I'm not doing those anymore and it makes me sad for the large amount of kids here who don't even get a chance. It used to be a lot more even.

[inkstone]

Yeah, those can be intimidating and time-consuming.

[pseudo_tsuga]

I don't mind battling but one snuck in a Dragonite as I was trying to take a level 3 gym and it's just not worth it for me. My fingers get sore!

[recessional]

Ugh it's Instinct that does that around here. Often the same jerk person between both gyms, too.

So it being at least adjustable for TRAINING at gyms seems like a really good idea to me, failing being allowed to smack some heads to explain that IT'S MORE FUN IF EVERYONE CAN PLAY, JERK. Ahem.

[healingmirth]

There was a post that I'll never be able to find again, because reddit, but it was a really nice (in the not making me hate people sense) writeup of a gym strategy that was both "how to collect max coins each day" and how to keep the local gym environment healthy/fun/competitive.

Some strange trainer blew through here last week with a personal army of snorlaxes and dragonites, and I cleared them all out with extreme prejudice the next morning.

[recessional]

Yeah unfortunately I can't quite yet and these jerks appear to be local. There's about three of them. Le sigh.

Tho if you ever do find that post you should totally link it here.

[pseudo_tsuga]

oh interesting! Instinct isn't strong here at all; I only see a few gyms downtown that are yellow. I do recognize names of the some of the repeat offenders since there's quite a few gyms close together so they must be hitting them all up right after the other.

I am glad training seems to be easier so at least if I see any other Mystic gyms I can help them out more.

[lemon_badgeress]

I am SO IRRITATED with the change in how the pokedex registers. Keeping my seen/caught numbers even is one of the only parts of this game that can trip my obsessive tendencies and make me miserably unhappy. So now I can't even look at gyms any more. THANKS NIANTIC D

[inkstone]

I understand the logic, but I don't agree with it. Yes, I can see new pokemon in gyms but I don't have the chance to catch them!

[serpentine]

I managed to finally hatch a Snorlax this week.

Also I've noticed that Pokemon Go, while it does help my mental illness to a certain degree by getting me outside, I also have realized that if my interest in it suddenly drops to almost zero, it's probably time for me to adjust my meds.

[inkstone]

I would like to hatch a snorlax (...and a lapras...). I've caught snorlaxes in the wild, but they're low CP.

[healingmirth]

We've got 15 gyms in town here, of which 3 have been locked down level 8-10 by one team for about a week now, but the rest of them turn over at least once a day. Those rarely hit even level 5, and I'll be super interested to see if or how that changes when this gym thing goes live. My impresssion isn't so much that we have discouraged trainers so much as lazy ones ;)

I don't often run into a gym that I *can't* train at, but I often run into ones that I just don't want to. I guess I like the idea of the flexibility in the 6 mon team, but I'm another one for definitely keeping a rein on my enthusiasm until I see how they balance the prestige gains.

I went on an excursion up the road a few towns, in hope that some of the unconfirmed nests there might have migrated into something interesting (spoiler alert: nope) and the gyms in the towns I passed through were all solidly held, each town by a different team, so I'm trying to be grateful for my fluid local gym traffic :)



I've got a work trip the end of this month, and I finally caved today and took a peek at the nests in the area. Population centers are miraculous things.

[inkstone]

Man, the nests migrated so quickly, I never got a chance to hit up the kabuto one at a local park. SIGH.

[ephemera]

I've had multiple trips out of town, which didn't net me any new 'mon, but did at one point give me a gym which lasted for a whole *week*, which is a new record for me (particularly unexpected because it started out as a Level 2 with two 2k+ Snorlax on it, and I intentionally put my 1234 Rhydon on it, rather than one of my higher CP critters, to give other players a shot. Within 30 mins it was a level 5 gym, but still with me on the bottom tier, so I really wasn't expecting it to stick for 24hours, let alone a week!) I also figured out dodging! I still don't see the relationship to the graphics, but as a mechanical pattern of moves, I now do dodging!

[inkstone]

Yeah, the dodging cue is the flash/white action lines. (It depends on how you visually process it. I see the lines. I don't see the flash.) That is the only cue. The actual attack animation of the defending mon doesn't matter. If you timed it correctly with the lines/flash, you'll have successfully dodged.

[tyger]

I can play again! \o/ My phone was being a giant buttface and not updating anything, but I finally got enough brain to give the tip recessional gave me a go yesterday, and it works again!!!!

Haven't actually played at all, since I have an exam-level test tomorrow and have been studying, but since I have to go into uni I'll hopefully get to see something interesting while I'm there. :D

[inkstone]

Yay on getting your phone to play nicely with the game again!