Pokémon in the Real World

[Evie]

Well, as close as it's ever going to get:

http://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-video-games/pokemon-go/

Travel between the real world and the virtual world of Pokémon with Pokémon GO for iPhone and Android devices! With Pokémon GO, you'll discover Pokémon in a whole new world—your own! Pokémon GO will use real location information to encourage players to search far and wide in the real world to discover Pokémon.

The Pokémon video game series has used real-world locations such as the Hokkaido and Kanto regions of Japan, New York, and Paris as inspiration for the fantasy settings in which its games take place. Now the real world will be the setting!

The Pokémon video game series has always valued open and social experiences, such as connecting with other players to enjoy trading and battling Pokémon. Pokémon GO’s gameplay experience goes beyond what appears on screen, as players explore their neighborhoods, communities, and the world they live in to discover Pokémon alongside friends and other players.

You can watch the video at the top of the page to better understand the Pokémon GO experience.

A small device called a Pokémon GO Plus will enable Pokémon GO players to enjoy the game even when they’re not looking at their smartphone. The device connects to the smartphone via Bluetooth and notifies the player about events in the game—such as the appearance of a Pokémon nearby—using an LED and vibration. In addition, players can catch Pokémon or perform other simple actions by pressing the button on the device. Pokémon GO Plus is being developed and manufactured by Nintendo Co., Ltd.



Pokémon GO is being developed by Niantic, Inc. Originally founded by Google Earth co-creator John Hanke as a start-up within Google, Niantic is known for creating Ingress, the augmented reality mobile game that utilizes GPS technology to fuel a sci-fi story encompassing the entire world. Ingress currently has 12 million downloads worldwide.

Niantic, Inc., The Pokémon Company, and Nintendo Co., Ltd., will all contribute to the Pokémon GO project.

Furthermore, Junichi Masuda of Game Freak Inc., the game director of the Pokémon video game series, is also contributing to the project. He is hard at work ensuring that the fun of Pokémon makes its way into this new project, and is also looking to come up with new kinds of gameplay while thinking of ways to connect this project with the main series of Pokémon video games.

Pokémon GO will be available for download at no charge on the App Store and Google Play. In-app purchases will be available.

Look forward to much more information about Pokémon GO leading up to its launch in 2016!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=22&v=2sj2iQyBTQs

This...could be huge.

 

[schlaufuchs]

I dunno, kinda sounds like that pedometer thing they had for...diamond/pearl?

 

[Maniacal]

I was honestly kind of shocked when I found out, Nintendo is usually far behind on adopting modern ideas which involve the internet let alone phones.

Hopefully Niantic hires more people, their biggest problem with Ingress has been that they can never keep up with the needs of the playerbase. They just shut down portal submissions for a long while because they have over a million submissions (including dick pics) and the game has some issues with "ghost" fields and links that show up for a little bit after you've taken them down.

Rural areas also often suffer from a lack of portals since they are mostly user submitted and there just aren't as many things to submit there, making it harder for people who live there to actually play the game and get into it. I really hope this game doesn't face a similar problem with not giving people much to do outside of denser areas.

 

[Cynovolans]

I have not played Ingress so I don't know what to expect, but I'll probably end up chasing a pikachu I can only see on my phone in public.

 

[Evie]

I dunno, kinda sounds like that pedometer thing they had for...diamond/pearl?

It sounds like a massively improved version of that.

Or, to put it another way, it sounds like that crossed over with last year's Pokémon Google Maps April Fools thing (which make sense, seeing as, at the time, the game was in development, by a Google subsidiary, founded by G-Earth' co-creator (who was on stage for the announcement). They totally used that April Fool to stealth-announce the game). And 3D graphics.

 

[Maniacal]

I have not played Ingress so I don't know what to expect, but I'll probably end up chasing a pikachu I can only see on my phone in public.

It will probably be quit a bit different, though it will be interesting to see what it shares in common. Ingress is about capturing static portals, linking them to others to form fields, taking down those of the opposing faction and some weird story about aliens. It is based off of Google Maps and the game has all the roads and paths marked out on it as gray lines so it will be interesting to see how different Pokemon Go's world is and looks.

There is already a mission system which are user made and a navigation system that show you Portal X is Y meters away so the wild pokemon will probably build off some of that for finding nearby pokemon as shown in the somewhat cringey trailer.

I expect the game to play quite different from Ingress.

Dunno what kind of graphics it will have, the ones they showed in the trailer don't look final.

 

[Cynovolans]

Would you recommend Ingress? I was considering downloading it on my iphone but all the one star reviews turned me away.

 

[Maniacal]

Dammit I had a big post written up and accidentally lost all of it.

Anyway, yes you should check it out. Depending on where you live the game can be better or worse, in my area it is pretty good. We have an excellent cross-faction community, lots of teamwork and friendly people (more so on my side (Enlightened) than the Resistance), monthly Ingress First Saturday meet up event with prizes and swag (I have a small painting I got at one of them).

The game is free and you can play and get involved as much or as little as you would like to. It is an excellent way to discover your area, I've found way more stuff here than I ever would have without it.

This directory shows most of the local groups around the world: https://www.ingress.com/community/directory

It's worth checking to see which team is more dominant in your area, a lot of people recommend joining the team which is less dominant in your area to help balance things out and keep the game interesting. I'm not actually sure how people do that though, but I know they do. Maybe they asked on /r/ingress or messaged someone in the local G+ groups, I'm not sure. You can always request your one faction change at some point if you really don't like your team for whatever reason.

 

[civvver]

so this is out now and people are going crazy for it. I literally know nothing about the game though, can someone fill me in? I don't use facebook or mobile game much, it probably doesn't appeal to me.

 

[trader/warrior]

Holocaust Museum to visitors: Please stop catching Pokémon here

One image circulating online appears to show a player encountering an unsettling digital critter inside the museum: a Pokémon called Koffing that emits poisonous gas floating by a sign for the museum's Helena Rubinstein Auditorium. The auditorium shows the testimonials of Jews who survived the gas chambers. Hollinger said that the museum is concerned about the potential Koffing appearance.

On Monday afternoon, there were plenty of people inside the museum who seemed to be distracted from its haunting exhibits as they tried to "catch 'em all," as the Pokémon slogan goes. A player even used a lure module, a beacon that attracts Pokémon to a specific PokéStop, on the museum's marker — making double-headed bird-like creatures dubbed Doduos and rodent-like Rattatas practically swarm on users' screens.

The player behind the lure, a 30-year-old visiting from North Carolina named Dustin who declined to share his last name with The Post for privacy reasons, was excited to catch a crustacean-like Krabby.

"It's not like we came here to play," said Angie, a 37-year-old member of Dustin's group who also declined to share her last name for privacy reasons, "But gotta catch 'em all."

Besides the Holocaust Museum, Pokémon were being caught at the Sept. 11 memorial, the New York Times reported.

Is this the real life?

 

[ls612]

Someone is going to get hit by a truck playing this game. On the plus side though I'll bet exercise stats will skyrocket in America this summer, and the country certainly needs that.

 

[Maniacal]

People already have been, more or less. The amount of stupidity and complete and utter lack of self-awareness demonstrated by several Darwin-award wannabes (no one has died yet though) is shocking. It's only been available since the soft launch 10 days ago on the 2nd of July.

The game is a fun diversion, it's surprisingly how many people are already playing it in Canada considering you have to download the apk from a website. There are packs of roving Asian PoGo players in my city, and just a lot of people as it is.

It doesn't have much long lasting appeal though, it's very shallow, and still in beta. While it's great that it reuses a good amount of portals from Ingress as pokestops and gyms, it has huge dead zones in many areas like suburbs, rural regions and even some small towns and cities. Worse, pokemon spawns are based off the same Google location data as wild Xm in Ingress is... so again many of those areas barely spawn pokemon if at all which is game breaking. Though on the flip side, despite a lack of a pokestop at my workplace (Costco) I am constantly catching Pokemon on my breaks.

"We are trying to find out if we can get the museum excluded from the game."

Luckily for them they are in luck, something like a Holocaust Museum asking to be removed from the game is something Niantic will actually listen to.

 

[Snerk]

When is it being released in Europe?

 

[Evie]

It just got its German release - other countries will follow now that it,s on the release track again (presumably)

 

[civvver]

It seems utterly ridiculous to me lol. I get the appeal though, get out and go collect stuff. Collection games have always been highly addictive, that's basically what mmo's are. You raid to collect new gear, rinse, repeat, new patch for another cycle.

 

[Maniacal]

Some interesting articles i've found:

One guy's experience with his house being a gym:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/stephaniemcneal/pokemon-go-house?bffb&utm_term=.yfDrZDrde#.rwvw7AwWm

Interview with one of the Niantic devs:
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/featu...cesses-challenges-and-the-future-niantic.aspx

Interview with a couple of players I know locally:
http://www.timescolonist.com/news/l...asing-creatures-with-mobile-devices-1.2300792

 

[Maniacal]

I just went out and played it for a few hours at the largest park in the city tonight with a couple friends, we put down a couple lures and had nearly 40 people at most at a time there. Just random people on their own, couples, or small groups of friends. Anywhere from teenagers to one lady who looked like she was in her 50s.

Everyone is on different teams but for the most part nobody is really concerned about that, at least not here. Ended up running into another friend and his friends and a couple of random players we ended up chasing charmanders with and hung out with them for a while until they had to leave, at which point I ended up hanging out with two other friends who showed up as well. Great fun.

The lack of an ingame chat is probably one of the best features of the game, significantly cuts down on the trolling and drama.

 

[Snerk]

OK I installed it but the game is so buggy. For starters it was completely impossible to catch this nonchalant pokemon:



Now I'm out of poke balls..

 

[Evie]

Shame, that's one adorable Pokémon.

 

[Snerk]

Decent attack stats too. Kind of lazy though.