Pokemon Go (1 Viewer)

[Stan]

Pardon my ignorance, but what the heck is Pokemon Go?

Apparently some type of video/phone/app game? I'm not in my game stage right now so a bit out of date, but I constantly hear about this. What's the deal?

 

[Paul D G]

I do not play it but I have kids who are into it so...

It's a game for your phone. When you launch the app your avatar appears on a real world map (based on your GPS location). Pokemon creatures are scattered about in the real world and you are encouraged to wander around and hunt for them. When you come upon one your phones camera activates and you can see the creature in front of you in the real world. Then you catch it.

I'm not sure of the specifics but there are also places called 'gym's where players congregate and have their Pokemons do battle with each other.

Socially this is all pretty cool. It gets the kids off the couch and outside and walking or riding their bikes. It allows complete strangers from all backgrounds to meet each other and play a game and have fun.

The reality is you have even more people wandering around staring at their phones and blissfully unaware of their surroundings (i had two people step in front of my bike over the weekend) or worse, driving while playing.

 

[DavidMiller]

Well Paul summed it up pretty good. I play a fair amount level 21right now. I found it fun wondering around with my teen age kids and bonding. It has also been good to get me out of my chair! I'm averaging about 6.5 miles a day walling and have lot about 5 pounds since it launched.

 

[DaveF]

Augmented Reality (AR) video game. A followup to the lesser known Ingress using Nintendo's Pokemon.

I gave it a go since I'm a fan of AR. For me, in my area, it was boring -- nothing to do, no Pokemon to be found. And the server was crashy. And the app was terrible, grossing undercounting steps (like 5x too low) and only counting with the app was running, which is a ridiculous battery killer, so Eggs wouldn't hatch.

I get the appeal. I'm bummed it wasn't any fun for me because I was looking forward to a two weeks thrill -- there are 5 Stops and 2 Gyms minutes from my house -- but it was a lousy experience. Fortunately, I have no background with Pokemon so no loss there.

 

[DavidMiller]

They rolled out a fix last weekend that fix most if not all the issues. It has maybe crashed once since the update. Still drains the battery.

 

[Stan]

Thank you all for the info. As I said, not into game mode right now, life changes as we get older. For whatever reason, I'm back into Stephen King and John Grisham novels, just light, easy reading, hardly what you'd call classic literature. That will probably change over the next few months, maybe back to video games, who knows

 

[DaveF]

They rolled out a fix last weekend that fix most if not all the issues. It has maybe crashed once since the update. Still drains the battery.

I might try again later. But it failed the "ooh, fun!!!!" test from the start so I'm in no hurry.

 

[Clinton McClure]

The reality is you have even more people wandering around staring at their phones and blissfully unaware of their surroundings (i had two people step in front of my bike over the weekend) or worse, driving while playing.

So far I have read about someone crashing their car into a tree and someone crashing into a police car while playing and driving, two fellas falling off a cliff and a venomous snake bite because people are so wrapped up in their phones that they are unaware of their surroundings and a 2 year old left at home alone for a few hours while his (or her) parents went out hunting Pokemon. I read the child managed to get out of the house and was found wandering around the front yard in a diaper and t-shirt.

 

[Malcolm R]

So far I have read about someone crashing their car into a tree and someone crashing into a police car while playing and driving, two fellas falling off a cliff and a venomous snake bite because people are so wrapped up in their phones that they are unaware of their surroundings and a 2 year old left at home alone for a few hours while his (or her) parents went out hunting Pokemon. I read the child managed to get out of the house and was found wandering around the front yard in a diaper and t-shirt.

Natural selection at work, 21st century style.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

So far I have read about someone crashing their car into a tree and someone crashing into a police car while playing and driving, two fellas falling off a cliff and a venomous snake bite because people are so wrapped up in their phones that they are unaware of their surroundings and a 2 year old left at home alone for a few hours while his (or her) parents went out hunting Pokemon. I read the child managed to get out of the house and was found wandering around the front yard in a diaper and t-shirt.

Some players also "invaded" a critical care unit of one of the hospitals I work for. Caused a minor security incident.

 

[Stan]

So far I have read about someone crashing their car into a tree and someone crashing into a police car while playing and driving, two fellas falling off a cliff and a venomous snake bite because people are so wrapped up in their phones that they are unaware of their surroundings and a 2 year old left at home alone for a few hours while his (or her) parents went out hunting Pokemon. I read the child managed to get out of the house and was found wandering around the front yard in a diaper and t-shirt.

I think I'm safe, as long as I watch out for others.

I'm terribly anti-smartphone. Don't even own a cell-phone, but I'll probably get a cheap TracPhone again for emergencies. Probably goes back to an old job where as part of my IT duties, I got to manage the phone system, along with 300+ cell-phones, smart-phones, Blackberries, etc. The phone's to hot, it's to bulky, I don't like this model, the battery doesn't last long enough. Oh shut up. Thank goodness I was allowed free reign on managing things, chose one model and made everybody standardize on that. No way was I going to support 20 different styles of phones and all the spare parts, chargers, etc. (This was a while ago, things have gotten better).


Now I just have a basic landline, and guess what, life works just fine. No need to stay "connected" 24 hours a day.

People survived back in "Leave it to Beaver" times, we can do it again, certainly without a Pokemon game. Walk the dog, go to a park, just lay out and get a tan while reading a book, actually printed on paper. No need to be electronically obsessed all the time.

 

[DaveF]

Says the guy typing on a computer into an online forum on the World Wide Web...

 

[Stan]

Says the guy typing on a computer into an online forum on the World Wide Web...

Yeah, but now I can be a bum, just a "user". Not the guy behind the scenes running everything, the phones, the servers, the software, the domains. Now I'm on the other side and get to bitch and moan

 

[TonyD]

I've been "playing" the game.

I don't get it though.

All I've been able to figure out is collecting the pokeman and spinning the stops.

Went into a gym and lost about a half dozen of my figures in about 10 seconds.

 

[DaveF]

I don't know. Friends are really into it. But I reinstalled it to try again and it's the same as before: no Pokemon to capture.

 

[Ruz-El]

I love it. Play it on the bus on the way to and from work mostly. It really only gets good if you get off your ass and actually explore your city. Otherwise you'll keep catching the same type of pokemon. Probably best with friends too, but I enjoy wandering about listening to music. I've only walked into 4 cars so far...

That's one of the things I like most about the game, there isn't really a cheat like other micro transaction games. You can buy Lures and Incense to help attract more pokemon, and you can buy more pokeballs if you run out, or "lucky eggs" to double your XP earned for 30 mins, but at the end of the day, you still have to get out there and actually catch the pokemon. As opposed to other mobile games like Eternity Warriors where you can buy the gems you need instead of grinding them and get to be unbeatable in an hour. You actually have to earn your levels and Pokemon in Pokemon Go. I would have stronger Pokemon for gym fights if I actually went out to areas with lots of Pokestops and Gyms where other players are dropping lures, etc. Pretty cool.

I also can't think of a video game that could go as "real world" as this one. People grew up playing Pokemon games, and now they are actually trainers exploring their world looking for Pokemon. I mean, I guess someone can train really hard and then join an underground fight club thing to emulate "Street Fighter II", but it's not really feasible for most like this one.

 

[DaveF]

Here's an illustration of what I don't understand about Pokemon Go as a game: I'm standing between a Gym and two stops, in an area filled with restaurants and people on a busy Friday night. And there's no Pokemon.

That is: I open the "game" on my iPhone and there's nothing to do. I'm only level 3, and it feels like there's just nothing to do in it early on. It doesn't trigger that early try-reward-try some more 'addiction' cycle. And I lose interest quickly.

 

[Ruz-El]

Based on that picture, there should be Pokemon if you walk around. See the Pokestop with the pink petals floating? That means someone set a lure to attract pokemon. Stand closer to that and some Pokemon should show up. You'll see the normal ones and hopefully a few rarer ones. It wont be a crazy mad rush, but they well be there. You can't do anything with the gyms until level 5, which you should be able to hit pretty quick if you're around lures.

If no Pokemon show up regardless, try hard closing the game (on an android phone you hold down the main button and close all running apps to do it.) and restarting it. I've had to do that a more than a few times when the grey pokeball symbol in the top left corner wont stop spinning, telling me that nothing is loading.

I'm home all day, so there's going to be nothing happening in the game since I'm not out and about. I'm going to be stopping by the mall on monday and it will be crazy due to having 20 some pokestops and 5 gyms all located within, I've ran out of pokeballs to throw in such scenarios. It really depends on where you are and the time you spend.

 

[DaveF]

So that's what those petals mean.

I was out yesterday, spending time hanging out, in more Pokemon-dense areas, with more gyms and more stops per area (older, more established neighborhood and retail than my own neighborhood). And I found maybe 20 Pokemon over the afternoon, without having to hunt for them; just checking the app once in a while during lulls in my other activities.

So, I see the app is working. I have better than a month ago when I first tried it. And it seems very dependent on being in a dense well established sub/urban area.

 

[DaveF]

So I'm level 6 now. I've got 50 cp Pokemon. The gyms show 5000 cp Pokemon. What am I supposed to do at a gym?