8 ms·

If Google had any sense, they would be throwing a tonne more at this. It may be Ingress with less features and a Pokemon skin but that latter part is exactly th

by NamTaf 10y ago

If Google had any sense, they would be throwing a tonne more at this. It may be Ingress with less features and a Pokemon skin but that latter part is exactly the mainstream appeal they need to make AR big. This is their big chance to create a new market. If they sort out the bugginess and roll out decent features in the next couple of months to keep retention, they're onto something big. At near-on midnight on Saturday, there were 150-200 people sitting in a 70m stretch of the main public park area here in Brisbane CBD (Southbank). During Sunday when I walked through, that was closer to 250-300. This is purely because there's 3 or 4 points of interest in close proximity so people congregate there to interact with it. It's truly a sight to behold. This game has captured the imagination of non-gamers better than anything I can think of in recent history. It's nearing WoW / CoD levels of ubiquity.

taigeair 10y ago
Does it ask you to login all the time too? My session gets expired very quickly.
- NamTaf 10y ago
  From what I understand, it'll ask a new login if the servers crash between usage sessions of the app. I've not had to log in today, for example, but yesterday I had to two or so times. The login bug is relatively low-priority to me - all it does is force me to switch to the 2FA app and then untick the music in settings. Compared to other bugs, that's trivial. I'm still occasionally seeing bugs with gyms - for example, instantly kicking me back to the gym screen as soon as I try to battle - but that's fixable by going and battling another gym. I've yet to see a way to solve the other big gym bug wherein enemies stay at 1hp but never die or do anything until the timer runs out. Otherwise, the standard client/server sync bugs (pokeballs sitting on screen doing nothing if you lose server connectivity during capturing it) and client-side bugs (battery saver mode cuasing the game to become completely unresponsive to touch sometimes when you bring it back by turning your phone upright again) are the main gripes.
Nullabillity 10y ago
Google doesn't own Niantic anymore.
- tgtweak 10y ago
  Ouch.
- jpgvm 10y ago
  Google invested alongside Nintendo. It's highly likely they still own a significant portion of Niantic even if it's not an internal startup anymore.
yoodenvranx 10y ago
The one thing which is missing (and which made Ingress the amazing game it is) is ingame notification and ingame player activity. Based on the gym activity there are at least 15-20 players in my town but there is just no way of contacting them. If I am lucky I can manage to meet one by random chance but currently Pokemon Go is a rather single player game. The other thing which is missing is a system which shows ingame player activity. At any given point I can open my scanner in Ingress and see exactly what's going on around me. I can see if there is a new player in town, I can see if my favorite enemy is active again, ... but in Pokemon Go I feel like I am blind. I know that there are other Pokemon Go players out there in my town but I just can't see them or interact with them.
- chris_wot 10y ago
  I watched five of my colleagues walk to Town Hall in Sydney's CBD and play the game the whole way... Remarkable!
- viraptor 10y ago
  This game is targeting young kids, so I'm not sure there will ever be any person-identifying interaction. A lot of online multiplayer games for kids don't have interactions beyond friending/favouriting someone. P-GO would be a prime candidate for 4chan type people and you can imagine how that would work together with location spoofing and global playground. I expect that Nintendo & Niantic know this (Ingress never solved the chat spamming issues - bots advertising resources for real money)
  - yoodenvranx 10y ago
    Yes, of course you are right about the safety of the kids. I just wish there was an opt-in system where you can choose to share your ingame actions. If you don't share it you are invisible and you can't see other players, but if you are into Ingress-like gameplay you can just enable it. About bots and cheating in Ingress: the biggest problem is that Niantic is a small company and they just don't have the manpower to sufficiently deal with the cheating. If they were Valve or Blizzard the situation would be a bit different.
skilled 10y ago
I think that's a very short-sighted judgement to say that the game is nearing anywhere close to the level of games like Wow and CoD, and sadly -- it will never get there. There isn't very much flexibility that the game offers, and even it if will offer it in the future, the initial moon phase will be over by then. It's a nice example of launching a product and getting people to use it, but within a few weeks Pokemon Go will be history, unless of course, people find more dead bodies or other surreal stuff while playing the game, though I wonder if that's the reputation that the developers are going for.
- sangnoir 10y ago
  > the initial moon phase will be over by then FYI: The statement should be the honeymoon phase, derived from the nothing-but-bliss albeit short-lived marital phase, rather than the lunar one.
- viraptor 10y ago
  Yeah, I feel like they set themselves up for a tough situation in a few weeks. Ingress was in beta and invite-only state for ages, which allowed the map to be built up and people to slowly join over time. People who joined later were still excited about low-level peers starting with them. P-GO is likely to reach its peak in a few days... If some exciting content updates don't follow they may have a problem keeping people around. They'll definitely retain many fans (people still play the original handheld versions), but it will be interesting to see what happens in the future. Also, from own experience - it was easy to play Ingress and go on long walks initially. But after a while, you really want to spend time doing other things; past some point a 1h trip to do something specific for virtual points loses the appeal.
- panglott 10y ago
  Pokemon Go reminds me of nothing so much as the Macarena in 1995. It's a fad that will run its course. But a game getting that level of cultural penetration will be a real watershed.
  - AndrewOMartin 10y ago
Niksko 10y ago
It just feels like such an enormous misstep to me, I can't even fathom it. Why not wait until the game was much more polished and had many more traditional Pokemon features before release? Nobody will be playing this in a month unless Niantic are really really fast with the content updates. Like, one per week fast, until it's much more deep than it currently is.
- masklinn 10y ago
  > Why not wait until the game was much more polished and had many more traditional Pokemon features before release? The game has all the G1 pokemon. I've had friends ask if it had "that modern garbage" before considering installing it, so having just G1 sounds like an excellent pick, it doesn't hinder younger people and recaptures the RGBY generation which didn't keep up with the series. There's plenty of things to add and improve (including but not limited to the servers) and the rest of the international rollout to complete before there's any reason to expand to Gold and Silver.
  - ChristianBundy 10y ago
    The problem isn't a lack of Pokemon, it's a severe lack of polish. For example: - Obviously the servers are slow, but the app freezes and crashes all the time too. - The help text is unhelpful and leaves the user with a ton of questions as to what the buttons actually do. - Little to no support for people in rural areas, as the Pokemon follow the XM patterns from Ingress. - Buggy Pokemon catching (e.g. you have to throw super far to catch Zubat) - No way to add friends, and very little community interaction (with the exception of gyms and lure modules). - Can't rename character, change clothing, etc. - The map on the Pokemon screen loads slower than everything else, so when you go to tap "Transfer" and the map loads it changes the layout and makes you click the app. It feels more like a buggy beta of Farmville with geocaching than it does a Pokemon game. Pokemon Go is to the classic Pokemon games as Elder Scrolls Online is to the classic Elder Scrolls games -- tons of potential, but severely lacking in execution.
    - pavel_lishin 10y ago
samfisher83 10y ago
I think Pokemon has more to do with success of it than the AR stuff. I see most people playing without AR on. Pokemon appeals to the nostalgia factor. A lot of us grew with these games when we were kids. Now most of us older, but we still grew with them. It also hits the kids demo as well. Pokemon is/was a good game. Its like why marvel and transformers and all these 80s/90s cartoons are doing so well.
- squeaky-clean 10y ago
  > I think Pokemon has more to do with success of it than the AR stuff. I see most people playing without AR on. Pokemon appeals to the nostalgia factor. I think it's both. The game isn't great on it's own, and I bet the AR will feel tiring after a while like it did with Ingress. But this is amazingly close to the real-world idea of Pokemon so many of us have wanted since childhood. Last night I went for a walk in the middle of the night to a nearby park. I encountered a few other "pokemon trainers" on the way (it's really obvious when someone is playing), and at the park were at least 30-40 other people, spread out in small groups, some hanging out in spots, some wandering around the grass tracking a Pokemon... Seeing Pokemon in the real world is neat and all, but meeting lots of other "Pokemon Trainers"?! Wow, that really made me feel like a little kid again. I hope the population stays active until they add battling. It seems like it would be incredibly dull playing this game by yourself without running into others.

by NamTaf 10y ago

taigeair 10y ago

Does it ask you to login all the time too? My session gets expired very quickly.

NamTaf 10y ago
From what I understand, it'll ask a new login if the servers crash between usage sessions of the app. I've not had to log in today, for example, but yesterday I had to two or so times. The login bug is relatively low-priority to me - all it does is force me to switch to the 2FA app and then untick the music in settings. Compared to other bugs, that's trivial. I'm still occasionally seeing bugs with gyms - for example, instantly kicking me back to the gym screen as soon as I try to battle - but that's fixable by going and battling another gym. I've yet to see a way to solve the other big gym bug wherein enemies stay at 1hp but never die or do anything until the timer runs out. Otherwise, the standard client/server sync bugs (pokeballs sitting on screen doing nothing if you lose server connectivity during capturing it) and client-side bugs (battery saver mode cuasing the game to become completely unresponsive to touch sometimes when you bring it back by turning your phone upright again) are the main gripes.

Nullabillity 10y ago

Google doesn't own Niantic anymore.

tgtweak 10y ago
Ouch.
jpgvm 10y ago
Google invested alongside Nintendo. It's highly likely they still own a significant portion of Niantic even if it's not an internal startup anymore.

yoodenvranx 10y ago

The one thing which is missing (and which made Ingress the amazing game it is) is ingame notification and ingame player activity. Based on the gym activity there are at least 15-20 players in my town but there is just no way of contacting them. If I am lucky I can manage to meet one by random chance but currently Pokemon Go is a rather single player game. The other thing which is missing is a system which shows ingame player activity. At any given point I can open my scanner in Ingress and see exactly what's going on around me. I can see if there is a new player in town, I can see if my favorite enemy is active again, ... but in Pokemon Go I feel like I am blind. I know that there are other Pokemon Go players out there in my town but I just can't see them or interact with them.

chris_wot 10y ago
I watched five of my colleagues walk to Town Hall in Sydney's CBD and play the game the whole way... Remarkable!
viraptor 10y ago
This game is targeting young kids, so I'm not sure there will ever be any person-identifying interaction. A lot of online multiplayer games for kids don't have interactions beyond friending/favouriting someone. P-GO would be a prime candidate for 4chan type people and you can imagine how that would work together with location spoofing and global playground. I expect that Nintendo & Niantic know this (Ingress never solved the chat spamming issues - bots advertising resources for real money)
- yoodenvranx 10y ago
  Yes, of course you are right about the safety of the kids. I just wish there was an opt-in system where you can choose to share your ingame actions. If you don't share it you are invisible and you can't see other players, but if you are into Ingress-like gameplay you can just enable it. About bots and cheating in Ingress: the biggest problem is that Niantic is a small company and they just don't have the manpower to sufficiently deal with the cheating. If they were Valve or Blizzard the situation would be a bit different.

skilled 10y ago

I think that's a very short-sighted judgement to say that the game is nearing anywhere close to the level of games like Wow and CoD, and sadly -- it will never get there. There isn't very much flexibility that the game offers, and even it if will offer it in the future, the initial moon phase will be over by then. It's a nice example of launching a product and getting people to use it, but within a few weeks Pokemon Go will be history, unless of course, people find more dead bodies or other surreal stuff while playing the game, though I wonder if that's the reputation that the developers are going for.

sangnoir 10y ago
> the initial moon phase will be over by then FYI: The statement should be the honeymoon phase, derived from the nothing-but-bliss albeit short-lived marital phase, rather than the lunar one.
viraptor 10y ago
Yeah, I feel like they set themselves up for a tough situation in a few weeks. Ingress was in beta and invite-only state for ages, which allowed the map to be built up and people to slowly join over time. People who joined later were still excited about low-level peers starting with them. P-GO is likely to reach its peak in a few days... If some exciting content updates don't follow they may have a problem keeping people around. They'll definitely retain many fans (people still play the original handheld versions), but it will be interesting to see what happens in the future. Also, from own experience - it was easy to play Ingress and go on long walks initially. But after a while, you really want to spend time doing other things; past some point a 1h trip to do something specific for virtual points loses the appeal.
panglott 10y ago
Pokemon Go reminds me of nothing so much as the Macarena in 1995. It's a fad that will run its course. But a game getting that level of cultural penetration will be a real watershed.
- AndrewOMartin 10y ago

Niksko 10y ago

It just feels like such an enormous misstep to me, I can't even fathom it. Why not wait until the game was much more polished and had many more traditional Pokemon features before release? Nobody will be playing this in a month unless Niantic are really really fast with the content updates. Like, one per week fast, until it's much more deep than it currently is.

masklinn 10y ago
> Why not wait until the game was much more polished and had many more traditional Pokemon features before release? The game has all the G1 pokemon. I've had friends ask if it had "that modern garbage" before considering installing it, so having just G1 sounds like an excellent pick, it doesn't hinder younger people and recaptures the RGBY generation which didn't keep up with the series. There's plenty of things to add and improve (including but not limited to the servers) and the rest of the international rollout to complete before there's any reason to expand to Gold and Silver.
- ChristianBundy 10y ago
  The problem isn't a lack of Pokemon, it's a severe lack of polish. For example: - Obviously the servers are slow, but the app freezes and crashes all the time too. - The help text is unhelpful and leaves the user with a ton of questions as to what the buttons actually do. - Little to no support for people in rural areas, as the Pokemon follow the XM patterns from Ingress. - Buggy Pokemon catching (e.g. you have to throw super far to catch Zubat) - No way to add friends, and very little community interaction (with the exception of gyms and lure modules). - Can't rename character, change clothing, etc. - The map on the Pokemon screen loads slower than everything else, so when you go to tap "Transfer" and the map loads it changes the layout and makes you click the app. It feels more like a buggy beta of Farmville with geocaching than it does a Pokemon game. Pokemon Go is to the classic Pokemon games as Elder Scrolls Online is to the classic Elder Scrolls games -- tons of potential, but severely lacking in execution.
  - pavel_lishin 10y ago

samfisher83 10y ago

I think Pokemon has more to do with success of it than the AR stuff. I see most people playing without AR on. Pokemon appeals to the nostalgia factor. A lot of us grew with these games when we were kids. Now most of us older, but we still grew with them. It also hits the kids demo as well. Pokemon is/was a good game. Its like why marvel and transformers and all these 80s/90s cartoons are doing so well.

squeaky-clean 10y ago
> I think Pokemon has more to do with success of it than the AR stuff. I see most people playing without AR on. Pokemon appeals to the nostalgia factor. I think it's both. The game isn't great on it's own, and I bet the AR will feel tiring after a while like it did with Ingress. But this is amazingly close to the real-world idea of Pokemon so many of us have wanted since childhood. Last night I went for a walk in the middle of the night to a nearby park. I encountered a few other "pokemon trainers" on the way (it's really obvious when someone is playing), and at the park were at least 30-40 other people, spread out in small groups, some hanging out in spots, some wandering around the grass tracking a Pokemon... Seeing Pokemon in the real world is neat and all, but meeting lots of other "Pokemon Trainers"?! Wow, that really made me feel like a little kid again. I hope the population stays active until they add battling. It seems like it would be incredibly dull playing this game by yourself without running into others.