8 ms·

For those of us who didn't use maps--most everyone I know--it was this advantage others had that made it terribly non-fun to play. Why bother playing when every

by duaneb 10y ago

For those of us who didn't use maps--most everyone I know--it was this advantage others had that made it terribly non-fun to play. Why bother playing when everyone is cheating?

khedoros 10y ago
For those of us who did use maps--most everyone I know--we didn't consider it cheating. The original form of the game sucked, and the maps worked like a community-made patch to work around some of the shortcomings. Why bother playing when the entertaining part of the game is so diffuse? With maps, I'd gather a few coworkers for a safari when something cool popped up. Now we sit at our desks, catching the occasional thing that spawns in the building, but not going anywhere, and not even really interacting with each other. Why bother playing the way that Niantic wants you to when their way feels like a grind-y waste of time?
- duaneb 10y ago
  Well if everyone is playing a different game, it's no wonder nobody is having any fun. There is certainly no way for me to interact with you in a fair way if you're cheating past the limitations I'm enjoying.
  - khedoros 10y ago
    I don't see a problem with that. Different strokes for different folks. What I'm enjoying is available to you, but you've chosen to limit yourself to a constricted set of abilities, because you (apparently) enjoy the limitations. Let's ignore the maps; pretend they never existed. I can drive wherever I want, but my time is limited. A child's time is less limited, but their location is more limited. A college student might be a mix of the two: mobile, with some significant free time. Another variable: location. In a rural location, there might not be a pokestop within several miles. In an urban location, there might be three within range of your home's family room. From my perspective, people are already playing a bunch of different games, based on available time, mobility, location, and density of other nearby players.
    - losvedir 10y ago
      > I don't see a problem with that. Different strokes for different folks. What I'm enjoying is available to you, but you've chosen to limit yourself to a constricted set of abilities, because you (apparently) enjoy the limitations. It matters if you then go on to hold gyms with your super pokemon and you're now out of the league of the non-maps players.
      - khedoros 10y ago
        It certainly does, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'd rather play the game as a "catch 'em all". I generally avoid gyms.
    - Trundle 10y ago
      I don't see a problem with that. Different strokes for different folks. What I'm enjoying is available to you, but you've chosen to limit yourself to a constricted set of abilities, because you (apparently) enjoy the limitations. Would you hold the same sentiment for GPS spoofers? Who jump around from gym to gym with their Dragonites and Snorlax that are far higher level than even a heavy map user would have? Or people that use aim bots in fps? Maphacks?
      - khedoros 10y ago
        Only to the degree that they don't damage other people's games. Jumping gym to gym isn't something I'd consider doing myself, but jumping to pokestops and avoiding gyms altogether? It's not my thing, but I don't see any harm. I think it's a difference in perception. I consider the location-locked nature of the game to be a central feature that contributes to the entertainment value of the game. I don't consider the location of the Pokemon being hidden a central feature at all; it feels more like and unfair hobble that saps the entertainment. > Or people that use aim bots in fps? Maphacks? I'm not going to argue that cheating in competitive multiplayer games is a good thing any more than I'd argue that cheating in ways that don't affect other players is a bad thing.
        10y ago
- blkhp19 10y ago
  Does it matter if you considered it cheating or not? You augmented the main, core part of the game to make it easier to catch pokemon. That sounds like some form of cheating to me.
  - khedoros 10y ago
    It matters to me, although probably not to anyone else. > You augmented the main, core part of the game to make it easier to catch pokemon. And it improved a flawed game (for me) without harming your experience. > That sounds like some form of cheating to me. In that I gained an advantage over what the game provides? Yes. In that I gained an advantage over you or any other player? No. I'm not in competition with anyone. I consider it a fairly solitary game (don't see the point of teams and gyms).
    - sooheon 10y ago
      I lean towards agreeing with you, and I'd probably behave like you if I played the game. But one way in which you (in the aggregate, of "cheaters") do hurt others' experience is by artificially diluting the rarity of pokemon. That's a part of the experience for other players, which if you use tools to help yourself, indirectly is harmed. Not you personally, but the fact that such tools exist and people are using them.
- derefr 10y ago
  I don't quite understand the impulse to "fix" the game, though. As much as it's a commercial product, it's also a piece of art. Would you "fix" a movie? Or would you just avoid seeing it? Or—if you happen to be in film yourself—would you get some people together and make your own? I'm serious on that last one: the people who made the pokemon mapping apps could all get together and have enough pooled mobile-fronted and realtime-GIS backend knowledge to make a full-on clone of the game. (Maybe not with the original's art assets, but those burn battery-life anyway. Use some cute 2D pixel-art like the first-gen games; people's nostalgia will override their aesthetics!)
  - zeveb 10y ago
    > Would you "fix" a movie? Have you ever heard of The Phantom Edit? Or A Phantom Edit? Or the Despecialised Edition?
  - khedoros 10y ago
    > Would you "fix" a movie? Yes, if I had the time and artistic ability. I've enjoyed various unofficial re-cuttings of Star Wars, different edits of Blade Runner, and so on. I'd put other things in the same category: upscalers for emulated games, texture packs for N64 games and Minecraft, mods for Minecraft and every other game under the sun, re-implementations of game engines or whole games that introduce features not found in the originals, etc. > to make a full-on clone of the game. Nintendo shut down Pokemon Uranium within 9 days, after 9 years of fan development. If they'd only called it Rucksack Goblins and made up their own characters... I think that ways to extend an existing system in unintended directions are more interesting than most of the existing systems. Reinterpreting art is an art-form of its own.
    - derefr 10y ago
      > I've enjoyed various unofficial re-cuttings of Star Wars, different edits of Blade Runner, and so on. I'd put other things in the same category: upscalers for emulated games, texture packs for N64 games and Minecraft, mods for Minecraft and every other game under the sun, re-implementations of game engines or whole games that introduce features not found in the originals, etc. I would note that all of these fall either into the category of "creator encourages community involvement" or "creator has abandoned work and ignores community involvement." Yes, people participate when participation is a net-positive. What I was asking is why people would bother contributing their time and effort to effectively do software development for a company that actively tries to discourage them from doing so. It'd be like people making Minecraft mods and then Microsoft suing them for doing so. Surely people would re-implement the engine and start modding that, to get away from the abuse? > If they'd only called it Rucksack Goblins and made up their own characters... Yes, that's more what I meant. Why not create a Fanny-pack Gremlins March app?
chimeracoder 10y ago
> For those of us who didn't use maps--most everyone I know--it was this advantage others had that made it terribly non-fun to play. Why bother playing when everyone is cheating? I didn't use maps. I also didn't feel like those who did were cheating, or that I was any worse off for them using maps. The 'competition' in Pokemon Go was really minimal, and maps had very little effect on them. The only competitive aspect to Pokemon Go is gym battling. If you care only about collecting, you actually benefit from map users, because they're the ones likely to drop lures. As for gym battling, yes, maps might have had a negative effect on the competitive landscape there. But the competitive mechanics for gym battling were so fundamentally broken from the start that it's not reasonable to blame it on map users for "cheating". (How were they broken, might you ask? Well, the fact that moves have such a wide variance in DPS, combined with the fact that movesets are entirely random and randomized upon evolution makes obtaining strong Pokemon entirely a matter of luck. Couple that with the fact that leveling up rare Pokemon requires... finding lots of that same rare Pokemon to turn into candy means that obtaining the strongest Pokemon (which are usually rare) is a matter of repeated luck + time spent grinding. Next, battling is kind of pointless until you're around level 15-20, because you'll almost certainly lose, and the amount of XP you gain from beating a single Pokemon is insultingly small. And finally, the battling itself was highly dependent on the latency of your Internet connection. This was fixed in a recent update, but it was a huge annoyance in the first week or two).

by duaneb 10y ago

For those of us who didn't use maps--most everyone I know--it was this advantage others had that made it terribly non-fun to play. Why bother playing when everyone is cheating?

khedoros 10y ago

For those of us who did use maps--most everyone I know--we didn't consider it cheating. The original form of the game sucked, and the maps worked like a community-made patch to work around some of the shortcomings. Why bother playing when the entertaining part of the game is so diffuse? With maps, I'd gather a few coworkers for a safari when something cool popped up. Now we sit at our desks, catching the occasional thing that spawns in the building, but not going anywhere, and not even really interacting with each other. Why bother playing the way that Niantic wants you to when their way feels like a grind-y waste of time?

duaneb 10y ago
Well if everyone is playing a different game, it's no wonder nobody is having any fun. There is certainly no way for me to interact with you in a fair way if you're cheating past the limitations I'm enjoying.
- khedoros 10y ago
  I don't see a problem with that. Different strokes for different folks. What I'm enjoying is available to you, but you've chosen to limit yourself to a constricted set of abilities, because you (apparently) enjoy the limitations. Let's ignore the maps; pretend they never existed. I can drive wherever I want, but my time is limited. A child's time is less limited, but their location is more limited. A college student might be a mix of the two: mobile, with some significant free time. Another variable: location. In a rural location, there might not be a pokestop within several miles. In an urban location, there might be three within range of your home's family room. From my perspective, people are already playing a bunch of different games, based on available time, mobility, location, and density of other nearby players.
  - losvedir 10y ago
    > I don't see a problem with that. Different strokes for different folks. What I'm enjoying is available to you, but you've chosen to limit yourself to a constricted set of abilities, because you (apparently) enjoy the limitations. It matters if you then go on to hold gyms with your super pokemon and you're now out of the league of the non-maps players.
    - khedoros 10y ago
      It certainly does, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'd rather play the game as a "catch 'em all". I generally avoid gyms.
  - Trundle 10y ago
    I don't see a problem with that. Different strokes for different folks. What I'm enjoying is available to you, but you've chosen to limit yourself to a constricted set of abilities, because you (apparently) enjoy the limitations. Would you hold the same sentiment for GPS spoofers? Who jump around from gym to gym with their Dragonites and Snorlax that are far higher level than even a heavy map user would have? Or people that use aim bots in fps? Maphacks?
    - khedoros 10y ago
      Only to the degree that they don't damage other people's games. Jumping gym to gym isn't something I'd consider doing myself, but jumping to pokestops and avoiding gyms altogether? It's not my thing, but I don't see any harm. I think it's a difference in perception. I consider the location-locked nature of the game to be a central feature that contributes to the entertainment value of the game. I don't consider the location of the Pokemon being hidden a central feature at all; it feels more like and unfair hobble that saps the entertainment. > Or people that use aim bots in fps? Maphacks? I'm not going to argue that cheating in competitive multiplayer games is a good thing any more than I'd argue that cheating in ways that don't affect other players is a bad thing.
      - 10y ago
blkhp19 10y ago
Does it matter if you considered it cheating or not? You augmented the main, core part of the game to make it easier to catch pokemon. That sounds like some form of cheating to me.
- khedoros 10y ago
  It matters to me, although probably not to anyone else. > You augmented the main, core part of the game to make it easier to catch pokemon. And it improved a flawed game (for me) without harming your experience. > That sounds like some form of cheating to me. In that I gained an advantage over what the game provides? Yes. In that I gained an advantage over you or any other player? No. I'm not in competition with anyone. I consider it a fairly solitary game (don't see the point of teams and gyms).
  - sooheon 10y ago
    I lean towards agreeing with you, and I'd probably behave like you if I played the game. But one way in which you (in the aggregate, of "cheaters") do hurt others' experience is by artificially diluting the rarity of pokemon. That's a part of the experience for other players, which if you use tools to help yourself, indirectly is harmed. Not you personally, but the fact that such tools exist and people are using them.
derefr 10y ago
I don't quite understand the impulse to "fix" the game, though. As much as it's a commercial product, it's also a piece of art. Would you "fix" a movie? Or would you just avoid seeing it? Or—if you happen to be in film yourself—would you get some people together and make your own? I'm serious on that last one: the people who made the pokemon mapping apps could all get together and have enough pooled mobile-fronted and realtime-GIS backend knowledge to make a full-on clone of the game. (Maybe not with the original's art assets, but those burn battery-life anyway. Use some cute 2D pixel-art like the first-gen games; people's nostalgia will override their aesthetics!)
- zeveb 10y ago
  > Would you "fix" a movie? Have you ever heard of The Phantom Edit? Or A Phantom Edit? Or the Despecialised Edition?
- khedoros 10y ago
  > Would you "fix" a movie? Yes, if I had the time and artistic ability. I've enjoyed various unofficial re-cuttings of Star Wars, different edits of Blade Runner, and so on. I'd put other things in the same category: upscalers for emulated games, texture packs for N64 games and Minecraft, mods for Minecraft and every other game under the sun, re-implementations of game engines or whole games that introduce features not found in the originals, etc. > to make a full-on clone of the game. Nintendo shut down Pokemon Uranium within 9 days, after 9 years of fan development. If they'd only called it Rucksack Goblins and made up their own characters... I think that ways to extend an existing system in unintended directions are more interesting than most of the existing systems. Reinterpreting art is an art-form of its own.
  - derefr 10y ago
    > I've enjoyed various unofficial re-cuttings of Star Wars, different edits of Blade Runner, and so on. I'd put other things in the same category: upscalers for emulated games, texture packs for N64 games and Minecraft, mods for Minecraft and every other game under the sun, re-implementations of game engines or whole games that introduce features not found in the originals, etc. I would note that all of these fall either into the category of "creator encourages community involvement" or "creator has abandoned work and ignores community involvement." Yes, people participate when participation is a net-positive. What I was asking is why people would bother contributing their time and effort to effectively do software development for a company that actively tries to discourage them from doing so. It'd be like people making Minecraft mods and then Microsoft suing them for doing so. Surely people would re-implement the engine and start modding that, to get away from the abuse? > If they'd only called it Rucksack Goblins and made up their own characters... Yes, that's more what I meant. Why not create a Fanny-pack Gremlins March app?

chimeracoder 10y ago

> For those of us who didn't use maps--most everyone I know--it was this advantage others had that made it terribly non-fun to play. Why bother playing when everyone is cheating? I didn't use maps. I also didn't feel like those who did were cheating, or that I was any worse off for them using maps. The 'competition' in Pokemon Go was really minimal, and maps had very little effect on them. The only competitive aspect to Pokemon Go is gym battling. If you care only about collecting, you actually benefit from map users, because they're the ones likely to drop lures. As for gym battling, yes, maps might have had a negative effect on the competitive landscape there. But the competitive mechanics for gym battling were so fundamentally broken from the start that it's not reasonable to blame it on map users for "cheating". (How were they broken, might you ask? Well, the fact that moves have such a wide variance in DPS, combined with the fact that movesets are entirely random and randomized upon evolution makes obtaining strong Pokemon entirely a matter of luck. Couple that with the fact that leveling up rare Pokemon requires... finding lots of that same rare Pokemon to turn into candy means that obtaining the strongest Pokemon (which are usually rare) is a matter of repeated luck + time spent grinding. Next, battling is kind of pointless until you're around level 15-20, because you'll almost certainly lose, and the amount of XP you gain from beating a single Pokemon is insultingly small. And finally, the battling itself was highly dependent on the latency of your Internet connection. This was fixed in a recent update, but it was a huge annoyance in the first week or two).