Pokémon Go, Part Three
Jul. 21st, 2016 11:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingPokémon Go has a fantastic amount of potential. It really, really does.
The game is also very difficult for three reasons.
First, Niantic has some serious server issues. Granted, they have well over 45 million people logged on at any given time, but I don't know why they didn't prepare for this. If you're playing the game between noon and nine in the evening EST, you're not really "playing" the game so much as desperately hoping that it doesn't crash.
Second, Pokémon Go doesn't tell you what to do or how anything works, which is all the more damning because it's the first game of this nature that most people have ever played. I am ashamed to admit that I have dug deep into Reddit to search for answers, but it seems that even experienced players still have no idea what's going on.
Third, the game does not accommodate casual players. I habitually walk several miles a day through neighborhoods that have a wealth of Pokéstops, but I've made almost no progress in filling out my Pokédex or leveling up my avatar. Unless Niantic can figure out how to reward players on a more consistent basis, I don't think they're going to be able to keep the game going for the entire summer. Once the casual players arrive at the conclusion that Pokémon Go isn't something that everyone can enjoy, the middleground players will drop out as well.
I'm not sure how long I'm going to keep playing. I'll give it the rest of the week, but I'm beginning to think I'd rather sit on my couch in my air conditioned apartment and play I Am Setsuna instead of futzing around with malfunctioning AR in the middle of a record-breaking heatwave.
The game is also very difficult for three reasons.
First, Niantic has some serious server issues. Granted, they have well over 45 million people logged on at any given time, but I don't know why they didn't prepare for this. If you're playing the game between noon and nine in the evening EST, you're not really "playing" the game so much as desperately hoping that it doesn't crash.
Second, Pokémon Go doesn't tell you what to do or how anything works, which is all the more damning because it's the first game of this nature that most people have ever played. I am ashamed to admit that I have dug deep into Reddit to search for answers, but it seems that even experienced players still have no idea what's going on.
Third, the game does not accommodate casual players. I habitually walk several miles a day through neighborhoods that have a wealth of Pokéstops, but I've made almost no progress in filling out my Pokédex or leveling up my avatar. Unless Niantic can figure out how to reward players on a more consistent basis, I don't think they're going to be able to keep the game going for the entire summer. Once the casual players arrive at the conclusion that Pokémon Go isn't something that everyone can enjoy, the middleground players will drop out as well.
I'm not sure how long I'm going to keep playing. I'll give it the rest of the week, but I'm beginning to think I'd rather sit on my couch in my air conditioned apartment and play I Am Setsuna instead of futzing around with malfunctioning AR in the middle of a record-breaking heatwave.
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Date: 2016-07-21 10:07 pm (UTC)If I could play with the same every now & then casualness of neko atsume, it could appeal.
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Date: 2016-07-24 01:34 pm (UTC)The way the game works, however, is that you attract more pokémon the farther you walk (the minimum seems to be 2km), and you attract rarer pokémon the farther away you get from your starting location (the minimum is around 3km). Traveling above a certain speed (no one can agree on what this is) doesn't count toward your "walking" total, so you can't drive, and the sudden stops required by the game make biking impractical. What this means is that the game isn't going to reward you if you're just walking in a circle around your block or your neighborhood. ]
^ This is what I wrote in response two days ago. When I went to fact check it yesterday morning, things had changed. When I went to fact check it again this morning, things had changed again. It may be that
NyantechNiantic is adjusting the gameplay, or that the server errors have been causing fluctuations, or that the data players have gathered hasn't been accurately processed yet. Who knows?no subject
Date: 2016-07-22 01:12 am (UTC)(I think FF14 is partially exempt from this specifically because it was structured such that it wouldn't be, but even so, there's a lot of stuff I as a casual player can't do when it releases. that being said, they're really good about downgrading stuff later so casual folks can enjoy it too, and that helps a lot.)
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Date: 2016-07-24 01:42 pm (UTC)I keep seeing articles on my Facebook feed about people playing Pokémon Go getting bitten by snakes, walking off cliffs, getting mugged, walking into traffic, and so on. This sounds ridiculous until you start playing the game and begin to understand the incredible amount of effort that a player has to put into it. Like, if you go through the trouble of going all the way to a neighborhood with a lot of Pokéstops, walk for a mile, and don't catch anything, of course you're going to drop everything and get excited when you finally see a pokémon. And if you drop everything and run to cross the street to get in range before it runs away, then that's what you'll do.
The way I've come to understand this based on my own experience is that people probably wouldn't take such crazy risks if the game weren't so difficult.
I'm trying to figure out a more casual way to play this game, but the communities surrounding it are all SUPER HARDCORE, which means that there's no model to follow if you just want to have a bit of AR fun while you're out on a walk. I guess I'll have to come up with an alternate set of goals by my own damn self - if they ever fix the server issues, that is.
no subject
Date: 2016-07-28 12:40 am (UTC)