Pokemon Go!

[Diana Blake]

Who's playing and what's your best pokemon so far? I just hit level five and my best right now is a Pidgeotto with a CP of 157 that I'm hoping to use at a nearby gym over the weekend.

Team yellow.

 

[mynameisbob84]

I know nothing of Pokémon outside of Pikachu but I kinda wanna play this. It's not on Android though

 

[LioraVox]

It IS on Android, it took my boyfriend a while to be able to download it, so you just gotta keep checking back. I also heard it may not be compatible with all Androids which sucks so maybe thats it.

 

[Lintilla]

I played Ingress a lot before I moved to Arizona. I was out every day. Now I've hardly bothered. It's too damn hot here right now Maybe in the fall, because I don't really see myself walking around with my phone out when it's dark! I'm not quite sure how it works, but if it's anything like Ingress I'll have to get closer to downtown for it to be really playable on foot, too.

I did download it and open it up, though. All of the "Pokespots", whatever they do, are Ingress portals, so I know where they'll be found, and I'm familiar with the ones near my home and places I sometimes go. I'm a hermit, but I'll check it out if I ever happen to leave my apartment Actually, I'll be somewhere later today that has tons. I think I'd still be more tempted to open Ingress and hack the portals but... ack, maybe I'll have to do both.

 

[AmberCutie]

I installed it today, took me 4 tries to figure out how the F to catch my Charizard (I've never poke'd anything in my life), then attempted to seek out the first one in my yard, only to find out it's beyond my property lines in my neighbor's fenced yard with a giant dog in it.

So I guess I'll save this for when I (rarely) am out and about in public, because my neighborhood probably isn't a great environment for it.

 

[fandango]

I know nothing of Pokémon outside of Pikachu but I kinda wanna play this. It's not on Android though

It is on Android its just not released in the UK yet.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...t-now-on-iphone-and-android-apk-a7127326.html

 

[Lintilla]

OK so I guess unlike Ingress you don't need to be near a portal/Pokestop to play. With Ingress you have to be within range to do... anything but recharge portals. But I just walked around my apartment complex, and now I have 10 Pokemon. I don't know a thing about Pokemon, so I'm not quite sure what I'm looking at here. Anyway, potentially more playable than I though. At night. Because it's still too damn hot, and I'm too damn pale!

 

[Lexi Emerson]

I am a level 4 and my best is 129 CP Eevee! I live in a college town so I spent a majority of my time out hitting pokestops because there are about a million. It seems Pokemon are a little more sparse around lots of gyms/pokestops or my app was just being a turd because as soon as I went to less populated areas, I got a few things. I only have 23 total so far, I was hoping to catch a lot more today but I just keep running into fucking Weedles and Rattatas.

My little kid self is having so much fun though. Pokemon was my childhood!

 

[Diana Blake]

I don't leave the house much during the week but I've managed to catch quite a few just around my house. I caught a Mankey on my Sybian earlier. Naughty pokemon.

There's a few cubone around one of the playgrounds near my house. (Yay suburbs) Here in Santa Fe we have a lot of hiking trails and historical monuments so there's a huuuuuge group of pokestops in our downtown area that I might hit up next time I'm out of the house.

 

[AmberCutie]

OK so I guess unlike Ingress you don't need to be near a portal/Pokestop to play. With Ingress you have to be within range to do... anything but recharge portals. But I just walked around my apartment complex, and now I have 10 Pokemon. I don't know a thing about Pokemon, so I'm not quite sure what I'm looking at here. Anyway, potentially more playable than I though. At night. Because it's still too damn hot, and I'm too damn pale!

If you can't get to a local Pokemon, how can you tell the app? I wanted to tell it that I couldn't reach the one in my neighbors yard, but the interface seriously is not very 1st-time-user-friendly.

 

[IndicaDesires]

I'm at level 8 and my best is a 400-something CP Vaporeon

 

[AmberCutie]

Well holy crap, I just went to open the app again and it doesn't remember that I've already signed in with google before?

I thought this was created by reputable companies, but the app is acting like a turd.

 

[AmberCutie]

Well holy crap, I just went to open the app again and it doesn't remember that I've already signed in with google before?

I thought this was created by reputable companies, but the app is acting like a turd.

Upon restarting the app completely all is well. And now I have dis:

And the 1st Eevee appeared on Tank's back in the back yard.

I still have one beyond the neighbor's fence, but at least I got better at navigation.

 

[AmberCutie]

catch my Charizard

Also, see how poke-noob I am?

Clearly wrong name.

 

[Lexi Emerson]

Watching @AmberCutie learn about Pokemon is my new favorite thing.

 

[Diana Blake]

I've noticed that I have to sign in again if servers have recently gone down. Also, it's not just you having issues @AmberCutie because it took me a minute to figure out how to catch pokemon the first time. No fights? Just throwing the ball? This is madnesss!

This a quick and funny FAQ I found last night that might help a bit:

http://www.polygon.com/2016/7/6/12105992/pokemon-go-guide-faq-ios-android

 

[Diana Blake]

Aaaaaand and another link with more detailed stuff:

http://whatculture.com/gaming/pokémon-go-15-crucial-tips-tricks-the-game-doesnt-tell-you

 

[Lexi Emerson]

My addiction is real. Can't even camgirl without checking to see if something is lurking.

 

[Diana Blake]

I decided to take my dog for a late night walk and hit up the pokestop at a nearby playground. It's after 10pm so I figured there'd be no witnesses to me being a weirdo.

...teenagers swarming the place. One of them had bought a lure module though so I'm not even mad.

At one point someone even drove past the park, stopped their car in the street and casually caught a pokemon before continuing on.

 

[Lexi Emerson]

I decided to take my dog for a late night walk and hit up the pokestop at a nearby playground. It's after 10pm so I figured there'd be no witnesses to me being a weirdo.

...teenagers swarming the place. One of them had bought a lure module though so I'm not even mad.

At one point someone even drove past the park, stopped their car in the street and casually caught a pokemon before continuing on.

I honestly love the sense of community that has come with this game! In my town so many people are striking up convos at gyms and Pokestops. It's so freaking awesome! Plus they're getting so many of us active. I loooooove it

 

[Autumn_LoL]

I fucking love this game. My current best is a CP 187 Clefairy.

 

[DaddyDominant]

Who's playing and what's your best pokemon so far? I just hit level five and my best right now is a Pidgeotto with a CP of 157 that I'm hoping to use at a nearby gym over the weekend.

Team yellow.

I sometimes feel I'm the only nerd that's never played a pokemon game....

 

[Lintilla]

I sometimes feel I'm the only nerd that's never played a pokemon game....

I was too old to get into it. My little brother and sister I don't think were terribly into Pokemon either, but they're 5 and 7 years younger than I am, so they were surrounded by it, while I have no clue wtf. Never played any game, never watched any TV show, etc. etc. I downloaded this because I like Ingress. So far I prefer Ingress, which has its own issues, so we'll see what updates bring.

That said...

I'm up to level 7 and getting there got me a ton of duplicates. I've transferred all of the ones that were significantly lower CP. Now the ones I have left are fairly similar, and knowing nothing about any of this, which ones do I keep? I don't know anything about which attacks are better/useful, and what does weight and height have to do with anything? Not much in the way of instructions or help available in this game :/

 

[Lintilla]

BTW, even if you're not interested in playing Ingress, I'd recommend for Pokemon Go players to download it if only for access to the Intel map, since there doesn't seem to be an equivalent yet besides some crowd-sourcing.

Not every Ingress portal is a Pokestop, and it won't help you find gyms, but if you're in an area where things are more sparse it's probably helpful to find hotspots. (If you're in a big city, you probably don't need this, and also I hate you... I miss my couch portals!)

Install Ingress, make an account, and you should be able to log in to the Intel map at https://www.ingress.com/intel -- in my area at least 75% of the portals on the map seem to be Pokestops or gyms, but it probably varies. Not sure how they decided what to copy over, but from what I've explored so far dense areas are dense in both games. You'll need to zoom in some to see every portal, because low level ones are hidden by default.

(I'm also seeing now that most of the area I was playing Pokemon Go in today is full of UNCLAIMED Ingress portals that I don't even have keys to, and I'm cursing my decision not to bother with it today... But I wasn't alone, and I didn't need to be staring at my phone.)

 

[Bimbombastic]

I wish it worked! Two days in a row and I can't play it. Servers issues.

So sad I only got a Bulbasaur lol

 

[Mila_]

I went for Charmander 33

But after walking for a couple of blocks I only ever got a Caterpie. I feel like if I want more pokemons I will need to walk quite a bit.

Also, I didn't have to fight Caterpie or Charmander to catch them. Is it like this with every wild pokemon I find or is it just because they are low level? When do you get to actually fight another trainer?

 

[AuroraKnight]

I am a level 5 and my strongest Pokemon right now is a cp225 Fearow. Sadly my phone is one of the types affected by the AR glitch, so I haven't gotten the whole augmented reality experience, but it's a lot of fun even with that turned off. I hope the fix is released in the first patch though.

There is a gym and 3 pokestops right by my day job, and another pokestop behind my apartment complex, so I haven't actually traveled very far yet, which is fine by me in the 90+ heat.

 

[AuroraKnight]

I went for Charmander 33

But after walking for a couple of blocks I only ever got a Caterpie. I feel like if I want more pokemons I will need to walk quite a bit.

Also, I didn't have to fight Caterpie or Charmander to catch them. Is it like this with every wild pokemon I find or is it just because they are low level? When do you get to actually fight another trainer?

So far the only battling released is gym battles, but I've heard rumor of eventual trainerxtrainer battles once they get the main bugs worked out. Don't take my word for it though, I could be wrong.

 

[AuroraKnight]

Oops triple post but I thought of a couple of helpful things.

Transfer your duplicates and keep your strongest version of everything, you can hold up to 250 not including what you transfer, so don't worry about transferring anything you don't have 2 or more of. Everytime you catch a Pokemon you get candies for that pokemons evolution chain, and you also get them when you transfer, so duplicates are the best thing ever as far as strengthening and evolving your pokemon.

With eggs make sure you put them in the incubator or the steps you take won't count towards hatching. When you are looking at your Pokemon you should see a little tab for eggs and that's where you go to put them in an incubator and to see how far you have to walk to hatch them

 

[Lintilla]

I went for Charmander 33

But after walking for a couple of blocks I only ever got a Caterpie. I feel like if I want more pokemons I will need to walk quite a bit.

Also, I didn't have to fight Caterpie or Charmander to catch them. Is it like this with every wild pokemon I find or is it just because they are low level? When do you get to actually fight another trainer?

If you go to an area with a different type of terrain you'll apparently find different types. I seem to get a lot of ground and poison around my apartment, but I was near an actual factual body of water in the desert yesterday so I have one floopy Magikarp in my inventory. As for just finding more in general, looks like you need to go to areas with more player traffic (they can also be pulling this initially from Ingress data, I assume). So downtown areas, college campuses, parks, tourist attractions, anything with a lot of foot traffic.

I hope they add more player interaction in the near future. This game doesn't seem done to me, more like something that should be a beta, so we'll see. When I was in Chicago I had a fair amount of interaction with other Ingress players via the comm function and local and regional groups who mainly organized on Google+, because there was a lot to be done as a team. I noticed several groups of people playing Pokemon together at the park yesterday, but so far there isn't really much teamwork involved, besides whatever gyms do (I still haven't visited one), so I don't know what interaction there can be yet other than "yes, I am also standing in this particular spot for this particular thing" "cool" "yep".