Poke Mongo Bad

Pokemon GO is bad. Pokemon is ripe for the most amazing "social" gaming experience of all time. Just let them battle each other and don't screw with the existing formula that WORKS.

Ahhhhh...

Really though, knowledge of the underlying systems (mostly due to modding games and learning how to use GIS software) means that I can conceive of both the mechanics they utilize as well as how they got there from a design perspective. They want eyes on their app and they're going to do it with an interminable power creep as the generations of pokemon are added over time, mark my words. Instead of focusing on pokemon the game to use as a template, they're using it as a brand to market their existing formula. This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who likes to learn about app development, but it is still mightily disappointing to anyone excited for a real life pokemon game. Judging by the player base of this broken game, that audience seems to be quite massive.

As an example of how to improve upon the existing game, throw in some ecological data to pair with the pokemon ranges so that you could say find a Magmar in Hawaii or a Sandslash in the Mojave (or around LA if we're being honest about our data layers). Precipitation data is widely collected and used, and if it's not available enough satellite imagery makes this sort of work much simpler than it has been in the past. Even just using imagery averaged out over time and space (e.g. a year-long average over a 5km x 5km grid) would allow for intuitive complexity in finding pokemon where they seem to belong.

I do have to say, from a software development standpoint Niantic seems to be doing okay. Disabling third party services that are overloading their servers is really kind of a no-brainer that doesn't deserve ire from their players.

My frustration with what I see here is that a Pokemon and AR is enough to make a game. You don't need to develop much outside the infrastructure. Just translate the video games to the phone.

Whoever at Niantic is in charge of the design of CP needs to read about power creep in D&D and MMOs. It's not a new problem and the solution isn't a bunch of Dragonites. Nor is it a solution to take the asymmetry of pokemon types and make it pointless by reducing the damage multipliers between types.

There are so many smart people out there to learn from. Don't reinvent pokemon into hot garbage if it works!

See you later.

Comments

  1. EBearAugust 14, 2016 at 3:09 PM

    In regards to the ecological data, it can be a bit complicated to implement considering just about every player has the goal (at least initially) to 'catch 'em all'. Being too precise about the ecology can severely diminish the prospect of such a thing happening. For instance, given ecological constraints, a Seel should not be found in the heart of the United States. They would be inadvertently requiring the player to go the beach for one, a prospect that is not so simple for someone in, let's say, Montana.

    In some ways they have already done this in an even less fair way. Tauros, Kangaskhan, Mr. Mime, and Farfetch'd are region exclusives. Hopefully once they implement the trading system things will get better, but as is neither option is all that fair as it expects some major real world travel that many players cannot afford. If they end up doing the same with other generation pokemon (I don't see why not), they have to make sure do to so only after an international trading system has been implemented.

    I agree with your other points though. It's a completely broken game, even still, and it's a prime example of the problems associated with beta releases. Don't get me wrong, Beta release can be necessary for the money, but at the same time it can severely damper the long term sales as people get disillusioned by the game at an early stage.

    ReplyDelete
  2. System DidactAugust 14, 2016 at 6:09 PM

    I have a counterpoint to your "catch 'em all" argument in that having to travel to catch the more obscure pokemon is actually potentially a valuable feature. There isn't any particular reason for needing all the pokemon.

    Ultimately however I think it would be better to not be harsh and specific about ecological data limiting the ranges of pokemon. Broad brushed approaches could make it so that only massive ecological gradients achieve a meaningful difference of distribution between sites. Additionally, it would probably be best to leave a small chance to find most/all pokemon no matter where you are. You know, for something rare to the tune of 1/1000 so it is still very special to see or catch it.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sick Chrome Rims for that Frozen Throne

Image
Any community that is focused on a creative task is a great opportunity for learning life skills to do with cooperation and productivity. As a wee lad, I got dangerously deep into Warcraft III and its expansion The Frozen Throne. I played for probably thousands of hours and spent a a good amount of time in its modding tools. I produced very little playable content but learned a great deal about the logic of computer programming, the artistry of textures in video games, and how to overcome limitations like low-poly models. Having to learn about these topics and having experiences with them allowed me to participate in communities and learn about skill-building in incredibly formative ways. Classic Warcraft III. How I remember it. Limitations like low-poly models are really not that big of a deal in a real-time strategy game like Warcraft III. The more polygons you have, the more points of data are used to define the features of a three dimensional shape. Generally, you can j...
Read more

The Sky Is Falling

There are quite a few ways of getting a bleak look at the world in 2016. One is to follow the media's schizophrenic coverage of police shootings. Another is to look at the many awesome instances of uncontrollable deforestation and pollution that humans create. One can also just look to modern politics in the western world and assume that it's a hopeless mess. But don't worry! The world has been facing all of these issues for decades. Wait, that doesn't comfort you? Yeah, it doesn't help anybody who goes to a university to get an education in anything related to environmental science, ecology, or urban planning either. Environmental science curricula inherently focuses on solving or preventing damages to the environment, you spend most of your time looking at past failures as a result. Ecology is mostly in the same boat except even more complex and is often concerned with species that are facing extinction (or that have already gone extinct in the wild). ...
Read more

GPS Versus Landmarks

How much more precise are we thanks to Einstein and the development of rocketry? I've been taught that before the proliferation of the Navigation Satellite Timing and Ranging Global Positioning System (NAVSTAR GPS) when you took a sample from a site, such as aquatic invertebrates from a watershed, the standard procedure was to name the site as best you could which mostly meant putting the name of the body of water down or describing local landmarks. As I'm sure you can imagine, this just isn't a very precise way of marking where you took a sample from. As GPS the technology has developed and as the satellites that enable its precision have been launched into orbit in greater and greater numbers, resulting in greater and greater precision, policies have also enabled non-military use of GPS to be more precise by turning off civilian uses' selective imprecision. (You can read more about the history of GPS here .) The technology behind GPS is becoming so popular and wid...
Read more