I was becoming slightly *bored* with Pokemon Go for the past month or so, even the then possibility of legendary pokemon wasn't getting me excited to play. None of my friends play, and there were no local groups for me to join and raid with, so I was constantly having to miss out on level 3/4 raids because of a sheer lack of people, or I'd have to pick my battles and only go up against easy and less interesting soloable raids. However with the release of legendary raids, I happened to stumble across a group battling an Articuno at my university. They said that they were then on their way to another raid, and said that I could join them on the raid. I asked them if they raided as a group often, and it turns out that they have a group chat for campus raids. I then got to battle another 2 Articuno and 1 Lugia with them (in the day's total, all 4 legendarys ran from me...) and it was honestly the most fun I've had since the game launched. I 10000% can say that having a group to play with, and engaging with the community will enhance your experience so much. I'm really excited to continue to play and maybe catch my first legendary
Beth Lee nice story. Good luck! I caught both articuno and lugia. Of course I'm in Chicago and went down to the gofest area, not the actual fest. Pretty amazing seeing people run around downtown doing legendary raids.
Yes! I just have the same thing happening to me yesterday and since then I enjoy this game more than before! We are now a group of 16 people, that is something that never happen to me before.
Exactly the same for me, except I posted on my city's reddit subforum looking for a raid group in my area. I joined when it had 7 people, it has 72 now. Don't expect to show up at any random raid and stand there for 10 minutes to find a group. Go online on pokemon go sites and find people in your area.
I feel the same way. Yesterday, I had heard a rumor, but not checked for official announcement, that there could be legendary raids happening around the world. I went on a walk with my mom, intendedly heading to the seacoast, because it's beautiful there. That route also goes past three visible gyms, but I didn't have my hopes high, as I live in a semi-isolated part of the town. On our way there, I saw that at the former church's gym, there was an Articuno, and I hesitantly stopped there, looking around for other people. There was a car of people on the empty piece of land, but they drove away as I approached them. I made the decision to wait there for backup, and mom went on to go to the shore.. It didn't take long before the first car came with pogo players in it. Then came a second one, and a third one. A small crowd started to gather in a place where there was nothing but a piece of asphalt and wildly growing grass. All of them took their phones out, and looked at each other and some were tapping their phones, sending messages. I sent a message to some kids in the are that play as well, and I approached the strangers and said hi. We waited for some more people, and at the point when we started the raid, there were 13 of us. Nerdy-looking young adults, a mom with a kindergarten-age girl who had a phone too but had technical issues and the mom appeared more worried than she did, some kids with their friends and bikes, and at least one kind dad waiting in the car. When we were battling, and someone would come late, we left the battle to take new people in. There was little chit chat about our efforts. My pokemon fainted, and my game froze, and many others' did too, and had to restart the game, but we could get back in, and everyone was empathetic to each other and helped each other. I was disappointed that I couldn't catch the Articuno, but I went home smiling and joking with my mom. At the launch, I tried, but I couldn't get the courage to speak up to strangers at gyms, and it let me down. I had hoped for new friends, but instead I hit a wall. For me, the best thing legendaries did was lowering the threshold of working together. Finnish coulture is very private, and quite introverted. If you don't need to, it's not easy to open your mouth, so you need excuses. The fact that most people don't have a friend group of 10+ pogo players to beat a legendary raid is a good way to give those people a push to the back to co-operate with strangers and form battle groups. It's a very good community builder. I've seen a couple admittedly shy people reach out to the community in the face book group in just the past couple days, seeking for raiding and catching company. I feel that for a lot of us, we really want other people to play with, but we're afraid to make the move, because we don't want to "bother" others. With legendaries, others need us too, so it takes the weight off.
What upsets me the most is that anyone who was in Chigaco, even if they didn't attended Go fest, took advantage of the possibility of catching Lugia and Articuno with a better catch rate than a pidgey, wich is just ridiculous. In the rest of the world we actualy had to work for them.
I had a fantastic day playing Pokemo Go today. Double XP, double star dust, reduced buddy and egg distance, increased spawn rates, and of course, Legendary raids. I live in a place with 1 pokestop and 0 gyms, so I had to travel an hour to get to the closest city. But it was worth it, cause I had so much fun playing with a friend. I caught 4/4 Articunos and 1/3 Lugias (I got lucky with the Articunos), hatched a Snorlax and got 63 candies, ran like a maniac to get a Hitmontop. And I've never seen so many Pokemon Go players in one spot before. Seeing 50+ players flocking to a gym is a memorable experience. When Pokemon Go works properly, it is one damn fun game. Too bad Niantic have made hundreds of million dollars on this game, but still haven't been able to fix lags, crashes and errors.
Not sure if you'll read this, Nick, but I needed to take a moment to thank you so very much for your honesty!! My husband and I have been watching your videos regularly since August, but were concerned about what your sponsorship with Niantic might mean moving forward. As AT&T customers, Go Fest was pretty rough for us. The last thing we wanted was a sugar-coated glaze over the day. That's not what you gave us. We watch your videos for the creative editing, helpful tips, and most importantly, your honest opinions. Thank you so much for being straight with us. We completely agree that it wasn't all bad. While the day was hard, the expansion into the city and the legendary raids rescued the evening. Running around chasing the Unowns with our group on Saturday and raiding with a huge team in the burbs of people we just met really recalled the awesome sense of community from last July. Niantic *did* succeed with that. And the gestures they've offered to attendees also helped us lick our wounds. I apologize for anyone who took their frustration out on you at the Fest. That's not right!! Again, thank you a million times for just sitting in front of the camera in true Trainer Tips style and laying your opinions on us. I value your thoughts and appreciate you taking the time to make sure we knew they were your own. Proud to subscribe to both of your channels!! Wasn't able to make it into the line to meet you before they cut it off, so I'll just have to attend another event sometime in the future! :) Thanks, Nick!!
To be completely honest, during the event I was furious on how the event turned out. I flew to Chicago from Sweden to attend the event, and being there, not being able to play for more than 30-40 seconds at a time was extremely disappointing. After the event I saw many flaws (some I discussed in a video I made). BUT! Having the event for two additional days, and hunting legendaries for these two days has been Amazing! I've been running around the city of Chicago, meeting people and seeing areas I wouldn't have seen otherwise. I'm really happy on how they handled the problems afterwards. For the next event, it can only get better now.
They probably should have tried to better keep out people like me, however; people who just live near the city. Spoofers too. It made me feel bad for anyone who couldn't just go over to get these things so easily.
My only complaint is that these bonuses only last 48 hours. We've had plenty of week-long "double x" events just randomly throughout the year, and a huge event like this is just 48 hours? How many people are unable to fully enjoy the bonuses due to flying/driving home in them 48 hours? Those are the people I'm thinking about with this complaint. Anyway, i think they overall handled it well at the end of the day. Definitely impressed, and it's a great learning experience for them moving forward. i look forward to seeing them use what they learned in their next event.
SaiScott agreed. It would be nice to have them last a week or not start until the next weekend and be a weekend event rather than a Sunday plus most of Monday event for most people.
It's really easy to get angry about the negative side of things but the Go Fest attendees need to recognize that they are receiving a lot of great perks that I, a rural player would have loved
No sir they didn't. Legendaries didn't start until 30 minutes after the 10 hour long event ended. Not a single legendary was active during the event. A LOT of people left and went home after a very very long day of not being able to play. There was never an announcement at the event that Legendaries would be released soon after. I went to the event (from 7am - 7pm) and have zero legendaries. Lugia will be gifted to me at some time... but no word on when. We were able to attempt a Lugia raid before getting on the train home, in a crowd of hundreds of people, none of us were able to catch it due to app crashes, loading issues, etc. I'm sorry I just think it's very important to note that difference. It's like going to a 12 hour long concert where the band doesn't ever perform. They finally tell you to go home and that they'll give you the $20 back for the ticket, $100 of merchandise from their online store, and a free mp3 download of their latest hit, to be determined. And a half an hour later on your drive home you hear they took the stage and did all their greatest hits. I'm not trying to be a downer. A lot of Go Festers benefited from the Legendaries they released that night and probably made a lot of people's trips worth it in the end. That makes me very happy. But only those lucky enough to have been staying in Chicago that night benefited (along with all the spoofers in the world).
Niantic allowed people, all of whom had spent money to attend the shitshow, to catch an electronic pokemon which is of no importance or cost to niantic. Lugia is just data, lines in a code. People spent money on this event. Get real.
The raids these past two days has been amazing. In the little town I live in, we've created a group on facebook to plan raiding together, and it's been great! I love meeting new people who are still loving and enjoying the game! :D
joxxx90 Same thing with my husband and I! We couldn't afford to go to Chicago, so we made a date of catching pokemon and doing raids all day. I'm a stay at home mom and I rarely get out (we had a kid free day lol) so it was amazing to get together in groups and meet new people. We did 4 raids I think, and we caught like 100 pokemon each lol
joxxx90 same with me. I was becoming frustrated because I had no one to raid with or even battle gyms with and then I happened upon a group of people just leaving a raid and they invited me in their Facebook group and now Pokémon Go is actually fun again.
It's Human nature to always remember the bad things. Succeed for 10 years straight and people won't acknowledge it, but fail that 1 time and you won't be remembered for your 10 years of succes but for your failling of that 1 time/thing.
First of, its a figure of speech :) Second maybe not with Pokemon Go, but I know alot of people who would disagree if you talk about Ingress wich is also an Niantic Game. Though Ofcourse not as known as Pokemon Go.
Leo Desbiens yeah it's not like on the first few months they got 26 million people to play and got billions in cash from logs, in game purchases, and partnerships.
As the "voice" of people who have jobs etc and couldn't go to the event, gotta say, it sucks that the second day of double xp, candy, etc is on a Monday where we can't really enjoy it, and we don't have communities to get legendaries. Spent an hour at a lugia yesterday and nobody showed up. We need in game becons that let other players know when we are at raids and notifications that legendaries have spawned, at least. I live in a city and rarely meet pokemon go players here and its super hard and super lonely. We need some of that 'coming together' outside of Chicago as well
Ericshizz 1992 yeah I've heard about it but my phone can barely run the apps I have,.let alone another one while playing pokemon. Niantic needs an in game one. There are groups on facebook, instagram, reddit, but nobody looks at all of those so for those of us in rural areas, its just not good
Hate it when people say "use Discord use Reddit etc" I did all of that in Seattle and no one was showing up to any Raids I found. Talking to people on Discord and they were getting groups of 6. Def not enough to beat a boss
I think you brought up a good point. Next time, Niantic should host another festival but make it city-wide, for example, Austin, Texas. Before the festival starts, Niantic will announce a picture that borders that city limits and people will travel to Austin instead of a small enclosure like Grant Park. You can think of it as a "mini-vacation to Austin", if you ever wanted to go to Austin. That way, you can enjoy the festival and also enjoy the city. Explore the city and catch pokemon. Eat at the restaurants and raid at the same time. It'll be more casual and sight-seeing as well. This could also become a good way to also promote tourism and 'if' it gets big enough, more cities would want Niantic to partner with them so they could get some more tourism for the city.
OnceInAWhileJin That sounds logical. I actually assumed that was what they were going to do. Undid not know they hosted an event for basically one park.
OnceInAWhileJin That's what they did in Chester (UK) a treasure hunt and a "pastport" to stamp. They didn't expect the large numbers of people, so connection was terrible for most of the time.
There have been times when I have disagreed with what you said, but ultimately the reason I keep watching your videos is because you are fine to speak in nuance. So many times you get either 'Niantic is the best and everyone is just whiny' or 'Niantic is literally Satan'. There's a middle ground and I would much rather watch a video that says 'well, that could have gone better but there were good points. Here's what happened, here's what Niantic tried to do and here's what they could have done better anyway. I don't know that it was a complete garbage fire, but here's some stuff they could do to improve this in the future.' If I taught a class on constructive criticism, I would use you as an example of how to do it right.
yes yes and yes. I feel like we are losing nuance and constructive criticism as a society these days. yes and yes. there are middle grounds. there are ways to point out flaws and mistakes and criticism without being mean. there are upsides and downsides. I just fear people like Nick might be a dying breed. I fear the internet culture makes it worse.
More comments like this please! Nick has never been the type to jump on hate trains, to say that he's just selling out here is RIDICULOUS. Plus, Nick has no hang ups with calling out Niantic on their shit. Early on he did that just about every video for the lack of communication they had with players. To me, the fact that Niantic got confirmation from service providers that they could handle the load along with the fact that id worked a lot better once they extended the radius of the event is very relevant information vis a vie how angry we should be with Niantic. I think they definitely learned form this event and the next one will be much better. I'm still optimistic for Pokemon GO's future.
NICK! We'd love to get YOUR OPINION on the fact that everyone in Chicago got *100% catch rates for Legendaries*, and the rest of the world got a very low 2% base catch rate / 5% with Golden Razz. Don't you think that being given a 100% catch rate RUINS the experience of what it's like to TRULY CATCH a Legendary, and in a way, DEVALUES them? Perhaps when trading starts, Legendaries caught in Chicago (during Go Fest) would be seen as Pokemon with lesser value... sort of like Pokemon game trading cards that aren't rated a Gem Mint 10.
SKYE NICOLAS It was an event perk just like the unknown and heracross spawns you cant just got to go fest and have the legendary pokemon be so hard to catch that you cant even enjoy the fact that they are out for the first time
@Jettus. No that's BS! It brings spoofers from around the globe to Chicago because of the 2% or 5% rate. Because trainers around the world want the same as people in Chicago
SKYE NICOLAS Just for clarification, the 100% catch rate only occurred for legendary raids within the 2 mile radius around Grant Park, not all of Chicago. I did my first two legendary raids outside of that radius and only caught one Articuno. I definitely enjoyed catching that one wayyyyyy more than the Lugia and Articuno I caught downtown near Grant Park.
Still wonder why niantic didnt build a wifi spot around park where you would get the acces code in the envelope, sure its pretty expensive but bad pr is problaly even more expensive. I hope they have learned now for the next event
Daniel Stefanovic I completely agreed w/ you ! Something needs to happen the whole company sucks either fire the president and rebuild make Pokémon go stronger
Thanks for being level headed and calm about go fest. Its really upsetting to me to see people throw things at a person on stage who has nothing to do, has no control over cell towers, and or programming the game...
There was this one dude loudly booing behind me during one of the announcements they were making to say "sorry this didn't go the way any of us wanted, but we're gonna give you refunds and $100 in pokecoins." Me and my friend were about to fight the dude, like they're giving you a refund, if you don't want to be here go home, stop yelling in my ear.
That was a great response. You laid out the facts and kept neutral on it and it's really appreciated. I couldn't afford going to Chicago, but I hope if they ever do another event like say Central Park that they really learn from what you've said here and work towards a better solution. This game has brought so many amazing things in to so many lives, and id hate to see this blip ruin the chance for another event.
My biggest problem is that I took out time of my day to go catch Pokemon, only to find out that the changed the goals manually, making all of my work useless. I am mad they lied to people outside of Chicago.
Random Prints my thoughts exactly! I mean was it too hard for niantic to increase rare spawns or have free raids like everyone had at go fest? I mean literally we were catching trash while people at go fest ( the ones who got to play) were catching unknowns yes unknowns with a s and heracross and other rare spawns. Niantic basically created a pay to play system where if u went to go fest u had a major advantage over every other player
Random Prints not really useless tho. we still get the perks for free. better use them. they were confirmed to last til friday. double everything. halved distances. You are not entitled to anything else since nor you neither I attended go fest
Curious Cat Just because we got the benefits doesn't mean the people outside of Chicago work was useless. There is evidence show that nintanic manually lowered the score.
Not just in rural areas but even in the large cities it is horrible the way Niantic did this. The Trailer before Go Fest for the Legendary Birds shows a 48 hr timer before it starts which gives people time to plan and group together for this amazing experience but now, they just appear out of nowhere without warning and no time to plan for a group. I have attempted to do 2 of these and both times could not get enough people around me to beat the Lugia & Articuno raids forget even trying to catch it. And I've tried to use other resources like Silph Radio Beacon. I'm not looking for a 2 days notice but maybe a just few hours... so people can get hyped and gather there together.
Ohh bro a painful story... We manage to gather about 8 people out of 25 at a time... Some have jobs, some school, some responsibilities in general... I for example leave far (about 20 minutes by car) from the center of my town, and it's very difficult to join others in time to battle legendaries.... If we had eggs before spawning of legendaries would be amazing
Sounds like Niantic did actually make an effort to improve service prior to the event. Those lines to get in though, thats unforgiveable. Their head event organizer shouldve consulted someone with music festival prep experience. They knew how many people were coming and roughly how fast lines should move. You need to get people through the gates, plain and simple.
Went to Go Fest and all I have to say is: I had fun, a lot of fun. The two mile radius saved the day and they are giving refunds too, Niantic deserves criticism but damn guys, cool your shit.
Dwhite Niantic f**ked up. What kinda compensation is that? totally biased giving free Legendaries to all who attended even if they were complete noobs.
Blaming the local carriers for their failures is a crappy move by Niantic. Even spoofers who were not physically attending the event had the same gameplay issues. This was clearly a Niantic server load issue. In this day and age of elastic server architecture and CDNs there should be no excuse for downtime or degraded performance.
@Curious Cat : So, did that bug break the game so much that the issue was down to the carriers choking on a Niantic bug. Or was it genuinely down to Niantic servers choking on their own bug? $100 of ingame currency is a lame recompense to players of a game that is pretty much dead.
@Lemmie6: No. Actually spoofers didnt have it way better, until Niantic released The Legendaries at 100% catch rate. Spoofers didnt get any of the Unknowns or Regionals that Go Fest players unlocked, but spoofers really didnt need to catch them. Spoofers did get raid access to Lugia and Articuno as Niantic openeed Chicago raids to everyone. Side Note: What happened to the legendary raid passes?
I actually went to the densest pokestop area that was 40 minutes away and no one was playing which was a real bummer. How am I supposed to get a legendary which needs over 10 people if I can't find one?
So bummed that I didn't get to meet you on Saturday. I was in line for two hours to get in and I totally missed the time for your meet & greet. :( I don't know if you were in the park much during the event, but we walked all over and didn't see you except for what was on screen at the main stage. GO Fest could have been so much more... but it was rather disappointing.
This post will probably get lost in the noise, but here goes: I was also at Pokémon Go Fest on Saturday. My thoughts are much along the same lines as what Nick has said here. He is not spin doctoring this because of his arrangement with Niantic. I have absolutely no connection with Niantic #NonSponsored ~~ Yes, there were a lot of technical problems; initial registration, frequent game crashes, and connectivity issues. I've said elsewhere that it was "highly problematic, but not unworkable". ~~ The initial Registration issue was alleviated with a trip to the "Information Booth", and I quickly learned that after a game crash, that I could just walk out to the edge of the fence (away form the density of the other players ) and then I was always able to log right back in. ~~ I'm not sorry that I went. I had a good time, chatted with a lot of players, and caught almost all the Mons that I was hoping for. I think that with the "Lessons Learned", if Niantic really applies themselves with all the right actionables, that this event will go over quite well in subsequent years.
Hopefully, the events in Europe will go extremely well! I'm sure that Niantic can roll with what they've learned in Chicago, and improve as they Go along.
What about the people who couldn't log on and play the game, or it constantly crashed and was unplayable? They couldn't get the Pokemon they came for. Despite enjoying the community, I think you would feel a little different if you hadn't caught almost all the 'mons you went for.
The whole cell phone network bs could have been bypassed easily ,all niantic had to do was team up with all the major cell phone networks just like every Nfl game or major concert
"at least they succeded to bring together people"... no nick, its the love of fans for pokemons and for the game that succeded in this, not Niantic. They are not able to organize an event, not able to fix or improve a very simple cell mobile game. They are having success only thanks to our dumb love for pokemon!
Agreed. The whole Discord thing that is keeping the groups in my city together was created from dedicated fans - if such a communication app didn't exist, the game likely would have faded away. It's a shame they haven't built any infrastructure around chatting with one another.
I would like to hear your thoughts on what the 99.8% player base that wasnt in Chicago earned from this event,2 days of double exp and stardust?i've done 14 legendary raids so far,0 articuno-lugia caught,people in rural areas such as my self have earned absolutely nothing so far
i've already used those bonuses to the fullest,but my whole point is the event of the year boosted 0.02% of the player base,i guess the rest of us mortals should just give up on legendaries/regionals etc etc
I love that you did a special Tips segment for raids at Pokemon GO Fest. The part you played in the event suited you. I think it was a bonus that you were on vacation away from the city at the time. It tied together well with the game's goal to get people out to explore.
Flo w The people who attended go fest are people willing to spend money on the game, so they are defintely losing money because otherwise most of them would spend their money on pokécoins anyway but now they do not need to.
Rowan Beasley They can't add so much for free just because it is their game. Apple always wants a cut of freebies which are items that are in a store. So it means Niantic lost a lot of money. Even with the preparation costs of the event, the licences they had to get from the city and even paying all employees who arranged the event.
Here's my 2 cents. I bought tickets and went with some buddies. Here's my ideas for future events. 1) You built physical Pokestops. Slap free WiFi in them to connect and cover the entire area. 2) The food prices were not unreasonable, keep doing that. 3) Figure out some more interactive stuff, people dressed up like Pikachu was this time but more Pokemon to entertain kids 4) Put fans in those Team Tents. It was hotter in there than out of them 5) Spread out your events. Have a smaller hub, or even MULTIPLE hubs in a city in maybe a 4 mile radius, and spread everyone out like it was AFTER the event. Frankly that was the best part of the day, and everyone agrees from what I read. You can still sell tickets and have the people check in at the event, but then spread out throughout the city. It won't cause havok on cell servers that way. 6) If you're going to edit any parameters for the event, don't do it LIVE on a TV so that people can see it. 7) Have a backup plan for everything. Don't give me the "We had a better turnout yadda yadda" that I heard on stage. You sold tickets to a limit. You knew EXACTLY how many people would show up at the max. There is literally no excuse on this like at launch. Don't BS people either because I think people got MADDER by the videos of people "interviewed" saying it was a great event and the such.
Nick- I appreciate your opinion and excitement for the game camaraderie that happened during the event. I played in my little town in Oregon all weekend and felt some of that same kind of spirit. There have been 15-20 people coming together for Legendary Raids all over our community for the past few days. It's been a great way to celebrate a game that is unlike any other out there. Keep up the great work!
I think they ruined legendarys. Fair enough give everyone that was at go fest a free lugia because of what happened. But making them 100% Catch rate from the raids now everyone who was there has dozens of them. And everyone else has a .2% catch rate. Just doesn't seem right.
Jamie Machin exactly, people in Chicago have just been farming them while players in other parts of the world have been struggling, only to see them fleeing every time. I agree, fair enough to give the first one away, but making all legendaries catchable so easily just isn't fair to other players.
We had the 100% catch rate, but half of us couldn't get the app to function. Very few people got more than one, and even so, they're not as OP as you'd think. My articuno is 1600 cp. With no gym placement or trading, it doesn't even affect you how many lugias someone has anyway, so why do you care?
Pokemon Go Fest might have been a failure, but I give HUGE props to Niantic. All the profit they could have made: refunded. Giving EVERY SINGLE PERSON 100$ worth of PokeCoins. Expanding the event 2 miles in each direction, and then expanding the event itself for another 2 days, huge sacrifices were made to make everyone be as happy as possible. And I respect them for that.
I spent 1200$ on going to this event booking a hotel and flying from Australia to the event and all I get is a little bit back I'm pissed i want all my money back I wish niantic was more reliable SMH
Yes all nice goodwill gestures, but there were a lot of people that weren't able to check in at all and they left before they were able to so they won't get anything. Plus the overwhelming feeling was more sadness than anger. So many families with very disappointed kids and even adults that were so looking forward to getting out and having a fun day and that didn't happen for them. Like someone said above it's like Stockholm syndrome and emotional abuse. There should be a Class action suit brought for pain and suffering (jk but maybe not) ;)
If my school "altered some code" and gave me a scholarship, I wouldn't say it didn't cost them a dime. It's the same thing. The people that went are likely hardcore players that have spent money on the game. With legendaries here, who isn't about to drop some money on raid passes? That's money Niantic now isn't going to get. Just because you can't physically see the expense doesn't mean it isn't there.
I'm impressed by your truly honest opinion of the event .and I was so happy for you to be invited by the Niantic team . My only true beef with is the 2 percent Catch rate for all the rest of us players that helped with the unlocking of the game , so everyone in Chicago got a 💯 percent catch rate with the legendary birds and the rest got it the hard way , if we was lucky enough to have 15-20 people want to play the game . Please fwd to Niantic and comment THANK YOU
It was a trial and error thing. Hopefully Niantic has taken everything into consideration and have learned something. In my opinion they should do the whole city wide thing so you can play at leasure and do it in multiple big cities or main city hubs. I live in Texas and it would be no problem to drive to Dallas or Austin to play in an event.
Or, you know, they could just deploy mobile cell towers like they do for every medium sized and above festival ever. This should not have been a trial, everyone knew that going from 100 or so people in the park to 20,000 connected to the internet would be an issue for the bandwidth.
TheKodyhawk254 definitely. This is what they did in the U.K. With a walk through the city. They should have organized a walk through the city to visit all the different landmarks in downtown Chicago
TheKodyhawk254 tbh they have way too many failed trail and errors... i think the company sucks, they cant seem to learn from their mistakes... they had the same issue before, how do u let it happen again and at a spotlight moment
True when the servers were down all the time it was a pain to try and play. There is a lot of things that could have went right with this event amd wrong and it seems most of the wrongs happened. I really enjoy the game and it gives me something to do when there is nothing else going on so hopefully future events will be more thought out and planned.
Love and respect you Nick, glad you had an amazing time, was in line the whole time and could not get to meet you.. But keep doing what you are doing. And I will defiantly meet you if I do and shake your hand and give you Respect then.. Rake care of yourself man
I like your idea of spreading the next pogo fest out, maybe create a hub where the interviews, talks, stands are and give clues to where rare spawns are within a larger radius a bit like a treasure hunt, that way everyone will still meet at a single point but then go out to find the spawns/raids etc
I'm glad things turned out well in the end for the Chicago people. We had a great time during Go Fest at our local park with about 30 people, with a pot luck picnic, catching pokemon during the challenge windows, and then hanging out and getting to know each other during the down times. Really, really great day of pokemon that I will always remember. It really helped to bring our local group closer together.
Thank you so much for Niantic lifting the "no shit talking" part AND YOU we're nice about it. I was watching another guy who was spoofing there life and all he did was crap ALL over the game (I didn't watch long cause he's a little annoying). Thank you for being an adult about a bad situation because you're an awesome person.
Niantic had an opportunity to build good will with it's players. In the end the biggest part of the fest was a failure. It was doomed to fail from the start. The set up that was submitted to the city for approval is in public record. If you have any experience at all running IT, you could look at the wifi set up that they prepared and see that it was going to be a failure. Niantic did not prepare for this event, like it wasn't prepared to launch the game in the first place. PoGo has been one failure after another. We continue to play, because the premise behind the game is fun and niantic is grasping at air to keep its player base happy. You can't spend a year alienating a player base with mistake after mistake and expect people to be forgiving when you host a giant public event and completely fail. And like I said, it was doomed from the start. Look at their set up. It is public record. It was inadequate to handle the load AND THEY KNEW THE LOAD. It wasn't a surprise, they sold tickets. Rant over.
toolemacc I'm no programmer but I knew they better have double the capacity they think they need for this event. No excuse for selling tickets for people to play a data intensive game and then be surprised by the load. They should've brought in those cell towers themselves.
I agree with you completely. However Niantic won't be the first or last company to pull stunts like this that bring them in a lot of money. I disagree with it, but I've seen it done so many times. They got what they wanted. It sucks tbh.
Thoughts on the live stream? Especially considering they made your voice robotic the first time they showed the video and then awkwardly cut it off after a little while, without any explanation
Why the "we contacted SPs before the event" and "Sprint is the only one that pulled through" is pure BS. When you're a company and you sign an exclusive deal with another one company, you give the other companies no reason to entertain you. Verizon/ATT know their service makes up a majority of the market, and a majority of the players at Pokemon Go Fest. If Niantic was not greedy, and didn't go out looking for exclusive deals in the first six months of the game coming out (Starbucks, McDonalds, Boost, etc) they would've been able to solidify a more mutual relationship with all companies, especially the SPs. To be honest, if either Niantic or Sprint cared about their deal together in regards to customer service, they would've GUARANTEED a more working service than not. If anyone believes the narrative that the other SPs didn't pull their weight, you're drinking the kool-aid that Niantic is pouring out.
It's okay to be upset with Niantic. But tell me, what phone app has done something like what Niantic did on Pokemon Go Fest? Like Nick has said, this game is not your typical app. This was their first time doing something like this. Heck, it was the first time anyone has done this for an app. They were at least nice enough to give out refunds, in-game currency, and more. Don't give them a very hard time, and it's fine to be upset, but let them learn from their mistake. Constructive criticism is okay, but don't bash on them.
The Minesweeps idk about you, but for me every event is means a ton of server lag. Niantic has had PoGo for a year and by now they should have buffed the servers to deal with the number of players.
I wish we had gotten some warning for the legendary raids. Literally 2 hours of no update from the event, so my friends and I left. And missed all the first raids. /:
This event brought my town closer than ever and I have new friends and people to play it with this was the best thing that happened to this game and I am super happy
Hey Nick, I typically agree with you on just about everything, but I don't on the fact that they released the legendary raids AFTER Go Fest. My story is the same as everyone else's, traveled a huge distance to get there, paid 200 bucks for one night in a hotel, and had problems with the game. I do think it was great that they expanded the distance, but they should have done the Mystery Challenge DURING the Mystery Challenge window. Myself and many others left after the announcement was made at 6:35, "thanks for coming to Go Fest, the park closes in a half hour, hope you had a good time. Bye!" We left and drove out of the city and then, after reading articles on Go Fest, I saw they released legendary Pokemon after the event ended, I wasn't too happy. Why couldn't they do it at 6 like they said when the majority of the players were there waiting specifically for the challenge window? I am just frustrated because I am a rural player and now will never have a chance at a legendary when I thought I would be able to at Go Fest. I hate to make excuses but it's the sad truth.
I guess the lesson is not to trust cell companies opinions on what their towers can handle. Honestly, the part that surprised me was how little we heard from Pokémon go youtubers and niantic during the event. I thought we would be told when and what bonuses were up and for how long and so I found all that confusing. More tweets for the people at home next time would be nice.
cait andrews it's not what the networks can handel... cell towers can only handel so many people due to THE LIMITS OF PHYSICS. they cannot just add new towers due to interference.
Yeah that was the most disappointing part of not being and event participant. I thought we were going to feel like we were included and like it was a worldwide event to an extent and getting to watch the hype from all the youtubers. Looked forward to all that and it completely bombed out.
In my town, once legendary raids came out it was MASSIVE, like bigger than Pokemon go launch week. Despite pouring rain there were so many people out playing and gathering at various parks I had an amazing time this weekend. Sorry about the go fest struggles, but people than came back to town from the event were satisfied and expressed they were having more fun here lol
Honestly, I would just like to say that I"m glad that this video wasn't made into the gripe fest it could have been. There's always a positive way to look at a situation, and quite frankly, it's one of the reasons I watch your videos. They're always positive... and the visual style is always amazing!
hate the fest even more. it's bad enough the people who wanted to go couldn't go because scalpers. And it's impossible to do raids by yourself and it sucks for people who have to work missing those two day events. But....you do have a point. It was nice to see a lot of pkmn go trainers least enjoying the game. :)
That was a perfect description of the event. Thank you for being honest. I really enjoyed meeting you and did have a great time the night after the event!
Of course, Nick has always given us a honest opinion of something going on and I was starting to doubt this video would exist! Thank you Nick for your honest opinion!
ThePuppetMaster he only bookmarked you because you are blind of his fake video, this was sponsored by niantic, they are playing cleanup for the pile of shit poke fest was.
Jay Ham so what if it was crap it isn’t Nick’s fault that go fest sucked he is giving you HIS opinion about what happened. Niantic isn’t only at fault, the phone carriers were at fault too he even said that sprint were the only ones who brought the personal cell towers and all the others thought they could handle the traffic, but they couldn’t. So don’t go bashing on him because of this.
The line sucked (2.5 hours,) I didn't catch a single Pokémon at the event until 1:00 PM, I only caught 3 the whole time at the event, and I couldn't do a singe raid. But I agree Nick I had a good time met a lot of cool people. I went back Sunday and did really good. Nick I was so surprised when I turned around and you were standing behind me at the cross walk. Its was awesome to meet you. One of the people I met from Wales wanted to catch a Tauros so bad before he left the US! Poor guy I told him they're extinct now! LMAO
Also just wanted to say, it's awesome that the Pokemon Community can rely on you to be as objective as possible when presenting your opinions and information about the game. It is really nice to know that we have one of us representing Pokemon Go, someone who really cares about the players (which makes sense because you are one of the biggest fans of the game). You have a very level head on your shoulders, and we all appreciate everything that you do to enhance the game play experience for people all over the world! I would like to offer one thought about the Legendaries: I believe John Hanke planned to release them AFTER the even the entire time. The element of surprise was the absolute key component to create the most hype/excitement as physically possible, and I really don't think there could have been any better way for us to experience our first legendaries. We were literally RUNNING to Buckingham fountain, which before the event started I thought that would be the location of the first legendary raid. It was the most beautiful place to catch one and although I couldn't connect much to catch one at that specific gym, I caught one right next to the fountain and the whole experience was AMAZING!!! Definitely had a renewed love for the game after that, so thank you Niantic for bringing us together in such a fun way as this!! :-)
It's not really Niantic's fault that the cell providers couldn't handle the traffic. They tried but you can only do so much. At least in the end they were willing to compensate people which was a good gesture. They easily could have made people cut their losses....
kupop0w I don't buy it tho. Network providers are profit oriented organization, so when Niantic tells them about the event it's impossible they'd say "it's okay and we can handle the traffic". That's not how business works. At the least, network providers definitely would try to offer special services to minimize the potential connectivity issues with extra charges. Niantic didn't take the deal and shit happened.
I think the blame has been unfairly put on the game over the network providers. Yes they could have tried harder but when a company is telling you we can deal with your worse case why would you try harder. I think this is a eye opener for phone networks to how little they can deal with in this type of event. But on the other hand I wasn't at the event so I have been enjoying the double days while I can
John Miller no there a company and niantic has a record to not care until it really matters and gains them profit they have shown thia time and time again
John Miller for connecting to the game? Sure, but there are plenty of other non cell company issues with game effecting performance. For how the event itself was run? They should have been able to plan out lines and other issues. Heck if you were watching the stream there was almost no content, just splash screen 9 times out of 10 and audio issues. We have how many diff conventions for stuff like UA-cam, gaming, comics, etc and they couldn't find someone to hire who could figure out how manage 20k ppl in a park? How much more money do they have to make to hire professionals to run an event or launch a new feature without major issues potentially making the game unplayable.
I cant see blaming niantic for the cell service issues, however, only 2 days for the anniversary? It just feels cheap and disappointing.... This should be a massive, worldwide celebration, not a smack in the face to the loyal players that happen to work this weekend.
Nick the best part of the day was getting to meet you and Reversal and getting you guys to both sign my Snorlax hat and getting a brief moment to chat. Go Fest was a bust in terms of catching pokemon there, but that evening with all the legendary raids and running into groups of players around Chicago was awesome. Did you get a chance to see Chicago at all? Loved meeting you and Rev and your content, keep up the great work!
If you think this was bad, Mall of Scandinavia 12 of august in Sweden will be a disaster. The mall it self has no connection at all (I tryied today), it will simply not work at all. I am just letting anyone that are thinking about comming know that you should be aware of that it can be a risk..
I think the audience here needs to understand something:. Nick is sharing an honest experience; he's telling about his time there and how he chose to spend it (not necessarily in game the entire time.) He also qualified and said that his experience WAS NOT necessarily the average person's experience and that he sympathizes with the average event attendee. Also, he hasn't "sold out," he was trying to share a behind the scenes perspective on the event that you normally wouldn't have seen. To say he's sold out because he partnered with Niantic and tried to share a different perspective and maybe make a bit of money (who among us lives without money?) is, frankly, ungrateful.
dorian R don't you get it? He try to convince you by using everything . I mean everything such as body language, his tone of voice , but i guess you can't understand that because you are too dumb brahh
Nick! first of all thanks for your honest opinion, I didn't went to Go fest because I´m really far but I saw it and stay tuned all the day, so in my opinion a lot of issues were there, but I think it was awesome to meet people, to share the experience and enjoy the rest of the day with friends, it´s also true that some people paid a lot of money to attend, that network wasn't right and even that some of them were hours waiting in the line but this is just the beginning, they´ve learned, we learned and I´m sure next events will get better and better; Also it´s sad to know this day is going to be remembered as a bad day, because it wasn't a bad day at all, it was just the first fest, so let´s be more receptive and help them to get better for next events! By the way thanks for all the videos and sharing your experience with us, you are amazing! Love you
I hate to complain because this game is awesome, but I have a bone to pick.... Niantic needs to even out how the teams system works. We get it - Mystic has the most players. Mystic wins every contest because they have the most players. Now, I get less poké balls to throw during legendary raids because inevitably Team Instinct is in the minority of a group of 20 players. It's like they just keep punishing us for unknowingly picking this team that is less popular. I downloaded this app and picked my team the day it released. There was no way to know that team mystic would be so much larger than valor and instinct. Can we think of a more constructive way to help level this out?
Christopher Browne actually in our area its valor that dominates numbers wise. But at a raid today, the mystics that showed up to a legendary raid voluntarily split to a different group and instinct and valor battled together, and we (instinct) dominated. It was a blast. Maybe just try coordinating more? Facebook/discord/map webpages all work well in Washington State. Wish the game allowed texting or messages within the app; but i think Nick was right a while back when he said people with no good intentions might take advantage of any direct communications
I'm on team Mystic, and I still feel that a contest between teams should grant the less populated teams a handicap. For example, it should be: [number of Pokemon caught by team] divided by [number of participating players on the team] = [VICTORY].
Ryan V Thanks for the suggestion! I guess what bothers me about that is the inconvenience of having to take extra steps. It's the whole, "Why should I have to do this extra work for this game when other players on other teams don't need to worry about it." I don't mean to sound lazy because I am not, but it's extra work for this game I already invest my time and money in to that others don't have to. Say a raid is near me, I would have to hope that other Instinct players are near and available. Where if I were team Mystic, or in your situation, you would be Valor - you could just show up to any raid and know you have a good shot at receiving a bonus. In the current set up, your solution is forsure the best path to take for Instinct players. I just think that Niantic could come up with a better solution to this issue that doesn't create extra work for less populated teams. I get they couldn't have predicted the huge gap in the numbers, but it's an unfortunate reality that should (and could) be dealt with.
It should seriously work like any sports teams out there - cap it at a certain amount per "region" so that if there's already a fixed amount of say, Mystic, you have to join the other teams that are lacking players.
I was one of those who couldn't login at all until the GoFest ended. Even after it ended my connection was spotty at best but I still had a ball. Initially I was terrified that I would return home without having caught even one legendary, Unown or Heracross but John Hanke assured me that "everything would be made available to all attendees" so I relaxed and started enjoying myself. Once the Legendary Raids started everyone was hyped and the only complaints were about staying connected. In the first few raids most people weren't able to catch the birds until the catch rate was "abandoned". If people had a problem with that, it didn't stop them from rushing to catch as many as they could. In my opinion no one can say that it was too easy to get the legendaries if they look at the whole picture. To catch legendaries we stood in line for upwards of four hours; walked through mud; ate horrible food; baked in the sun for 12 hours, fought with our phones all day to get and,or keep internet connection; faced our personal fears; fought back anger; ran all over Chicago on foot and FINALLY after 12 hours we engaged the Legendary Birds. Anyone who believes that catching the birds in Chicago was easy only looked at the final step. Believe me, if the catch rate of 2% hadn't been abandoned, there would have been RIOTs that night.. I gained a lot of respect for John Hanke. He could have hid away when things got ugly but he stationed himself at the bottom of the stage to engage with the attendees.
ironically enough Nike I was going to just hang out side the event since I couldn't get tickets 😂. It is their first event so ppl need to relax a little about, I could imagine the frustration on the players side but I am sure it was an epic moment and event. to be apart of that is pretty awesome! niatic might just need to hire ppl who plan the super bowl or organizes major stadium size events. have one entrance was a major failure. I think anyone could have predicted that.
To those upset with Nick thinking that he sold out and is not sharing his honest opinion I must attest that like Nick there are people who had a great time a GO Fest. I attended, my game rarely worked, but I still had a blast meeting people from all around the world, seeing people's costumes, and exploring Chicago. I understand why people were upset, I attended the same shit show as everyone else, but it was still fun for me. Different people had different experiences. Just because someone else's experience was different from yours doesn't mean that they're lying about their experience. To the people upset about the 100% catch rate in Chicago, I agree that it was a bad idea, but if it makes you feel any better, the 100% catch rate was only for those who signed in to GO Fest with the codes provided on location. Point being, spoofers were not able to get that 100% catch rate. Also, keep in mind that many people who attended the festival made great sacrifices to be there. To be able to get legendaries in the city made those sacrifices worth it to a lot of people. And to those upset about how difficult it is to catch legendaries. They are legendaries. The difficulty is what gives them such great value! Keep trying! Now more than ever is the time to meet new people, get a group going, and explore!
Yup I agree, that's exactly why I said it was a bad idea, but I can still acknowledge how it made the sacrifices that many people made worth it. I met a married couple with 2 kids at the festival who came in from Texas. They had to take off of work, make an exhausting trip with kids which is never easy, and spend over a thousand dollars total just for hotels, plane tickets, etc. That was their vacation for the year, that's all they could afford. The excitement on their kids' faces when they caught their first legendary in Chicago made the entire trip worth it for them. Without that they would have gone home miserable. This way they were able to leave with smiles on their faces.
After reading through most of the other comments....HOW DARE YOU HAVE COMMON SENSE AND THINK LIKE AN ADULT! That is apparently not allowed in this videos comment sectoin.
I caught 2 Pokemon the entire day. My phone (about 6months old) was useless well into the evening and even seemed glitchy the next day. Others in my group had limited connectivity until later. My biggest complaints were that the water stations were empty most of the day and Rachel Quirico's absolute lack of empathy for the frustrations of the crowd. She just seemed to ignore it. And she is a gamer. Thanks to YOU Nick, for staying out to interact with fellow trainers 4 times longer than you were scheduled to, signing everything and being so polite. Meeting you was one of the day's highlights.
Here's the thing. Unlike launch and when Gen 2 was released, Niantic's servers actually handled the load. The only place where people were having problems with the game was at Go Fest. It was the cellular companies and the towers in the area that couldn't handle the load. It wasn't the game.
ditto. at other times, when a special event came out - gen 2, fire and ice, grass, etc., Niantic's servers would be down and I couldn't even log in for maybe the first day. this time, I logged in just fine. and I am in Chicago suburbs. so, again, I don't think this was Niantic's servers crashing, I think this was the cell towers around Grant park. people should not be so black and white and not solely blame Niantic. it sounds like they did what they could.
Heck ! Lol too many angry people for me. I still enjoy playing, I have a full time job so didn't get to take advantage of much today, but it's still awesome to see legendaries and people actually working together to form groups to play.
Nick - agree with your lessons learned - the connectivity issue was reasonably foreseeable. The best part of the day up until 7:10 p.m. or so was meeting you, the person who has been providing me with good advice and tips since I started playing a little over a year ago.
They should have extended the 100% catch rate through out the world, we helped unlock all the shit and only the Fest people basicly get the Legendaries for free. Massive let down by Niantic.
Yeah, but we helped to release all bonusses for the max time. And those damn birds cost me a lot of raid passes because of the low catch rate and for the Fest people it is a 100% catch rate, a free Lugia too, and we are sweating our balls off to get them. That doesn't seem fair to me at all.
David de Vries then you shouldve gone to the event. You realize that no matter what, the people that went were going to get something special. Thats what an event is meant for. Why would you buy a ticket to the event and then not get anything? And as for you not being able to catch a legendary? Guess what its a legendary pokemon not a ratata of course its gonna be hard to catch
Thanks Nick, for this. I was trying to follow on the "live feed" and some twitter comments and the day was pretty slow, (in Los Angeles) BUT as soon as the event ended and the MAD SPAWNS started and Lugia dropped it was like being in fairyland, had a great week :)
I was becoming slightly *bored* with Pokemon Go for the past month or so, even the then possibility of legendary pokemon wasn't getting me excited to play. None of my friends play, and there were no local groups for me to join and raid with, so I was constantly having to miss out on level 3/4 raids because of a sheer lack of people, or I'd have to pick my battles and only go up against easy and less interesting soloable raids. However with the release of legendary raids, I happened to stumble across a group battling an Articuno at my university. They said that they were then on their way to another raid, and said that I could join them on the raid. I asked them if they raided as a group often, and it turns out that they have a group chat for campus raids. I then got to battle another 2 Articuno and 1 Lugia with them (in the day's total, all 4 legendarys ran from me...) and it was honestly the most fun I've had since the game launched. I 10000% can say that having a group to play with, and engaging with the community will enhance your experience so much. I'm really excited to continue to play and maybe catch my first legendary
Beth Lee nice story. Good luck! I caught both articuno and lugia. Of course I'm in Chicago and went down to the gofest area, not the actual fest. Pretty amazing seeing people run around downtown doing legendary raids.
Yes! I just have the same thing happening to me yesterday and since then I enjoy this game more than before! We are now a group of 16 people, that is something that never happen to me before.
Exactly the same for me, except I posted on my city's reddit subforum looking for a raid group in my area. I joined when it had 7 people, it has 72 now.
Don't expect to show up at any random raid and stand there for 10 minutes to find a group. Go online on pokemon go sites and find people in your area.
I feel the same way. Yesterday, I had heard a rumor, but not checked for official announcement, that there could be legendary raids happening around the world. I went on a walk with my mom, intendedly heading to the seacoast, because it's beautiful there. That route also goes past three visible gyms, but I didn't have my hopes high, as I live in a semi-isolated part of the town. On our way there, I saw that at the former church's gym, there was an Articuno, and I hesitantly stopped there, looking around for other people. There was a car of people on the empty piece of land, but they drove away as I approached them. I made the decision to wait there for backup, and mom went on to go to the shore.. It didn't take long before the first car came with pogo players in it. Then came a second one, and a third one. A small crowd started to gather in a place where there was nothing but a piece of asphalt and wildly growing grass. All of them took their phones out, and looked at each other and some were tapping their phones, sending messages. I sent a message to some kids in the are that play as well, and I approached the strangers and said hi. We waited for some more people, and at the point when we started the raid, there were 13 of us. Nerdy-looking young adults, a mom with a kindergarten-age girl who had a phone too but had technical issues and the mom appeared more worried than she did, some kids with their friends and bikes, and at least one kind dad waiting in the car. When we were battling, and someone would come late, we left the battle to take new people in. There was little chit chat about our efforts. My pokemon fainted, and my game froze, and many others' did too, and had to restart the game, but we could get back in, and everyone was empathetic to each other and helped each other. I was disappointed that I couldn't catch the Articuno, but I went home smiling and joking with my mom.
At the launch, I tried, but I couldn't get the courage to speak up to strangers at gyms, and it let me down. I had hoped for new friends, but instead I hit a wall. For me, the best thing legendaries did was lowering the threshold of working together. Finnish coulture is very private, and quite introverted. If you don't need to, it's not easy to open your mouth, so you need excuses. The fact that most people don't have a friend group of 10+ pogo players to beat a legendary raid is a good way to give those people a push to the back to co-operate with strangers and form battle groups. It's a very good community builder. I've seen a couple admittedly shy people reach out to the community in the face book group in just the past couple days, seeking for raiding and catching company. I feel that for a lot of us, we really want other people to play with, but we're afraid to make the move, because we don't want to "bother" others. With legendaries, others need us too, so it takes the weight off.
Beth Lee dang. i wish i can find a group like that. all my friends gave up on pokemon go even as a group
What upsets me the most is that anyone who was in Chigaco, even if they didn't attended Go fest, took advantage of the possibility of catching Lugia and Articuno with a better catch rate than a pidgey, wich is just ridiculous. In the rest of the world we actualy had to work for them.
I sure did. But you'd expect the area that they do such an event at to have more mons man.
I had a fantastic day playing Pokemo Go today. Double XP, double star dust, reduced buddy and egg distance, increased spawn rates, and of course, Legendary raids.
I live in a place with 1 pokestop and 0 gyms, so I had to travel an hour to get to the closest city. But it was worth it, cause I had so much fun playing with a friend.
I caught 4/4 Articunos and 1/3 Lugias (I got lucky with the Articunos), hatched a Snorlax and got 63 candies, ran like a maniac to get a Hitmontop. And I've never seen so many Pokemon Go players in one spot before. Seeing 50+ players flocking to a gym is a memorable experience. When Pokemon Go works properly, it is one damn fun game. Too bad Niantic have made hundreds of million dollars on this game, but still haven't been able to fix lags, crashes and errors.
MadSnowman You got lucky with the Lugias as well...
Dustin make a fb group and find players to take down gyms,that what we did when Pokémon was lit before the new raid system came out
Not sure if you'll read this, Nick, but I needed to take a moment to thank you so very much for your honesty!!
My husband and I have been watching your videos regularly since August, but were concerned about what your sponsorship with Niantic might mean moving forward. As AT&T customers, Go Fest was pretty rough for us. The last thing we wanted was a sugar-coated glaze over the day.
That's not what you gave us. We watch your videos for the creative editing, helpful tips, and most importantly, your honest opinions. Thank you so much for being straight with us. We completely agree that it wasn't all bad. While the day was hard, the expansion into the city and the legendary raids rescued the evening. Running around chasing the Unowns with our group on Saturday and raiding with a huge team in the burbs of people we just met really recalled the awesome sense of community from last July. Niantic *did* succeed with that. And the gestures they've offered to attendees also helped us lick our wounds.
I apologize for anyone who took their frustration out on you at the Fest. That's not right!!
Again, thank you a million times for just sitting in front of the camera in true Trainer Tips style and laying your opinions on us. I value your thoughts and appreciate you taking the time to make sure we knew they were your own. Proud to subscribe to both of your channels!! Wasn't able to make it into the line to meet you before they cut it off, so I'll just have to attend another event sometime in the future! :)
Thanks, Nick!!
I totally agree!!!
i agree!
if only the common player was as thoughtful as you. agreed!
This person who wrote this and Nick deserve an award
To be completely honest, during the event I was furious on how the event turned out. I flew to Chicago from Sweden to attend the event, and being there, not being able to play for more than 30-40 seconds at a time was extremely disappointing. After the event I saw many flaws (some I discussed in a video I made).
BUT! Having the event for two additional days, and hunting legendaries for these two days has been Amazing! I've been running around the city of Chicago, meeting people and seeing areas I wouldn't have seen otherwise. I'm really happy on how they handled the problems afterwards. For the next event, it can only get better now.
They probably should have tried to better keep out people like me, however; people who just live near the city. Spoofers too. It made me feel bad for anyone who couldn't just go over to get these things so easily.
My only complaint is that these bonuses only last 48 hours. We've had plenty of week-long "double x" events just randomly throughout the year, and a huge event like this is just 48 hours? How many people are unable to fully enjoy the bonuses due to flying/driving home in them 48 hours? Those are the people I'm thinking about with this complaint.
Anyway, i think they overall handled it well at the end of the day. Definitely impressed, and it's a great learning experience for them moving forward. i look forward to seeing them use what they learned in their next event.
SaiScott true
SaiScott agreed. It would be nice to have them last a week or not start until the next weekend and be a weekend event rather than a Sunday plus most of Monday event for most people.
SaiScott Agreed!
Truth! the bonuses should have DEFINITELY been longer
is it over already? fuuuck i had to work the last two days...
It's really easy to get angry about the negative side of things but the Go Fest attendees need to recognize that they are receiving a lot of great perks that I, a rural player would have loved
Ryan Lampotang I did to because I was in Chicago and I did not attend go fest
Not just attendees.
No sir they didn't. Legendaries didn't start until 30 minutes after the 10 hour long event ended. Not a single legendary was active during the event. A LOT of people left and went home after a very very long day of not being able to play. There was never an announcement at the event that Legendaries would be released soon after.
I went to the event (from 7am - 7pm) and have zero legendaries. Lugia will be gifted to me at some time... but no word on when. We were able to attempt a Lugia raid before getting on the train home, in a crowd of hundreds of people, none of us were able to catch it due to app crashes, loading issues, etc.
I'm sorry I just think it's very important to note that difference. It's like going to a 12 hour long concert where the band doesn't ever perform. They finally tell you to go home and that they'll give you the $20 back for the ticket, $100 of merchandise from their online store, and a free mp3 download of their latest hit, to be determined. And a half an hour later on your drive home you hear they took the stage and did all their greatest hits.
I'm not trying to be a downer. A lot of Go Festers benefited from the Legendaries they released that night and probably made a lot of people's trips worth it in the end. That makes me very happy. But only those lucky enough to have been staying in Chicago that night benefited (along with all the spoofers in the world).
Josh Littlejohn this is exactly what happened to me, you said it perfectly and I wish John hanke could read that.
Niantic allowed people, all of whom had spent money to attend the shitshow, to catch an electronic pokemon which is of no importance or cost to niantic. Lugia is just data, lines in a code. People spent money on this event. Get real.
The raids these past two days has been amazing. In the little town I live in, we've created a group on facebook to plan raiding together, and it's been great! I love meeting new people who are still loving and enjoying the game! :D
joxxx90 this is how it works in my town, same group of people showing up and posting when they see a new raid boss.
joxxx90 Same thing with my husband and I! We couldn't afford to go to Chicago, so we made a date of catching pokemon and doing raids all day. I'm a stay at home mom and I rarely get out (we had a kid free day lol) so it was amazing to get together in groups and meet new people. We did 4 raids I think, and we caught like 100 pokemon each lol
joxxx90 same with me. I was becoming frustrated because I had no one to raid with or even battle gyms with and then I happened upon a group of people just leaving a raid and they invited me in their Facebook group and now Pokémon Go is actually fun again.
It's been amazing in my town as well. Especially for an expat like me, it was great meeting dozens of local players and we all enjoyed the raids.
same too!
It's Human nature to always remember the bad things.
Succeed for 10 years straight and people won't acknowledge it, but fail that 1 time and you won't be remembered for your 10 years of succes but for your failling of that 1 time/thing.
BjornDP i dont think niantic ever had success though
First of, its a figure of speech :)
Second maybe not with Pokemon Go, but I know alot of people who would disagree if you talk about Ingress wich is also an Niantic Game. Though Ofcourse not as known as Pokemon Go.
+Leo Desbiens yeah they just made only a billion dollars. Not a real success
BjornDP but we ARE talking about Pokémon GO
Leo Desbiens yeah it's not like on the first few months they got 26 million people to play and got billions in cash from logs, in game purchases, and partnerships.
As the "voice" of people who have jobs etc and couldn't go to the event, gotta say, it sucks that the second day of double xp, candy, etc is on a Monday where we can't really enjoy it, and we don't have communities to get legendaries. Spent an hour at a lugia yesterday and nobody showed up. We need in game becons that let other players know when we are at raids and notifications that legendaries have spawned, at least. I live in a city and rarely meet pokemon go players here and its super hard and super lonely. We need some of that 'coming together' outside of Chicago as well
HydraOfTheStars thesilphroad has this called silph radio.... but it's not too effective from my personal experience from a rural neighborhood
Ericshizz 1992 yeah I've heard about it but my phone can barely run the apps I have,.let alone another one while playing pokemon. Niantic needs an in game one. There are groups on facebook, instagram, reddit, but nobody looks at all of those so for those of us in rural areas, its just not good
HydraOfTheStars agreed
Hate it when people say "use Discord use Reddit etc"
I did all of that in Seattle and no one was showing up to any Raids I found. Talking to people on Discord and they were getting groups of 6. Def not enough to beat a boss
I agree, people always say go find a group on Facebook or something but I can't find anything
I think you brought up a good point. Next time, Niantic should host another festival but make it city-wide, for example, Austin, Texas. Before the festival starts, Niantic will announce a picture that borders that city limits and people will travel to Austin instead of a small enclosure like Grant Park. You can think of it as a "mini-vacation to Austin", if you ever wanted to go to Austin. That way, you can enjoy the festival and also enjoy the city. Explore the city and catch pokemon. Eat at the restaurants and raid at the same time. It'll be more casual and sight-seeing as well.
This could also become a good way to also promote tourism and 'if' it gets big enough, more cities would want Niantic to partner with them so they could get some more tourism for the city.
OnceInAWhileJin That sounds logical. I actually assumed that was what they were going to do. Undid not know they hosted an event for basically one park.
OnceInAWhileJin That's what they did in Chester (UK) a treasure hunt and a "pastport" to stamp. They didn't expect the large numbers of people, so connection was terrible for most of the time.
There have been times when I have disagreed with what you said, but ultimately the reason I keep watching your videos is because you are fine to speak in nuance. So many times you get either 'Niantic is the best and everyone is just whiny' or 'Niantic is literally Satan'. There's a middle ground and I would much rather watch a video that says 'well, that could have gone better but there were good points. Here's what happened, here's what Niantic tried to do and here's what they could have done better anyway. I don't know that it was a complete garbage fire, but here's some stuff they could do to improve this in the future.' If I taught a class on constructive criticism, I would use you as an example of how to do it right.
yes yes and yes. I feel like we are losing nuance and constructive criticism as a society these days. yes and yes. there are middle grounds. there are ways to point out flaws and mistakes and criticism without being mean. there are upsides and downsides. I just fear people like Nick might be a dying breed. I fear the internet culture makes it worse.
More comments like this please! Nick has never been the type to jump on hate trains, to say that he's just selling out here is RIDICULOUS. Plus, Nick has no hang ups with calling out Niantic on their shit. Early on he did that just about every video for the lack of communication they had with players.
To me, the fact that Niantic got confirmation from service providers that they could handle the load along with the fact that id worked a lot better once they extended the radius of the event is very relevant information vis a vie how angry we should be with Niantic. I think they definitely learned form this event and the next one will be much better. I'm still optimistic for Pokemon GO's future.
Joel Zedwick ++
Joel Zedwick ....WELL SAID, BRO!
Sprint should play this on their commercial and say: best Pokémon go celluar
Awing Blaster no because 99 percent of people don't play Pokemon go who have sprint
Lucas Maclan not 99 percent but a majority of the people who play Pokémon go
uhh do you mean 99% of sprint customers don't play Pokémon go?
Awing Blaster Niantic should have paid for wifi for the people attending
I don't think there was wifi there. Just cellular data
NICK! We'd love to get YOUR OPINION on the fact that everyone in Chicago got *100% catch rates for Legendaries*, and the rest of the world got a very low 2% base catch rate / 5% with Golden Razz. Don't you think that being given a 100% catch rate RUINS the experience of what it's like to TRULY CATCH a Legendary, and in a way, DEVALUES them?
Perhaps when trading starts, Legendaries caught in Chicago (during Go Fest) would be seen as Pokemon with lesser value... sort of like Pokemon game trading cards that aren't rated a Gem Mint 10.
SKYE NICOLAS It was an event perk just like the unknown and heracross spawns you cant just got to go fest and have the legendary pokemon be so hard to catch that you cant even enjoy the fact that they are out for the first time
@Jettus. No that's BS! It brings spoofers from around the globe to Chicago because of the 2% or 5% rate. Because trainers around the world want the same as people in Chicago
SKYE NICOLAS Just for clarification, the 100% catch rate only occurred for legendary raids within the 2 mile radius around Grant Park, not all of Chicago. I did my first two legendary raids outside of that radius and only caught one Articuno. I definitely enjoyed catching that one wayyyyyy more than the Lugia and Articuno I caught downtown near Grant Park.
SKYE NICOLAS he got special treatment and has to say these things because he is very close to ninatic
Caught my articuno w a critical catch today 😎
Still wonder why niantic didnt build a wifi spot around park where you would get the acces code in the envelope, sure its pretty expensive but bad pr is problaly even more expensive.
I hope they have learned now for the next event
Daniel Stefanovic I agree but there is also the saying any publicity is good publicity
Bad PR is still PR
Party Pandamonium consistent bad pr will always kill a brand.
Daniel Stefanovic I completely agreed w/ you ! Something needs to happen the whole company sucks either fire the president and rebuild make Pokémon go stronger
there will be no next event pokemon go is dead #RipGo #SpreadTheWorld
Thanks for being level headed and calm about go fest. Its really upsetting to me to see people throw things at a person on stage who has nothing to do, has no control over cell towers, and or programming the game...
There was this one dude loudly booing behind me during one of the announcements they were making to say "sorry this didn't go the way any of us wanted, but we're gonna give you refunds and $100 in pokecoins." Me and my friend were about to fight the dude, like they're giving you a refund, if you don't want to be here go home, stop yelling in my ear.
The expansion of the playing radius is brilliant. I hope the person who suggested that get recognized.
That was a great response. You laid out the facts and kept neutral on it and it's really appreciated. I couldn't afford going to Chicago, but I hope if they ever do another event like say Central Park that they really learn from what you've said here and work towards a better solution. This game has brought so many amazing things in to so many lives, and id hate to see this blip ruin the chance for another event.
My biggest problem is that I took out time of my day to go catch Pokemon, only to find out that the changed the goals manually, making all of my work useless. I am mad they lied to people outside of Chicago.
Random Prints my thoughts exactly! I mean was it too hard for niantic to increase rare spawns or have free raids like everyone had at go fest? I mean literally we were catching trash while people at go fest ( the ones who got to play) were catching unknowns yes unknowns with a s and heracross and other rare spawns. Niantic basically created a pay to play system where if u went to go fest u had a major advantage over every other player
Random Prints not really useless tho. we still get the perks for free. better use them. they were confirmed to last til friday. double everything. halved distances. You are not entitled to anything else since nor you neither I attended go fest
Curious Cat Just because we got the benefits doesn't mean the people outside of Chicago work was useless. There is evidence show that nintanic manually lowered the score.
Random Prints actually my point! Worldwide side to go fest got nothing!
Not just in rural areas but even in the large cities it is horrible the way Niantic did this. The Trailer before Go Fest for the Legendary Birds shows a 48 hr timer before it starts which gives people time to plan and group together for this amazing experience but now, they just appear out of nowhere without warning and no time to plan for a group. I have attempted to do 2 of these and both times could not get enough people around me to beat the Lugia & Articuno raids forget even trying to catch it. And I've tried to use other resources like Silph Radio Beacon. I'm not looking for a 2 days notice but maybe a just few hours... so people can get hyped and gather there together.
" shows a 48 hr timer before it starts which gives people time to plan and group together for this amazing experience"
THIS
+Ron G I completely agree with you. Why did they decide to remove the legendary eggs (and lower level eggs)?
that is for just these 2 days. It will be like that from Tuesday on
Then again, imagine how mad you'd be if there was only 1 raid you could join and you didn't catch it. It seems to me everyone just wants to complain.
Ohh bro a painful story... We manage to gather about 8 people out of 25 at a time... Some have jobs, some school, some responsibilities in general... I for example leave far (about 20 minutes by car) from the center of my town, and it's very difficult to join others in time to battle legendaries.... If we had eggs before spawning of legendaries would be amazing
Sounds like Niantic did actually make an effort to improve service prior to the event. Those lines to get in though, thats unforgiveable. Their head event organizer shouldve consulted someone with music festival prep experience. They knew how many people were coming and roughly how fast lines should move. You need to get people through the gates, plain and simple.
Went to Go Fest and all I have to say is: I had fun, a lot of fun. The two mile radius saved the day and they are giving refunds too, Niantic deserves criticism but damn guys, cool your shit.
Could be worse. Our New Orleans event we held in City Park turned into a biblical flood with equipment lost. Atleast it was dry up there.
So where lugia and Articuno the only legendaries available to be unlocked or did you guys fail at every other legendary?
Dwhite Niantic f**ked up. What kinda compensation is that? totally biased giving free Legendaries to all who attended even if they were complete noobs.
I think they released those 2 only because people had too much difficulty trying to stay connected or get connected to complete the challenges.
Not sure the reason behind releasing Lugia but Articuno was released because Mystic caught the most mons at Go Fest.
Blaming the local carriers for their failures is a crappy move by Niantic. Even spoofers who were not physically attending the event had the same gameplay issues. This was clearly a Niantic server load issue. In this day and age of elastic server architecture and CDNs there should be no excuse for downtime or degraded performance.
The Beany niantic did say publicly that there was a bug in the game that alsp caused this. or else they wouldnt give 100$ to all go fest attendees
Spoofers had it way better
@Curious Cat : So, did that bug break the game so much that the issue was down to the carriers choking on a Niantic bug. Or was it genuinely down to Niantic servers choking on their own bug?
$100 of ingame currency is a lame recompense to players of a game that is pretty much dead.
@Lemmie6: No. Actually spoofers didnt have it way better, until Niantic released The Legendaries at 100% catch rate.
Spoofers didnt get any of the Unknowns or Regionals that Go Fest players unlocked, but spoofers really didnt need to catch them.
Spoofers did get raid access to Lugia and Articuno as Niantic openeed Chicago raids to everyone.
Side Note: What happened to the legendary raid passes?
I actually went to the densest pokestop area that was 40 minutes away and no one was playing which was a real bummer. How am I supposed to get a legendary which needs over 10 people if I can't find one?
Noopa make a group on fb and find players
Jose Hernandez that's a good idea. Thanks
So bummed that I didn't get to meet you on Saturday. I was in line for two hours to get in and I totally missed the time for your meet & greet. :( I don't know if you were in the park much during the event, but we walked all over and didn't see you except for what was on screen at the main stage. GO Fest could have been so much more... but it was rather disappointing.
This post will probably get lost in the noise, but here goes: I was also at Pokémon Go Fest on Saturday. My thoughts are much along the same lines as what Nick has said here. He is not spin doctoring this because of his arrangement with Niantic. I have absolutely no connection with Niantic #NonSponsored ~~ Yes, there were a lot of technical problems; initial registration, frequent game crashes, and connectivity issues. I've said elsewhere that it was "highly problematic, but not unworkable". ~~ The initial Registration issue was alleviated with a trip to the "Information Booth", and I quickly learned that after a game crash, that I could just walk out to the edge of the fence (away form the density of the other players ) and then I was always able to log right back in. ~~ I'm not sorry that I went. I had a good time, chatted with a lot of players, and caught almost all the Mons that I was hoping for. I think that with the "Lessons Learned", if Niantic really applies themselves with all the right actionables, that this event will go over quite well in subsequent years.
Xol1004 I love that!!!! The ability to take something be negative and turn it to a positive ! Great attitude ! You Rock !
Xol1004 P.S. I live bear Paris and we will go on 16 Sept for our Safari Zone Event at La Défense
Hopefully, the events in Europe will go extremely well! I'm sure that Niantic can roll with what they've learned in Chicago, and improve as they Go along.
What about the people who couldn't log on and play the game, or it constantly crashed and was unplayable? They couldn't get the Pokemon they came for. Despite enjoying the community, I think you would feel a little different if you hadn't caught almost all the 'mons you went for.
The whole cell phone network bs could have been bypassed easily ,all niantic had to do was team up with all the major cell phone networks just like every Nfl game or major concert
"at least they succeded to bring together people"... no nick, its the love of fans for pokemons and for the game that succeded in this, not Niantic. They are not able to organize an event, not able to fix or improve a very simple cell mobile game. They are having success only thanks to our dumb love for pokemon!
Agreed. The whole Discord thing that is keeping the groups in my city together was created from dedicated fans - if such a communication app didn't exist, the game likely would have faded away. It's a shame they haven't built any infrastructure around chatting with one another.
He's going to shill for them. They flew him out and gave him a hotel room, he isn't going to bite the hand that feeds him.
"Nick this is your camera lens speaking. Please stop hitting me at the end of your vids. It hurts me."
JoKing haha nice dude
0/6 Articuno
1/4 Lugia
💔
iTzPANCHO At least you got 1. I got none out of 5 tries.
iTzPANCHO 1:1 Articuno that's all 😎
1/1 lugia and 2/2 articuno
1/2 Lugia
1/1 Articuno
XD
I wish i could find enough people together to even do a raid
I would like to hear your thoughts on what the 99.8% player base that wasnt in Chicago earned from this event,2 days of double exp and stardust?i've done 14 legendary raids so far,0 articuno-lugia caught,people in rural areas such as my self have earned absolutely nothing so far
Akasha13 my dude... you get all the perks too XD you might wanna hurry todays last day
i've already used those bonuses to the fullest,but my whole point is the event of the year boosted 0.02% of the player base,i guess the rest of us mortals should just give up on legendaries/regionals etc etc
I disagree because I live in town with ~8000 residents and I caught two Articunos
I live in a fairly small town and we just had a raid that involved Lugia.
Akasha13 agreed
I love that you did a special Tips segment for raids at Pokemon GO Fest. The part you played in the event suited you. I think it was a bonus that you were on vacation away from the city at the time. It tied together well with the game's goal to get people out to explore.
I was excited even though I wasn't at GoFest. Plus seeing all the Articuno and Lugia raids going on all around my city is even more exciting!
I agree. Watching the videos of the raids was like watching the trailers all over again.....it was amazing to see.
while the 100 In-game currency sounds like a nice compensation, in reality it did not cost niantic any money to credit those points the accounts
Flo w Very true, they're just currency that can have no value because they can make as many Pokécoins as they want in their game.
Flo w haha hey ur right😂
Flo w The people who attended go fest are people willing to spend money on the game, so they are defintely losing money because otherwise most of them would spend their money on pokécoins anyway but now they do not need to.
Niantic is running a business. They have tax lawyers and accountants that help them take certain actions, like this as a loss...
Rowan Beasley They can't add so much for free just because it is their game. Apple always wants a cut of freebies which are items that are in a store. So it means Niantic lost a lot of money. Even with the preparation costs of the event, the licences they had to get from the city and even paying all employees who arranged the event.
Here's my 2 cents. I bought tickets and went with some buddies. Here's my ideas for future events.
1) You built physical Pokestops. Slap free WiFi in them to connect and cover the entire area.
2) The food prices were not unreasonable, keep doing that.
3) Figure out some more interactive stuff, people dressed up like Pikachu was this time but more Pokemon to entertain kids
4) Put fans in those Team Tents. It was hotter in there than out of them
5) Spread out your events. Have a smaller hub, or even MULTIPLE hubs in a city in maybe a 4 mile radius, and spread everyone out like it was AFTER the event. Frankly that was the best part of the day, and everyone agrees from what I read. You can still sell tickets and have the people check in at the event, but then spread out throughout the city. It won't cause havok on cell servers that way.
6) If you're going to edit any parameters for the event, don't do it LIVE on a TV so that people can see it.
7) Have a backup plan for everything. Don't give me the "We had a better turnout yadda yadda" that I heard on stage. You sold tickets to a limit. You knew EXACTLY how many people would show up at the max. There is literally no excuse on this like at launch. Don't BS people either because I think people got MADDER by the videos of people "interviewed" saying it was a great event and the such.
Nick-
I appreciate your opinion and excitement for the game camaraderie that happened during the event. I played in my little town in Oregon all weekend and felt some of that same kind of spirit. There have been 15-20 people coming together for Legendary Raids all over our community for the past few days. It's been a great way to celebrate a game that is unlike any other out there. Keep up the great work!
I think they ruined legendarys. Fair enough give everyone that was at go fest a free lugia because of what happened. But making them 100% Catch rate from the raids now everyone who was there has dozens of them. And everyone else has a .2% catch rate. Just doesn't seem right.
And what happened to the legendary eggs? Why did they decide to remove them??
Jamie Machin exactly, people in Chicago have just been farming them while players in other parts of the world have been struggling, only to see them fleeing every time. I agree, fair enough to give the first one away, but making all legendaries catchable so easily just isn't fair to other players.
I totaly agree, it's just not right.
We had the 100% catch rate, but half of us couldn't get the app to function. Very few people got more than one, and even so, they're not as OP as you'd think. My articuno is 1600 cp. With no gym placement or trading, it doesn't even affect you how many lugias someone has anyway, so why do you care?
Jamie Machin I caught it in my first try lol
social anxiety gang where u at
The worst thing is that #niantic give out free legardary pokemon that piss of other #pokemongo trainers.
They should'nt of had heracross But unown was good to put there
Pokemon Go Fest might have been a failure, but I give HUGE props to Niantic. All the profit they could have made: refunded. Giving EVERY SINGLE PERSON 100$ worth of PokeCoins. Expanding the event 2 miles in each direction, and then expanding the event itself for another 2 days, huge sacrifices were made to make everyone be as happy as possible. And I respect them for that.
corenthall 123 you understand and are not butthurt and for that you have my respect
I spent 1200$ on going to this event booking a hotel and flying from Australia to the event and all I get is a little bit back I'm pissed i want all my money back I wish niantic was more reliable SMH
I never got my 100$ pokecoins lol
I was never at go fest though
Yes all nice goodwill gestures, but there were a lot of people that weren't able to check in at all and they left before they were able to so they won't get anything. Plus the overwhelming feeling was more sadness than anger. So many families with very disappointed kids and even adults that were so looking forward to getting out and having a fun day and that didn't happen for them. Like someone said above it's like Stockholm syndrome and emotional abuse. There should be a Class action suit brought for pain and suffering (jk but maybe not) ;)
If my school "altered some code" and gave me a scholarship, I wouldn't say it didn't cost them a dime. It's the same thing. The people that went are likely hardcore players that have spent money on the game. With legendaries here, who isn't about to drop some money on raid passes? That's money Niantic now isn't going to get. Just because you can't physically see the expense doesn't mean it isn't there.
I'm impressed by your truly honest opinion of the event .and I was so happy for you to be invited by the Niantic team .
My only true beef with is the 2 percent
Catch rate for all the rest of us players that helped with the unlocking of the game ,
so everyone in Chicago got a
💯 percent catch rate with the legendary birds and the rest got it the hard way , if we was lucky enough to have 15-20 people want to play the game .
Please fwd to Niantic and comment
THANK YOU
It was a trial and error thing. Hopefully Niantic has taken everything into consideration and have learned something. In my opinion they should do the whole city wide thing so you can play at leasure and do it in multiple big cities or main city hubs. I live in Texas and it would be no problem to drive to Dallas or Austin to play in an event.
Or, you know, they could just deploy mobile cell towers like they do for every medium sized and above festival ever. This should not have been a trial, everyone knew that going from 100 or so people in the park to 20,000 connected to the internet would be an issue for the bandwidth.
TheKodyhawk254 definitely. This is what they did in the U.K. With a walk through the city. They should have organized a walk through the city to visit all the different landmarks in downtown Chicago
TheKodyhawk254 tbh they have way too many failed trail and errors... i think the company sucks, they cant seem to learn from their mistakes... they had the same issue before, how do u let it happen again and at a spotlight moment
True when the servers were down all the time it was a pain to try and play. There is a lot of things that could have went right with this event amd wrong and it seems most of the wrongs happened. I really enjoy the game and it gives me something to do when there is nothing else going on so hopefully future events will be more thought out and planned.
Love and respect you Nick, glad you had an amazing time, was in line the whole time and could not get to meet you.. But keep doing what you are doing. And I will defiantly meet you if I do and shake your hand and give you Respect then.. Rake care of yourself man
I like your idea of spreading the next pogo fest out, maybe create a hub where the interviews, talks, stands are and give clues to where rare spawns are within a larger radius a bit like a treasure hunt, that way everyone will still meet at a single point but then go out to find the spawns/raids etc
I always care about what you have to say nick, even at 6 fucking thirty in the morning
My feelings exactly lol
How romantic
whats you're snap chat
Toxic Waste who are you asking?
Why are you wearing a Team Harmony shirt?
Miduuza lugia is on it maybe ?
i hope team harmony will be a thing tho...
Brian Lee I'm starting to think they will add team harmony and open up free team changes. But who knows. Staying on Mystic
He should credit seoxys the artist who made the design
valkyrie azure lol what
I think what really happened was that they forgot to edit out your Cyborg voice when they first showed your tutorial video at Go Fest.
JoKing It was a live stream. They can't edit it out while still live! 😂
just like they edited the goals for the challenge windows making it easier for everyone lol
I'm glad things turned out well in the end for the Chicago people. We had a great time during Go Fest at our local park with about 30 people, with a pot luck picnic, catching pokemon during the challenge windows, and then hanging out and getting to know each other during the down times. Really, really great day of pokemon that I will always remember. It really helped to bring our local group closer together.
Nick, is that shirt from The T-Shirt Company out of Oklahoma City? 405 is our area code, and all our local merch has that tag. Just curious!
I was just wondering the same thing. I have a 405 shirt as well.
Dorgannn well, hopefully he answers! Cause that'd be hella tight if it's from OKC!
Yo i live in Oklahoma.. i need to know what store
Thank you so much for Niantic lifting the "no shit talking" part AND YOU we're nice about it. I was watching another guy who was spoofing there life and all he did was crap ALL over the game (I didn't watch long cause he's a little annoying). Thank you for being an adult about a bad situation because you're an awesome person.
Niantic had an opportunity to build good will with it's players. In the end the biggest part of the fest was a failure. It was doomed to fail from the start. The set up that was submitted to the city for approval is in public record. If you have any experience at all running IT, you could look at the wifi set up that they prepared and see that it was going to be a failure. Niantic did not prepare for this event, like it wasn't prepared to launch the game in the first place. PoGo has been one failure after another. We continue to play, because the premise behind the game is fun and niantic is grasping at air to keep its player base happy. You can't spend a year alienating a player base with mistake after mistake and expect people to be forgiving when you host a giant public event and completely fail. And like I said, it was doomed from the start. Look at their set up. It is public record. It was inadequate to handle the load AND THEY KNEW THE LOAD. It wasn't a surprise, they sold tickets. Rant over.
toolemacc haha im a programmer too and my thoughts are exactly ur thoughts. Well said
Can you give us some numbers instead of just saying look?
toolemacc I'm no programmer but I knew they better have double the capacity they think they need for this event. No excuse for selling tickets for people to play a data intensive game and then be surprised by the load. They should've brought in those cell towers themselves.
I agree with you completely. However Niantic won't be the first or last company to pull stunts like this that bring them in a lot of money. I disagree with it, but I've seen it done so many times. They got what they wanted. It sucks tbh.
Thoughts on the live stream? Especially considering they made your voice robotic the first time they showed the video and then awkwardly cut it off after a little while, without any explanation
Why the "we contacted SPs before the event" and "Sprint is the only one that pulled through" is pure BS. When you're a company and you sign an exclusive deal with another one company, you give the other companies no reason to entertain you. Verizon/ATT know their service makes up a majority of the market, and a majority of the players at Pokemon Go Fest. If Niantic was not greedy, and didn't go out looking for exclusive deals in the first six months of the game coming out (Starbucks, McDonalds, Boost, etc) they would've been able to solidify a more mutual relationship with all companies, especially the SPs. To be honest, if either Niantic or Sprint cared about their deal together in regards to customer service, they would've GUARANTEED a more working service than not.
If anyone believes the narrative that the other SPs didn't pull their weight, you're drinking the kool-aid that Niantic is pouring out.
It's okay to be upset with Niantic. But tell me, what phone app has done something like what Niantic did on Pokemon Go Fest? Like Nick has said, this game is not your typical app. This was their first time doing something like this. Heck, it was the first time anyone has done this for an app. They were at least nice enough to give out refunds, in-game currency, and more. Don't give them a very hard time, and it's fine to be upset, but let them learn from their mistake. Constructive criticism is okay, but don't bash on them.
This wasn't their first time doing this, they have been doing events just like this for ingress for years.
Jeremy Seibert But not to this scale
The Minesweeps idk about you, but for me every event is means a ton of server lag. Niantic has had PoGo for a year and by now they should have buffed the servers to deal with the number of players.
I wish we had gotten some warning for the legendary raids. Literally 2 hours of no update from the event, so my friends and I left. And missed all the first raids. /:
Jess Should of listen to FsuAtl
This event brought my town closer than ever and I have new friends and people to play it with this was the best thing that happened to this game and I am super happy
Matt_da_bomb12 lucky
What town do you live in
Hey Nick, I typically agree with you on just about everything, but I don't on the fact that they released the legendary raids AFTER Go Fest. My story is the same as everyone else's, traveled a huge distance to get there, paid 200 bucks for one night in a hotel, and had problems with the game. I do think it was great that they expanded the distance, but they should have done the Mystery Challenge DURING the Mystery Challenge window. Myself and many others left after the announcement was made at 6:35, "thanks for coming to Go Fest, the park closes in a half hour, hope you had a good time. Bye!" We left and drove out of the city and then, after reading articles on Go Fest, I saw they released legendary Pokemon after the event ended, I wasn't too happy. Why couldn't they do it at 6 like they said when the majority of the players were there waiting specifically for the challenge window? I am just frustrated because I am a rural player and now will never have a chance at a legendary when I thought I would be able to at Go Fest. I hate to make excuses but it's the sad truth.
noahme97 damn that sucks. Yeah it makes absolutely no sense to release the raids after the event is done
~SoulGlow~ no it doesn't. Maybe I was wrong and the vast majority of the people stayed in downtown Chicago the night after, but I was not one of them.
SHOUT OUT to you Nick for your dedication and hard work keep it up bro you inspire bro. My PokeGoCast coming soon.
I guess the lesson is not to trust cell companies opinions on what their towers can handle. Honestly, the part that surprised me was how little we heard from Pokémon go youtubers and niantic during the event. I thought we would be told when and what bonuses were up and for how long and so I found all that confusing. More tweets for the people at home next time would be nice.
cait andrews it's not what the networks can handel... cell towers can only handel so many people due to THE LIMITS OF PHYSICS. they cannot just add new towers due to interference.
CD3MC Yes they can, cell companies can literally wheel in more towers for increased load.
CD3MC yes they can. They do it all the time at sporting events.
Yeah that was the most disappointing part of not being and event participant. I thought we were going to feel like we were included and like it was a worldwide event to an extent and getting to watch the hype from all the youtubers. Looked forward to all that and it completely bombed out.
In my town, once legendary raids came out it was MASSIVE, like bigger than Pokemon go launch week. Despite pouring rain there were so many people out playing and gathering at various parks I had an amazing time this weekend. Sorry about the go fest struggles, but people than came back to town from the event were satisfied and expressed they were having more fun here lol
Props to Niantic for letting you speak your mind.
Lol what? xD In these days it is noteworthy to be grateful for a company not to fuck with the right for free speech? xD
Multimillion dollar company, for fucks sake. Why didn't they just outsource the event to a professional event management company?
7:44 WHAT?!? I LIVE in Illinois and I didn't go, but people from PERU did? Lel I'm so cheap
Honestly, I would just like to say that I"m glad that this video wasn't made into the gripe fest it could have been. There's always a positive way to look at a situation, and quite frankly, it's one of the reasons I watch your videos. They're always positive... and the visual style is always amazing!
hate the fest even more. it's bad enough the people who wanted to go couldn't go because scalpers. And it's impossible to do raids by yourself and it sucks for people who have to work missing those two day events. But....you do have a point. It was nice to see a lot of pkmn go trainers least enjoying the game. :)
*positive youtube comment about Pogo*
Poppukon doesn't exist
Pleas look at his hand at 2:44 or 2:45 lined perfectly
Giomaro Winta noice
Giomaro Winta haha I love this!
Giomaro Winta that's crazy maybe that means that his thoughts aline with his inner self
its a symbol of last hope for pokemon go...
That was a perfect description of the event. Thank you for being honest. I really enjoyed meeting you and did have a great time the night after the event!
Of course, Nick has always given us a honest opinion of something going on and I was starting to doubt this video would exist! Thank you Nick for your honest opinion!
ThePuppetMaster exactly
Wow bookmarked by Nick, thanks bro!
ThePuppetMaster he only bookmarked you because you are blind of his fake video, this was sponsored by niantic, they are playing cleanup for the pile of shit poke fest was.
Harry Tomato wow dude chill...
Jay Ham so what if it was crap it isn’t Nick’s fault that go fest sucked he is giving you HIS opinion about what happened. Niantic isn’t only at fault, the phone carriers were at fault too he even said that sprint were the only ones who brought the personal cell towers and all the others thought they could handle the traffic, but they couldn’t. So don’t go bashing on him because of this.
very awesome Nick you did a great job delivering a very honest and great message to everyone thanks to you and Niantic.
The line sucked (2.5 hours,) I didn't catch a single Pokémon at the event until 1:00 PM, I only caught 3 the whole time at the event, and I couldn't do a singe raid. But I agree Nick I had a good time met a lot of cool people. I went back Sunday and did really good. Nick I was so surprised when I turned around and you were standing behind me at the cross walk. Its was awesome to meet you. One of the people I met from Wales wanted to catch a Tauros so bad before he left the US! Poor guy I told him they're extinct now! LMAO
Chris614 Ha I'm from Wales but I hack got 3 tauroses
Also just wanted to say, it's awesome that the Pokemon Community can rely on you to be as objective as possible when presenting your opinions and information about the game. It is really nice to know that we have one of us representing Pokemon Go, someone who really cares about the players (which makes sense because you are one of the biggest fans of the game). You have a very level head on your shoulders, and we all appreciate everything that you do to enhance the game play experience for people all over the world! I would like to offer one thought about the Legendaries: I believe John Hanke planned to release them AFTER the even the entire time. The element of surprise was the absolute key component to create the most hype/excitement as physically possible, and I really don't think there could have been any better way for us to experience our first legendaries. We were literally RUNNING to Buckingham fountain, which before the event started I thought that would be the location of the first legendary raid. It was the most beautiful place to catch one and although I couldn't connect much to catch one at that specific gym, I caught one right next to the fountain and the whole experience was AMAZING!!! Definitely had a renewed love for the game after that, so thank you Niantic for bringing us together in such a fun way as this!! :-)
It's not really Niantic's fault that the cell providers couldn't handle the traffic. They tried but you can only do so much. At least in the end they were willing to compensate people which was a good gesture. They easily could have made people cut their losses....
kupop0w I don't buy it tho. Network providers are profit oriented organization, so when Niantic tells them about the event it's impossible they'd say "it's okay and we can handle the traffic". That's not how business works.
At the least, network providers definitely would try to offer special services to minimize the potential connectivity issues with extra charges. Niantic didn't take the deal and shit happened.
I think the blame has been unfairly put on the game over the network providers. Yes they could have tried harder but when a company is telling you we can deal with your worse case why would you try harder. I think this is a eye opener for phone networks to how little they can deal with in this type of event. But on the other hand I wasn't at the event so I have been enjoying the double days while I can
John Miller yes. Soo true
John Miller no there a company and niantic has a record to not care until it really matters and gains them profit they have shown thia time and time again
John Miller for connecting to the game? Sure, but there are plenty of other non cell company issues with game effecting performance. For how the event itself was run? They should have been able to plan out lines and other issues. Heck if you were watching the stream there was almost no content, just splash screen 9 times out of 10 and audio issues. We have how many diff conventions for stuff like UA-cam, gaming, comics, etc and they couldn't find someone to hire who could figure out how manage 20k ppl in a park? How much more money do they have to make to hire professionals to run an event or launch a new feature without major issues potentially making the game unplayable.
I cant see blaming niantic for the cell service issues, however, only 2 days for the anniversary? It just feels cheap and disappointing.... This should be a massive, worldwide celebration, not a smack in the face to the loyal players that happen to work this weekend.
Nick the best part of the day was getting to meet you and Reversal and getting you guys to both sign my Snorlax hat and getting a brief moment to chat. Go Fest was a bust in terms of catching pokemon there, but that evening with all the legendary raids and running into groups of players around Chicago was awesome. Did you get a chance to see Chicago at all? Loved meeting you and Rev and your content, keep up the great work!
If you think this was bad, Mall of Scandinavia 12 of august in Sweden will be a disaster. The mall it self has no connection at all (I tryied today), it will simply not work at all. I am just letting anyone that are thinking about comming know that you should be aware of that it can be a risk..
Honestly they didn't need to stream the event literally nothing exciting happened except the announcement of lugia and articuno.
Darkstar 480 to be fair, the stream was how the event was going, so it's at least accurate.
Yes, how can you even call posting a banner for 4 hours with no sound a live stream?
DMP right?
I think the audience here needs to understand something:. Nick is sharing an honest experience; he's telling about his time there and how he chose to spend it (not necessarily in game the entire time.) He also qualified and said that his experience WAS NOT necessarily the average person's experience and that he sympathizes with the average event attendee. Also, he hasn't "sold out," he was trying to share a behind the scenes perspective on the event that you normally wouldn't have seen. To say he's sold out because he partnered with Niantic and tried to share a different perspective and maybe make a bit of money (who among us lives without money?) is, frankly, ungrateful.
yeah I know. Nick sounds pretty honest to me. if people can't trust him, maybe they just can't trust. what else more do you want him to say?
dorian R don't you get it? He try to convince you by using everything . I mean everything such as body language, his tone of voice , but i guess you can't understand that because you are too dumb brahh
nathakij wow dude, can you teach me how to do that?
Nick! first of all thanks for your honest opinion, I didn't went to Go fest because I´m really far but I saw it and stay tuned all the day, so in my opinion a lot of issues were there, but I think it was awesome to meet people, to share the experience and enjoy the rest of the day with friends, it´s also true that some people paid a lot of money to attend, that network wasn't right and even that some of them were hours waiting in the line but this is just the beginning, they´ve learned, we learned and I´m sure next events will get better and better; Also it´s sad to know this day is going to be remembered as a bad day, because it wasn't a bad day at all, it was just the first fest, so let´s be more receptive and help them to get better for next events!
By the way thanks for all the videos and sharing your experience with us, you are amazing!
Love you
It’s 2021 and wow Pokémon go has only gotten better why am I here?🤔
I hate to complain because this game is awesome, but I have a bone to pick.... Niantic needs to even out how the teams system works. We get it - Mystic has the most players. Mystic wins every contest because they have the most players. Now, I get less poké balls to throw during legendary raids because inevitably Team Instinct is in the minority of a group of 20 players. It's like they just keep punishing us for unknowingly picking this team that is less popular. I downloaded this app and picked my team the day it released. There was no way to know that team mystic would be so much larger than valor and instinct. Can we think of a more constructive way to help level this out?
Christopher Browne actually in our area its valor that dominates numbers wise. But at a raid today, the mystics that showed up to a legendary raid voluntarily split to a different group and instinct and valor battled together, and we (instinct) dominated. It was a blast. Maybe just try coordinating more? Facebook/discord/map webpages all work well in Washington State. Wish the game allowed texting or messages within the app; but i think Nick was right a while back when he said people with no good intentions might take advantage of any direct communications
Roll with more instinct. Me and my instinct friends are always 1st or at least 2nd for extra premier balls.
I'm on team Mystic, and I still feel that a contest between teams should grant the less populated teams a handicap. For example, it should be: [number of Pokemon caught by team] divided by [number of participating players on the team] = [VICTORY].
Ryan V Thanks for the suggestion! I guess what bothers me about that is the inconvenience of having to take extra steps. It's the whole, "Why should I have to do this extra work for this game when other players on other teams don't need to worry about it." I don't mean to sound lazy because I am not, but it's extra work for this game I already invest my time and money in to that others don't have to. Say a raid is near me, I would have to hope that other Instinct players are near and available. Where if I were team Mystic, or in your situation, you would be Valor - you could just show up to any raid and know you have a good shot at receiving a bonus.
In the current set up, your solution is forsure the best path to take for Instinct players. I just think that Niantic could come up with a better solution to this issue that doesn't create extra work for less populated teams. I get they couldn't have predicted the huge gap in the numbers, but it's an unfortunate reality that should (and could) be dealt with.
It should seriously work like any sports teams out there - cap it at a certain amount per "region" so that if there's already a fixed amount of say, Mystic, you have to join the other teams that are lacking players.
I'm in Germany, and people grouping on legendaries happens so much! I can always guarantee beating a boss legendary.
I was one of those who couldn't login at all until the GoFest ended. Even after it ended my connection was spotty at best but I still had a ball. Initially I was terrified that I would return home without having caught even one legendary, Unown or Heracross but John Hanke assured me that "everything would be made available to all attendees" so I relaxed and started enjoying myself.
Once the Legendary Raids started everyone was hyped and the only complaints were about staying connected. In the first few raids most people weren't able to catch the birds until the catch rate was "abandoned". If people had a problem with that, it didn't stop them from rushing to catch as many as they could. In my opinion no one can say that it was too easy to get the legendaries if they look at the whole picture. To catch legendaries we stood in line for upwards of four hours; walked through mud; ate horrible food; baked in the sun for 12 hours, fought with our phones all day to get and,or keep internet connection; faced our personal fears; fought back anger; ran all over Chicago on foot and FINALLY after 12 hours we engaged the Legendary Birds. Anyone who believes that catching the birds in Chicago was easy only looked at the final step. Believe me, if the catch rate of 2% hadn't been abandoned, there would have been RIOTs that night..
I gained a lot of respect for John Hanke. He could have hid away when things got ugly but he stationed himself at the bottom of the stage to engage with the attendees.
ironically enough Nike I was going to just hang out side the event since I couldn't get tickets 😂. It is their first event so ppl need to relax a little about, I could imagine the frustration on the players side but I am sure it was an epic moment and event. to be apart of that is pretty awesome! niatic might just need to hire ppl who plan the super bowl or organizes major stadium size events. have one entrance was a major failure. I think anyone could have predicted that.
You make things as you see them. Always look for the positive. Exactly! Yes there were problems but it still looked fun!
To those upset with Nick thinking that he sold out and is not sharing his honest opinion I must attest that like Nick there are people who had a great time a GO Fest. I attended, my game rarely worked, but I still had a blast meeting people from all around the world, seeing people's costumes, and exploring Chicago. I understand why people were upset, I attended the same shit show as everyone else, but it was still fun for me. Different people had different experiences. Just because someone else's experience was different from yours doesn't mean that they're lying about their experience.
To the people upset about the 100% catch rate in Chicago, I agree that it was a bad idea, but if it makes you feel any better, the 100% catch rate was only for those who signed in to GO Fest with the codes provided on location. Point being, spoofers were not able to get that 100% catch rate. Also, keep in mind that many people who attended the festival made great sacrifices to be there. To be able to get legendaries in the city made those sacrifices worth it to a lot of people.
And to those upset about how difficult it is to catch legendaries. They are legendaries. The difficulty is what gives them such great value! Keep trying! Now more than ever is the time to meet new people, get a group going, and explore!
AlexGT230 Exactly! I don't understand why people aren't getting all this. Mind boggling!
AlexGT230 according to your comment, those who catch legendary with 100% catch rate is worthless
Yup I agree, that's exactly why I said it was a bad idea, but I can still acknowledge how it made the sacrifices that many people made worth it. I met a married couple with 2 kids at the festival who came in from Texas. They had to take off of work, make an exhausting trip with kids which is never easy, and spend over a thousand dollars total just for hotels, plane tickets, etc. That was their vacation for the year, that's all they could afford. The excitement on their kids' faces when they caught their first legendary in Chicago made the entire trip worth it for them. Without that they would have gone home miserable. This way they were able to leave with smiles on their faces.
After reading through most of the other comments....HOW DARE YOU HAVE COMMON SENSE AND THINK LIKE AN ADULT! That is apparently not allowed in this videos comment sectoin.
I caught 2 Pokemon the entire day. My phone (about 6months old) was useless well into the evening and even seemed glitchy the next day. Others in my group had limited connectivity until later. My biggest complaints were that the water stations were empty most of the day and Rachel Quirico's absolute lack of empathy for the frustrations of the crowd. She just seemed to ignore it. And she is a gamer. Thanks to YOU Nick, for staying out to interact with fellow trainers 4 times longer than you were scheduled to, signing everything and being so polite. Meeting you was one of the day's highlights.
Here's the thing. Unlike launch and when Gen 2 was released, Niantic's servers actually handled the load. The only place where people were having problems with the game was at Go Fest. It was the cellular companies and the towers in the area that couldn't handle the load. It wasn't the game.
ditto. at other times, when a special event came out - gen 2, fire and ice, grass, etc., Niantic's servers would be down and I couldn't even log in for maybe the first day. this time, I logged in just fine. and I am in Chicago suburbs. so, again, I don't think this was Niantic's servers crashing, I think this was the cell towers around Grant park. people should not be so black and white and not solely blame Niantic. it sounds like they did what they could.
I spend thousands of dollars on beer , Heineken never sends me 100 free beers
Do you know the rarest things to find in Pokémon Go, satisfied players
Heck ! Lol too many angry people for me. I still enjoy playing, I have a full time job so didn't get to take advantage of much today, but it's still awesome to see legendaries and people actually working together to form groups to play.
Heck ! I'm happy with the game
Nick Monte SAME
Hold this W
Oh God, we are in Pokemon Go. The Matrix is real!!!
Nick - agree with your lessons learned - the connectivity issue was reasonably foreseeable.
The best part of the day up until 7:10 p.m. or so was meeting you, the person who has been providing me with good advice and tips since I started playing a little over a year ago.
I was there I waited for 3 and a half hours to get in
Great Video Nick & Yes The Fest Was Crazy & Many People Were Very Upset ! Much Love 2 All
#TeamMystic #414KillaSquad
Nick your the man, really appreciate you meeting us fans. Keep making good videos 👍. Just wished i had a sharpie on me so you couldve signed my hat 😑
Thanks alot Nick for your comprehensive explanation at what actually happen at event was actually hoping for this, keep up the good work :)
So if it was a bandwidth issue then why could players freely access Facebook, Twitter and even UA-cam?
He said why in the video you dingus - he has T-Mobile and the players with the hardest time getting online were AT&T and VZW users.
This is sponsored content. They literally told you its okay, you should never be told it's okay to speak.
What did those special eggs contain?
Andi Serban the eggs had a chance to hatch any pokemon from spinorak to lapras. So, normal eggs, just everything is 2k distance.
Andi Serban 5k and 10k pokemon
i saw lapras and skarmory hatches
They should have extended the 100% catch rate through out the world, we helped unlock all the shit and only the Fest people basicly get the Legendaries for free. Massive let down by Niantic.
David de Vries Niantic fucked up the numbers
David de Vries But that would make the game WAY too unbalanced, as in having a legendary is now not valueable at all, it's worthless.
David de Vries you didnt help anything they were going to release the legendaries regardless of whether yu caught the 5 pidgeys or not
Yeah, but we helped to release all bonusses for the max time. And those damn birds cost me a lot of raid passes because of the low catch rate and for the Fest people it is a 100% catch rate, a free Lugia too, and we are sweating our balls off to get them. That doesn't seem fair to me at all.
David de Vries then you shouldve gone to the event. You realize that no matter what, the people that went were going to get something special. Thats what an event is meant for. Why would you buy a ticket to the event and then not get anything? And as for you not being able to catch a legendary? Guess what its a legendary pokemon not a ratata of course its gonna be hard to catch
Thanks Nick, for this. I was trying to follow on the "live feed" and some twitter comments and the day was pretty slow, (in Los Angeles) BUT as soon as the event ended and the MAD SPAWNS started and Lugia dropped it was like being in fairyland, had a great week :)