Niantic Disables Pokemon GO Tracking, Shuts Down Third-Party Tracking Sites

[MrHide-Patten]

I've always found the comeback of "people using Poke-vision are lazy cheaters" to be grasping at straws, defending the game for bad design decisions for I don't know, blind nostalgia.

The one weekend when I really used Pokevision, I went into the city center (Melbourne CBD to everybody at home) as the place where I live is damn near desolate (Pokemon Go's contempt for rural players is already well established) and went to the local gardens by the river to catch Seels that were consistently showing up on Pokevision. That day I walked 17 kilometers. I would run across the bridges and to one side of the garden to the other to go after ones I really wanted to catch.

I know that there's quite a few people that are all well and good to wander aimlessly like a bunch of zombies, but I and quite a few other people like having goals and destinations. If I wanted to wander around aimlessly with a battery hungry app running at all times, I'd leave the flashlight on.

 

[Zendariel]

As a non player, I have questions about the third party shutdown.

Whats the monetization / microtransaction side of the game entail?
Does showing the locations, spawn times and spawn duration windows undermine that monetization?

Because as someone watching from the sidelines, when you remove a community tool which amounts to (and I could be wrong, or thinking of a different site here) users effectively sharing information for a better experience...I assume its making your microtransactions redundant/limited in appeal, so you're killing it off.

Chipping in here, microtransactions in pokemon go include pokeballs, experience boosts, way to hatch multiple pokemon eggs at once, increasing pokemon and item storage and two ways to lure pokemon. Only the last ones could really be undermined by these sites that locate the pokemon for you and even then not that much.

Following is based on my understanding and might contain inaccuracies. The two ways to lure pokemon do not move them closer, but instead spawn new pokemon to the world. First of these spawns pokemon at your location and i think only the person using this kind of lure sees those pokemon. The other kind of lure spawns pokemon to a pokestop and these spawn for everyone nearby. The spawns seem to be somewhat random so it does not really help find the nearby rare pokemon, but may help find some completely different pokemon.


On the general topic.
I've yet to experience the tracking as I only started playing when it officially released on my area(Finland) and the feature was already broken. But i hope they reintroduce it at some point. Someone on this thread said the closest pokemon is seen on the top left of the list which is something that I've been speculating but have not been sure of. If it turns out to be true it would already be helpful.

I would not mind if there was a site that showed the tracking similarly to what is in the game but I personally considered pokevision to be a bit too powerful to use so I chose not to check it out. I was close but felt it would undermine my enjoyment of the app so I have no firsthand experience with the sites. I think niantic was a bit too harsh in closing these sites as they do help people and some get more enjoyment playing that way, but it's also a somewhat competitive experience so it probably was a little too helpful and could unbalance the game.

 

[Maze1125]

Yes they have, they absolutely have.

They have shut down ALL tracking for the game. In the game AND out of it.

Every single action they have taken is indicating that they intend to remove tracking from the game. If they intend otherwise then why don't they say so?

It would take a single tweet "Hey, don't worry, tracking wasn't working so we removed it but we fully intend to add it back once we get it working!"

But that haven't even done that.

Your argument is based upon nothing but hope and good will, mine is based upon what the company is actually doing.

Correction: Yours is based upon the removal of broken and bugged features and the shutdown of third party software that allowed for cheating.

That's not a correction. That's a best a clarification.
Those two things are what the company is doing, which is precisely what I said.

My argument is based on what the company is doing.

No, it was a correction. What you stated is not at all what I stated. You made a butchery of their actions and intentions to try and rationalize your point, which is a baseless claim.

Removal of a feature that doesn't work + shutting down third party sites used for cheating =/= taking actions to remove all tracking.

It's pretty pathetic how you're willing to distort reality to prove your point.

What's happening is BOTH.

The bugged feature was the tracking feature.
The third party sites used for cheating were tracking sites.

The fact you can describe them one ways DOES NOT make the other way of describing them wrong.

In one swoop they shut down ALL tracking for the game. That is pretty telling.

Certainly there are other reasons behind this but if they didn't intend to shut down tracking completely and it was just a coincidence that it's all happened at the same time then why haven't they said something?

 

[Yopaz]

You mean Pokemon GO right?

Nintendo doesn't own Pokemon or Pokemon GO. They just own a little over 30% of The Pokemon Company, who owns the IP.

Yeah, but the Wall Street thing is referring to the sudden spike when Pokemon GO came out I assume? Rather than throwing a tantrum that they realised the Pokemon Company was its own thing at some point I'm unaware of.

There was a sharp increase in the Nintendo share prices. Nintendo made an announcement that they did not expect to get much money from Pokemon Go as that was a property of Niantic in collaboration with the Pokemon Company of which they own 32% and the stock prices had a sharp decrease.
https://www.engadget.com/2016/07/25/nintendo-pokemon-go-shares-stock-fall/
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-25/nintendo-set-to-plunge-after-saying-pokemon-go-s-impact-limited
I'm not an expert on stock trading, but it still seems that their stock prices are far better than they were prior to the release of Pokemon Go. Don't take my word for it though, I have never taken a single class in economics.

So, this sounds like the game is just utterly broken right now. Can someone tell someone who is unable to play how this actually affects playing it?

They'll reintroduce tracking soon, especially with how many people are whining about it. But there is literally no reason for entitled fans to be so aggressive towards Niantic.

I didn't know wanting a game to work was considered entitled. I mean, there are actual paying customers to my understanding so I think there is some degree of rightful entitlement.

Well, it's not much more broken than it was prior to the update. The tracking feature was partially working, you could choose to track a certain Pokemon and get a green circle around the marker when you were moving in the correct direction, but it was not very good. I tried to track Pokemon using this and I have mainly found them by random when I knew that there was cause to look. The only difference is that the third party applications that allowed us to track monsters accurately don't work now. Personally I think they should have fixed the tracking feature before doing this to avoid people getting pissed. I still enjoy it though. It's a good excuse to walk places I normally don't walk, nut I really hope they get their shit together.

 

[Kahani]

Yeah, but the Wall Street thing is referring to the sudden spike when Pokemon GO came out I assume? Rather than throwing a tantrum that they realised the Pokemon Company was its own thing at some point I'm unaware of.

No, he's referring to the fact that Nintendo stock dropped by the largest amount allowed by the Tokyo stock market in one day (18%), in their biggest fall for nearly three decades, after Nintendo pointed out that they didn't actually own Pokemon and, more importantly, didn't expect its success to significantly affect their earnings. Their stock has dropped a further 10% in the week since. That still leaves them around 50% higher than they were to start with, but seems to demonstrate just how little the idiots gambling on the market actually understood about the situation - Nintendo shares shot up a ridiculous amount because people thought they were suddenly going to make tons of money, and then shot back down when told that wasn't actually the case.

 

[Maze1125]

Relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdXoLMWCRWI

 

[Maze1125]

It's pretty pathetic how you're willing to distort reality to prove your point.

What's happening is BOTH.

The bugged feature was the tracking feature.
The third party sites used for cheating were tracking sites.

The fact you can describe them one ways DOES NOT make the other way of describing them wrong.

In one swoop they shut down ALL tracking for the game. That is pretty telling.

Certainly there are other reasons behind this but if they didn't intend to shut down tracking completely and it was just a coincidence that it's all happened at the same time then why haven't they said something?

I've never distorted anything. I've stated exactly what happened and their intentions.

Intent and reasoning are the key factors here. Removing a feature that doesn't work, and closing down sites that allow for cheating are nowhere near the same ballpark as removing a feature and closing down helpful third party sites.

Besides:

"We have removed the '3-step' display in order to improve upon the underlying design,"

Yes, NOW they've said something. That doesn't change the fact that for days they hadn't and left everyone in the dark.

Dear lord man, don't just take terrible customer survive up the arse defending them with every breath. There was absolutely no reason they couldn't have just told us IN THE FIRST PLACE.

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

Yeah, but the Wall Street thing is referring to the sudden spike when Pokemon GO came out I assume? Rather than throwing a tantrum that they realised the Pokemon Company was its own thing at some point I'm unaware of.

No, he's referring to the fact that Nintendo stock dropped by the largest amount allowed by the Tokyo stock market in one day (18%), in their biggest fall for nearly three decades, after Nintendo pointed out that they didn't actually own Pokemon and, more importantly, didn't expect its success to significantly affect their earnings. Their stock has dropped a further 10% in the week since. That still leaves them around 50% higher than they were to start with, but seems to demonstrate just how little the idiots gambling on the market actually understood about the situation - Nintendo shares shot up a ridiculous amount because people thought they were suddenly going to make tons of money, and then shot back down when told that wasn't actually the case.

So was this in the 90's? Because I assumed it was referring to the one in July when Pokemon Go was launched but you said that isn't what he's referring to (genuine question, as I assumed that was the event)

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Still there, those server issues.

No, they're not.

It's easy for you to make false statements with no knowledge or experience with the game. You make a lot of them.

Does that include all the other statements you haven't addressed?

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Still there, those server issues.

No, they're not.

Spoiler

It's easy for you to make false statements with no knowledge or experience with the game. You make a lot of them.

Does that include all the other statements you haven't addressed?

So you're showing me that the number of reports has largely diminished? Okay.

Glass half empty, glass half full. They're diminished. They're also still there.

Why should I give a toss, when you merely come here to spam one line posts with no real opinions?

Remind me what are "real" opinions, and how do I get mine certified.

 

[Maze1125]

Still there, those server issues.

No, they're not.

Spoiler

It's easy for you to make false statements with no knowledge or experience with the game. You make a lot of them.

Does that include all the other statements you haven't addressed?

So you're showing me that the number of reports has largely diminished? Okay.

Glass half empty, glass half full. They're diminished. They're also still there.

Why should I give a toss, when you merely come here to spam one line posts with no real opinions?

Remind me what are "real" opinions, and how do I get mine certified.

Real opinions are what Kibeth41 has.

They don't have to be backed up by evidence or be in anyway rational, simply be had by him.

Even better if evidence turns up afterwards, as that'll suddenly make the irrational optimism rational in retrospect.
Because that's how rational thinking works, obviously...

 

[Strazdas]

As always, its up to 3rd party to fix developer shit.

On Friday, Niantic CEO John Hanke said that he was "Not a fan," of these services

Tough shit, they did better services than you.

and that "They might find in the future that those things may not work."

Ah so you are going to disable the API and fuck people over because you dont like something?

Pokevision ceased to function, and its official Twitter said that the site was "respecting Niantic and Nintendo's wishes," indicating that they had been asked or told to shut down.

No, you are going to bully the people you dont like instead. And now i agree with the redditors on Niantic needs to be shut down.

But as the game exploded in popularity, a couple of issues came up. The first is that it was tanking the servers. All of the tracking was done server side, and not client side. The servers simply couldn't handle the individual tracking for millions of concurrent players. So that's where a lot of the server issues came from. The second is that the feature eventually bugged out, and the tracking would always display 3 footprints, no matter how near or far from a Pokemon you were. People are angry that instead of fixing the bug immediately, they removed the feature from the game.

Pokevision cropped up as a workaround, but that was way more efficient to a point where it's basically cheating. Instead of telling you if you were getting warmer or closer to a specific Pokemon, it'd literally just show you exactly where the Pokemon are on a map, and how long it'll be there for. Niantic didn't like this, so they removed it.

That is entirely Niantic's problem on having shit servers. The users should not be punished for this. if anything Niantic should be the ones punished for having shit servers. Especially when a fucking 3rd party already fixed this!

And no, its not cheating to have information that was both intended to begin with and should have been in the game easily available. Whats next, being able to reload a weapon without expanding full clip is cheating in a FPS now?

 

[Strazdas]

That is entirely Niantic's problem on having shit servers. The users should not be punished for this. if anything Niantic should be the ones punished for having shit servers. Especially when a fucking 3rd party already fixed this!

This post is so silly that I'm assuming it's intended to be sarcastic or ironic? I mean, it feels like you're going out of your way to BE the typical reddit poster with an inflated sense of entitlement that I described in my original post.

I'll talk about the points anyway, on the off-chance you're serious.

"How dare Niantic not prepare their servers for nearly 100 million downloads within the first month of release?! OUTRAGE!!!!"

^ Devs don't do this. No developer overshoots their server requirements on the assumption their game'll break records. If one is going to fault Niantic on not doing this, then it's just bad character to not remain consistent. Blame EVERY dev.

And no, its not cheating to have information that was both intended to begin with and should have been in the game easily available. Whats next, being able to reload a weapon without expanding full clip is cheating in a FPS now?

A shitty analogy does not make the point correct. There's no relevance between third party sites doing things the base game does not, and a game mechanic.

The information shown by Pokevision is not, and has never been accessible in the base game. Just because YOU want it to be does not mean it should. This is the entitlement I mentioned before.

And FYI. Third party devs never fixed the server issues. You made that statement up.

Devs most certainly DO do this and are always prepared for expansion. Good devs that is. Not that i would expect a company that churned out same game over and over again for two decades to be up to date with standards. And yes, the servers not working is ENTIRELY 100% developers fault, not the gamers fault.

The information shown by Pokevision should be in the base game regardless of whether developers put it in or not.

I didnt claim third party devs fixed the server issues, i claimed third party devs fixed the games issues, which they clearly did given that a feature that was broken was working with the 3rd party fix.

 

[Strazdas]

No, they don't.

and don't try and undersell the term "expansion", as if 25 million daily players in the US alone isn't larger than what 99% of games EVER get.

Its pokemon. On mobile. Noone in their sane mind would have expected it to have only a few million players at launch.

That's solely your subjective opinion (with no rationale behind it). But no, they shouldn't.

I don't want to be a hypocrite, so I'll give reasoning:

Pokemon Go's core design fundamentals is incentivising gamers to socialize. Part of the socializing comes from players talking and sharing information on Pokemon locations in what is essentially a glorified game of hide-and-seek.

If all of the Pokemon automatically appeared on the map. That entire social aspect would be gone.

If pokemons have a fixed location then that location has to be known. No buts, no ifs, no nothing. Despawn timers are also required in order to avoid the "despawn till i get there" problem.

Oh yeah, i forgot people hunching over their phones in front of a statue in a park is called socializing now.

Third parties didn't fix the feature. They offered a "map hack" alternative to cheat around it.

If they "fixed it", then Pokevision would be a replica of the 3 step tracking function.

They fixed a location of pokemon feature that the OP itself said was broken. Just because the broken feature was missing pieces does not make fixing it a cheat. Giving additional information to the player is NEVER a cheat. Its just giving player information.

Funny how people try to rationalize their usage of cheats. Just like how the people do here: http://imgur.com/gallery/ZzSGi#YzlF7xr

Ah yes, a few trolls raging about overzealous overwatch banwaves is certainly equitable to a 3rd party fix for a games bug.

Your entire paragraph was directed at server issues, followed by a vague "3rd party already fixed this!". Safe to assume you were still talking about server issues.

Yes, i can see how it can be read like that. I apologize for the confusion.

 

[Kahani]

So was this in the 90's? Because I assumed it was referring to the one in July when Pokemon Go was launched but you said that isn't what he's referring to (genuine question, as I assumed that was the event)

There are two separate events. There was a spike in the value of Nintendo stock when Pokemon Go was launched. This was then followed a few days later by sharp drop after Nintendo announced that Pokemon Go wouldn't affect their earnings because they don't actually own it. The tantrum RaikuFA was referring to was that later drop which you don't seem to have been aware of, not the spike immediately after release. My reference to the '90s was simply noting that even though Nintendo stock remains higher than before Pokemon Go released, the following drop was the worst they've seen in nearly 3 decades; enough to trigger safeguards in the exchange to prevent crashes, and while the loss has slowed their shares are still dropping. The point being basically that the stock market is stupid - Nintendo did basically nothing, yet their stock doubled in value then dropped by a third in the space of a few days because the people trading their shares didn't realise that the popular thing they'd heard about wasn't actually owned by Nintendo.

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

So was this in the 90's? Because I assumed it was referring to the one in July when Pokemon Go was launched but you said that isn't what he's referring to (genuine question, as I assumed that was the event)

There are two separate events. There was a spike in the value of Nintendo stock when Pokemon Go was launched. This was then followed a few days later by sharp drop after Nintendo announced that Pokemon Go wouldn't affect their earnings because they don't actually own it. The tantrum RaikuFA was referring to was that later drop which you don't seem to have been aware of, not the spike immediately after release. My reference to the '90s was simply noting that even though Nintendo stock remains higher than before Pokemon Go released, the following drop was the worst they've seen in nearly 3 decades; enough to trigger safeguards in the exchange to prevent crashes, and while the loss has slowed their shares are still dropping. The point being basically that the stock market is stupid - Nintendo did basically nothing, yet their stock doubled in value then dropped by a third in the space of a few days because the people trading their shares didn't realise that the popular thing they'd heard about wasn't actually owned by Nintendo.

Right, with it, sorry I must have miscommunicated something somewhere. I was aware of the drop after the Stock Market realised that Niantic and TPC would be the ones they should look at. This whole chain started because the first thing I replied to seem say the drop was due to finding out Nintendo didnt own Pokemon outright rather than that they owned very little of Pokemon GO (which I imagine is of greater importance to traders than how Sun and Moon are looking).

I then got reiterated that Nintendo doesnt own Pokemon outright which, while actually news to me, I dont think was the primary reason for the drop in stock in that instance?

I may have misunderstood something somewhere.

 

[Cati]

Welp that explains why I couldn't see the footprints any more. And there I was thinking my house was just overrun with Pokemon and I just couldn't see them.

I can understand why people are upset, especially considering how much money it costs to keep up if you're not able to spend ages walking around every day, and don't have any resources near you either.

 

[Maze1125]

So apparently they "fixed" tracking.
And what that means is that you still can't track pokemon unless they happen to be near a pokestop.

Now, I can see how that would be of some use to people with several pokestops nearby but to those of us with exact one pokestop nearby (and not within tracking range from their house) this is utterly useless.

We're going to go to pokestops anyway. We already had reason to go to them and so we gain absolutely nothing by being able to track pokemon which are at them.

The problem we had was the pokemon that aren't at the pokestops, and will still have to walk around randomly and just hope we run into them.

Is this is what they call tracking, then it is utterly useless to most people and I stand by my previous statements. All Niantic'c actions indicate they don't want us to be able to track pokemon in any reasonable way.