But how can you not remember if I've me that the sound? How can you not remember I logged in? With a handful of ultrabasic bugs it feels like they just didn't even try.
If they are network issues why do I get stuck in a try again later screen were the only thing I can do is force quit the app?
It's a lazy as hell and Nintendo should be ashamed that someone's dragging their name down like that.
The real killer? I love the idea of this app. I'd probably end up spending a bunch of money on it if I kept it around for a couple months, because I don't have the time I need to play it the free way. It's fun (or it at least scratches that grindy type itch), and it's the only game I've ever been able to play with my partner. I'm on the verge of uninstalling right now though, because every time I get the chance to play, the app dies in my hands.
This doesn't just happen when in "catch a pokemon" minigame mode. This happens at all screens. The game was programming to expect full, 100% network connectivity, and if it loses that for even a brief moment, the whole thing comes crashing down, requiring a full kill and reset.
Can someone explain this? Isn't the value of a game in the playing of it? If a millionaire could pay to have hundreds of Pokemons spawning in their living room so they can get more points than anyone without leaving the house, what would be the point? If you're having fun playing with your girlfriend, but don't have much free time, why would paying to catch up matter? Did they design it to be limited gameplay, where you only get a teaser if you don't play it all the time, requiring that you buy things in order to get any real gameplay time out of it?
to it I'd add that this is also the difference between the $20/hour programmer and the $200/hour programmer -- speaking in broad strokes, knowingly, and if you'll indulge me charitably. Because the difference between the commodity "let's ship something!" programmer/engineer and the one who truly knows his/her stuff, and who truly thinks about and knows about and cares about the edge cases, the big picture, the total system, all possible states in the state machine space, is what justifies those differences in (ostensible) upfront cost.
If you only want "the user is in location X and so icon Y should be rendered on their screen at point P" then you can get that pretty cheap, at globalization-plus-crowdsourced-plus-cloud-reduced prices
But if you want that above but also, with good performance, correctness, stability, scale, all edge cases handled reasonably and gracefully, and in v1.0, and well documented, and with good English, and maturity, curtesy, legality, i18n, etc... well, then you're going to pay. Or you should expect to pay. There's no such thing as a free lunch. Ever. If you think you have a free lunch, or a reduced cost lunch, then all it means is that somebody else off-stage is paying for that difference. And that difference may come back to bite you.
You could have a hundred "$200/hour programmers" on the team for this app, but if management says they need to ship three weeks early to catch the buzz, or something like that, it doesn't matter. We can't say the developers were bad. I mean it's possible, given how poorly the game handles network disconnections, among other bugs. But unfortunately we don't live in a utopia where the guys writing the code get to decide when they want to release. Or if features get added in the last minute. Etc.
But TBH, that is probably not about how much the engineering team is paid, it's about what culture they have. Nintendo's console development teams would never ship something with this many catastophic bugs. Niantic has probably decided that the way they're doing things is "industry standard" (within the context of mobile and their particular silo) and does not need substantial improvement.
Edit: How poor is this code, you ask? It does not let me rename my Pokemon. A race condition occurs where it tries to pop up the Android keyboard and close it at the same time.
in many situations, an owner/manager/lead is making decisions where, frankly, the company has no revenue so they know their ostensible default spending path is equivalent to a ticking time bomb.
or... they don't truly know whether or how well the engineer can deliver, yet they do know for sure definitively what their dollar spend will be. thus, the results we see.
In many places, this happens with at least 50% probability on a mobile connection. It literally fails more often than not. The advice people are giving is to turn off LTE, which seems to help for some reason. But come on.
Once you get in it'll still have to download locations of nearby pokestops and gyms, which is another chance to hang and require a relaunch. Network glitches are not handled gracefully.
On the hang while catching a Pokemon: my guess is it's trying to ask the server if the Pokemon breaks free of the ball. Sometimes when you exit and relaunch you'll have gotten the Pokemon, other times it's totally gone. When the game works properly you get to keep trying, but if it locked up on network issues and made you quit, you don't get the chance. People are understandably annoyed at server issues screwing them out of rare captures.
In fact, I quite enjoy it. It's a little simple for the first few levels, but that's how Pokemon games have always been!
Once you level up your character, you'll start getting harder Pokemon to catch and you can start trying to take and hold gyms. And you'll get enough candies to start upgrading and evolving your Pokemon as well.
To put it plainly, this is the first mobile game in years to get me really excited about getting out there and doing things. Ingress was okay for a while, but never amazing. Zombies Run! had issues that I never got over, and I just quit... And it wasn't really compelling anyhow.
But this? My wife and I repaired the tires on our bikes after years of saying we'd do that, and we've been on multiple bike rides already. I'm quite looking forward to continuing that trend, and without the Pokemon aspect, I know it wouldn't happen as often, if at all.
So no, it's not "objectively bad". It's quite clearly compelling and enjoyable for a lot of people, just maybe not for you. And that's perfectly okay on all accounts.
For those who don't want to invest too much time, they can occasionally boot up the app when they walk around and catch a few pokemon. Those who are more hardcore will probably stick around at gyms and battle away.
It's fucking bullshit.
I'm so tired of people releasing utter crap and claiming it's OK to fix it later. You know what happens when you do that? You turn off a huge number of people and poison the brand.
It's not like if they waited an extra months to actually fix the issues (which were apparently well known in Beta) the Pokémon brand would've been dead no one would've cared. This isn't tied to some new property that no one knows if it will succeed.
This is tarnishing a major brand and ruining a fantastic opportunity.
All because a bunch of developers don't care enough about what they're making. They don't have enough pride in their products because "people will buy crap, we can fix it later."
Apparently what happens is your app becomes one of the most downloaded in history.
The truth is, those "lazy developers" are right. They can release utter crap and fix it later. People will put up with it simply because of their emotional investment in the brand, and it will make money regardless of its issues.
I don't understand why this discussion is about the developers. Do you think Tim, who writes network code for the iOS version, gets to say when they launch?
No. Some top dog at Niantic says "We're launching early to catch the summer buzz while kids are out of school." And Tim says "But we don't handle network disconnects gracefully yet." And top-dog man says "Can you still catch Pokemon and battle at gyms?" And Tim admits, "Yes, you can." And top-dog says: "We launch tomorrow, then."
I wouldn't blame this too much on laziness but on incompetence.
Also the 3DS has patching/software updates. The Pokemon Company could release games as buggy as they want. They have the good sense not to do that, since it devalues their product.
Doesn't that mean the game is good? Lots of people enjoy Uno, not every game can be Go (nor should it). If you're having fun, you're doing it right.
What the client should be doing is gracefully reconnecting and picking up at the state it left off in... which it certainly is NOT doing right now.
EDIT: I'm not talking about Imgur. I'm talking about Imgur's posts about Pokemon Go. My bad for the ambiguity.
Pokemon Go is already showing signs of the same problem at Gyms, where newer players are going to have to grind for days to take on a gym that their team doesn't already own.
It would help to add to the density of the map in less populated areas, though that might make the trespassing issue a lot worse.
Of course that hasn't stopped me from sinking a lot of time into it this weekend. I've spent $10 on it, which is easily a record for free to play game for me.
The server issues are one thing, but the game doesn't even get lots of basic things right. If the server goes away, or sometimes if I'm just out of the app too long, I have to log back in. It seems to forget my settings for weather I want sound and music on, or to use the AR functions. I've run into numerous crashes and graphical glitches. Input getting confused requiring app restarts. Poor handling of the (common) network/server issues.
One of the mechanics requires walking around, which it won't track outside the app despite the fact that iPhones have had motion coprocessor for years. So they offer a special mode (very poorly documented) that basically turns the screen black and tries to reduce power usage a bit. But you have to keep the Pokémon app open to track steps.
I am having fun. I REALLY hope they can fix these issues. I sought earlier today that they do plan to add Pokémon trading and expand the functionality of the various waypoints in the world. I'd also love to be able to battle my friends.
The social aspect on this just amazes me. In the last couple of days they're been numerous times when I saw a random people clearly playing this game. Guys walking around parking lots at work, cars parked at empty banks that were closed because there happened to be a gym there. Numerous posts on social media about random gatherings and flash mobs because of something going on in the game.
It's clear that Ingress had a pretty good idea. Tying it to a major brand (not unlike the way Mario kart was created) that really encourages the collecting aspect and getting it out on iOS at basically the same time have clearly made a huge difference.
I'll also say, is a Pokémon fan I'm glad that it's only the 150 original in the game. At this point there are way too many Pokémon that seem the same to me, so I'm glad to see my old friends instead. I imagine that'll change someday but this is a good start.