Pokemon Go is official out in the NA tonight...

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Get a battery saver from your local store to get heaps of extra battery life very cheaply

So, I decided to give this game a try, to see what it's all about, and also see how an AR game really works (those have been very, very rare up till now).

I havent done much yet, though I did catch a Rattata in the basement, which seems fitting.

But what I spotted in the park is what really gets me. I dont mean while IN the park, I mean while looking at it on the map. I live in a wealthy rural area (the way I describe the location of the region is that it is "on the border between civilization, and unending grass and farms"), and there's a park across the street. Well, accross it if you go around the Big Pointless Wall. A very "open" area, that park. No trees, and you can easily see the other subdivision that's on the other side. Every part of the park is visible from every other part. It's not at all a big place, not like a state park or forest preserve, this is the sort of place where you go to exercise or walk your dog, with a few sports fields around.

I look at the map... and the place is STUFFED with marked locations. 18 Pokestops, and 3 gyms. Many of the stops are the exercise stations that are spaced around the big path that circles the park. One stop is a plaque on the Mysterious Building (I have no idea what it's for), though the photo makes it look like the stop is a pair of garbage cans. One gym is the parking lot. Another gym is a big patch of tall grass (???), otherwise featureless (in a region that's mostly featureless to begin with, aside from the 2 nearby subdivisions).

I'd be interested to know how the hell it decides on these locations. Within the subdivision itself, there is nothing, which is expected. But the park? Those locations are minor things. The "exercise stations" are these big signs, with some sort of funky little machine or pile of instructions in front of it. I'd be interested to see just how far this app goes with this... there's a forest preserve I'd like to check out, a place with a few unique, named locations within it, provided you can manage to find them (very, very dense maze that's not cared for well, so the paths are hard to follow and often crossed by downed trees). They can be spotted from Google's overhead map but when you're in there, the place is a confusing mess. I'll be bloody amazed if ANY of them are marked, yet not entirely surprised after seeing the thing lock onto exercise stations in a park in the middle of nowhere.

I'm tempted to go to the park and have a look for myself, but at this time of day that'd be a fantastically bad idea. Pitch black over there and coyotes roam the area frequently... I'd really rather not run into any. Or the skunks, we get skunks around here. Ran into one of THOSE once; considering my sensory issues I was REALLY lucky to get away from it without the thing spraying at me. Awful little furball was like 4 feet away. Ugh.

Probably be a few days before I can really check it out though. With The Heatwave coming it'll be too dangerous to be outside for any real length of time.

Get hydrated before going out, take a bottle of water, and hydrate again once you get home. People just need to learn how to play outdoors, or re-learn it.

At the moment, it's not that simple.

I call it The Heatwave, capitalized, because it's not a normal one; this is one of the NASTY ones. AKA, actually dangerous. I go hiking alot (middle of nowhere means LOTS of forest preserves around here) and can handle some heat, but... 100 degrees isnt just heat. AND it's humid here. It's the sort of temperature you dont screw around with. If I wanted to walk around somewhere, I'd have to go to the mall and confine my wanderings to that structure.


On a side note, I figured out why there's 10 squillion stops visible from my house:



This explains why someone took photos of garbage cans in the park. AKA, someone with WAY too much free time on their hands (which describes.... everyone in this region, because there's nothing to do here) wandered around that one park and submitted every conceivable object as a "landmark".

Considering the stories I'm reading online about how rural areas tend not to have ANY pokestops unless you're willing to drive for a million miles, this is like winning the lottery. I mean, really, 18? 3 gyms? According to half the internet, that just doesnt happen.

Wandering down to the local Walmart, however, produced a big pile of nothing. That's the beginning of the populated zone, too, by the dreaded Route 59 (traffic nightmare; yes, you get traffic nightmares in rural areas, this runs along THE shopping center of this region, which is right next to the central corporate area too, though even these areas are very open and not like a city). I didnt have a chance to actually see if there were Pokemon in the store though. I'll do that later to see what results occur. But there's no stops around there. I suspect if I wandered over towards the Gamestop there would be though.

I was bad the other day and played in the car while stuck in stop and go traffic in downtown Seattle, it was extremely profitable, as I was able to hit dozens of pokestops, catch a ton of pokemon, and I was moving slow enough to count as walking for egg hatching purposes. I'm still a piker at the game, just playing here and there, but it's pretty fun, I gave them $10 for some incense and lucky eggs to show my appreciation.

I wasn't clear, Misery. I did get the impression that you know your way around The Big Room. I had already been thinking about those issues and your post reminded me of that.

I read that the game draws data from Google Maps, so I intend to add various worthy places when I find them in areas with few stops. I walked around two cemeteries, and found the little pedestrian gate between them. They each had a stop at the entrance and a gym at the big monument, but the cemeteries are large, and it was a quarter of a mile walk between them. I marked a statue of St Francis. I like him anyway; he opposed torture in no uncertain terms and in all cases. I'll mark more, and find out if they get added to P Go.

Got an extra charger and a battery pack, so I'm ready to go. I've been slacking lately and I ran out of pokeballs. I had about 200 a week or two ago.

Even though I never understood the Pokemon craze which began in the 90s, I decided to download this as I enjoy walking.

Should I be transferring those which I have captured twice?

I only have 9 Pokemon at the moment and my level is a mere 4.

You can transfer the lower CP pokemon for candy. Evolving pokemon gives you a lot of experience. If you want a bigger XP boost you can wait until level 9 (I think) to evolve all your pokemon because you get an egg (1 time use) that doubles your XP. You can also buy eggs if you want to spend money.

Thank you ^^.

Guys!! My Pidgeotto FINALLY evolved into a Pidgeot! Soo happy!

Went to a large waterfront park today, everything there was playing and there were actual crowds around pokestops that had lures on them. It was pretty cool, chatted with some people, caught a bunch of water pokemon, and strangely, a bunch of fire ones as well, especially Charmander. I'm actually low on pokeballs, going to have to do one of my patented pokestop drive by runs later tonight to restock.

Well I've upgraded to a newer phone so I've downloaded the game...but haven't done much on it as I am letting my phone charge. Now I can join most everyone else I live with on quests to catch the pokemon and get to catch some myself.

I've met two kinds of people: obsessed and never played it. Technically three kinds, since the second type includes those who haven't tried it yet and those who absolutely refuse to play. Speaking as one of the obsessed, I respect their choice.