pls-end-my-existence-blog - Tumblr blog

pls-end-my-existence-blog · 6 years ago

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Get the fuck off your speakerphone, cunt

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pls-end-my-existence-blog · 7 years ago

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Feeling sick is just a bonus to your already shitty life

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pls-end-my-existence-blog · 7 years ago

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I swear to god the world is a simulation against me and they slow down time when I want it to be faster

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pls-end-my-existence-blog · 7 years ago

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I don't understand how people can bring screaming children into public places. Like my social anxiety is already so bad, how would I survive with everyone's eyes on me?

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pls-end-my-existence-blog · 8 years ago

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Mario Odyssey spoilers, trust me my uncle works at Nintendo

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pls-end-my-existence-blog · 8 years ago

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youtube can stop with the final fantasy xv ads now haha good one guys

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pls-end-my-existence-blog · 8 years ago

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PoGo Fest: Chicago

I currently have a mixture of emotions, but it’s mainly just disappointment. I attended PoGo Fest in Chicago today with an old roommate of mine. Going into it, I think everyone had high expecations and wild desires of what was to come–I know my friend and I did.

And oh my, I was surprised to find that Niantic squirmed out of this situation.

Firstly: my experience. My friend and I (codenamed Zebra from here on out) drove out from my house on Friday, arrived at our hotel that night, woke up at 4:30, got in line for the First Catch Hour, and participated in the event from opening til 6:30ish.

Now that’s the short version. Here’s a lengthier description with feelings:

Zebra and I were extremely excited to see each other again and spend some time playing a mutual favorite game at the first ever official, in-person, and live event. The roadtrip there seemed pretty short (compared to what others had to take), but we spent the entire time talking and speculating how we think the event will roll out. We knew that there will be three challenge windows and a mystery challenge if everyone globally participates well enough. We knew what bonuses were given if we caught certain amounts of different types of Pokemon.

But what we didn’t know, was that the event would be a disastrous and borderline-riot flop.

“I wonder if each team gets their bird, and we all share Lugia?”

“I bet we choose our own bird out of the four including Lugia.”

We fell asleep Friday the 21st with all of these thoughts and hopes in our minds. We woke up the next morning for the event at 4:30 and rushed ourselves ready to be the first ones in line for the First Catch Hour. Granted, we were told that the line couldn’t start earlier than 6, buuut we figured 5:40ish wouldn’t hurt. We found two Mystic players right outside our hotel doors that helped us to the gate. There were already about 35 people in line.

It was raining.

Zebra and I met some amazing people in line. One of them (apologies if I get the username wrong) being WildJoker1111. An elderly man still in his youth playing PoGo because of his granddaughter.

Level 40. A Dragonite with 100% IVs, a perfect legacy moveset, and roughly 3500 kilometers walked. A legend amongst his community, and now an icon stamped in my mind.

We all waited for hours until 9:00 rolled around and the gates.. Didn’t open. People started chanting: “Nine o'clock! Nine o'clock!”

The gates were opened just a few minutes shy of the original time at 9:00 to 9:03.

This was just one of the many red flags for PoGo Fest: Chicago.

We entered. Zebra and I got through security no problem. Checked our bags, went through a metal detector, and checked in using our wristbands. Each individual player received an envelope with a welcome message and a QR code to scan after spinning your first PokeStop and officially enter the arena.

Another red flag: after attempting to scan my QR code, my game crashed. Which *rarely* happens.

I try again, and it works the second time around. Zebra and I immediately run over to the concession stands to buy bottles of water and see if food is prepared, as we didn’t own any water bottles to begin with and we were fairly hungry.

We ran over to check all of the team lounges. By now, the rain had stopped, but one very large issue ruined most of the experience for me: the thick and sloppy mud spread across the entire main field. Aside from the main walkways, there weren’t any spots to find comfortable or dry footing. Even the area under the tents/lounges were soaking wet (which, mind you, *did not* change throughout the entirety of the event).

Big red flags came up, even during this First Catch Hour: my game is extremely laggy, my phone is already hot, and the game crashes occasionally whenever I tried to interact with things (Pokemon, PokeStops, and Gyms).

Nevertheless, Zebra and I pressed on. I was excited to find that each designated area of the field had a certain extra spawn rate for certain types. Valor’s lounge area was fire, Mystic’s was water, Instinct’s was electric, and there were spots on the other side of the main street for grass and rock Pokemon.

The more people that piled in, the more I found my game crashing, not loading things in properly, and lagging. Around 10, people were still flowing in from the First Catch Hour, which made their ‘bonus’ useless.

There were people calling out Unown spottings, but Zebra and I followed a herd of players towards the ass-end of the field.

A Heracross.

We were told on the main announcement page for PoGo Fest that there would be Pokemon that we normally couldn’t find in our region here. In North America, we have Tauros. Elsewhere in the world, there’s Heracross, Corsola, Farfetch’d, Mr. Mime, and Kangaskhan.

When we found the Heracross, my hopes for catching my beloved Kangaskhan soared higher, higher, and… Much too high for the Niantic team to pull off. Heracross and Unown would be the only ones making special appearances during PoGo Fest. This would be another red flag for me.

So, we notice that there are raids spawning at every gym in the field. After about fifteen minutes, they hatch into none other than the Pokemon poster child: Pikachu. From there on out, there would be raids spawning at certain times (usually at the start of challenge windows). Rhydon, Charizard, and Lapras to name a few. This would have been amazingly cool…

If I could have played the game.

After the Pikachu raid, there were just more and more players flowing into the field from the check-in area. Which brings down more and more bandwidth. Which slows down games. Which leads to being unable to play the majority of the time.

It felt like Zebra was catching Pokemon well enough with his PoGo Plus–I was vanilla without one. It seemed that the Plus removed the lag and latency issue of interacting with the Pokemon by clicking on it, whereas my game crashed more often from tapping on them.

Every time we were all called to the main stage for announcements, people would boo the main spokeslady and CMO of Niantic. They would chant about the servers being down. They would chant to ask for a working game. It seemed childishly violent–like an eight-year-old throwing a temper tantrum in Walmart because his parent doesn’t have the money to buy a dinosaur toy.

The parent doesn’t know what to do–they try compromising with the child, saying that there’s always tomorrow. They try bargaining. They try other methods. But the child keeps arguing and crying for the toy. That’s what it felt like to be at PoGo Fest the majority of the time.

The statistics for beating each challenge (Bronze, Silver, and Gold) were constantly changing due to the playstyle of trainers. At first, the numbers were each boosted up six thousand to complete them because there was a full house of 20k players. When the servers couldn’t handle themselves due to immense traffic, they went down. When people almost rioted if they didn’t get their legendaries, they went down even further.

In the end, I’m disappointed in the event, but I’m damn happy I went. My name goes down in history, I get some sweet consolation prizes, and I met and spoke with a *lot* of cool new people. And that’s what I wanted out of this.

Niantic *cannot* underestimate its playerbase. This is more proof on top of the launch of the game that they need to plan for extremely large amounts of traffic. They aren’t solely to blame–cell phone heads like the sponsoring Sprint and Boost Mobile needed to allow extended bandwidth and access in Grant Park for that amount of time for the event. If Niantic set up a widespread WiFi spot and this still happened, then it’s all on them.

Bottom line: I’m personally okay with the experience, I’m disappointed in how the event was handled, and I’m extremely sorry for the people who traveled so far to get to Chicago. Overall, mixed feelings–mainly disappointment.

#pokemon #pogofest #pokemongo #chicago

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pls-end-my-existence-blog · 8 years ago

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