This is one of the stranger posts I've read, using gps spoofing on accounts should hopefully have them banned from the game soon, having people cheating around the globe because they have "only a couple of gyms" in their town. Our town of 100k people has around 4/5 gyms in it I'm not going to use that or the fact that there are people who have put more time and effort into the game as reasoning to "cheat" in something like this, that's nuts logic.

It's not just the social aspect of the game you are missing out on, by trying to play this as an actual PC game with wasd you're just missing the entire point of the game.

What's the point of the game exactly?

It's a fun distraction while doing other things, whether socializing, walking around or browsing the internet or watching Netflix. Actually I don't see much socializing going on, little groups of peaple sitting together while staring into their phones. Mass hysteria doesn't happen in a town of 11 thousand.

I downloaded it as my kids kept asking for it (since it's all over let's play videos on you tube) and I don't have a cell phone anyway. Plus when we go out cycling I certainly don't want to teach them to use a phone while going through traffic! It's fine when we get banned yet we're not doing any harm anyway. We're not stomping on any low level gyms and even if we catch one, my kids put a low level in there that's gone in 5 minutes as they want to keep the good ones :)

Actually we did get banned already after my oldest jumped to Sydney, then back to Canada. It's only temporary.

Don't you mean "number"?

Pokemon lives matter.

Level 5 and caught like 30 I think. No data plan and all my friends are away so no fun for me.

You know that sometimes you need to beat a gym many more times than 3 to get it's health all the way down? I wasn't sure about it at first but if you notice the Gym actually has health up in the corner and as you fight it more it loses more and more of it's trainers until you finally have it down to just you vs gym leader and you can kill it fully.

Oh yeah, I know. I had gotten to that point and beat him an additional 2 times, but the game would not respond to me winning the battle. Was very frustrating.

Team Valor

Level 21

92 Seen, 91 Caught

Edit: Strongest Pokemon - 1163 Vaporeon

Damn Vileplume ran away after one ultraball throw last night. I have a park a half hour drive from my home that has 8 pokestops on a circle that I can walk in about 5 minutes so they constantly refresh. Any time in the evenings there are at least 5 if not 9 Lure Modules on these stops, so it is a great place to get rare Pokemon pops and such. Last night was fun as two Arcanines popped and people actually wound up stopping traffic to get them. Over a hundred of us in this damn park.

A few things you might want to add to the OP for people who are just getting into the game.

To find potential Pokestops/Gyms near your house you can use the map from Niantic's other game, Ingress, at ingress.com/intel. Each "portal" is most likely a Gym or a Pokestop. You will need to sign up for Ingress, but that doesn't take much, can always remove the app after you get logged in.

To see exactly what natural spawns are around you and what the remaining timer on them is you can use pokevision.com. It doesn't work to show Lured or Incensed Pokemon, but it gives exact locations using Niantic's API. With the tracker broken, this is the best way to find what is nearby. You can also use it to scout other locations.

Lastly, this map: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1anyDs-H7hOtGQaxaTwuLjulUrVM shows where reported Pokemon Nests are. Great to use to find those rare guys you wanna try to level up.  It is crowdsourced, so there is potential that some of the data is false.  However, you can use pokevision.com to confirm before heading out!

Ah right that could be very annoying, what I have happen on occasion is that after I clear out a gym and it returns to a grey state when I go to leave a pokemon there and claim it... my game needs to restart and someone else can drop in there guys around me lol, the game really feels like it's in a beta or alpha stage right now which is putting off the casual player which is a shame really.

Still great mobile ap tho, the best so far imo.

Caught bot a Scyther and a Mr. Mime yesterday. Not a bad day.

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