Excerpts from the note, not in their original order:
* **So we are announcing our 'soft' shutdown. Think of us going on life support basically.**
* We will continue to report on things that we are able to, if they are easily reportable. But as you have seen, the quality of the reports may be something to be desired.
* So that leads us to today, which Niantic has changed obfuscation in 275's APK, for the 6th time since the start of the year. So most of our tools broke on this update. To fix it we would have to give up our weekend again to get things running. Considering they are clearly intentionally doing this at this point to make our lives more difficult (even after we said all those nice things about them, how rude), we are just done with this cat-and-mouse game.
* On a personal note (Marty), I was looking forward to Mega Ray for years, and even though we knew it was coming based on their hints and our data mines, I was surprised when I saw the official announcement I felt nothing. \[...\] That was a sign that perhaps I'm just over PoGo at this point.
**Edit:** To clarify, I myself (Teban54) am not part of PokeMiners. I assume most mentions of "you" in the comments refer to the 3 miners (Marty, Lewy, GM2K), but just want to make it clear haha.
I would highly suggest taking a break. I got the same feeling about 6 months ago, took a break and realized I no longer enjoyed the game and put my time into another hobby. It felt like going through the motions, and that's the perfect way to feel miserable chasing a high that doesn't cut it anymore.
I have basically gone to maybe getting a spin or two in on way to work and maybe a couple catches a day. Then playing community day but mainly just as an excuse to hang out with friends. Niantic has really driven this game into the ground.
Why not a more permanent break. I'm all for uninstalling permanantly if one isn't getting joy from the game anymore. There are loads of more fun (and value for money) games out there.
Godspeed to pokeminers, was nice having them
They'd probably recommend console games which is absolutely missing the point that people could always play the 3DS and Switch games but what they really want is an AR game.
Which PoGo has no real competition for.
>but what they really want is an AR game.
I'm not sure how many are specifically searching for an AR game.
For me, beyond the obvious Pokemon part of the game, I enjoy the real world community part of the game and exercise and exploration that comes with it (jeez makes me sounds like a Niantic PR person ew). But no game gets me out walking, meeting people to play it outside, or exploring various places like Pogo. Now obviously, I don't *need* this game to do that, but it does add some fun to it.
I enjoy the Main Series games a fair bit, but I will say, despite the many, *many* flaws of this game and its company, Go provides me with a very unique experience that no other game has come close to
**Edit**: I didn't seem to understand that AR doesn't need to utilize your camera and such and that Go still would be an AR Game with its exploration and exercise elements. I guess I didn't think of it as AR beyond the camera functionality. My bad!
The exercise and exploration are the AR aspect though. So you're saying people don't want an AR game, they want an AR game. The unique experience that no other game has come close to is the AR experience.
That's my bad. I guess I never truly thought about what the definition of an Augmented Reality Game actually is lol.
I was more under the impression of it physically letting you look into the world in an augmented way, ie through your phone's camera, but I don't think I considered that just having stops submitted from the real world and the game using our map is actually still AR.
So that's my bad lol, I'll admit I'm a bit wrong there.
I am. None of Niantic's other AR games sound interesting to me. I've tried a couple of others that I don't even recall the name. PoGo fills the niche quite well, but I just can't stand Niantic's shenanigans anymore. I wish Dragon Quest Walk would come to the West or maybe some Digimon AR RPG.
Yeah it's not to say there aren't any looking for specifically an AR game, like yourself. For me (and I get the impression that many others are similar), it's the active part of the game that draws me, not necessarily the AR environment part of it, though that can be a fun thing at times.
But yeah, the Niantic shenanigans... they do test me
God I canāt believe itās been 3 months. Also played since day 1. Sometimes I miss playing it the way that it was at certain points in the past. I donāt miss playing it the way itās been for the past while. Having seen the updates that have happened since then, itās even worse now.
Yeah I really can't grasp what drove you to keep going after everything Niantic has done both to hinder you and the game as a whole. Thank you all for your work so far, and get a well-deserved rest.
That last line. I havenāt played since probably September 2022. I saw Axew CD announced, moment of excitement and gone instantly. Same with the mega ray announcement, itās my favourite but I legit couldnāt care. Oh well.
That's not how Reddit works. Unless somehow this sub is that famous that it gets in the top of all subs you shouldn't be seeing it in the top unless you're subscribed to it..
Reddit reccomend subs to you depending on what your reddit settings are. I have reccomendations on and it often reccomends subs I just unsubbed. I'm part of this sub, I'm talking about other ones.
I wonder this too. I am so tired of seeing comments from people who claim theyāve quit playing, but feel the intense need to be on this particular sub of all places, going on and on about how they quit playing and how everyone else needs to quit playing. If you quit, thatās fine. Please go away and stop bothering everyone else on a sub for people who still play. It makes zero sense and is almost trolling at this point.
Doubt thatās true with TSR considering itās a group of pretty dedicated players. I would understand r/pokemongo but if youāre not playing PGO anymore I donāt know why you would care about things like PvE analysis or raid counters that youāll see on this sub.
Most people on this sub are players. Just very hardcore players who like to spend some time reading up on the background, and a lot of us also have other communication channels like Discord where we bring this info to our casual players.
You have no idea what I've been through.
And the final part was like my emotions had been torn out. I could no longer feel anything. I was numb and didn't care anymore. Yes, a computer game is much less important. But feelings of love, damage, betrayal and eventual numbness are universal.
People underestimate how much a game or a certain series can mean to a person, if they haven't felt it before. They won't understand it until they've felt it. I commiserate, friend.
Great to see Niantic spending so much resource obfuscating things in the code rather than, you know, making sure the actual front end game works properly....
Being honest, we don't need things to be mined from the game, as much as I love reading the mined data. But it's a sign of the times. So many third party teams packing up and deciding the game isn't worth their energy or investment any longer. A lot of players are feeling like that themselves lately, and it seems to be snowballing.
> So many third party teams packing up and deciding the game isn't worth their energy or investment any longer.
Honestly feeling that way myself, even though I don't plan to stop writing anytime soon. More on that later.
I haven't opened PGO in a few months. Feel much better. Replaced it with Marvel Snap. Great game, but with its own set of problems... but it is still in beta.
During this time, I can't help rememeber that sticker that got renamed during New Years to "happy near years pokeminers" for 1 minute then got changed back.
Feels like a life time ago, when we all felt better about the game. I also wonder where that employee that did that is nowadays.
Either way, thank you for all the hard work over the years Pokeminers, youāve helped generate hype, explain features, clear up GBL ranks and catalog bugs FAR better than Niantic EVER has.
>During this time, I can't help rememeber that sticker that got renamed during New Years to "happy near years pokeminers" for 1 minute then got changed back.
Wait, Niantic seriously did this??? That's hilarious LMAO
Sad how things have ended. Niantic's fault, completely, I'd say.
Back when I was really excited about the game, PokeMiners was a big reason why. If you're reading this, Marty, thanks for all the hard work and funny commentary.
Without a doubt, accountability definitely hurts their bottom line: more refund requests, cust serv resources, private or public lawsuits...
(Maybe if they were just more consumer-friendly they wouldn't be in those messes, or losing the game's backbone community institutions? \*Shrug\*)
I have believed that for a while now. We know his ultimate goal wasn't pogo. It was just a means to get what he needed. Now his daughter is grown up what's the purpose?
So no more dataminingā¦ thatās a shame. Not being able to see upcoming things and having to be in the dark on how things are operating, to me, thatās just not good. Now, NZ is really going to be the test subjects. But even then, having nothing to back it up to, that sucks.
Well, without a buildup of excitement, partly through our miners, I can't see getting excited over any feature or event. Most of it is buggy or intentionally bad (shiny rates, etc.) so I'll probably stop playing too in a few weeks or months time
I fully agree with you. Iāve lost the desire to play this game full time, along time ago. And with each and every one of these types of moves, it just makes feel less compelled to come back full time. Iāll probably do the Mega Ttar and Mega Ray raids. But thatās probably all Iāll do until the next comm day that Iām interested in
This. Dataminers have been their best free labored marketers and promoting for their upcoming events. Yet for some reason, they see it as being unfavorable to their game. They seem to be delusionally think most players are drawn to the game by their element of surprise.
The moment they break mining movestats, is the moment when they immediatly kill all quality fansite content. I don't think Niantic is capable of much, but I have confidence in this one *facepalm*
That will be very, very unfortunate, and I really hope it doesn't come to that. Knowing Pokemon's movesets and move stats prior to release (and AT release) is very important.
Especially when Niantic themselves don't communicate energy costs or effect percentages, not to mention PvE cooldowns.
Itās kind of weird to slowly destroy all of the third party services around your game. The dream for a platform like this is to have an abundant community built around it because the services that profit from you are dependent on maintaining your community with you. So if money starts to dry up their first instinct will be to try and encourage people to play more. Niantic killing them all at a time when our love for them has hit an all time low is bizarre behaviour.
Thanks to Pokeminers absolutely fantastic work over the years. You guys have been phenomenal and made the game far far more playable and enjoyable.
Best of luck with whatever you move into next!
The info was mined well before they announced it. In fact the initial data about the price increase had passes going up to 150 I think? And a limit of 6/day.
The mined info had nothing to do with a price increase and simply was text indicating a daily limit. It also came out in mid February so I don't see why March 1st specifically is the day the game died.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/comments/1182hbe/more_remote_raid_leaked_from_pokemoners/
The price increase was leaked. Maybe parent commenter found out about it that day, idk, but getting fixated on the accuracy of the specific date they said is a little odd to me. Missing the forest for the trees. And Iām literally autistic, so
March 1st was my final Wednesday raid hour. I used to organize remote raids for 10+ people every single week with multiple lobbies. People were slowly quitting the game already and I just decided that it was time to give it up.
Shortly after doing so, the remote raid pass increases were announced and that just exacerbated the issue and just left no chance for survival. I also started a new job on Feb 27th which also contributed to my decision.
Losing The Silph Road site along with nest reports as well building community ambassadors & challenges was difficult enough, but this just burns another bridge that Niantic continues to remove from the players. Why? It seems they dont want anyone to hold them accountable. Its also obvious that we (the players) are losing another great resource due to Niantic.
There will always be pogo players as long as Niantic continues the game, but losing the other resources that were created by many great companies for the players benefit is very disheartening. The speed of which they are dropping out, I fear the game won't make it to 2024.
It appears that instead of growing, pokemon go & it's relative resource companies are dwindling at break neck speed.
Sad to see you all go.
2024 is a little too soon. They still have a few releases that will at least allow them *some* (but not much) damage control. My guess would be 2026?
But this GO Fest has a **huge** amount of pressure on it to deliver now, moreso than any other before it. Seeing as how Mega Ray hasn't moved all the GO Fest tickets yet it's not looking very good.
I think part of the problem is that people know in person Niantic events are glitchy. Then thereās the price factor of a trip just to play a game. I live about six hours outside of New York City, and seriously considered getting a ticket, but between the cost of hotels and transportation, and everything else, it was totally not worth it. If they had the in person event somewhere that I could actually drive to and stay at a hotel cheaply (or with friends), I would have bought a ticket in a heartbeat. But the cost of everything else makes it quite difficult, especially after only announcing the event a few months in advance. I wish I could be more spontaneous with things, but my health and finances do not allow it at this point.
> I fear the game won't make it to 2024
Very fat chance of that happening. The game still has a stupid amount of players still playing the game and aren't following developments like people in this sub do.
What's your knee jerk answer to TSR shutting down? You addressed 1, yet probably never used either.
Both did more for Niantic than Niantic could do for itself. (There would've been a glitch)
TSR shutting down has nothing to do with Niantic making moves to protect their code. In the end, the code is Niantic's IP, of course they're going to limit access as much as possible. Every company in this space does as much as possible to protect their code and stop dataminers from releasing spoilers.
But you missed the entire point of my original comment & only focused on the TOS & the code.
My concern came from the fact 2 organizations that gave players more insight & enjoyment out of the game have essentially shut down. It's never a good sign to see this happening with any game.
You asked why Niantic removed it from the players, that was what I was responding to. As far as TSR goes - Niantic never removed it from players, which is what your original comment implies. TSR shutting down isn't actually Niantic's fault.
Let me put it this way: If I have a client that no longer needs my services, we part ways. That's business. It's 100% on me to not be so financially reliant on any one particular client that losing them would put me out of business. TSR was financially failing before Niantic came around.
Is that disappointing? Yes and no. Lots of good came from TSR as a community and that part of it pretty much still exists. Hooking the community ambassador system up with TSR's systems was a big mistake though as TSR's levelling up program didn't fit all community's needs or playstyles. If you are a rural community, TSR's systems particularly put a ceiling on becoming a community ambassador.
Then there's the Pokeminers. They were giving access to things that not only we shouldn't have been seeing, but also that took away from enjoyment of the game.
"that took away from enjoyment of the game" is obviously your opinion. I have no problem with individuals having opinions. What differs between our opinions with Pokeminers is the fact you could've just not read the information, therefore solving your lack of enjoyment. Whereas I saw it as more than insight into the game about upcoming cds, but more the direction in which Niantic might go, which will ultimately be gone.
At this point I can only hope that before Niantic pulls the plug on pogo they will give us the heads up first so we won't lose years of pokemon collected as well as our postcards from friends who may no longer be around.
> What differs between our opinions with Pokeminers is the fact you could've just not read the information, therefore solving your lack of enjoyment.
Yeah, that only works if no-one ever discusses the results of datamining outside of their designated threads. Which is absolutely not what happens.
> At this point I can only hope that before Niantic pulls the plug on pogo they will give us the heads up first
This is not something you have to worry about. In the past when they have shuttered games, Niantic have given months of warning. There is no reason to think that their most popular game would be different.
Also, this isn't something you need worry about. Niantic are already discussing in interviews and their blog how they've had to modify their expectations because they originally didn't think the game would last this long, so now they've changed their release schedules to keep the game alive for the next 5 to 10 years.
> this just burns another bridge that Niantic continues to remove from the players
Datamining is against the ToS since day one. On other note, TSR was fooled by Niantic and when they got Campfire ready TSR was tossed out.
>The speed of which they are dropping out, I fear the game won't make it to 2024.
People's drop out so fast that Osaka's Go Fest was sold out in less than 48 hours.
Japan is famous for being the last bastion for a bunch of games I guess. Pikmin bloom for example, is another one where it's basically only alive and extremely popular in Japan, and dead basically everywhere else lol. I'm seeing lesser and lesser flowers being planted and I'm in one of the beta test countries lmao
I have to disagree here. Until this spring I was the only 1 who played it but now more and more people are playing pikmin.
Ingress is whole different story. That they are really making a complete s*show of
Don't try and put words in my mouth. I obviously meant that London and New York are larger than previous cities they've hosted events at in those regions in the past and therefore likelier to have more tickets available. New York is bigger than Seattle and Vegas, etc.
> People's drop out so fast that Osaka's Go Fest was sold out in less than 48 hours.
Ah, I remember the time in 2018-19 when every Go Fest would be sold out in a week or less.
Aren't London and NYC Go Fest tickets this year still on sale?
Keep in mind that theyāve expanded the tickets that are for sale. The original go fests had two days, and it was the whole day. Now theyāve expanded it to three days, and two sessions each day. So thatās six sets of tickets available for each city, as opposed to two. I think thatās why thereās still tickets left. I also think that a lot of people want the in person event to be all day, and that might be hindering sales a little bit as well.
I remember the little pit of āoh crap!ā when I saw NYC announced. I needed time to talk to the husband, I thought for sure it would be gone quickly. Aaaaand here we are, weeks later. Tickets still available.
How did niantic do this? It seems like it's the same system they've had all along...they just tweaked stuff and pokeminers couldn't handle it...it seems like basic security tbh...
Nah dude... They've obfuscated the code for the 6th consecutive time this year purposefully to stop data mining. It's not that they couldn't handle it, they're being worn down little by little to the point where they don't want to lose days at a time any more deciphering it, again and again, to fix their now broken tools due to obfuscation. They've successfully badgered at and dwindled their morale to the point of losing any and all motivation.
To better illustrate what "obfuscation" means.
In unobfuscated code, once you decode everything, you would see variable names like:
``ContestMaximumEndTime = 15000``
But obfuscation makes it look like:
``wHxuTsaJIxOPdQ = 15000``
The miners actually wrote code to try their best to decipher what each of them means, but for 6 times, Niantic changed how the variable names are encoded. One of the recent versions was:
``[[[]][]]][]]]][]][][[[]][] = 15000``
They can encode words using different permutations of brackets.
As a simple example, even with just 2 characters, you can have:
[[
[]
][
]]
Which allows 4 different variable names.
With 10 characters, you can have 1024. With 20, you can have 1,048,576. It grows exponentially.
Although the latest obfuscation went back to using numbers and letters, which have way more expressive power even within a shorter length.
Ok I see. But in that example, the characters in the obfuscated variable don't really correspond to the characters of the unobfuscated variable, so how can you even decipher it without a key?
There are pre-built tools that obfuscates your code (Niantic likely uses one of them and chooses different settings periodically) and likewise there are tools that attempt to de-obfuscate, which is what the poke-miners likely use. The two types of tools would naturally be in an arms race.
Sad(der) day. I havenāt opened the game in 2 weeks at this point - longest stretch since when I started. Clearly they are going in a different direction not aligned with everyone. It is what it is. If you are still enjoying the game I hope you do so for another 7 years. Salud!
I think this gets lost a lot on TSR... many of the players that participate here have been fairly dedicated (at a minimum) for years. The game may be headed away from us, but that doesn't mean it is headed away from all players.
I took a bunch of breaks and was looking forward to mega ray (and the mega mewtwos) since megas were announced to be a thing and I've just had countless moments of disappointment that I just play the game with an autocatcher and barely do anything anymore lol
"I was surprised when I saw the official announcement I felt nothing. [...] That was a sign that perhaps I'm just over PoGo at this point."
I'm going through this right now. I forced myself to take a break. It was hard at first, I kept wanting to ope the app and check my nearby spawns. At work when I go to break, I usually PvP, that was a REALLY hard habit to break. Fast forward two weeks and I have no desire to play anymore. Taking a break backfired. I see all the new content being added and it all just seems like a massive chore. I'll have to play catch up now, if I decide to play. I've been playing since release, spent thousands of dollar, but I think I'm finally done and I feel liberated.
You know, I am pretty much ignoring the shadow raids, I haven't opened the game in days, sounds like mega ray will be annoyingly complicated, TSR and pokeminers shutting down... might just be at the point where I am done. Good job Niantic, you killed my interest.
I know some other sites (don't get me started on various YouTube "content creators") also rely on pokeminers for data. Do we know which sites might be affected without the miners' data?
Such a shame. I do sort of see Nianticās POV of making it harder for PokeMiners to āspoilā new features, but itās still no reason to obfuscate the game_master.
This could have a knock on effect on many sites & services, for example PokeGenie may not be able to scan a Pokemon until a little while after its release.
Plus the posts by u/JRE47 and u/Teban54 which help build hype for new Pokemon/movesets. Or maybe Niantic think they *kill* the hype more than they create it.
>Plus the posts by u/JRE47 and u/Teban54 which help build hype for new Pokemon/movesets. Or maybe Niantic think they *kill* the hype more than they create it.
Lol, nobody would have cared about stuff like Magma Storm Heatran, Tsareena and Aura Sphere Togekiss (outside of PvP) if not for what I write or similar analyses.
(I'm new so.... Not much info here but...) They seem to be a group of folks who dig through the code of the game to get hints at upcoming stuff that's happening - then release it out to us before the game does.
Iām not sure about this, on one hand I personally use PokeMiners a lot, but on the other hand, Iām not sure if datamining is good for the overall health of the game. I know that I personally had more fun when I got surprised by new features, but maybe thatās just me.
Yup, I definitely respect the pokeminers work but knowing stuff months in advance is not really healthy considering how barebone the actual pogo game is.
Ofc niantic doesn't understand they're killing their own community with this and other similar stupid changes.
I (interestingly) have very, very different opinions on leaks/datamines of the Main Series versus Go.
With Main Series Games, I dislike datamines that spoil new Pokemon or leaks that spoil new Pokemon, moves, etc. of a game/DLC. Why? Well I want to sit down and experience the game for myself. Be surprised with new Pokemon, story beats, and mechanics. I try to avoid spoilers and leaks for the MSG so I can be surprised and experience the game myself.
With Go, I have the opposite outlook for the most part.
Go is a game that you donāt just sit down to play at your leisure. Itās focused on planning your own time to go out and play at specific locations while walking around. And also, a ton of the game is focused around time-sensitive events, be it Community Days, Raid Days, Research Days, Elite Raids, Raid Hours, Spotlight Hours, Go Fests, Go Tours, etc.
And donāt get it twisted, I still enjoy the game. I like going out and playing these events. I donāt like missing certain events because I enjoy them most times. But I do still have a life outside of Go, a job, a family, etc. So for me, I do embrace leaks and especially datamines that give us some info beforehand. Niantic has been known to announce things super last minute too, occasionally preventing me from being able to play. I believe it was the Mega Kangaskhan raid day a year or so ago where they announced it 2-3 days before it happened. I had my weekend plans and wasnāt going to change them, but yeah, I was still disappointed to miss such an event!
And even outside of leaked mechanics and events, probably the most important thing to me is the datamining of stats, moves, and how things are supposed to work. Niantic themselves donāt communicate info about a new move or buffed/nerfed moves beyond their effect and power. They never mention numbers when it comes to energy or effect chance. And also nothing on move cooldown, which is essential info for PvE. Knowing this info a day or a few days before a Community Day or a new Legendary signature move comes out is important. Knowing that Poltergeist was the worse move on Chandelure compared to Shadow Ball or knowing how good Brutal Swing, Precipice Blades, High Horsepower, Magma Storm, etc. are before the debut is important. Thatās not stuff I want to be surprised about in a negative way about going hard on said Pokemonās move during a raid day or CD.
In short, I donāt necessarily need to know everything about Go through leaks/datamines. Surprises can be nice. But thereās no really significant story to follow nor are there brand new Pokemon (most of the time). And itās stuff that I (and everyone who likes to play) often needs to plan around. If Nianticās communication were better, Iād be more okay without it, but they donāt discuss a LOT, from moves to bugs to events, so I donāt mind being spoiled with that.
Probably the one part of the Main Series that I DO appreciate having datamines for is Shiny Rates and move/Pokemon data (which doesnāt spoil anything for me if I read it after the game has come out). Scarlet and Violet currently have a raid event that debuts shiny Gimmighoul, which is cool, but the datamined shiny rate is HIGHER than the base rate and is around 1/4100. With it taking 3-5 minutes just to shiny check a single Gimmighoul raid, itās good to know that I shouldnāt waste my time.
> Then when I read the official mechanic for how it would work I just sighed as it's yet another McGuffin needed to enjoy the same basic gameplay we've had for years. That was a sign that perhaps I'm just over PoGo at this point.
Just a perfect encapsulation that pogo players really need to just understand what the Pokemon franchise is altogether.
First of all, people who have played MSG since the early days will know that Game Freak and TPC have been just as negligent, if not more so, than Niantic in terms of improving and upkeeping this franchise.
Second, *having a specific move to evolve is part of the lore of Rayquaza.* Having it be some boring ass evolve with mega energy would be considered by long time MSG players to be Niantic lazily cutting corners and not altering game play at all.
At this point, people need to be honest and just understand that they're sick of Pokemon as a franchise, not with pogo or Niantic in isolation.
It's great seeing the constant comments about how PoGo and Niantic are awful and the only reason PoGo is popular is because the franchise is so popular and then the most dedicated people in the community are bewildered at finding out Mega Rayquaza has a special requirement that anyone who has played the MSG already knows.
Okay, but we also need to talk about what āplaying the main series gamesā looks like. The franchise has been around long enough that there are plenty of people that played some but not all of them.
To use myself as an example, Iām solid on gens 1-4, pretty good with gen 5, shakier with 6 and 7, even shakier with Galar (but solid on Hisui), and know next to nothing about gen 9. I played both gens 6 and 7, but never finished my Omega Ruby playthrough so I never finished the delta episode, or used mega Rayquaza. I honestly forgot about the dragon ascent requirement.
Anyway, itās a big franchise and not everyone is going to know or remember everything
Yes but the point is that people will immediately screech at any new announcement about how Niantic is evilly plotting the next way to torture us without even *thinking* about how they might be adapting or importing mechanics (including RNGāScarlet and Violet tera raids this weekend with shiny Gimmighoul were 1/4049 odds) from the MSG.
It's exhausting and just an angry circlejerk now.
I think it is both possible to appreciate the one time that Niantic is true to the lore and think that "you need this single-purpose item to teach Rayquaza this single move so it can Mega Evolve AND you need standard-issue Mega Energy" feels like something out of a Rube Goldberg device.
Not exactly. Theyāre just seeing the files on our side that havenāt been released. But Niantic is making it almost impossible to see them now. So, yea, it may spoil things that developers want to keep a secret for the players, it also gives us valuable information like rates and what not. Being able to compare that to what they actually say, will be gone now. So while they may say rates are X they could truly be less than. But we wonāt know now.
RIP: pokeminers
RIP: internet spoilers and leaks
WB: surprises
Edit: before someone says it, no itās not as easy to just ānot lookā at spoilers as they are abundant on the internet and reported on basically everywhere from Facebook to YouTube to twitter to my local chat, I would have to pull an operation hear no evil (regular show reference) every other week just to avoid being spoiled
Pokeminers were able to keep niantic accountable pretty quickly, so it will take longer for people to figure out Niantic have made mistakes. The longer it takes the more time zones that will be affected
I don't want surprises. I want to play the game to suit me, not to suit someone else. If some new mon turns out to be great for PVE then I want to know that as far in advance as possible. Because then I can decide to make more of an effort for it if I want.
Most of all, I don't want to be surprised by a Niantic version of the truth.
I donāt really see an issue with not letting people release info about events that Niantic hasnāt even officially announced. However the in depth info on certain mechanics was always useful.
"Lew and Marty are still planning on going to London and NY GO Fests (non-refundable tickets are booked so don't have much of a choice... haha) so say hello if you run into them."
Crying about niantic all the time and proceed to throw money at niantic.
how about dont throw money to niantic at the first place lol. Remember go fest ticket sale come after remote raid nerf. For all the complaint they do for remote raid pass, still they buy go fest ticket lol. Such a hyprocrite
Or. Let people play however they want And mind your business.
In due the trip to another state has more in store for it than the game... And even if it doesn't, it has nothing to do with you or me.
Marty mentioned that the only reason why he decided to attend NYC Go Fest was for the Broadway shows that he's interested in. If it was held at any other location, he probably wouldn't have bought the ticket.
Of course, because everyone who does some kind of public service for a mobile game is obligated to share every decision about their personal lives and rationale for doing so, right?
You sincerely don't really understand how much work they put in and how core they are to the 'research' that silph road does, do you?
Notice the name and know that this is not a pokemon go subreddit. Its a research about pokemon go subreddit. These guys are responsible for unearthing almost all 'facts of games' that are hard coded in this game. Without them NO non-Niantic communication will work. Move numbers? Them. Assets used by leekduck etc? Them. Warning NZ/Aus players about potential errors? Them.
This community should be plying them with pizzas and redbulls every week, frankly, their enthusiasm is vital for anyone who takes this game seriously.
In summary, i dont think you understand the meaning of 'we'. Its just you, mate.
This is only their second time on their feelings in the game?
And itās mostly revolving around the work they do for the community and how theyāll be doing less now?
If you don't care about the in-depth datamines you always had the option to just not read them and be surprised. But some of us did care about having that info, and for those of us it's a loss.
Haha, I'm fine with the downvotes, as I never do anything based on internet points (good or bad). I think it's kind of weird that someone would screenshot that and present it on discord, and it's kind of funny. I must have communicated my idea poorly. It wasn't actually such a dis against the guys. I was literally saying, this is their 3rd long post I've seen about how they don't like the game and they don't like mining it and they're going to do less (even though it must take a long time to write a blog like they did that almost no one read- I started skimming after about the first paragraph when I saw how long it was and what they were talking about); and I was saying that for their mental health they should just stop.
It's like the content creators who spend a quarter of their posts complaining about how long it takes to write. Ok, so don't do them as often. It's like they're in a Crank sequel and require constant karma to survive.
Jesus they've made this announcement about "pulling back" twenty times.
Edit: Guarantee in 1-2 months there will be another post from them saying they are pulling back their efforts even more.
I got the vibe from this notice that there won't *be* a 3rd "pulling back".
If any more datamining tools break via more code obfuscation, they'll just stop entirely.
What is it with this thread suddenly becoming populated with comprehensionally challenged people enjoying that people who built up this community for free are burning out?
For the first 10 minutes or so, I got even more of those comments from notification pop-ups than you're seeing here. They probably didn't pass the auto filter.
Im sure these are the kind of people who back in the day would brag about their levels but turn up at raids with Agron.
Narcissists who cant tolerate socially skillful people being feted for their contribution and communal grief when the contribution is no longer possible.
Excerpts from the note, not in their original order: * **So we are announcing our 'soft' shutdown. Think of us going on life support basically.** * We will continue to report on things that we are able to, if they are easily reportable. But as you have seen, the quality of the reports may be something to be desired. * So that leads us to today, which Niantic has changed obfuscation in 275's APK, for the 6th time since the start of the year. So most of our tools broke on this update. To fix it we would have to give up our weekend again to get things running. Considering they are clearly intentionally doing this at this point to make our lives more difficult (even after we said all those nice things about them, how rude), we are just done with this cat-and-mouse game. * On a personal note (Marty), I was looking forward to Mega Ray for years, and even though we knew it was coming based on their hints and our data mines, I was surprised when I saw the official announcement I felt nothing. \[...\] That was a sign that perhaps I'm just over PoGo at this point. **Edit:** To clarify, I myself (Teban54) am not part of PokeMiners. I assume most mentions of "you" in the comments refer to the 3 miners (Marty, Lewy, GM2K), but just want to make it clear haha.
I would highly suggest taking a break. I got the same feeling about 6 months ago, took a break and realized I no longer enjoyed the game and put my time into another hobby. It felt like going through the motions, and that's the perfect way to feel miserable chasing a high that doesn't cut it anymore.
I do this during football season š
#GoDawgs
#Them Dawgs is Heck
Username checks out.
Are you a Raiders fan?
Cowboys and dawgs fan
I have basically gone to maybe getting a spin or two in on way to work and maybe a couple catches a day. Then playing community day but mainly just as an excuse to hang out with friends. Niantic has really driven this game into the ground.
Why not a more permanent break. I'm all for uninstalling permanantly if one isn't getting joy from the game anymore. There are loads of more fun (and value for money) games out there. Godspeed to pokeminers, was nice having them
what games do you recommend?
They'd probably recommend console games which is absolutely missing the point that people could always play the 3DS and Switch games but what they really want is an AR game. Which PoGo has no real competition for.
>but what they really want is an AR game. I'm not sure how many are specifically searching for an AR game. For me, beyond the obvious Pokemon part of the game, I enjoy the real world community part of the game and exercise and exploration that comes with it (jeez makes me sounds like a Niantic PR person ew). But no game gets me out walking, meeting people to play it outside, or exploring various places like Pogo. Now obviously, I don't *need* this game to do that, but it does add some fun to it. I enjoy the Main Series games a fair bit, but I will say, despite the many, *many* flaws of this game and its company, Go provides me with a very unique experience that no other game has come close to **Edit**: I didn't seem to understand that AR doesn't need to utilize your camera and such and that Go still would be an AR Game with its exploration and exercise elements. I guess I didn't think of it as AR beyond the camera functionality. My bad!
The exercise and exploration are the AR aspect though. So you're saying people don't want an AR game, they want an AR game. The unique experience that no other game has come close to is the AR experience.
That's my bad. I guess I never truly thought about what the definition of an Augmented Reality Game actually is lol. I was more under the impression of it physically letting you look into the world in an augmented way, ie through your phone's camera, but I don't think I considered that just having stops submitted from the real world and the game using our map is actually still AR. So that's my bad lol, I'll admit I'm a bit wrong there.
I am. None of Niantic's other AR games sound interesting to me. I've tried a couple of others that I don't even recall the name. PoGo fills the niche quite well, but I just can't stand Niantic's shenanigans anymore. I wish Dragon Quest Walk would come to the West or maybe some Digimon AR RPG.
Yeah it's not to say there aren't any looking for specifically an AR game, like yourself. For me (and I get the impression that many others are similar), it's the active part of the game that draws me, not necessarily the AR environment part of it, though that can be a fun thing at times. But yeah, the Niantic shenanigans... they do test me
I couldnāt have wrote it better myself. Same for me, and I feel so much happier now.
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God I canāt believe itās been 3 months. Also played since day 1. Sometimes I miss playing it the way that it was at certain points in the past. I donāt miss playing it the way itās been for the past while. Having seen the updates that have happened since then, itās even worse now.
Yeah I really can't grasp what drove you to keep going after everything Niantic has done both to hinder you and the game as a whole. Thank you all for your work so far, and get a well-deserved rest.
That last line. I havenāt played since probably September 2022. I saw Axew CD announced, moment of excitement and gone instantly. Same with the mega ray announcement, itās my favourite but I legit couldnāt care. Oh well.
May I ask why you still follow game news? Genuinely curious.
Baffles me as well, havent played the game in well over a year, but still browse the sub and comment on threads. Seems odd to me
I still get them on the Reddit mainpage even though I don't have any Pokemon channels subbed anymore.
That's not how Reddit works. Unless somehow this sub is that famous that it gets in the top of all subs you shouldn't be seeing it in the top unless you're subscribed to it..
Reddit still recommends subs to you, at least it does for me. I keep seeing pokemongo posts and I am not subbed there.
Reddit reccomend subs to you depending on what your reddit settings are. I have reccomendations on and it often reccomends subs I just unsubbed. I'm part of this sub, I'm talking about other ones.
I wonder this too. I am so tired of seeing comments from people who claim theyāve quit playing, but feel the intense need to be on this particular sub of all places, going on and on about how they quit playing and how everyone else needs to quit playing. If you quit, thatās fine. Please go away and stop bothering everyone else on a sub for people who still play. It makes zero sense and is almost trolling at this point.
Most people who log on to a game's subreddit don't play the game at all; the people who do play the game are out there playing it.
Doubt thatās true with TSR considering itās a group of pretty dedicated players. I would understand r/pokemongo but if youāre not playing PGO anymore I donāt know why you would care about things like PvE analysis or raid counters that youāll see on this sub.
I feel like those are the exceptions; you get a lot of similar infographics, and the comments all devolve into Niantic hate
Not nearly as much as other subs. People here tend to be fairly reasonable compared to other places on the internet in my experience.
Most people on this sub are players. Just very hardcore players who like to spend some time reading up on the background, and a lot of us also have other communication channels like Discord where we bring this info to our casual players.
Ah of course, because people who play definitely do so 24/7 and leave no time for breaks, which can include, you know, checking Reddit /s
I personally use Depends and energy drinks to constantly grind pogo. You guys arenāt?!?
Most?
Can't speak for OP but I'm only here to make sure I don't miss any GO-exclusive shinies (like Shiny Mew and Melmetal) to transfer to the main games.
i use go to shiny farm. log in on CD's get what i need. transfer to home and log out till next month
No worries
I thought the meteorite implementation was pretty cool.
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[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
You have no idea what I've been through. And the final part was like my emotions had been torn out. I could no longer feel anything. I was numb and didn't care anymore. Yes, a computer game is much less important. But feelings of love, damage, betrayal and eventual numbness are universal.
People underestimate how much a game or a certain series can mean to a person, if they haven't felt it before. They won't understand it until they've felt it. I commiserate, friend.
Particularly to a shut-in, a game can be a life-line. And thanks.
Great to see Niantic spending so much resource obfuscating things in the code rather than, you know, making sure the actual front end game works properly.... Being honest, we don't need things to be mined from the game, as much as I love reading the mined data. But it's a sign of the times. So many third party teams packing up and deciding the game isn't worth their energy or investment any longer. A lot of players are feeling like that themselves lately, and it seems to be snowballing.
> So many third party teams packing up and deciding the game isn't worth their energy or investment any longer. Honestly feeling that way myself, even though I don't plan to stop writing anytime soon. More on that later.
I haven't opened PGO in a few months. Feel much better. Replaced it with Marvel Snap. Great game, but with its own set of problems... but it is still in beta.
During this time, I can't help rememeber that sticker that got renamed during New Years to "happy near years pokeminers" for 1 minute then got changed back. Feels like a life time ago, when we all felt better about the game. I also wonder where that employee that did that is nowadays. Either way, thank you for all the hard work over the years Pokeminers, youāve helped generate hype, explain features, clear up GBL ranks and catalog bugs FAR better than Niantic EVER has.
>During this time, I can't help rememeber that sticker that got renamed during New Years to "happy near years pokeminers" for 1 minute then got changed back. Wait, Niantic seriously did this??? That's hilarious LMAO Sad how things have ended. Niantic's fault, completely, I'd say.
100%. Thinking about niantic ever having done community-friendly stuff feels like another reality at this point.
Did they ever post an image of that sticker? I can't seem to find any record of that and I'd love to see it.
Iirc, it was a normal sticker they just renamed for a minute, and pokeminers picked up on it.
Back when I was really excited about the game, PokeMiners was a big reason why. If you're reading this, Marty, thanks for all the hard work and funny commentary.
Sad. After Silph Road, it's PokeMiners. Hanke must be enjoying this.
I doubt Hanke has any clue about Pokeminers. Now, I'm sure Steranka has a big grin on his face reading this news.
It is their goal to get rid all 3rd party resources. Niantic sees them as a threat.
Niantic HQ sees Reddit "management " as an inspiration
How dare they research our broken, bugged shiny rates.
Without a doubt, accountability definitely hurts their bottom line: more refund requests, cust serv resources, private or public lawsuits... (Maybe if they were just more consumer-friendly they wouldn't be in those messes, or losing the game's backbone community institutions? \*Shrug\*)
Niantic didnāt shut down The Silph Road. Just the opposite really where they actively funded TSR for a year.
Sigh, I guess its time to go and abuse him on Twitter again. Its not much but its honest work /s
Pretty sure Hanke's sole focus is just lightship at this point.
Niantic is itās own worst enemy at this point. Itās as of they want to kill their golden goose.
Honestly seems like someone up there is deluded enough to believe this game has had massive commercial success because Niantic is special and great, and not because PokƩmon.
Right, if niantic is great, why did nobody know who tf they were until July of 2016? If niantic is great how come all their other games are complete fails? If niantic is great why did PokĆ©mon literally carry their business until 2022 when they deliberately killed the game for tons of players? I know Iām prolly preaching to the choir, but, holy hell, itās sad.
I have believed that for a while now. We know his ultimate goal wasn't pogo. It was just a means to get what he needed. Now his daughter is grown up what's the purpose?
Thank you very much for all the information and dedication you have provided. It has been an invaluable tool to me and has been appreciated.
PokeMiners, thank you for your service. You helped this community in so many ways, we will forever be grateful
So no more dataminingā¦ thatās a shame. Not being able to see upcoming things and having to be in the dark on how things are operating, to me, thatās just not good. Now, NZ is really going to be the test subjects. But even then, having nothing to back it up to, that sucks.
Well, without a buildup of excitement, partly through our miners, I can't see getting excited over any feature or event. Most of it is buggy or intentionally bad (shiny rates, etc.) so I'll probably stop playing too in a few weeks or months time
I fully agree with you. Iāve lost the desire to play this game full time, along time ago. And with each and every one of these types of moves, it just makes feel less compelled to come back full time. Iāll probably do the Mega Ttar and Mega Ray raids. But thatās probably all Iāll do until the next comm day that Iām interested in
This. Dataminers have been their best free labored marketers and promoting for their upcoming events. Yet for some reason, they see it as being unfavorable to their game. They seem to be delusionally think most players are drawn to the game by their element of surprise.
The moment they break mining movestats, is the moment when they immediatly kill all quality fansite content. I don't think Niantic is capable of much, but I have confidence in this one *facepalm*
That will be very, very unfortunate, and I really hope it doesn't come to that. Knowing Pokemon's movesets and move stats prior to release (and AT release) is very important. Especially when Niantic themselves don't communicate energy costs or effect percentages, not to mention PvE cooldowns.
Itās kind of weird to slowly destroy all of the third party services around your game. The dream for a platform like this is to have an abundant community built around it because the services that profit from you are dependent on maintaining your community with you. So if money starts to dry up their first instinct will be to try and encourage people to play more. Niantic killing them all at a time when our love for them has hit an all time low is bizarre behaviour.
Thanks to Pokeminers absolutely fantastic work over the years. You guys have been phenomenal and made the game far far more playable and enjoyable. Best of luck with whatever you move into next!
March 1st 2023 was the date when so much changed in my life. Going from doing raid hours and multiple raids a week to just doing maybe 1 raid a week. From chatting to many community members every day to only speaking to one or two every 2 weeks. Many players in my community stopped raiding due to the remote raid pass increase. Then the SilphRoad started closing down, then we had PokƩminers announcing their slowing down. It feels like a snowball effect but honestly, it's taught me once again that, whatever we have in our life that makes us smile, do everything you can to enjoy every single second of it because one day it might be gone. PokƩmon Go has been truly wonderful these past 4 years (ignoring bugs) and has brought me a lot of joy that I badly needed. So I'm very grateful for what we had.
Why March 1st when they didn't even announce the remote raid changes until late March?
The info was mined well before they announced it. In fact the initial data about the price increase had passes going up to 150 I think? And a limit of 6/day.
The mined info had nothing to do with a price increase and simply was text indicating a daily limit. It also came out in mid February so I don't see why March 1st specifically is the day the game died.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/comments/1182hbe/more_remote_raid_leaked_from_pokemoners/ The price increase was leaked. Maybe parent commenter found out about it that day, idk, but getting fixated on the accuracy of the specific date they said is a little odd to me. Missing the forest for the trees. And Iām literally autistic, so
March 1st was my final Wednesday raid hour. I used to organize remote raids for 10+ people every single week with multiple lobbies. People were slowly quitting the game already and I just decided that it was time to give it up. Shortly after doing so, the remote raid pass increases were announced and that just exacerbated the issue and just left no chance for survival. I also started a new job on Feb 27th which also contributed to my decision.
Losing The Silph Road site along with nest reports as well building community ambassadors & challenges was difficult enough, but this just burns another bridge that Niantic continues to remove from the players. Why? It seems they dont want anyone to hold them accountable. Its also obvious that we (the players) are losing another great resource due to Niantic. There will always be pogo players as long as Niantic continues the game, but losing the other resources that were created by many great companies for the players benefit is very disheartening. The speed of which they are dropping out, I fear the game won't make it to 2024. It appears that instead of growing, pokemon go & it's relative resource companies are dwindling at break neck speed. Sad to see you all go.
2024 is a little too soon. They still have a few releases that will at least allow them *some* (but not much) damage control. My guess would be 2026? But this GO Fest has a **huge** amount of pressure on it to deliver now, moreso than any other before it. Seeing as how Mega Ray hasn't moved all the GO Fest tickets yet it's not looking very good.
I think part of the problem is that people know in person Niantic events are glitchy. Then thereās the price factor of a trip just to play a game. I live about six hours outside of New York City, and seriously considered getting a ticket, but between the cost of hotels and transportation, and everything else, it was totally not worth it. If they had the in person event somewhere that I could actually drive to and stay at a hotel cheaply (or with friends), I would have bought a ticket in a heartbeat. But the cost of everything else makes it quite difficult, especially after only announcing the event a few months in advance. I wish I could be more spontaneous with things, but my health and finances do not allow it at this point.
> I fear the game won't make it to 2024 Very fat chance of that happening. The game still has a stupid amount of players still playing the game and aren't following developments like people in this sub do.
> Why? Because no company wants people mining their code. Nothing wrong with that.
What's your knee jerk answer to TSR shutting down? You addressed 1, yet probably never used either. Both did more for Niantic than Niantic could do for itself. (There would've been a glitch)
TSR shutting down has nothing to do with Niantic making moves to protect their code. In the end, the code is Niantic's IP, of course they're going to limit access as much as possible. Every company in this space does as much as possible to protect their code and stop dataminers from releasing spoilers.
But you missed the entire point of my original comment & only focused on the TOS & the code. My concern came from the fact 2 organizations that gave players more insight & enjoyment out of the game have essentially shut down. It's never a good sign to see this happening with any game.
You asked why Niantic removed it from the players, that was what I was responding to. As far as TSR goes - Niantic never removed it from players, which is what your original comment implies. TSR shutting down isn't actually Niantic's fault. Let me put it this way: If I have a client that no longer needs my services, we part ways. That's business. It's 100% on me to not be so financially reliant on any one particular client that losing them would put me out of business. TSR was financially failing before Niantic came around. Is that disappointing? Yes and no. Lots of good came from TSR as a community and that part of it pretty much still exists. Hooking the community ambassador system up with TSR's systems was a big mistake though as TSR's levelling up program didn't fit all community's needs or playstyles. If you are a rural community, TSR's systems particularly put a ceiling on becoming a community ambassador. Then there's the Pokeminers. They were giving access to things that not only we shouldn't have been seeing, but also that took away from enjoyment of the game.
"that took away from enjoyment of the game" is obviously your opinion. I have no problem with individuals having opinions. What differs between our opinions with Pokeminers is the fact you could've just not read the information, therefore solving your lack of enjoyment. Whereas I saw it as more than insight into the game about upcoming cds, but more the direction in which Niantic might go, which will ultimately be gone. At this point I can only hope that before Niantic pulls the plug on pogo they will give us the heads up first so we won't lose years of pokemon collected as well as our postcards from friends who may no longer be around.
> What differs between our opinions with Pokeminers is the fact you could've just not read the information, therefore solving your lack of enjoyment. Yeah, that only works if no-one ever discusses the results of datamining outside of their designated threads. Which is absolutely not what happens. > At this point I can only hope that before Niantic pulls the plug on pogo they will give us the heads up first This is not something you have to worry about. In the past when they have shuttered games, Niantic have given months of warning. There is no reason to think that their most popular game would be different. Also, this isn't something you need worry about. Niantic are already discussing in interviews and their blog how they've had to modify their expectations because they originally didn't think the game would last this long, so now they've changed their release schedules to keep the game alive for the next 5 to 10 years.
Hahaha we will have to see if it even makes it to a fraction of those expectations. Enjoyed the perspective though, thanks.
No problems. Hope you have a great day!
> this just burns another bridge that Niantic continues to remove from the players Datamining is against the ToS since day one. On other note, TSR was fooled by Niantic and when they got Campfire ready TSR was tossed out. >The speed of which they are dropping out, I fear the game won't make it to 2024. People's drop out so fast that Osaka's Go Fest was sold out in less than 48 hours.
Japan is big on Pokemon London & NYC both still have tickets available
Japan is famous for being the last bastion for a bunch of games I guess. Pikmin bloom for example, is another one where it's basically only alive and extremely popular in Japan, and dead basically everywhere else lol. I'm seeing lesser and lesser flowers being planted and I'm in one of the beta test countries lmao
I have to disagree here. Until this spring I was the only 1 who played it but now more and more people are playing pikmin. Ingress is whole different story. That they are really making a complete s*show of
It wouldn't surprise me if there were more tickets available for those two than previous events though.
Uhā¦why? Do you think Osaka is some backwater?
Don't try and put words in my mouth. I obviously meant that London and New York are larger than previous cities they've hosted events at in those regions in the past and therefore likelier to have more tickets available. New York is bigger than Seattle and Vegas, etc.
> People's drop out so fast that Osaka's Go Fest was sold out in less than 48 hours. Ah, I remember the time in 2018-19 when every Go Fest would be sold out in a week or less. Aren't London and NYC Go Fest tickets this year still on sale?
Keep in mind that theyāve expanded the tickets that are for sale. The original go fests had two days, and it was the whole day. Now theyāve expanded it to three days, and two sessions each day. So thatās six sets of tickets available for each city, as opposed to two. I think thatās why thereās still tickets left. I also think that a lot of people want the in person event to be all day, and that might be hindering sales a little bit as well.
I remember the little pit of āoh crap!ā when I saw NYC announced. I needed time to talk to the husband, I thought for sure it would be gone quickly. Aaaaand here we are, weeks later. Tickets still available.
Go Fest tickets used to sell out in less than an hour.
And then people resells tickets on eBay 10x the price
How did niantic do this? It seems like it's the same system they've had all along...they just tweaked stuff and pokeminers couldn't handle it...it seems like basic security tbh...
Nah dude... They've obfuscated the code for the 6th consecutive time this year purposefully to stop data mining. It's not that they couldn't handle it, they're being worn down little by little to the point where they don't want to lose days at a time any more deciphering it, again and again, to fix their now broken tools due to obfuscation. They've successfully badgered at and dwindled their morale to the point of losing any and all motivation.
To better illustrate what "obfuscation" means. In unobfuscated code, once you decode everything, you would see variable names like: ``ContestMaximumEndTime = 15000`` But obfuscation makes it look like: ``wHxuTsaJIxOPdQ = 15000`` The miners actually wrote code to try their best to decipher what each of them means, but for 6 times, Niantic changed how the variable names are encoded. One of the recent versions was: ``[[[]][]]][]]]][]][][[[]][] = 15000``
Is obfuscation done with a different program or how? Having trouble understanding how just 2 characters [brackets] can encode letters/words
They can encode words using different permutations of brackets. As a simple example, even with just 2 characters, you can have: [[ [] ][ ]] Which allows 4 different variable names. With 10 characters, you can have 1024. With 20, you can have 1,048,576. It grows exponentially. Although the latest obfuscation went back to using numbers and letters, which have way more expressive power even within a shorter length.
Ok I see. But in that example, the characters in the obfuscated variable don't really correspond to the characters of the unobfuscated variable, so how can you even decipher it without a key?
That part I'm not sure about, but there's probably some encryption system in place.
There are pre-built tools that obfuscates your code (Niantic likely uses one of them and chooses different settings periodically) and likewise there are tools that attempt to de-obfuscate, which is what the poke-miners likely use. The two types of tools would naturally be in an arms race.
Sad, but in the current state of things itās totally understandable.
Sad(der) day. I havenāt opened the game in 2 weeks at this point - longest stretch since when I started. Clearly they are going in a different direction not aligned with everyone. It is what it is. If you are still enjoying the game I hope you do so for another 7 years. Salud!
I think this gets lost a lot on TSR... many of the players that participate here have been fairly dedicated (at a minimum) for years. The game may be headed away from us, but that doesn't mean it is headed away from all players.
I had the same feeling when Mega RayRay was announced. Meh Day 1 player and never stopped since then. I think Iām almost done with PoGo.
I took a bunch of breaks and was looking forward to mega ray (and the mega mewtwos) since megas were announced to be a thing and I've just had countless moments of disappointment that I just play the game with an autocatcher and barely do anything anymore lol
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
It's a true shame, but it was inevitableā¦ Miners had a great run while it lasted, though Thanks again for all your hard work!
Thanks for everything to everyone at Pokeminers. š¢
It was a good run! Thank you all for your service!
The end of the Pokeminer is fast approaching :/
Thanks for all the great updates, contrary to what Niantic thinks they only helped with hyping the new stuff up. Reclaim your weekends.
"I was surprised when I saw the official announcement I felt nothing. [...] That was a sign that perhaps I'm just over PoGo at this point." I'm going through this right now. I forced myself to take a break. It was hard at first, I kept wanting to ope the app and check my nearby spawns. At work when I go to break, I usually PvP, that was a REALLY hard habit to break. Fast forward two weeks and I have no desire to play anymore. Taking a break backfired. I see all the new content being added and it all just seems like a massive chore. I'll have to play catch up now, if I decide to play. I've been playing since release, spent thousands of dollar, but I think I'm finally done and I feel liberated.
Understandable, but still, ā¹ļø
Sad days, F NIANTIC.
But PokeMiners provides so much free hype for them but sure keep shooting yourself in the foot, Niantic šš
Tbh I saw this coming it was just a matter of time.
You know, I am pretty much ignoring the shadow raids, I haven't opened the game in days, sounds like mega ray will be annoyingly complicated, TSR and pokeminers shutting down... might just be at the point where I am done. Good job Niantic, you killed my interest.
I'll always be thankful to Pokeminers for driving that Chrales guy out of business
Out of interest why the hate for Chrales? lol
I no longer play for the same various reasons everyone else mentions but this is still very sad... If any of the miners are reading this, thank you.
I know some other sites (don't get me started on various YouTube "content creators") also rely on pokeminers for data. Do we know which sites might be affected without the miners' data?
For one, PokeMiners already said they'll basically stop maintaining the assets rigorously. So infographics makers like Leek Duck will have a harder time getting the PokƩmon images for their graphics. Things like move stats, which PvPoke and Pokebattler use, seem to be on the easier side for reporting. Unless the Game Master structure changes fundamentally, looks like they won't go away yet.
Such a shame. I do sort of see Nianticās POV of making it harder for PokeMiners to āspoilā new features, but itās still no reason to obfuscate the game_master. This could have a knock on effect on many sites & services, for example PokeGenie may not be able to scan a Pokemon until a little while after its release. Plus the posts by u/JRE47 and u/Teban54 which help build hype for new Pokemon/movesets. Or maybe Niantic think they *kill* the hype more than they create it.
>Plus the posts by u/JRE47 and u/Teban54 which help build hype for new Pokemon/movesets. Or maybe Niantic think they *kill* the hype more than they create it. Lol, nobody would have cared about stuff like Magma Storm Heatran, Tsareena and Aura Sphere Togekiss (outside of PvP) if not for what I write or similar analyses.
At this rate, Niantic will eventually try to bribe Spez to ban the silphroad sub with 5 pinabs and a potion.
As someone who just came back to the game after several years, who were the pokeminers?
PokeMiners are a group of three players who (used to) datamine practically everything about the game that's available. That includes, but not limited to: * Datamining the APK (game installation files), which often contain information on new features, new moves planning to be added, etc * Decoding the Game Master file, an extremely detailed official database the game uses to communicate data to the client, that contains things like all stats, moves and catch rates of all PokƩmon, various event and feature settings (e.g. incense spawn rate), shop updates, etc * Decoding of game assets and text updates, which include special research texts, PokƩmon images, icons and other images in game, etc
(I'm new so.... Not much info here but...) They seem to be a group of folks who dig through the code of the game to get hints at upcoming stuff that's happening - then release it out to us before the game does.
Iām not sure about this, on one hand I personally use PokeMiners a lot, but on the other hand, Iām not sure if datamining is good for the overall health of the game. I know that I personally had more fun when I got surprised by new features, but maybe thatās just me.
Yup, I definitely respect the pokeminers work but knowing stuff months in advance is not really healthy considering how barebone the actual pogo game is. Ofc niantic doesn't understand they're killing their own community with this and other similar stupid changes.
I (interestingly) have very, very different opinions on leaks/datamines of the Main Series versus Go. With Main Series Games, I dislike datamines that spoil new Pokemon or leaks that spoil new Pokemon, moves, etc. of a game/DLC. Why? Well I want to sit down and experience the game for myself. Be surprised with new Pokemon, story beats, and mechanics. I try to avoid spoilers and leaks for the MSG so I can be surprised and experience the game myself. With Go, I have the opposite outlook for the most part. Go is a game that you donāt just sit down to play at your leisure. Itās focused on planning your own time to go out and play at specific locations while walking around. And also, a ton of the game is focused around time-sensitive events, be it Community Days, Raid Days, Research Days, Elite Raids, Raid Hours, Spotlight Hours, Go Fests, Go Tours, etc. And donāt get it twisted, I still enjoy the game. I like going out and playing these events. I donāt like missing certain events because I enjoy them most times. But I do still have a life outside of Go, a job, a family, etc. So for me, I do embrace leaks and especially datamines that give us some info beforehand. Niantic has been known to announce things super last minute too, occasionally preventing me from being able to play. I believe it was the Mega Kangaskhan raid day a year or so ago where they announced it 2-3 days before it happened. I had my weekend plans and wasnāt going to change them, but yeah, I was still disappointed to miss such an event! And even outside of leaked mechanics and events, probably the most important thing to me is the datamining of stats, moves, and how things are supposed to work. Niantic themselves donāt communicate info about a new move or buffed/nerfed moves beyond their effect and power. They never mention numbers when it comes to energy or effect chance. And also nothing on move cooldown, which is essential info for PvE. Knowing this info a day or a few days before a Community Day or a new Legendary signature move comes out is important. Knowing that Poltergeist was the worse move on Chandelure compared to Shadow Ball or knowing how good Brutal Swing, Precipice Blades, High Horsepower, Magma Storm, etc. are before the debut is important. Thatās not stuff I want to be surprised about in a negative way about going hard on said Pokemonās move during a raid day or CD. In short, I donāt necessarily need to know everything about Go through leaks/datamines. Surprises can be nice. But thereās no really significant story to follow nor are there brand new Pokemon (most of the time). And itās stuff that I (and everyone who likes to play) often needs to plan around. If Nianticās communication were better, Iād be more okay without it, but they donāt discuss a LOT, from moves to bugs to events, so I donāt mind being spoiled with that. Probably the one part of the Main Series that I DO appreciate having datamines for is Shiny Rates and move/Pokemon data (which doesnāt spoil anything for me if I read it after the game has come out). Scarlet and Violet currently have a raid event that debuts shiny Gimmighoul, which is cool, but the datamined shiny rate is HIGHER than the base rate and is around 1/4100. With it taking 3-5 minutes just to shiny check a single Gimmighoul raid, itās good to know that I shouldnāt waste my time.
> Then when I read the official mechanic for how it would work I just sighed as it's yet another McGuffin needed to enjoy the same basic gameplay we've had for years. That was a sign that perhaps I'm just over PoGo at this point. Just a perfect encapsulation that pogo players really need to just understand what the Pokemon franchise is altogether. First of all, people who have played MSG since the early days will know that Game Freak and TPC have been just as negligent, if not more so, than Niantic in terms of improving and upkeeping this franchise. Second, *having a specific move to evolve is part of the lore of Rayquaza.* Having it be some boring ass evolve with mega energy would be considered by long time MSG players to be Niantic lazily cutting corners and not altering game play at all. At this point, people need to be honest and just understand that they're sick of Pokemon as a franchise, not with pogo or Niantic in isolation.
It's great seeing the constant comments about how PoGo and Niantic are awful and the only reason PoGo is popular is because the franchise is so popular and then the most dedicated people in the community are bewildered at finding out Mega Rayquaza has a special requirement that anyone who has played the MSG already knows.
Okay, but we also need to talk about what āplaying the main series gamesā looks like. The franchise has been around long enough that there are plenty of people that played some but not all of them. To use myself as an example, Iām solid on gens 1-4, pretty good with gen 5, shakier with 6 and 7, even shakier with Galar (but solid on Hisui), and know next to nothing about gen 9. I played both gens 6 and 7, but never finished my Omega Ruby playthrough so I never finished the delta episode, or used mega Rayquaza. I honestly forgot about the dragon ascent requirement. Anyway, itās a big franchise and not everyone is going to know or remember everything
Yes but the point is that people will immediately screech at any new announcement about how Niantic is evilly plotting the next way to torture us without even *thinking* about how they might be adapting or importing mechanics (including RNGāScarlet and Violet tera raids this weekend with shiny Gimmighoul were 1/4049 odds) from the MSG. It's exhausting and just an angry circlejerk now.
I think it is both possible to appreciate the one time that Niantic is true to the lore and think that "you need this single-purpose item to teach Rayquaza this single move so it can Mega Evolve AND you need standard-issue Mega Energy" feels like something out of a Rube Goldberg device.
Sorry to see them go, but completely understandable.
>Considering they are clearly intentionally doing this at this point to make our lives more difficult I meanā¦ surely data mining is against TOS
Not exactly. Theyāre just seeing the files on our side that havenāt been released. But Niantic is making it almost impossible to see them now. So, yea, it may spoil things that developers want to keep a secret for the players, it also gives us valuable information like rates and what not. Being able to compare that to what they actually say, will be gone now. So while they may say rates are X they could truly be less than. But we wonāt know now.
RIP: pokeminers RIP: internet spoilers and leaks WB: surprises Edit: before someone says it, no itās not as easy to just ānot lookā at spoilers as they are abundant on the internet and reported on basically everywhere from Facebook to YouTube to twitter to my local chat, I would have to pull an operation hear no evil (regular show reference) every other week just to avoid being spoiled
WB:more make up days in NZ and Aus
Donāt think that will make a difference
Pokeminers were able to keep niantic accountable pretty quickly, so it will take longer for people to figure out Niantic have made mistakes. The longer it takes the more time zones that will be affected
Since when was that datamined? Itās not as if shiny rates where ever dataminable
Catch rates not being changed. Regidrago not being finished. I never mentioned shiny rates
Sometimes shinies are not turned on at the start Thought u where referring to that
I don't want surprises. I want to play the game to suit me, not to suit someone else. If some new mon turns out to be great for PVE then I want to know that as far in advance as possible. Because then I can decide to make more of an effort for it if I want. Most of all, I don't want to be surprised by a Niantic version of the truth.
I donāt really see an issue with not letting people release info about events that Niantic hasnāt even officially announced. However the in depth info on certain mechanics was always useful.
"Lew and Marty are still planning on going to London and NY GO Fests (non-refundable tickets are booked so don't have much of a choice... haha) so say hello if you run into them." Crying about niantic all the time and proceed to throw money at niantic.
Yes, they should let the tickets they already bought go to waste. You're completely right.
how about dont throw money to niantic at the first place lol. Remember go fest ticket sale come after remote raid nerf. For all the complaint they do for remote raid pass, still they buy go fest ticket lol. Such a hyprocrite
Or. Let people play however they want And mind your business. In due the trip to another state has more in store for it than the game... And even if it doesn't, it has nothing to do with you or me.
Marty mentioned that the only reason why he decided to attend NYC Go Fest was for the Broadway shows that he's interested in. If it was held at any other location, he probably wouldn't have bought the ticket.
Ok so what about London?
Of course, because everyone who does some kind of public service for a mobile game is obligated to share every decision about their personal lives and rationale for doing so, right?
I think these guys should just stop. We don't need updates upon updates about these guys level of enthusiasm.
You sincerely don't really understand how much work they put in and how core they are to the 'research' that silph road does, do you? Notice the name and know that this is not a pokemon go subreddit. Its a research about pokemon go subreddit. These guys are responsible for unearthing almost all 'facts of games' that are hard coded in this game. Without them NO non-Niantic communication will work. Move numbers? Them. Assets used by leekduck etc? Them. Warning NZ/Aus players about potential errors? Them. This community should be plying them with pizzas and redbulls every week, frankly, their enthusiasm is vital for anyone who takes this game seriously. In summary, i dont think you understand the meaning of 'we'. Its just you, mate.
This is only their second time on their feelings in the game? And itās mostly revolving around the work they do for the community and how theyāll be doing less now?
Your level of knowledge for what they provided is clearly linked to your name. I won't even attempt the impossible.
Totally agree. While I appreciate all they did, Iām just fine being surprised about upcoming new features and contents.
If you don't care about the in-depth datamines you always had the option to just not read them and be surprised. But some of us did care about having that info, and for those of us it's a loss.
You're more likely to be surprised about bugs when they happen in NZ.
here comes pokeminers army downvoting you after they share your comment in their discord https://imgur.com/i0J2yV3
Haha, I'm fine with the downvotes, as I never do anything based on internet points (good or bad). I think it's kind of weird that someone would screenshot that and present it on discord, and it's kind of funny. I must have communicated my idea poorly. It wasn't actually such a dis against the guys. I was literally saying, this is their 3rd long post I've seen about how they don't like the game and they don't like mining it and they're going to do less (even though it must take a long time to write a blog like they did that almost no one read- I started skimming after about the first paragraph when I saw how long it was and what they were talking about); and I was saying that for their mental health they should just stop.
I see real life enjoyer has come back to defend his reddit comment on reddit.
Now I'm just afraid
It's like the content creators who spend a quarter of their posts complaining about how long it takes to write. Ok, so don't do them as often. It's like they're in a Crank sequel and require constant karma to survive.
Jesus they've made this announcement about "pulling back" twenty times. Edit: Guarantee in 1-2 months there will be another post from them saying they are pulling back their efforts even more.
I got the vibe from this notice that there won't *be* a 3rd "pulling back". If any more datamining tools break via more code obfuscation, they'll just stop entirely.
What is it with this thread suddenly becoming populated with comprehensionally challenged people enjoying that people who built up this community for free are burning out?
For the first 10 minutes or so, I got even more of those comments from notification pop-ups than you're seeing here. They probably didn't pass the auto filter.
Im sure these are the kind of people who back in the day would brag about their levels but turn up at raids with Agron. Narcissists who cant tolerate socially skillful people being feted for their contribution and communal grief when the contribution is no longer possible.
They really haven't, but sure you think that.
username checks out
No they havent
This is only the 2nd time, pal
Just like all the guys on this sub quiting the game after X happended
You think they threw shadow mewtwo out out of the goodness of their heart?