Pokemon Go shuts down third party trackers like Pokevision.com

[Afterglow Ampharos]

Pokemon Go shuts down Pokevision and other such maps because they are "cheating"

Third party trackers like Pokevision, etc. are TIPS though. They are supplements. They don't catch the Pokemon for you. They don't make the Pokemon magically stronger. They don't bring it to your current position on a silver platter. You still have to move yourself to where the Pokemon is, before time runs out. You have to catch it. You have to deal with whatever CP and moves the game generated. The only advantage is not wandering in circles until the thing de-spawns because the in-game Nearby tab provides absolutely no feedback about where you are relative to the Pokemon.

Even if Niantic eventually get the footprints on Nearby back working properly, that system is utterly flawed. It does not help you know which direction to head in, leading to wandering around aimlessly trying to figure out where it is. Even that three-ring trick graphic that people have been sharing around will lead to the Pokemon de-spawning before you reach it in time.

Additionally, running out to specific locations on a map to find a Pokemon makes for a much stronger real-life community experience.

Not only that, but having a destination in mind when seeking Pokemon means much less looking down at your phone to track the silhouette's spot in the list of 9 Nearby pokemon. And that means more safety for Pokemon Go players. I cannot stress that enough.

Pokemon games have coexisted with fan-made resources to help players find Pokemon locations for decades now. This should be no different.

Pokemon Go. Niantic. Either coexist with Pokevision, or make a map of your own, or at LEAST a direction pointer toward Pokemon. Did you see the promotional videos? There was an arrow and a distance. Even if you hate the exact destination given by the maps, an arrow would really make this app far more realistically useful.

Fortunately, someone has already created a petition on Change.org. I realize I have focused on the negatives on this post, but this petition focuses on the positive, especially in the Letter, which reads:

Letter to
Niantic Labs John Hanke CEO Niantic
CEO Niantic Labs John Hanke

Please Reinstate Pokevision for PokemonGo.

Over the last few weeks, there has been a worldwide phenomenon, brought about by the release of PokemonGo. In a world, where chaos, sadness and uncertainty are a daily occurance, something special happened... people from all walks of life, all ages and skin colours and religions found common ground: Pokemon! I have met people I would normally not even look at, let alone talk to, while out hunting pokemon. Pokevision gave us a valuable add on to your excellent game: we could look around our local and (not so) local areas and see what pokemon were there. The result was that we would go out and explore, that we would visit places we didnt even know about. Please, allow pokevision to resume their service at least until the PokemonGo app can give us a similar function.

You have accomplished something amazing with the release of this game, please reconsider your decision and allow users to see what pokemon are available around them.

I encourage you to visit this link to the petition.

I also encourage you to tweet at Pokemon Go and/or Niantic.

​

Another person's thoughts which I believe are important enough to share:

Source

I read an article today that mentioned how the CEO of Niantic doesn't like Pokévision because he thinks it "takes the fun out of the game" and that [...] they're planning on blocking the access to the data. I have things to say about this.

First of all, your nearby/footsteps function is broken, so you have absolutely no room to talk. Come back to me when you make it functional again.

Secondly, I strongly believe that it could cut down on the number of accidents from pedestrians or players that stupidly PoGO while driving. If you know exactly where a Pokémon is going to be, you'll go right to it and wait for your phone to vibrate, not walk in circles looking down at the screen to see if the steps function has increased or decreased (which, again, is BROKEN), all while totally ignoring your surroundings and putting yourself in danger, despite the opening warnings.

And lastly, no, it is absolutely not taking the fun out of the game. Do you know how much fun I have wandering in circles? Not much, thanks. But when I found a Snorlax the other night and a friend and I excitedly got dressed (yes we has already traded in our say clothes for our sloth clothes) and drove over to it and bonded over trying to catch it, THAT was fun. When we saw that there was a Rhydon on a very specific street corner the other day and walked several blocks to get to it and then RAN because we were worried the time would run out (and yes, it did run out for the people who crossed the street seconds after us, but we both got the Rhydon!) THAT was fun. We've been going to places we've never been before because we see on Pokévision that there are good Pokémon in the area. How can you say that it's not fun?

 

[Illusionss]

Good riddance, hopefully people who used the spoof hack will get banned/reset as well.

 

[Afterglow Ampharos]

It was making the app more functional and less dangerous (traffic accidents), Illusionss. And more communal, as well. I have stories similar to the Snorlax and Rhydon ones PokemonGoMon shared above.

 

[Maserati777]

They sure are doing a good job at shooting themselves in the foot.

 

[Hiidoran]

I used Pokevisions, and while it was neat to see what was in walking or driving distance with more certainty than the broken, now down, tracking system, I'm not that upset over it. Certainly not enough to sign a petition, and certainly not enough to stop playing GO.

The game's premise is to walk around and just find Pokémon. I know, it's super annoying to walk in random directions and have Pokémon despawn, but it's still a fun game.

 

[Afterglow Ampharos]

I can respect your opinion about that Hiidoran, but the points still remain that a map-based tracker makes things both more communal and increases safety.

Even if you believe that function and fun are not improved by a map, meeting people in real life and staying more aware of things outside your screen (to stay safe) are both very important.

P.S.You say the game's premise is to only walk around and happen into Pokemon, but if they didn't intend on having you track Pokemon at ALL, they would not have made a Nearby tab in the first place.

 

[Mister Coffee]

So as a person who has never used any of the Pokemon tracking websites and being a person who spends hours wandering around my town playing pokemon GO, I find that fun.
The reasons that you are explaining as to what is making the game not fun and has supposedly turned your hand towards using pokemon tracking websites, are all things that I have been dealing with, haven't been concerned in the least about, and I just have been enjoying the game spectacularly as it is without feeling the need to stop and know where everything should be.
I would describe it as... exploring, like I'm a pioneer.
Wait! a better analogy! I feel like a real life pokemon trainer! I'm wandering into the wild on my pokemon adventure, and I will catch anything that pops up, and I will walk anywhere my feet will carry me, if I don't already have some set destinations (my destinations being locations I'm trying to get to in real life, not specific pokemon spawning points).

I understand the whole plight of, "But... I have a real life, I work all day, I can't waste hours wandering around!" I get that too. I work a full time job, I have responsibilities and things to do outside of playing video games, but I still find all the time I need for PGO wandering and I still come across fantastic pokemon, I get tons of fantastic exercise, and I have yet to not have fun while doing all of this.

I can understand that it really sucks not having that extra aid, but does it make the game unplayable? No I really don't think so.
Honestly, pick a day when you aren't working, set aside like 4-5 hours in the early morning or the late night, and just... well GO. Don't think about catching one rare pokemon, don't bother tapping that nearby list and staring at it over and over again. Just turn the game on, hold it in your hand at your side, pick a destination, and just start walking until your phone vibrates.
That is exactly how I play the game every single day, it's fun, it's relaxing, and it has never forced me to use a pokemon tracker ever.

This game does not need trackers, it just needs a solid and helpful community. Which is what brings me to my next topic. If you really feel so inclined to have a need to use some form of tracking information to make a naturally enjoyable game more easy for hunting pokemon, apparently the "Poke Radar" app is still functioning and could be used more efficiently if you and many other who are outraged by the loss of pokemon trackers were to all come together and build the radar better by offering up user generated locations. (It might even stick around for a long time since the theory of why Poke Radar hasn't been taken down is because it is user driven on a website that is not tracking the information through Niantic's servers.)

 

[Squirrel]

Not surprised at all. These sites never should have been a thing and, whilst it is irritating that the 3-step glitch stops you being able to track any Pokémon properly without these sites, I do consider them a form of cheating (even if not a severe or hugely useful one) and I'm not sad to see them go. I did use PokéVision myself on several occasions and I will miss being able to track exciting Pokémon with it but it feels very fair to take these sites down. They always felt like a case of "this will never be allowed to last so just abuse it whilst you can" to me so I'm not sad about it haha.

 

[Limey-chan]

Never used it, can't say i'm either sad nor surprised to see it go.

 

[Esper]

How I feel about this will be dependent on how well the update fixes the problems of finding Pokemon in the wild by walking around. If it remains just as fruitless without the step counter then I'll be annoyed.

 

[Afterglow Ampharos]

A destination to head to in the real world is much less time spent looking at your screen to track the silhouette's spot in the list of 9 Nearby pokemon. And that means. Safety.

I just want to know which direction I need to go, because vague nearby isn't helpful, and is a frustration.

Did you see the promotional video? There was an arrow and a distance. Even if you hate on the exact destination given by the maps, an arrow would really make this app far more realistically useful.

Even in Mister Coffee's analogy, this would work out beautifully.

 

[Mister Coffee]

A destination to head to in the real world is much less time spent looking at your screen to track the silhouette's spot in the list of 9 Nearby pokemon. And that means. Safety.

I just want to know which direction I need to go, because vague nearby isn't helpful, and is a frustration.

Did you see the promotional video? There was an arrow and a distance. Even if you hate on the exact destination given by the maps, an arrow would really make this app far more realistically useful.

Even in Mister Coffee's analogy, this would work out beautifully.

Well then it sounds like you would be a fantastic candidate to rally a group of users to make Poke Radar more efficient. I'm not being sarcastic dude, you could do it, you sound motivated, and Poke Radar would probably be the best outlet for you at this point (that is until Niantic updates the game or a better tracker is designed that slides through a Niantic terms of service loop hole).

 

[Afterglow Ampharos]

Well then it sounds like you would be a fantastic candidate to rally a group of users to make Poke Radar more efficient. I'm not being sarcastic dude, you could do it, you sound motivated, and Poke Radar would probably be the best outlet for you at this point (that is until Niantic updates the game or a better tracker is designed that slides through a Niantic terms of service loop hole).

I don't see how you mean. The arrow I mentioned would point toward current Pokemon, not Pokemon that others had reported being there in the past. One can't make that without the same Pokemon Go data that Niantic has recently banned/disabled Pokevision and all other tracking websites from using.

And in my experience, Poke Radar isn't useful. All the nearby sightings are about a full 24 hours ago. Pokemon despawn within 12 or so minutes.

 

[Phoenixstarz]

Did you see the promotional video? There was an arrow and a distance.

Exactly! It wasn't designed for someone to wander around aimlessly you were always supposed to be able to track Pokemon. Also for those sites like pokeradar they are useless right now since they changed all the spawn locations so if someone put on the map they saw a charizard last week then it's very unlikely to spawn there now.

Either way it's never a good business decision to piss off fan sites since they are the people you will be relying on later as the player base declines.

 

[Hiidoran]

I can respect your opinion about that Hiidoran, but the points still remain that a map-based tracker makes things both more communal and increases safety.

Well thank you for being respectful, my good sir. That's nice to see.

Although I still don't really understand how pokevisions being gone takes away the communal feel of GO? There are still all kinds of resources for GO out there that aren't considered cheating. Telling someone where a local nest of a certain type of Pokémon is on a Facebook group, for instance, isn't really cheating in the same way that pokevisions was - and that's super communal. When you get to these locations, you meet more GO players whom you could then interact with and learn about even more locations in which to go hunting. Maybe I misunderstood you, but this to me seems more interactive and communal than a site that simply just told you where to go?

As for safety... I agree that looking up where to go, then getting there safely without distraction is ideal. However, people should be paying attention to where they're walking while on their phones regardless of what they're doing on it anyway. There's just no excuse there. That Pikachu isn't worth your life or limb; look up if you're crossing the street. Besides, these incidents are still going to happen even if the trackers were still working. People refuse to look up when trying to catch a Pokémon they've already engaged - while walking. I've seen it far too often, sadly. :\

 

[Squirrel]

I can respect your opinion about that Hiidoran, but the points still remain that a map-based tracker makes things both more communal and increases safety.

Surely PokéVision if anything would make GO less communal as there's no longer a need to tell your friends where local Pokémon are or to search as a big group to cover more ground?

 

[Afterglow Ampharos]

Well thank you for being respectful, my good sir. That's nice to see.

Although I still don't really understand how pokevisions being gone takes away the communal feel of GO? There are still all kinds of resources for GO out there that aren't considered cheating. Telling someone where a local nest of a certain type of Pokémon is on a Facebook group, for instance, isn't really cheating in the same way that pokevisions was - and that's super communal. When you get to these locations, you meet more GO players whom you could then interact with and learn about even more locations in which to go hunting. Maybe I misunderstood you, but this to me seems more interactive and communal than a site that simply just told you where to go?

As for safety... I agree that looking up where to go, then getting there safely without distraction is ideal. However, people should be paying attention to where they're walking while on their phones regardless of what they're doing on it anyway. There's just no excuse there. That Pikachu isn't worth your life or limb; look up if you're crossing the street. Besides, these incidents are still going to happen even if the trackers were still working. People refuse to look up when trying to catch a Pokémon they've already engaged - while walking. I've seen it far too often, sadly. :\

1) I don't use Facebook, so I wouldn't know, sorry.

2) I don't think nests exist outside of Japan/America. I've certainly never witnessed one in Canada. Correct me if I'm wrong.

3) (also directed at Squirrel) By communal things, I meant more like the Rhydon and Snorlax stories PokemonGoMon.tumblr shared. Does that make any sense? Those events with other people were facilitated through a Pokemon appearance and uniting with others in a mission to go get it. Not wandering blindly.

You CAN make blind wandering communal, but it's just not the driving force that noticing a nearby Pokemon location is.

4) I agree with your points about common sense in staying safe, but the current system REQUIRES you to keep your eye on the list of 9 Nearby Pokemon to watch for changes if you want to get anywhere at all. It's designed unsafely.

 

[Phoenixstarz]

Just reread John hamkes post again about it's not being how he wanted the game to be played I think he has lost sight of 1 important thing. It may be his companies game and if he wants to act like a child and take his ball home he is within his rights to however the company is making a lot of money from the fans and maybe if the fans want something then finding some way to keep them happy is a good business desicion

 

[Mister Coffee]

1)
I don't see how you mean. The arrow I mentioned would point toward current Pokemon, not Pokemon that others had reported being there in the past. One can't make that without the same Pokemon Go data that Niantic has recently banned/disabled Pokevision and all other tracking websites from using.

And in my experience, Poke Radar isn't useful. All the nearby sightings are about a full 24 hours ago. Pokemon despawn within 12 or so minutes.
...

I don't use Facebook, so I wouldn't know, sorry.

2) I don't think nests exist outside of Japan/America. I've certainly never witnessed one in Canada. Correct me if I'm wrong.

3) (also directed at Squirrel) By communal things, I meant more like the Rhydon and Snorlax stories PokemonGoMon.tumblr shared. Does that make any sense? Those events with other people were facilitated through a Pokemon appearance and uniting with others in a mission to go get it. Not wandering blindly.

You CAN make blind wandering communal, but it's just not the driving force that noticing a nearby Pokemon location is.

4) I agree with your points about common sense in staying safe, but the current system REQUIRES you to keep your eye on the list of 9 Nearby Pokemon to watch for changes if you want to get anywhere at all. It's designed unsafely.

*Rubs hands together*

Alright, so lets start with PokeVision.
Pokevision, was a problem for Niantic's servers, they had past repeat problems with their previous but less popular game "Ingress", the problem was that their servers were being overloaded by outside tracking sites that were constantly pinging their servers for scanning portals and locating places of interest. It was creating a lot of traffic for their server that was not users playing the game. In the past, way before Pokemon GO, they shut down these Ingress tracking websites for the exact same reason that they are now shutting down Pokemon GO trackers. The Pokemon GO trackers they shut down were pinging their servers in order to track the specifically spawned times of various pokemon. This is a form of infiltration into their servers that is causing problems such as lag and also acquiring information from the data that was otherwise meant to be kept secret for the purpose of being found, not pin pointed. (Also the original tracking system was not used for pin pointing pokemon, even when it did have the numbers in the beta and not the foot steps, it gives you a general but still purposely vague distance for the purpose of you trying to get you to wander in the general direction of the pokemon you are hoping to find. You can't argue that "PokeVision was the original intent of the nearby list within the Pokemon GO game, because they are simply nothing alike even if the nearby list was at full functionality.) The overall point, PokeVision was creating illegal server traffic in the game, they were straight up violating and there's no denying it.

Next is Poke Radar. Poke Radar is a community driven application that (if there is enough traffic) will report where pokemon spawn. Nests are everywhere, I really doubt they are exclusive to only two countries, the only way I could imagine that would be possible is if it was a feature that was implemented in a later patch, and a different country got the game later and would need to wait on an update, but based on my understanding of how the game works, that should not be the case. You're playing the same game we are playing dude, the only difference I imagine is you're in a different server due to being in a different country. If a nest is found, a person can report that nest on Poke Radar, and anyone within your area has access to that information. Though the moment a user posts that information, everybody using that app will immediately know that the pokemon will spawn there and you have as much of a chance at it as they do presumably you can get there in time ( which is really no different than what PokeVision is doing the only difference is one is word of mouth from a user who has seen it and reported it, versus a data tracking service that is reporting that a pokemon spawned somewhere.). My point that I was making when I said "You can do this.", I was saying you can be the loud voice that creates that reliable Poke Radar community that is constantly running around and posting live spawn points on the application. The tools are right in front of you, you just have to want to reach out and grab them.
However, as this conversation is going on, I'm not really sure what you're intending to get us to tell you by constantly bringing up points that are really easy to deal with in the game without having to scream at Niantic about their completely justified shut down of the varying pokemon trackers.

As for your "Communal" arguments, that's a matter of opinion, not provable fact. Just because you had a blast sprinting to a distinct location in order to catch one pokemon with your friend, doesn't give your argument more merit over the many stories I could tell you about me and my group of friends wandering for hours not tracking, just wandering the beach, stealing some gyms, catching anything that dares to wander in front of us, and otherwise talking about our lives while we walk and wait for our phones to vibrate.
I'm glad you've had a ton of fun tracking down certain pokemon, but that doesn't strengthen your argument.

Last is your accusation that their current nearby list gluing people to their phone screens. That is NOT on Niantic. People glue their faces to their phones no matter what is on them. People ride their longboards down busy streets in my town while watching you tube videos on their phone. Am I justifying this action? Not at all. Am I doing this action? No, because it's friggin stupid. Do I think this is You Tube's fault? No.
There are dumb people on this planet, it happens, it's a sad tragic truth, and no piece of technology or software is going to fix pure natural stupidity.
The only thing you can do is warn stupid people as best as you can, and don't be stupid yourself.
Blaming Niantic for something that is absolutely out of their direct control is silly, and to try and do so would require you to have to stop and think of every possible purpose a smart phone has and then to try to come up with reasonable argument for each feature as to why it may possibly kill you one day.

Listen, I understand your concern, and I know it sucks, but this isn't game destroying stuff.
You'll either adapt like most of us have, or you can boycott the game by signing a petition and never play it again in hopes that that will impact how Niantic reacts to the user group it lost. It's really up to you.

 

[EC]

Sounds like the honeymoon phase is over.