Pokémon GO Rolls Out in Latin America as Niantic Reclaims Legendary Pokemon

Aww... but I really wanted an Articundo...

Aww, they should let the lucky few keep their legendaries. It's not like they can trade or breed and spread them all over. Unless they were dangerously hacked copies of the game that can be repeated ad infinitum (which doesn't appear to be the case, allegedly) where's the harm?

I wonder how they mistakenly gave legendaries to some people if their plan was to not give them at all.
Maybe there is a spy of Team Rocket inside the Niantic's team?

I wish they'd fix battery saver mode on Android too.

Pffttt... I still have my agumon.

I think we all know who took those legendary PokéMon...

@BakaKnight

Most likely someone either made a call from a custom-made API directly to the server, or used a script/CLI application, and hasn't been caught by the almighty banhammer. By using these you're able to get pretty much anything you wish, including a 2500+ CP Mew. And there's a ton of such scripts, and very easy accessible. Oh, and did I mention the scripts/applications evolve everyday, by being constantly rewritten? And yet Niantic fails to do anything about it - does text fixes and removes tracker instead. /slow clap

Worst of all such cheaters usually don't do huge things all at once, but rather take the salami slicing approach to it. Isn't it a great time to do something about it?

It's a HUGE security hole (as a QA engineer I can't believe how this got past the testers and ended up in the production app), but yeah, Poke Go fans will still run around and shout how PokeVision "ruined" the game, failing to notice the REAL threat.

@Waninoko @SanderEvers I know there are not intended ways for get Pokemon, but it sound like Niantic is taking a fault for some granted legendaries.
Then again I guess this is the quickest way for solve the issue, using the "we granted them, we take them back" formula is definitely less troublesome then argue with every single cheater that claims he/she didn't do it XD

@BakaKnight

Let's hope that's the case. I fear that "reclaiming" is just a form of damage control by the PR guy, as Niantic doesn't want to admit their security is severely lacking and these were just hacked 'mons, that somehow got past the security radar.

@Waninoko You bring up good Points and bring to light the terrible programming skills at Niantic sadly.

But PokeVision brought cheating to the masses, that don't posses hacking/Programming skills.

With apps and sites like Pokevision, everyone and their grandmother could find and Catch (rare) pokemon at alarming rates. Which is what was happening!

I have played the game purely legit and my leveling goes extremely slow! I haven't even be able to Evolve a single Pokemon, because I simply haven't run into enough of the same Pokemon to get enough candy.

PokeVision made that extremely easy and as such had to be taken down, but wasn't fast enough. Another fail by Niantic.

Now you have a massive unfair powergap between the cheaters and People that have been trying to play legit.

Like I said before, every single Gym in my city has Level 30+ players with (rare / fully evolved ) Pokemon all above 1500+ CP ! Everywhere!
And the game has only just been available here for less than two weeks.

Indeed this game is not made by Nintendo. They acknowledged Central America's existence! Take that Miitomo!

YAS! I can finally download it legally. It was about time.

Yeah! Finally in Brazil! But my girlfriend has more Poke than me =/

Well, they didn't translate the game into portuguese. My girlfriend can't play the game because she don't understand English.

Thank you, Niantic, for nothing.

Good thing thing they are working on fixing that battery saver bug.
I had to either leave it on and restarting the game every few minutes due to the touch screen not working, or off and have up 1.5 hours of life at max (iPhone 5). I always go with the latter.

@R-Moss There are many countries that get the English version only. The game can be played without knowledge of the English language.

@Jeronan If you don't have enough Pidgeys and Weedles to evolve, use Lures and Lucky Egg combo - 30k to 50k granted.
Tons of players camp at pokestops few hours daily, farming pokemon, lurying, luckyegging and leveluping. They only leave if they need food or a Dragonite appear nearby and run in around the city.
Those players aren't going to level up faster anyway, their 1 level is your 5 levels.

@R-Moss the game doesn't require advanced English. If kids who don't know what "revive" means play it, your girlfrend should have no problem as well.

@R-Moss

1-Log in
2-Walk until you see a pokemon in the screen and approach it
3-Select him by touching him on your touchscreen
4-Throw him poke balls until you catch him or he runs away
5-Repeat

That's the core gameplay, without the need to understand anything. Also, you seem to know english quite well, so I don't see how you can't explain the game to her.

@roy130390 @KTT @Cosats

Thank you all of you. I do know some English, but I won't be playing Pokémon Go.

My girlfriend, otherwise, tried it, but she has ZERO knowledge in English, and was asking me - all the time - what she needed to do. -_-

Miitomo is fully translated in Brazilian Portuguese, even the audio. But Niantic didn't care for this.

But the game is a success. My sister and my cousin are playing. And today, in a tourist spot in my city, I saw A LOT of people playing.

@Jeronan Until they fix tracking in app, 3rd party tracking is how you do it.

When I see an ultra rare pokemon listed in game as the first pokemon, but then go and check a 3rd party tracking app, the ultra rare pokemon is nowhere around me. This has happened several, several times to me where a pokemon listed as close is actually nowhere around me. I'm not about to waste my time to wander around aimlessly for a pokemon that doesn't even exist. It wasn't the footprints that were the problem, the whole tracking system isn't correct when you compare it to the 3rd party apps people have developed. It makes the game frustrating and a struggle just to find an uncommon pokemon.

Not to mention that I have found several rare pokemon that were right next to me, and the in game tracking showed it not even listed. They just don't want themselves to look bad, in that so many other people could figure out their tracking API, Niantic themselves couldn't even get it decently working. Why can complete strangers figure out an API that Niantic itself can't even get working?

Niantic shouldn't be focused on new features. It should be focused on getting existing features working correctly. Otherwise, instead of working old features, you just get a bunch of old and new features that don't work right.

This whole app is just turning into a mess for Niantic really. Even more so that they seem to "fix" their issues by removing content.

@MrGuinea
Just because the App has bugs, doesn't justify People to cheat!

No matter how you try to spin it.

If you cannot live with bugs and are impatient for Niantic to fix them. Then just uninstall the game and walk away.

Simple as that.

@MrGuinea Advice: keep restarting GO often if you want to refresh the nearby pokemon list. The radar downloads and keeps some old data and sometimes doesn't refresh automatically. Meaning that it won't show the new pokemon, and old, long-despawned pokemon, cluster your list.
Without any tracker it's still luck, but at least you will know what actually spawned for real, and it may be slighty more possible to track it using its position on the refreshed nearby list.