Ever since Pokémon GO launched, many people have been wondering how the game would be handling the distribution of Legendary and Mythical Pokémon. It's known that they're in the game, but there's no indication as to how to obtain them. It's expected that they'll be given out as part of a social event of some sort, as was alluded to in the original trailer, but Niantic has so far remained tightlipped on the matter.
All the same, it appears that somebody has already managed to catch Articuno. An Articuno was found guarding a Team Mystic gym on Monday evening, owned by a trainer named Kaitlyn Covey. Covey claimed that the Articuno was given to her by Niantic as an apology, and showed an email supposedly from Niantic as proof. Naturally, the internet was quick to call it all out as fake, but the trainer and her husband even went so far as to do a livestream where they showed off the Pokémon and its Pokédex entry. A rep from Niantic later claimed that it didn't come from them and declared it as either a spoof or a hack, but then also mentioned how it's being looked into and that there aren't "clear answers at the moment". It appears that, hacked or not, somebody does in fact have an Articuno on their team now.
If you're curious, the recording of the livestream can be found here. See for yourself.
What do you think? Is this real? How do you think Legendaries will be distributed in the future? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
[source geek.com]
Comments 27
Yeah, he looks like the type of guy that would lie and hack..........
Well if Niantic said that they didn't send it to them, then obviously it's a hack.
Pfft Articuno.... I have an agumon.
What a shame Niantic is dropping the ball (pun intended). Complete loss of tracking, increased sparsity of pokemon especially in areas that were already having a tough enough time as it was, increased difficulty of catching even low CP pokemon. I know these complaints are in vain, but if I may share, during the first few days when paw tracking was working, it may have been some of the most fun (or at least, unique fun) I've ever had with a game. Staying out until 3 AM, tracking down one more 'mon with some buddies. No other game could do something like that. I understand they removed tracking functionality to reduce server load, but they were getting offers from Amazon CTO and others to help out with their servers, but they haven't capitalized on it. Hopefully Niantic gets their act together, before the community gets too fed up.
If this is all it takes to tear a community apart, I feel afraid for the future of the human race. Grow up and be happy for someone other than yourselves for once.
I watched the stream and if you look at the model for the Pokemon, it's really blocky and doesn't move properly. This clearly isn't a Niantic glitch or hack since the Articuno is so poorly animated.
Every other Pokemon they've made is perfectly animated down to the last detail. I don't see them creating a Pokemon, a legendary no less, that moves like a piece of crap.
It's probably fake.
One of the more annoying arguments aimed at Niantic is that they "don't realize the value of Legendaries, and so don't care if they just hand one out." Sadly, this rumor is way too well circulated. It stinks because Niantic clearly DOES understand their value (and even the value of ditto), hence why they are keeping these Pokemon in hand for the right time. I'm very glad Niantic has shut this rumor down (and that NL covered all of it), but to be honest, it is sad that they ever should have had to.
-1 mystic rep
This is likely a simple model change made on the clinet's side. It's technically nothing more complex than how an Action Replay or Game Shark functions.
Oh my...
The hype is lead to hacking....
Someone has ruined the importance of fair playing...
@Shugo I'm sold. I don't think they're supposed to have it, but they either glitched or hacked it in.
Apparently someone else has done this with a Ditto as well.
@OneArmedGiant Wait, this is tearing the community apart? As in, people are FIGHTING over this? Where? I just thought it was amusing. Probably just a hack, but amusing.
Has anyone else seen it? If it's in a gym and others can easily see it then that's proof.
Well, there's a lot of custom made APIs, doing direct calls to the game's server, as well as a whole bunch of ...interesting scripts and CLI applications that let you catch and do pretty much antything, it's not a huge surprise for me, really.
I reckon there was also a way to swap the in-game models, so maybe that's a Pidgey, disguised as Articuno.
I'm actually not looking forward to the legendaries being released then every flipping gym is gonna have them set as guardians. Yawn - boring!
All of that could easily be faked by someone who knows a bit about computer programming... it's probably just a pair of ID numbers that have been switched, so that when the game sees the Pokemon with the ID number 'X', it instead displays the data for the Pokemon with the ID number 'Y' (Articuno).
Give a copy of the altered apk to a handful of other people so that they see the same thing and can back up your story, and you've got what's going on here.
Who cares?
@WreckItRyan You basically summed up all of my pain regarding this game, well said.
Though I also wonder what it will be like for people living in small town areas that want to catch legendary pokémon. It's not always easy to get into the bigger cities, especially for a luxury like catching pokémon.
And the very fact Articuno is rare enough for his capture to make the news is one of the key reasons I don't plan on playing Pokémon GO anytime soon.
And let the degradation of the game begin!
Couple mysteriously have an unreleased Pokemon.
Couple claim NIantic gave them said Pokemon.
Niantic address the claim and deny that happened. So the couple have clearly lied about the story. Why believe anything they put out beyond that? It didn't happen, so clearly they obtained it some shady way.
Hackjob. Nothing more to see.
Well where is my MissingNO, Ninatic? Inquiring minds want to know.
Hack.
I'm really sick of seeing Pokémon Go articles every day.
Lol they're level 21 and a legendary's max CP is 1500 thats how you know it's not real -_-
You know. everyone here is trying so hard here to say she does have an Articuno and how lucky she is.........................BUT WHERES OUR ARTICUNOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I SAY WE START A RIOT!!!!!!!!!!!!
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