Would the Wayfarer Forums benefit from there being a Niantic Pokémon GO forum?
PkmnTrainerJ-ING
Posts: 3,979 Ambassador
As mentioned here, there’s an official Niantic forum for every game (plus Wayfarer obviously) except for Pokémon GO. Do you think that the Wayfarer forums would benefit from there being an official Niantic forum for Pokémon GO?
Interested to see, and see if Niantic have rationale for why there isn’t one existing as yet
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No, I think people will still ask Pokémon GO specific questions here. Especially if it is related to stops and gyms.
Yes they would. It wouldn't mean that no Pokémon related questions would be asked here, but there would be less questions asked here, and we could direct people to that forum when appropriate. These people now have nowhere else to go.
As for why it doesn't exist yet? I think Niantic is afraid of the size of that community. They would never be able to moderate it properly.
**** it's almost Q3 and we haven't heard anything about the next rollout upgrade for the Wayfarer product.
Moderator Note: Removed off-topic contents.
we sometimes do not get an answer to our wayfarer specific questions
The contrapositive holds true.
Would people in a Pokemon Go forum ask Wayfarer-related questions in their forum, only to be guided back here? And given the cut-throat nature of other certain forums, asking a very simple (and painfully obvious) question can often result in... much less mellow interactions and reactions (i.e. "don't you know how to read", or they rudely redirect you to a FAQ post). These forums are nicer in that regard that everyone constantly and continuously answers the same questions again and again and again, and again, and again... and... again.
Although the Pokemon Go Reddit (and in line, The Silph Road), plus all the other branching community forums like Pokemon Go Hub, the Gamepress and Neoseeker community platforums do exist, having a "Pokemon Go Community Forums" made by Niantic would be absolutely difficult to bring users in because it's almost five years since Pokemon Go was released and the amount of moderation Niantic staff members would have to do would drive them crazy.
A forum would cost a helluva lot of money, so Niantic lets others do forums and arrange their communities instead.
What would a Pokemon GO forum be good for?
Actually, there are some reasons why in my opinion:
But there are also some positive things:
The difference to Ingress is, that there are no OPs in Pokemon GO. There is no "Let's build the biggest BAF (Big-****-field) of the world, no "we build .....", just playing the game and hope for good IV.
In total it's a discussion I can't really get an opinion on. I can understand both sites and (sadly) don't know how the forums of HP;WU, Catan, and Transformers work.
I'm not against people asking "why hasn't my stop appeared?", but at it's core, it shouldn't be something that's answered.
a) Before whoever reverse engineered the cell layout, we obviously didn't know how it worked and Ingress players still submitted stuff without knowing what'd go into PoGo or it'd be Ingress only, back then it was just "Niantic have chosen that this POI is not used in xyz game" and that was that.
b) Knowing the cell thing has only lead to abuse, despite those abusers probably only being the minority, it allowed people to know how to spread stuff, fudge locations, it lead to people using edits for moves that should never happened and edits that the edit function was never intended for, and then it lead to edits being locked down and restricted because of it, that's why we can't have nice things.
c) Who cares what game it goes into? I submit things because they are genuinely interesting, I don't care if you don't get a Pokestop from it and Ingress gets a portal and other games don't get anything, it's a cool POI and meets criteria and it definitely should be in the portal network. If it meets criteria, submit it, if it doesn't make it into the game of your choice, then at least it helps other game players, and maybe in the future, those game players will return the favor and submit something that will make it into PoGo? if you don't help other people, other people wont help you, choose you battle here.
A Pokemon GO forum would be great for the Wayforum. It would stop the spam of people asking about Pokemon-Go specific questions that don't relate to wayfarer.
Though with Pokemon GO's track record with (almost nonexistant) community management, and the large userbase, a PoGO forum would be a ****show
No, it won't work correctly.
It could have worked if most of them understood exactly what POI meant and if Niantic and the trainers had built a strong relationship of trust. It would have been possible to discontinue gyms that could not safely attract large numbers of people and move them to safer locations.
However, the reality is that this is not the case.
Just grabbing a few threads from the last few in General that I would have put into an official Pokémon GO forum, did one exist.
If there’s any I missed that would be more appropriate on a Pokémon GO forum, please do share them.
The point of having a separate Wayfarer forum was that the Ingress one got enough posts about it to have it’s own. I think we have now reached a point where a Pokémon GO forum is needed for those types of posts.
Per @NianticCasey-ING ’s comment there:
Over time, it’s become more and more clear that we need a centralized place for updates, conversations, and information related to Wayfarer.I think the same now applies with this forum and Pokémon GO, as it did for Ingress and Wayfarer.
I agree that a Pokemon Go forum would be nice, although it would be a nightmare to moderate it with people constantly posting about the bugs, and all their ideas to improve the game.
The current situation where Niantic ignores such huge player base and leaves it to outside resources like Reddit, YouTube and Facebook is almost pathetic.
The HPWU forums have a “Feature Request” space and even though there’s never a direct reply from the staff, I know it’s monitored and at least it’s then an official discussion place for what users want.
Just adding any additional “This would be better to go on an official Niantic Pokémon GO forum” posts here as I find them.
It's clearly needed, the amount of PoGo threads in here not related to WF whatsoever is shocking and is very obvious to anyone who looks.
Another one that doesn’t belong.
It would be nice. There could also be a section in there for things like upcoming events with all the pictures and details of whats going on. Would be much better than the usual random news they give us in game then have to go to another site for it layed out in a visually appealing manner.
There could also be a faq spot where people can find really easy questions especially for beginners and everyone else that plays.
Quest guides as well would be nice. Theres lots of potential in it and im surprised they havent done it. But the only reason why i think they havent done it is due to staffing.
I think the Wayfarer forum would benefit from this.
I think such a community would become unmanageable due to the sheer volume.
we got a taste of it here with the dozens and dozens of "my rewards" threads... imagine that times 100 for every single event or aspect of the game that goes wrong... i do not wish that upon any poor worker.
Thought this one was relevant too and this one
By the way, it's kinda absurd that if anyone asked for a PoGO-related questions then Niantic staff will ask them to contact the support team instead, while anyone asked for an Ingress-related question and Niantic gives this:
That’s because at the moment there’s nowhere official to discuss Pokémon GO, so they can’t offer the same solution. The Ingress forums are very handy. I’ll admit I was dismissive at first, of an Internet forum being introduced for a game in this kind of time, but they actually work really well. I think it should be the way going forward for games so fans have an official place to discuss that the developers and relevant folks can moderate and review (as opposed to a subreddit or Discord which they would not have full control over).
I use forums for several other games and see the developers and community managers really “mucking in” and it really helps out.
I think it is more community-based. And I personally see the PGO community as way more toxic than the ING community. At least in my area, ING players really shouldnt cheat (Multi accounting or spoofing) becausr they would get reported and suspended from the community. While in PGO, noone cares about spoofers or Multi accounters at all. Its more likely common that the "big" Players habe multiple Accounts, partly up to four. Account sharing also is a thing in PGO.
I think this will also be shown in a PGO Forum. Especially if you look at the "activity" page of this Forum, you can often see PGO Screenshots or other random images not dealing with Wayfarer. Such a Spam will be even bigger in a PGO Forum.
ING has like 5-10% of the whole Player Base of Niantic. PGO has around 90%. This would also go far over the capacity of a "clean" Forum. Bug reports will exist over 50 times, same discussions will appear every day, random images will Spam, too.
If the Forum would be spam-free, I would highly apreciate a PGO forum. But I dont have a good feeling on it, currently.
I believe we need an app.
•If we have Ingress questions we can choose the Ingress button & post our questions there where we can all comment if we choose.
• If we have PoGo questions we can choose the Pokémon Go button & post our questions there where we can also all comment if we choose
•When the other games are able to submit/review they can just add button. I never thought about this before but your post @PkmnTrainerJ-ING made me realize this is what we all need. Would make it a lot easier for everyone! The review system could be build into it as well so that it could be all in one. It is going to be time consuming but they need to do this to save Niantic time & money.
Associates wouldn’t have to struggle as much because then we could all just use one single platform rather than several forums. I don’t think they realize the work involved. It would be easier to have one app where you just choose button everytime you open the app where it sends you to categories of forums where you can choose what you want to read about, comment on, & so on. It could have wayfarer built into it as well or, by clicking a link it could take us to the website if they wanted to save money & just make it simple.
Anything is possible, it all depends on what Niantic as a company wants to do. I guess all we can do is just sit back & enjoy the ride
Personally, I find that the pogo community in my area has zero toxicity, there is a bit of friendly banter over kicking people out of guns, but for the most part it's actually very friendly. What would more likely be an issue is that there would be a lot of hatred towards niantic, as a lot, and I mean a loooooot of things niantic does in pogo does not go down well with the pogo player base (for example, removing the double distance for gyms and polestops in new Zealand and America, whe America is hitting a new wave and new Zealand had had to close off Australia again because aus is locking g down. Basically showing that niantic is ignoring the virus again) and niantic will not like to give an official place to vent peoples frustrations of them
I agree, my own local group aren’t toxic @gazzas89-PGO but if you glance at r/Pokemongo or r/TheSilphRoad comments when something goes even slightly wrong, it’s awful.
It would be useful if players had a central place to vent. Recently the release of the latest Harry Potter: Wizards Unite release went badly. People couldn’t play. The team responded (in time)
Then kept users up to date with issues and when there was an ETA on fixes. I think Pokémon GO needs something like this really.
Today is probably a good example of why niantic needs a pokemon forum but will never implement one. With the roll out in new Zealand and America of stop and gym range reverting, they are actually trending for how much they ignored everyone's feedback of "don't do that, we are still in pandemic, dont be stupid". Virtually no one is defending it, everyone is criticising it, its eveb made a news site. If there was a forum, they would be having g to constantly close and remove the threads of criticism (because, you know, listening to them wouldn't work in niantics eyes). Even the content creators are turning against them
As I read this thread, I think it would be helpful to create a Pokémon GO forum if the purpose is to protect against requests and questions that don't belong in a Wayfarer forum.
But I don't see how that would improve Pokémon GO at all.
Currently, many Pokémon GO players continue to make requests that do not understand the nature of the location-based game. And there are even players who want even multi-accounts to be tolerated.
In addition, players who belong to the same community as these players are tolerating their illegal activities.
It would be hell to create a forum with such players.
I can imagine today an official Niantic Pokémon GO forum would be a horror. But it would give a centralised place for the horror to be contained.
Right now, it’s spread out thinly across various sites, influencers and such. All of those could have the link to one thread on that forum and say “Right trainers, air your grievances here. Tell Niantic what you think, they’ll close it at the end of the week, and then close off any future comments on this issue.”
Niantic can then discuss it and provide a statement, and do whatever they’re going to do, and go from there. Transparency, community engagement, all the good stuff that they’re not really doing now with that community (not so much with this one either but hopefully once we get the new person in place).
I'd love it if there was a Pokemon Go forum (my Twitter usage would decrease substantially) but since even the verbiage for nominations can't be made game-neutral, I don't anticipate this forum achieving game neutrality any time soon.