Massive Cluster Abuse Worldwide
HEMANTG-ING
Posts: 52 ✭✭
@NianticCasey-ING @NianticEG @NianticGiffard @NianticGray
I came across a video on Twitter in which a spoofer documented many unnatural clusters in a video worldwide. I believe that this is a clear violation of the rules and abuse of the system that should be dealt with. Please check the facts and do something about it!
Here is the link to the twitter post : https://twitter.com/BPost111/status/1365206541222240257?s=19
Indaial -26.89355, -49.22890
São Luis -2.55748, -44.30849
La Laguna 28.490013,-16.32004
Antalya 36.87944, 30.70900
Dubai 25.06956, 55.30842
After looking into the topic, I found a list of other clusters that should be checked urgently!
Thessaloniki, Greece
40.626857,22.953815
Goiânia, Brazil
-16.676854,-49.242646
Las Palmas
28.131000,-15.445028
Sãu Paulo, Brazil
-23.587926,-46.655270
Vittorija
36.041286,14.232888
Turkey
38.462810,27.217023
41.012349,28.978813
Lima, Peru
-11.563017,-77.270277
-12.062552,-77.036030
Dubai
25.074859,55.131223
San Cristobal
28.489145,-16.316702
Budapest, Hungary
47.529756,19.050185
Antalya, Turkey
36.880439,30.707013
Brazil beach
-23.031107,-43.477637
Bali
-8.657252,115.217726
Mexico
20.530899,-97.460390
São José, Brazil
-23.02276,-45.56042
Barcelona, Spain
41.355847,2.154699
41.496293,2.133689
Porto Alegre
-30.031016,-51.234585
Cerdanyola del Vallès, Spain
41.49638,2.13280
Chattogram, Bangladesh
22.34232,91.830897
Linares, Spain
38.096328,-3.626793
San Cristobal, Spain
28.490277,-16.320565
Sãu Luís, Brazil
-2.55780,-44.30924
Lima, Peru
-11.562953,-77.270186
Izmir, Turkey
38.462480,27.216565
Dubai
25.074875,55.130990
Canary Islands, Spain
28.491021,-16.319226
Santa Catarina, Brazil
-26.893147,-49.230406
-26.89262, -49.23102
Thank you for reading!
Comments
Here is a whole Redddit thread where spoofers are sharing coordinates to other hyper-dense clusters like Zaragosa. It's really not that hard because the spoofers shair this information very openly.
I've lived in São Paulo. I can assure that the zone you picked is a park, with lot of buildings (planetarium, show venue, museums, statues...). It has been for years a neutral zone for new Ingress players.
I believe that Pokemon Go cells may be too populated, and Niantic may have to clean up the cells. But as far as I know, portals are legit and genuine. (There may be some that may not be legit... But, few ones.).
Nobody said that the wayspots are not real or that they are not at the respective location. You can hardly judge that with the amount of wayspots. It's all about that the cells are overcrowded because the system has been abused. Niantic should definitely look into that.
I appreciate you for bringing this to our attention @HEMANTG-ING, and also @TheFarix-PGO for flagging more similar abuses. I have shared this with our internal team for their perusal and take appropriate actions wherever required. I will get back to you guys as soon as I hear from them. Your patience is appreciated until then.
I'm just posting a screenshot from there before it is deleted - to preserve evidence. Hopefully the clusters will be removed there too.
Even if they delete that thread, that sub-reddit shows continually lists of clustered locations, so if Niantic cared it would be so easy for them to keep track of the locations used by spoofers.
There are so many things that would be easy to implement to track those abused locations....
Unfortunately I agree with you. But until the moment when Niantic will finally understand that it makes sense to promote @LukeAllStars-PGO to a moderator, you have to serve Niantic absolutely everything on the silver plate.
hahaha I would appreciate it
All the power would go to his head, there would only be 3 portals left in Germany by morning............ 🤣
Nah, I would keep my added POIs and start a dictatorship with my 160 POIs xD
Phone me before you do that. so the free state Saxony can do its Saxit to preserve our wayspots xD
sure^^
Attention please ! Wayspots in Barcelona around 41.355847,2.154699 are inside the graveyard of Montjuïc. The graveyard is open to public during the day (honey spot for spoofers). Between some private mass produced tombs, there are some master pieces sculpture tombs.
Second spot in Cerdanyola 41.496293,2.133689 are fake and actors have been abused of the system.
Come on @HEMANTG-ING, you're spending your time trying to find some mistakes in the Wayspots. Did you see any one of those in-person to check if they're fake or not?
Second, I live very close to Indaial, Brazil. I was seeing overtime what FIC (Fundação Indalense de Cultura) became, every single Wayspot is real, 90% consist in tree plaques information, like species and the development in the fauna and flora. The place is very beautiful and peaceful to play in.
I remember that some of these Wayspots I even reviewed myself.
You can't be jealous of these places, ask for your city hall to make more landmarks in your city and talk to your player community to help grow the playing environment.
Before you even complain again, these Wayspots were done when the 20 meters distance and edit location were already blocked. So at the time was possible to do that.
To conclude, you don't think that Niantic knows where are the dense spots on the map? Where tons of players are? You don't need to make appeals.
I don't need to talk about me, but before you ask, I'm a legit player.
Let the people play,
Stay safe x
You haven't read the thread carefully. He didn't say a single word that it was fake wayspots.
It's all about that the system was abused and the Pokémon Go players now have more stops and gyms than intended. The responsible players should be punished and the cells restored to normal.
Niantic may know about such places, but with a public contribution like this, they are forced to act and maintain law and order. I think it's good that there are still honest players like him.
People can play, nobody has anything against that - but under fair and normal conditions.
You don't seem to have a life either, or why are you playing games? Grow up before you blame others for something.
New Comment:
Dubai
25.065698,55.306243
It's not about envy, it's about fairness.
I know humans are creatures of habit, but conditions have been caused here that break the rules. If people had never gotten used to it and had never seen it, they wouldn't miss it either. Don't worry, people will soon get used to the new normal state.
It's about the quality of our database, not quantity or any fun. Rules are rules and they should be followed. Certainly nothing will be deleted, so don't worry that this will damage the database. Hopefully it will just return to normal.
With luck, Niantic will change the cell rules at some point and maybe even do a reset - that would save us and them a lot of work.
If the quality of the database has nothing to do with fun playing the game, I think you've seriously misconstrued the whole point of doing any of this in the first place.
Who is talking about hate here? It's about breaking rules and fairness.
And are you serious ?! Of course, that has something to do with the games. Spoofers destroy games for all honest gamers. In addition, in fact he does contributes to the community by detecting these spots so Niantic can take care of them. I think that's a good thing!
Every comment about "intentions" is absurd ... the game has its own rules, it's not up to the players decide anything.
If there are areas with a higher density than allowed, they should be fixed ASAP.
If you must cheat to have fun, then that speaks more on you.
At the end, the locals are the reason why the game got abused. They are the reason why Niantic changed their whole edit system now getting correct location edits destroy PokeStops. Its not all about spoofers, its also about those who abused the system.
If you really think this is about envy, then unfortunately you have not understood anything. After all, this is a violation of the rules.
But do not worry. We will continue to report this diligently until Niantic prevents such abuse from taking place again and has cleaned up all existing locations.
The current state does not surprise me when there are people like you who make fun of it instead of doing something about it. But don't worry, there are people like him and me who take care of it. At some point you too will be able to experience a fair competition.
I think this thread neatly exposes all of the problems with Waypoint abuse, fake nominations and location and the "It's not fair / Why are you trying to spoil my game" attitude associated with PoGo.
Part of the problem is that PoGo is not a creation of Niantic as is Ingress or HPWU. There are regular complaints that PoGo "is not like the older games". Pokemon games have been around for years - you load up your console game, start "walking" and "bloop bloop bloop" - Pokemon appear. The expectation after 20 years of electronic pokemon is that all your gyms, spots, raids and Pokemon will automatically appear without the player really having to do anything. This doesn't gel well with the real world iteration of Pokemon Go, when you actually have to physically go to a Stop or a Gym. Somehow "it's not fair" that a player has to wait, or has "less Stops" then someone 300m down the road.
All console games are full of hacks to make sure you can get your Shiny Pickachu without any effort - it's not seen as "wrong" to do it, and you won't get banned for doing so. "All the other games are hacked, so lets hack PoGo too, why is this a problem". The S17 cell system was fairly quickly worked out and the web was full of "how to make your garden a Gym" type posts, which were happily seized on by a significant proportion of the playing community. Not what Niantic had intended, but it happened. Now Niantic have changed things to prevent a lot of Waypoint abuse there are left over blocks of areas generated by cheating. It's interesting to see how many reports of areas like this attract a lot of abuse (as in this thread), from the "stop spoiling my game" brigade.
Please don't call me "Bro", I don't even want to be associated with anything like you.
I don't do the job for free. I enjoy it. That’s enough for me.
What difference does it make? People should go out and explore the world and, ideally, submit more wayspots in the meantime - and not sit in the same place every day because it's so nice and comfortable there.
One should not make comparisons based on the size of the places, because the cells there are just as big as in any other place.
I do help the players - by reporting abuse and thus bringing the fun of the game back to the same level for everyone.
Every company has to think economically - they need income, otherwise they will go bankrupt. If there are people who pay for every ****, then it's their own fault. I don't see the problems with Niantic in that regard. I don't see any bugs or server problems either - I'm only bothered by abuse, multi-accounting and spoofing.
And why should I stop? I am right.
You don't have to be offensive right away, even if you're probably not used to anything else.
The fun is ruined by those who cheat and don't follow the rules.
I do this for free, of course. Niantic needs the money more than I do.
The game is not fair? All of life is not fair. But only because there are people like you who don't do anything about it. Shout as much as you want, that won't change anything about my campaign.
The proof is the number of people commenting negatively on this? Sorry, but look at the number of likes and dislikes - that should speak volumes. In addition, all the people who comment negatively here are apparently not active wayfarers, since they are their first comments. Active wayfarers should regularly use the forum - and stick to the rules and not act contrary to the rules out of self-interest.
If the things on site are not enough for the people, then they shouldn't cheat, but do what the game says: MOVE. To another place!
I am not a Niantic employee and I have no envy. Why should I? There are so many places in the world to explore. I can move around freely, nobody forces me to stay in one place.
Do you think we only do this in other places? No, of course we will act accordingly on site.
Hi guys! I am sorry you had to witness some inappropriate comments in this thread. In reply to that, I have sent a warning to all the users who were found responsible for their illicit behavior.
Having said that, to avoid further inflow of toxic comments I will have this thread closed until I follow-up with the news shared by our team regarding @HEMANTG-ING's report. Thanks for your understanding!
Hello everyone, our apologies for the delay. We took another look at the reported locations and decided that the Wayspots does not meet our criteria for removal at this time.