Allamorph

For what? For sharing your opinion? Was your opinion not a valid opinion before she echoed it? I fail to understand the jubilation.

Right, and I didn't mean to imply that you did. I just couldn't find another way to say I didn't think the game's popularity was amazing without a ridiculous amount of words. =P I absolutely agree that it's fascinating, but it's Pokémon. The game has never not been popular. And all those extras that got picked up? Those are your Candy Crush Saga people (you know, the homebodies who frown at the Kids Playing Their Gamestation but spend countless hours on silly match-3 games and Farmville knockoffs while lurking Facebook and liking every picture and comment their friends make), and your people bored on the public transit system, and your people who are just curious what the big attraction is. And given how common game discussions in the workplace are nowadays, and again adding in the sheer popularity of the game, the fact that there are publicly-organised events for critter-hunting and gym battling and such no longer strikes me as out of the ordinary. So, no, to me the massive reception and popularity aren't really that amazing. Even the stories of community outreach using the game as a springboard aren't amazing as much as they are just cool. Kind of the Faith In Humanity Restored, you know? Really just all-around neat. Really, the only thing that caught me totally off-guard was the random Valor/Mystic hate. I have no idea where that came from. I'm at a complete loss. Good to know. So it's definitely that the game requires more than the platforms are capable of sustaining for the amount of time the game is intended to be played. I think most of it is just the constant geo-positioning queries between the game, the phone, and the nearby cell towers. I've noticed that those updates happen fairly frequently, which makes me wonder if Niantic is making their servers decide when a player sees a new critter, instead of letting the game software make that decision locally. A possible solution would be to have the software load a larger map area and leave it static for a longer time period (say, five to ten minutes, or after a player has traveled 75% of the distance between their previous query point and the map edge), with a slightly increased creature density or spawn rate to allow highly active players to catch stuff without running out. Granted, it might make the game a little larger on the device, but I think our slabphones can handle the memory storage demand. It's not like we're still stuck thinking 125MB is a lot of RAM. Well. That's goofy. There are Growlithe somewhere around me, but never in the same spot and never reliable. I needs dem.

I also like the concept, and would love the game if it had been executed properly. I do have to disagree with you, though. Pokémon Go isn't Niantic's first foray into the Augmented Reality gaming world, or even the mobile world at all. They knowingly took on converting one of the most popular, iconic games in modern history, one with a nigh-cult following, to a mobile platform. If they had tried to build the entire game from scratch, I'd understand a bit more, but they used their initial AR game Ingress as a model for Go—which is an intelligent decision, really, since doing so meant they should have had a fair amount of the software bugs already eliminated, and all they'd have to account for was the massive demand on their systems that running a game with the Pokémon name was bound to bring. With that in mind, the fact that their servers are being continually DDoSed by their own player base is incomprehensible to me. Maybe once or twice a day during peak hours, depending on the region, sure. But not continuously. Niantic already knows how often their game will send requests to their hardware, and should have been able to estimate the incoming demand, based off of that hard number, a rough concept of what a normal time period of playthrough will entail, and the potential player base. On top of that, Forbes has already berated Niantic (and Nintendo as the parent company) for what has amounted to an almost complete communication blackout from the companies to the players: As much as I like the game and want to continue playing it when possible, I can't in good conscience say that Niantic has done a good job with this game. Certainly nearly worldwide releases are impressive; but, then again, with a mobile game based on a globally-renowned franchise, the scope of their releases isn't so much amazing as it is ... expected, if I'm going to be honest. It certainly doesn't counter the rampant access and gameplay issues Pokémon Go has experienced since launch. To get off their case a little bit, I have a couple of other comments. When I can get reliable access to the game, I find the most limiting factors for me are battery life and heat generation, both of which are hardware issues. I'm currently using a Samsung Galaxy S4. Nothing brand-spanking-new or currently top-of-the-line, so I would love to hear some feedback from people with both similar, older, and newer devices. Comments: Battery Life – When I have the game open and active, I lose about 1% of my current charge per minute; the discharge rate is faster if I have other apps running, such as Amazon Cloud Music or Pandora, or if I'm in a call. As stated above, my phone isn't new (in fact it's two years old and was being replaced by the S5 when I bought it), so I have no illusions that my battery is mint condition. The only remark here is that the game places almost a tenfold increase in strain on the battery, so expect to have to recharge frequently when you're out and about.Internal Heat – Hand-in-hand with increased charge usage is increase heat generation. I frequently get notices that my device is cooling down, and a couple of times the phone has actually closed my apps for me in an effort to cool off. When I'm in a car, I can solve this by holding my phone directly over the AC vent (also DO NOT PLAY POKÉMON GO WHILE DRIVING), but when I'm just walking around I either have to kill the game or ... well, basically I have to kill the game.Again, both of these comments are personal device issues, and not directed at Niantic. They have no control over what hardware their player base is using, so they can't be held accountable for it. I'd very much like to see how the game plays on a brand new top Samsung model, though, for a good comparison, or even a brand new S4 (or at least one with a brand new battery). Positive comments: I very much like the egg system. I know several previously sedentary people who go on regular, extended walks now solely to hatch eggs, and I also know of an animal shelter that began offering its dogs for rent for people who wanted to have a reason to walk around besides hatching/catching critters. Said shelter ended up placing all of their dogs in homes, due to both the word-of-mouth from basically having walking adverts for their shelter and the dog renters suddenly realising they wanted to keep the dog they had, and had to start getting dogs sent in from other shelters to fill the demand. (Which, let's be honest, is just ******* cool.)I feel pretty good about the PokéStops. I'm curious how Niantic went about deciding on what to make into a stop and what to exclude from the list. I've seen anything from a mattress resale store, to a city park, to a boarded-up skating rink, to a bus stop bench simply labelled "concrete art". In one town, the downtown shopping area is a Stop-palooza, and in the next one over there's a complete dearth of anything at all, except for the aforementioned skating rink and a biker tavern—which, the image of school-age children walking into a pub full of leather-clad biker gangs while chasing after a Diglett is unbelievably silly.There are a bunch of male and female Nidoran around where I live, which makes me quite happy, since the NidoRoyalty are two of my favorite Gen1 evolutions. Just gotta get out and get 125 of each candy, man.So far as I've seen, there are zero critters on any of the Naval bases out here. Some people might be miffed about that, but I respect Niantic's decision (I'm assuming they made that decision) to keep military installations exempt from the fun and games. There have been several alerts put out around the bases up here for us to be vigilant about people trying to access secure areas while chasing critters, but since there aren't any on base, the temptation to trespass has been removed. That's good, from both a security headache angle and a people-are-less-likely-to-shoot-me-for-being-where-I'm-not-supposed-to-be angle.I don't like only being able to turn off AR from the capture screen. The software is nifty, though.This post is now very long, so I'll stop for a bit.

I'd love to tell you all about it, but you'll have to come back later. Our servers are experiencing issues.

I am double posting now for because. Two new toys this time. Any guesses on what they are? Well, you're absolutely right. Knives. yay =3 Both are from Columbia River Knives and Tactical. Upper knife is the Shrill, lower is the OC3. Blade on the Shrill is four inches, OC3 is six, and both are double-edged—although the Shrill is the one obviously intended for stabby purposes, and has a clip-on leather sheath for easy placement on your person. OC3 is more for tactical stuff, like being a backup to your Bowie when you're hiking or hunting or what have you. Both hilts are made of micarta, which is essentially cloth/fiber/denim-reinforced thermosetting resin (or polymer resin, depending on how ubergeekish you want to be about it). One of my roommates recently looked into making the stuff, and it's pretty neat, and durable besides. Basically, you take a whole bunch of strips of whatever cloth or fiber material you want to use, and layer them together with resin between each layer, then apply pressure over the whole block to compress it down while it's setting. When it's shaped for whatever it's being used for later, the cutting process reveals the layers and makes the patterns you see above. Sort of like a topographical map, almost. Edit: If you want to know more about micarta, you should talk to piggyback garu over at TheO. He studies all sorts of textiles and stuff so he can go into theatrical costume production/manufacturing. Way more knowledgeable about the subject than I am. Since these are both fixed-blade knives, I don't actually expect to carry them all that often (maybe the Shrill more than the OC3), but they're nice to have, especially if I end up taking a port of call in, you know, Singapore or something, and want to feel a little bit safer, just in case. The OC3 is far too large to conceal on me (it's roughly the length of my forearm, for scale), but I do have my Thunder Strike for my back and my Sting for my boot as well. I've looked at CRKT's folding knives, but none of them really interest me. They're almost exclusively liner-lock knives, which means when you open the knife, part of the inside frame bends over to 'prevent' accidental closure, but they can give out pretty easily if you apply enough pressure to the swedge. Some CRKT foldings have an additional lock that reinforces the liner, but I just don't like relying on them, and I always feel incredibly uncomfortable having to put my finger in the way of the blade when I'm closing it. I much prefer frame locks (which is a spring-loaded lever on the swedge side of the tang that also prevents motion) or the Benchmade Axis style locks (which keeps my locking/unlocking finger on the side of the knife and away from the blade). Right now, the only folding knives I own are either from Benchmade (which is a little on the pricey side) or SOG. I've looked at Gerber, but heard odd things about their blade materials, and I've also been told that Buck, which was a great name when my Dad was younger, has gone into a sort of decline in the past couple of decades, so I'm hesitant to buy from them just yet. I do want the Gerber MK II (although I would love to have it without the serrations), and I need to eventually get myself a KABAR since they're pretty much the standard on Bowies, and after that... I dunno, actually. Should probably start looking into a good home defense pistol. Maybe when I get to a shore command and can actually devote time to going to the range to practice.

Belated welcomes to everybody. =)

I must hear this tale.

I did it, you guys. I'm done. $24,000. Plus interest. Before I turned 30. That's three hundred and fifty dollars a month I'm not spending anymore. I freaking did it.

You'll fit right in. Everyone here is a lurker. Even me. Especially me. Which is interesting because I'm now one of the most frequent posters, at the blinding rate of .... oh, one per every two weeks on average?

I think in this case featuring this particular thread is quite useful, as it allows people to quickly find the New Server Bug Report thread without having to think too much about it, and also prevents us from completely cluttering the top of the forum with stickied threads. Which is mostly why I'm leaving it here. I'm sure it's also a nice feature for sites that want to promote discussion, or showcase good discussion, or mark event threads or something. I can see this Feature feature would have been quite useful back in the Event Moderator Contest, or during the poetry/prose competition or the forum-wide FQFG2 semi-roleplay-community-event.

I tend to learn by poking things and seeing what happens. For instance, today I learned I can edit James. Heh.

So the site sort of refreshed without refreshing and a window that said "Featured" slid in and out. Okay. OH and there's a little green star now. EDIT: And also it's different from Pinning because Featuring doesn't stick the post at the top.

On a separate note, I'm going to Feature this thread and see what happens. I have no idea what that means, or what makes it different from Pinning, but here we go!

I found one. Says here that James is no longer OB Royalty and is now simply an OB Legend. Clearly there's a bugged script somewhere.

Hello, left field. How are you?

There's some ... things ... happening in UGF right now. I think it's sorta best you're out of the loop on that count. But no, you're not forgotten. Good to hear you're managing.

That .... is not a happy Otakuboards Day. What's the current status? I know chemo is really hard on the body, so if you've already started, I'm impressed you're even online. Hang in there, man.

O hnto!

I sort of wish there was a Siri app on the watches that was overly nosy and kind of turned on its VOX at random inopportune intervals and provided sassy rejoinders and/or snide commentary to things that you happened to be saying at the time. I think it would go over great in meetings.

Fixed it. Anyone else sending me requests that I'm just not seeing? I'm not deliberately ignoring anyone as far as I know, I promise. Also lol I've seen you lurking on the boards the whole day, Lilly. Finally decided to post?

I see nothing from you at all. I've got Korey and Brasil (or someone Laura thinks is Brasil) and Boo and Shy so far, I don't see anything from you what the ****

...what