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Buddy System Announced for Pokémon GO

Teapot

Teapot

Virtual Duck Enthusiast
Staff member
Administrator
Niantic have just revealed the newest feature for Pokémon GO: the Buddy System.
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The Buddy system will allow trainers to choose a Pokémon from their collection to appear alongside their avatar on the profile screen. The Buddy Pokémon will provide bonuses, such as awarding Candy for walking with them, and trainers will be able to change out their Buddy Pokémon at any time.

The update has not been dated, but Niantic say it's "just around the corner."
 

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Teapot

Teapot

Virtual Duck Enthusiast
Staff member
Administrator
AliTheDarkTrainer said:
Really?!?!, well then the game probably won't run or will run very slowly (Since it already has trouble running sometimes) *Sighs* Unity is going to have many problems....
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Unity isn't the problem - there are literally thousands of games running on the Unity engine that run absolutely fine, even on mobile. The real issue is that Pokémon GO was released too early, and thus suffered from a lack of development time. This meant that the sort of issues that are normally solved well before launch still persisted in the first weeks after the game was available.

As it happens, Niantic have fixed a lot of the more insidious bugs already, and will continue to do so going forward - that's why we're only getting major new features now. While it still has issues, the performance and stability of the game are vastly improved over the game we got originally. Adding the Gen 2 Pokémon won't cause any harm - and because the game will continue to get bugfixes and improvements between now and then, it's possible that the version of the game with Johto Pokémon will actually run better then the game does now.
 
AliTheDarkTrainer

AliTheDarkTrainer

Teapot said:
Unity isn't the problem - there are literally thousands of games running on the Unity engine that run absolutely fine, even on mobile. The real issue is that Pokémon GO was released too early, and thus suffered from a lack of development time. This meant that the sort of issues that are normally solved well before launch still persisted in the first weeks after the game was available.

As it happens, Niantic have fixed a lot of the more insidious bugs already, and will continue to do so going forward - that's why we're only getting major new features now. While it still has issues, the performance and stability of the game are vastly improved over the game we got originally. Adding the Gen 2 Pokémon won't cause any harm - and because the game will continue to get bugfixes and improvements between now and then, it's possible that the version of the game with Johto Pokémon will actually run better then the game does now.
Click to expand...
That is a very good point (And seeing that they have a day and night cycle maybe they had already planned of adding gen 2) But I still don't see the major point of why they would release it so early, sure everyone was hyped for it, but pokemon Go being released later when the game was completed could have saved some people's lives... and they could have added a option to switch teams (Not saying that I don't like my Exp gain rate, but it would be nice to be able to change your team after you managed to get (Spoiler ahead) ultra balls.) But yeah, you do have a really good point. (I have only seen a few games that run on unity and those few tend to crash a lot.......)
 
Teapot

Teapot

Virtual Duck Enthusiast
Staff member
Administrator
AliTheDarkTrainer said:
That is a very good point (And seeing that they have a day and night cycle maybe they had already planned of adding gen 2) But I still don't see the major point of why they would release it so early, sure everyone was hyped for it, but pokemon Go being released later when the game was completed could have saved some people's lives... and they could have added a option to switch teams (Not saying that I don't like my Exp gain rate, but it would be nice to be able to change your team after you managed to get (Spoiler ahead) ultra balls.) But yeah, you do have a really good point. (I have only seen a few games that run on unity and those few tend to crash a lot.......)
Click to expand...
You've probably seen quite a few games that are made on Unity and run fine, too – you can't always tell what engine a game is made with, if any at all :)

Unity is a tool, and like any tool it can be used badly or used well. The fact that games made with Unity can be worse in terms of quality, performance, etcetera is simple: the barrier to entry is very low. Anyone with even minimal experience can make Unity do something, but that doesn't change the fact that making good games takes years of effort and tons of experience to do well.

Why the game was released when it was is something we'll never know for sure, but there's dozens of factors that could go into it. My guess is simply that a deadline was imposed by people above them, and for various reasons they had to meet it regardless of where in development the game was.
 
AliTheDarkTrainer

AliTheDarkTrainer

Teapot said:
You've probably seen quite a few games that are made on Unity and run fine, too – you can't always tell what engine a game is made with, if any at all :)

Unity is a tool, and like any tool it can be used badly or used well. The fact that games made with Unity can be worse in terms of quality, performance, etcetera is simple: the barrier to entry is very low. Anyone with even minimal experience can make Unity do something, but that doesn't change the fact that making good games takes years of effort and tons of experience to do well.

Why the game was released when it was is something we'll never know for sure, but there's dozens of factors that could go into it. My guess is simply that a deadline was imposed by people above them, and for various reasons they had to meet it regardless of where in development the game was.
Click to expand...
A deadline would make sense, and it's something i've seen before, so that's most likely why. It could have been something like they were losing money so they had to release it early (Which is a likely possibility), but the deadline makes the most sense.
 
Magpie

Magpie

Feathered Overseer
Staff member
Moderator
'Tis a great idea and one I very much look forward to going live and updating. I'll probably, like many people, use it at first just to try and get candies for the evolutions I need... but once they're done I shall probably have a trusty Vaporeon by my side. Until Gen II arrives and Murkrow is mine ♥
 
Rainbowditto

Rainbowditto

Teapot said:
Niantic have just revealed the newest feature for Pokémon GO: the Buddy System.
The Buddy system will allow trainers to choose a Pokémon from their collection to appear alongside their avatar on the profile screen. The Buddy Pokémon will provide bonuses, such as awarding Candy for walking with them, and trainers will be able to change out their Buddy Pokémon at any time.

The update has not been dated, but Niantic say it's "just around the corner."
Click to expand...
Can't wait to bring my nidoqueen on walks!
 
Noventia

Noventia

no-one plays it anym- k maaaaaybe i'm just salty I have a really fucking old phone and can't play go. sounds cool for all you who do have something with more computing power than a floppy disc.
 
Linkachu

Linkachu

Hero of Pizza
Staff member
Administrator
Charmander or Pikachu as my first buddy. Tough decisions are tough.

That aside, I think this is a brilliant feature and I can't wait for it to be a thing. I just hope the wait isn't too much longer so that we can finally iron out what all of these buddy Pokemon perks are and how effectively they work. :8B:
 
Keleri

Keleri

The buddy update for pokemon go is out! ...It won't run if you have a rooted phone. :| Guess we'll see how long I can play on 0.35...
 
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