Pokémon GO: David Hollin on the beginnings, what’s coming next, trading, more
Last week, David Hollin (Technical Art, Designer) held a panel at Animation on Display, where he talked about Pokémon GO. To be more precise, he shared some details about the very beginnings, as well as what’s coming next to the popular mobile game.
Pokémon GO: The Beginnings
About how the whole project began, he explained that The Pokémon Company definitely liked the idea of a Pokémon game on smartphones, but wanted it to be simple (no battles), and really distinct from other Pokémon games. In early versions of the game, you threw Poké Balls by pressing a button, and you did not have any control over the throw (how far you threw it, the curve, etc.).
At first, Pokémon GO was not supposed to have an AR Mode, and instead, Niantic thought of using Google Earth images. However, that would have required users to download lots of high-quality images, which was definitely a big no-no.
When David Hollin began experimenting with QR Mode, he so in his backyeard. When he showed his experiment to his co-workers, they really liked the results, though everyone focused on the fact he was using a Master Ball (and had 61 of them!) in one of the early screenshots.
Niantic went into crunch time in order to make sure Pokémon GO released in the Summer, in order to avoid Winter (where people are less likely to go out for a walk). That’s one of the reasons the game had so many issues at launch. And if you ever wondered why it took them so long to get the server issues under control, it’s because they only had two server engineers at launch. They had to work 24/7 in shifts in order to deal with them.
Finally, the reason some Pokémon can only be found in specific regions is because Tatsuo Nomura really wanted players to feel the scope of the Pokémon world.
Pokémon GO – What’s coming next
One of the things Niantic is working on at the moment? Gym Battles. The developers are aware they’re not really the greatest, and David Hollin event called them the “worst thing in Pokémon GO”. For Trading, they are most definitely working on them, but they’re taking their time.
One of the reasons it’s taking so long is because of the bots and spoofers, that could ruin the experience for legitimate players. That’s why he said he would rather have trading restricted to players standing next to each other in real life.
They’re also considering adding more time of day and weather-related spawns: more Fire Pokémon when the weather is hotter than usual, Water Pokémon when it’s raining, and more.
Finally, Niantic is working with Apple in order to find a way to count steps when you’re excercising indoors, which would allow you to hatch eggs while running on a treadmill for example.
Via: bureika (Reddit)
