The Legendary day in Grant Park Chicago has come. Trainers around the world have traveled to be part of the Pokemon Go Fest and to see, battle and catch Legendary Pokemon for the first time since the launch of the game. The event took place, the Legendaries started to pop-up around the world, but something happened. Something that made us disappointed and got us thinking “Hey, this is a multi-billion company, so why they were not prepared for this?”
Everything started at 10:00 PM CDT, when a lot of Trainers came to participate in the Pokemon Go Fest event. Everyone was ready, hyped and couldn’t wait any longer for the event to start. Team Valor, Team Mystic and Team Instinct started to group up, as well as the “solo-players”, and we could’ve seen the joy and happiness in their eyes and how excited everyone was to be a part of this event. But it looked like Niantic wasn’t ready to host an event like this.
The app connectivity was limited, Trainers got upset due to game’s crash, the livestream was delayed, so basically it was a mess. And imagine, you’re Niantic’s CEO, you come up the stage and thousands of people are booing at you and trust me, it looks and feels terrible. Here is the video:
Right after the first challenge, Pokemon Go started to experience three new technical issues:
- The cell networks are strained and they are working on getting more bandwidth.
- There are authentication login errors.
- There is a crash bug affecting some players.
Then the second event started. But, it made the Trainers even more confused, and here is why:
And finally, Niantic tweeted that they are working fast in order to fix the issues:
Trainers, we’re aware of server and connectivity issues impacting #PokemonGOFest and are working as quickly as possible to address them.
— Pokémon GO (@PokemonGoApp) July 22, 2017
And the team behind Niantic didn’t fail for the second time. They’ve resolved the technical issues and apologize to all Trainers and took the matter very seriously. Because of the issues, Niantic shared this on their website:
- All registered attendees will soon receive an email with instructions on how to receive a full refund for the cost of their ticket. These instructions will be sent to the email addresses associated with your Pokemon GO account.
- All registered attendees will receive $100 in PokeCoins in their Pokemon GO account.
- Special Pokemon, Eggs, and check-in PokeStops appearing during Pokemon GO Fest have had their range increased to a two mile radius surrounding Grant Park through Monday morning, July 24. These Pokemon and Eggs will only be visible to Pokemon GO Fest attendees who validated the QR code they received when they entered Pokemon GO Fest. Attendees who were unable to validate their QR code during the event can do so through the special PokeStops through Monday morning.
- All registered attendees will have the Legendary Pokemon, Lugia, added to their account.
The Trainers around the globe didn’t lose hope and caught millions of Pokemon during the Challenge Windows and recieved:
- All 6 bonuses unlocked Double Stardust, Double Candy, Double XP, Increased Pokemon encounters, Reduced hatching distance and Reduced buddy distance.
- Rewards to gold – 48 additional hours & unlocked mystery challenge, until July 24.
- 1st Legendary unlocked – Lugia! GoFest players automatically get Lugia added to their account. Worldwide players get a chance at Lugia in Raids in the next 48 hours.
- Team Mystic won contribution contest and the next Legendary will be unlocked – Articuno.
But, Niantic didn’t leave behind Team Instinct and Team Valor and promised to launch Zapdos and Moltres very soon.
Oh Niantic, you crack me up!
