"John Hanke's Update on Scrapers and Tracking [Megathread]"

#PokemonGO: Hey travelers,The CEO of Niantic recently added a new post to the Niantic blog.We wanted to consolidate the many duplicate threads which tend to happen after Niantic speaks into a megathread to prevent clutter on the sub. If you have thoughts about these happenings, we welcome all travelers to carry on that conversation within this thread. As always, this is a friendly, constructive community - not a place to whine or vent!While we're here, I just wanted to share a few thoughts of my own on this, as we have so many new faces who may not have gotten to know us yet.This was a raw and transparent communication. Hanke sounds tired, using words like "we get up every day" and talking about what "motives us to keep working." You can feel the exhaustion in his tone. It's now been 29 days since Pokemon GO exploded.Perhaps the 2 most interesting points in this update were:He explained why Niantic is taking steps to prevent unauthorized scraping of data from Niantic's servers - to reduce server load and cheating/botting.He shared that they "have heard feedback about the Nearby feature in the game and are actively working on it"These were both great to hear from John Hanke himself. This week Niantic appears to have finally got its legs under it to engage with the community. The updates on Facebook, Twitter, etc have been great to see and remove some of the ambiguity the community feels about whether Niantic is aware of the hurdles facing players.On the Silph Road, we don't look at Pokemon GO as a finished product. It's a game with a long development timeline ahead of it, and many statements from the developers confirming they view it this way too. Yes, some of the fairweather fans (like my mother-in-law?) who've played the game in its current state won't stick with it forever. But that's ok. Not everyone feels the nostalgia and satisfaction in finally evolving an Arcanine the way the Road's travelers do.Those who've been with us for many months know Niantic's pace. For those who've joined us recently, check the sidebar of this subreddit! There's a development timeline there that may be useful as a reference point - this is why we have left the field test timeline up this long.Yes, the 'end-game' is largely not fleshed out, and yes there are bugs and imbalances, yes teams are very simple and missing depth - but playing this game with my wife still keeps us out way past bedtime to get that one last Ponyta we need for a Rapidash.It's going to get better and better. I can't lie - the sentence:"We look forward to getting the game on stable footing so we can begin to work on new features."gets me amped up and excited. New features can take this already ground-breaking game to new levels, and I can't wait to see where Niantic takes it next.Finally, I wanted to give a big thanks to the countless travelers here in our community who have continued to help keep this excitement alive here on the Road. This is a place for those who love this game and the experiences and friendships it's creating for us all. We have a bumpy road ahead of us, but it's going to be an awesome adventure. And we're looking forward to it.Travel safe,- dronpes - via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2ay16MM