"There is something special about this game."

#PokemonGO: Four months so I helped start a discord server for my local area, in order to help with gym take overs and rare spawns. Following the raid update and legendary release, we've grown to over 1000 people and counting. It's a common story I'm sure many of you have heard. Our group is different though and special in our own way, this is the story of why.I knew that as the server grew, I'd need help from moderators. I fortunately had my wife to help, but we needed more assistance. One by one I was either approached by or sought out individuals who were enthusiastic about PoGo and the community. I must have been the luckiest person because everyone both respected my vision for how I wanted to see the server run, while also taking initiative to make things better.As we grew to a thousand people, raid coordination became very challenging, so I wrote a discord bot that allowed people to create and join private raid channels. Within a couple days, a bunch of people had offered to help coordinate raids by taking point starting up channels, helping set start times that worked for everyone, and coordinating on site. One mod actually had traffic cones printed with team logos to help people organize in groups. Our mod team eventually put together rules and a member even made a video on how to use the bot to help the many new members every week.At the height of legendaries, I met people I’d seen in gyms or nest atlas but never met in person. I randomly met a friend on a raid that I had played pokemon with in grade school. This was someone I hadn’t talked to in almost 20 years. Were still both as enthusiastic about Pokemon as we're were 20 years ago.As raiding decreased a bit, someone came up with an idea called "make a poke-wish". Basically asking for help on a raid for a Pokemon they hadn't caught yet. On my first one I saw about a dozen people get a Lapras for the first time. There have been many, many organized attempts since.Yesterday, I realized how far we'd come in such a short time. The mods put together a group event at Bristol Wharf, a nearby popular Pokemon Go spot.Before we left the house I saw a message saying that were going to sing me happy birthday at 6:15. I joked with my wife about how she was going to record it and she knew I'd be embarrassed and shy.When we got there, we saw around a hundred people, all standing around talking and walking along the water together. They had organized this so well: there were raffle tickets and prizes, name tags and in game contests. The entire park was lured up. Everyone was having a good time.As 6:15 rolled around, we all gathered for the raffle. One of the first mods made an announcement."They think they are here to sing Happy Birthday, but we had something different in mind"He mentioned how we had started and done a lot of back work on the server. Without the server, they wouldn't all be there today. They said they had collected money for a gift for us. They gave as a card stuffed with gift cards (incredibly generous) and a poster, signed by everyone they could get. They even had a cake with my avatar on it. They had organized the entire event in secret DMs so it'd be a surprise, collected money at raids when we weren't there and subtly asking questions of us to make the right decision. They accomplished it. This was officially my first "surprise party" of my life.As I thought about this more I realized we've built something special here. I know there have to be similar stories all around the world. Niantic, if you are reading this, you should know that this update has brought our area together. Not just to accomplish raids, though that was the catalyst for our growth. It has made new friendships, groups that hang out every day. An area in suburban Philadelphia where you can almost always get someone to play with, even though everyone is spread out. A group of people that care about each other and improving the community.Four months so I never would have imagined what we'd become.Thank You.P.S. To top it off, 6 people caught a shiny magikarp at the event, I was one of them. I named it after our group.Proof: http://ift.tt/2xFPO55 via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2wLPfKL