"Pokémon GO's Halloween Treat Is a Rural Trick"

#PokemonGO: As the hype about a new Halloween event and Gen 3 pervades the Web again, it is hard to believe that it has been one year since the first coordinated event in Pokémon GO last Halloween. It is also hard to believe that a huge nerf to the game has just occurred, and very little attention is being paid to it. No, it's NOT the "2 item glitch" nor getting drowned in regular-strength purple Potion now. It is the removal of tens of thousands of primarily suburban and rural Pokéstops that occurred without explanation just last week.New Pokéstops and Gyms began appearing in previously-barren areas since Ingress portal submissions re-opened on September 25, bringing to reality the promise Niantic made earlier this year to make rural gameplay more aligned with urban locales. It was exciting to see some places where the lone park or church in a 500 person town finally got a long-awaited Pokéstop or Gym when the next nearest one is over 20 miles away.That bliss came crashing down last week on the afternoon of Wednesday, October 11, when Niantic suddenly "clawed back" every one of those Pokéstops and Gyms with absolutely no explanation or communication to players. While so many are currently basking in the excitement of new Pokémon spooks, higher candy amounts, and Pikachus with a witch hat, a big segment of the suburban and rural player base is now disheartened to find that, like a dream too good to be true, things are back to the way they have been since launch, and a drive to the big city is needed again to play with any normalcy.Everything currently out on the Web about this latest step backward is purely SPECULATIVE. Most news outlets are stating as bona-fide fact that it was a server-side rollback to an earlier backup in the process of fixing the "2-item glitch"; however, nobody has ever mentioned a single Niantic source as the originator of this explanation. Plus, the "2-item glitch" is still happening to some people, so the two issues are probably not even related. SOMETHING has happened, though, and like many unpopular actions, Niantic is not saying a word, as if "all systems are normal" and "nothing to see here", save canned non-relevent or inaccurate responses to bug report tickets Trainers have been sending in.We need everyone who knows of at least one Pokéstop or Gym that vanished on October 11 to contact Niantic about it. The more people they hear mentioning the issue, the more likely they will feel obligated to publicly address the problem. I believe this issue is being strongly under-reported and overlooked, because if intentional - and I honestly think it is an unpopular intentional reversion after 10 days so far - it is being slipped into (well, actually, back out of) the game at a very busy, high-profile time when attention is fixed elsewhere on Gen 3 and new event bonuses... similar to when the speed cap got slipped into the game last Halloween at the start of that event. Just another broken promise to players. via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2gyAUL4