Hey Trainers, It's been almost a year since Pokemon Go became a worldwide phenomenon. I know it was pretty popular at Gen Con 2016, & was wondering how many will still be playing by Gen Con 50?

If you didn't know Gen 2 is currently out. They are reworking the gym battle system as we speak. This should be complete well be Gen Con. Also they just sold out an event in Chicago. I will be going to that on July 22nd. Let me know if you will be attending Pokemon Go Fest in Chicago or have interest in doing Pokemon Go Gym Raids in Indianapolis during Gen Con 50. Also what team are you with? I am with Instinct.

I will be playing when I get a bit of free time.  Team Valor. Not sure about Gym Raids?  May be open to trying it, once I see how they work.

Sounds like team will not matter for Gym Raids which is quite nice. I am pretty excited to go back to Indy. Saw many good spawns last year, including that Dragonite that ran away on the bridge between the ICC & CCM.

I'll be headed up to Chicago the Thursday before the 22nd for the event.  Besides Wednesday I have a pretty daylight specific schedule until Sunday early am.  Also Instinct.  It should be interesting to see how the rework on gyms go and opening up raid levels/mechanics.

At Gen Con we did a real good job of spacing events. Our only business day is Saturday. I'll be able to play POGO pretty much any time especially when the Exhibit Hall is closed.

As Gym / Raids are concerned, everything I have seen looks to be a positive. They took a lot of the communities advice when trying to fix gyms. My understanding was the POGO we have been playing for the first year was always just a place holder. They wanted to hold off & make the game correctly, but have to meet deadlines set by Nintendo & the hype of the game. By the end of 2017 POGO will look so different and for the better.

I'll be trying to get in for early access an hour before the event starts.  Supposedly there's a place to park and ride the in mass transit (Not from Chicago no idea about the details).  I'll have a PGo+ this time around so I can walk and catch between events at Gen Con.

Yes Go Plus will be nice as long as you can get a GPS signal. I believe I remember having some trouble with that last year inside the depths of the ICC. I will be using it this year as well.

I think if you have Sprint or Boost Mobile or stay at one of the hotels you can get into Go Fest the hour early.

I've never been to Chicago before, & have no idea on the parking situation yet. There are garages right next to the park, but I have no clue if they will be open & how much they will be charging.

Yep I'll probably call the stores in Downtown to see if getting one Thursday or Friday is kosher since I figure they would run out, if someone buys a battery charger pack are they now a customer with a AT&T phone ya think?  I've had Sprint myself for a minute and I got no complaint for what I need out of a phone though.  As for parking I'd google that one if you're talking about the one just west of the park, I imagine it will fill up quick and showing up early so you don't have to run/walk to the event from the south side of the loop might be nice.

There are two garages between Millennium & Grant Parks but again price & capacity are unknown to me.

I think you have to have sprint service for the early access. I'm not sure how they know though. Like we are going in a group of 3. I have Verizon, my wife has Republic Wireless, & our friend has Sprint. Maybe he can get us all in.

One thing I want to make sure I have is an extra battery for my Go Plus. I have never replaced it since February & figure it will die either at Go Fest or Gen Con.

True on the battery, don't forget to bring your mini screwdriver also.

Very good point. Battery & mini screw driver will be put in my Go Backpack once that comes in. Hopefully that thing ships soon, & actually turns out to be a good product...

Well Pokemon Go Fest Chicago is over. Here are my thoughts on my trip & the overall event & aftermath.

1. Our group was Myself, my wife, our friend, & our 7 week old son.

2. We drove from Metro Detroit to Chicago. Google says this is a 4H & 20+m drive. We fed the baby at 4:30 & were off by 5:15am EDT on Saturday. We stopped at a Tim Horton's for all of us to eat, including the baby again about half way there. We arrived at our parking garage at 9:30AM CDT. So with the hour gained our trip took a little over 5 hours. We fed the baby again & headed off towards the lines at 10.

3. Our thought process was early entry would get in at 9 & regular entry at 10, so by the time we got to the line it should be moving nicely & we would just have to be in the back for a bit. Boy were we wrong! The early entry line was mostly still outside as it wrapped around the entire park. Meanwhile the normal entry line hadn't moved and was wrapping around and through every tiny crevasse of the Buckingham fountain area. We finally made it to the very back of the normal entry line around 10:30. We extremely slowly made our way though each small queue like it was the Dante's inferno of amusement park ride lines. By 11:30 we had barely moved. By 12:30 I took my wife & friend to take the baby, feed him, & find food for us. Then a miracle happened at 1PM. The line started to move, quickly, like really quickly you had to walk briskly to just keep up. I felt like Pac Man not knowing where i was really going as we weaved up, down, left, & right, but finally arrived at the front gate. This was 1:30PM. The event started at 10AM..

4. It seems they gave up on the tight security & just started rushing people in. I barely opened my backpack, scanned my wrist band, & was given my QR code. I scanned the code, immediately caught a "G" Unown, & then lost connection. I spent the next 45 minutes walking around trying to find & keep a signal to play. I wasn't the only one. The rest of my group joined me about 45 minutes later & had handed me the food they had found.

5. The crowd was calm, but hostile. Anything the people on stage said was met with either laughter or boos. Even if the connection held up the event was actually pretty lame. There was no increased spawn points, the only "rare" pokemon showing up were Heracross & Unown. The "special" 2km eggs weren't anything special. The only good part of the event was about once every hour there were tier 4 raids at all the gyms for free that lasted 15 minutes. But so few could actually play that it didn't matter either.

6. When Niantic finally decided to cut bait & give up they said we would all get a refund, $100 in pokecoins (14,500 coins) & a free Lugia. Well this all sounds great and got cheers. We still haven't heard about the refund, we have not received the coins or Lugia yet either. Which I get takes time. The sour part is they released Lugia to the entire world, but if you stayed in Chicago you were getting a 100% catch rate vs the normal 2%. We couldn't stay so we did not get this incredible bonus. I've seen people with 10+ Lugia & Articuno each. I've already caught 1 of each here at home, but only those that stayed in Chicago got this boon, which should have been available to all Go Fest participants.

7. We left the park at 6:30PM CDT and didn't hear about the raids being released at 7:15PM until we were already well on the road. There was no turning back, our friend had to work the next day, & the baby had a long day, though he was a champ. After stops & losing an hour to time change we arrived home at nearly 2 AM EDT.

8. Overall the event was lame, the community was awesome, Niantic underestimates their players & overestimates their ability. The aftermath i.e. Legendaries are awesome, but it would have been nice to get our Lugia before everyone else as a badge of honor. I would only go again if they learn & change their model.

Yikes!

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Alec Usticke, Unofficial Gen Con Indy Facebook Discussion Group

TDLR:  I had fun for the most part, meet a lot of chill people (plus Nick from TRNTIPS), got my car towed first night, did some dancing, raided in the rain, tried some good food, caught some legendaries.

1) Went solo, Team Instinct so I'm the odd guy that thinks he made friends but may not have (XD Don't care had fun).

2) Started drive at 0330, (started late needed to leave at 0230 to have lunch in Lafeyette (sp?)).  Had White Castle, I enjoyed some people it's the Eww Gross.  Got in Thursday with a prepaid parking spot reserved (This was actually pretty cool I thought) to get early access band.  This took about 15 minutes after things started, meet some Instinct, Valor, and Mystic in line, all locals were all pretty chill.  Went to the Adler After Dark and realized how little I knew about science.  Meet people explaining about a blind person baseball league (None blind people play as well but with a blind fold).  Didn't realize till I was walking away the lady I was talking to was blind, her walking stick was folded up on the table by her display.  This explain lack of eye contact while we were talking and I didn't have a stain on my shirt like I thought.  Lured pokestops and spun, couldn't get cell reception from the lower level basement area or theater (minor Boo since star show and being easily amused/distracted by shiny lights).  Ended up watching sports mascot dance battle halfway through the event and listened to music... a song came on, stated 'Oh Snap, that's my jam.' proceeded to dance like a fool until about 15 minutes before the event closed.  Realized dancing for 2 hours like a fool/mad man isn't the best of ideas when you have a 30 minute walk back to your hotel room.  Mistakes were made but I had fun.  Was supposed to go to the aquarium and field museum the next day, made it to the breakfast spot I was looking at trying and veered off to a gym to raid... then another, then another.  2 hours later I finally got to my breakfast destination that was 10 minutes from my hotel.

Tried to check out the nests by the Art Institute, Millineum Park, and Lake Shore East Park.  Got distracted by raids and getting close to the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois building got my game not loading up.  Started walking back sudden heavy rain so found shelter.  Walked out when it was done/light rain and noticed other people fast walking and slowing down for raids as well.  Did raids beneath trees during the rain like a goon talking smack to the weather.

3&4) Found out early access also started at 6am.  Got ready for event, checked parking on my car (got towed first night).  Noticed the rain and didn't want to stand in it so I waited till around 8am to walk over from hotel (not far).  Save General access line. DX Walked the length of it to get to early access line.  Looks way shorter, turn corner, dang... turn next corner.  T_T they're the same length.  Finally get to the end of the line and I think I'm about where the end of the general access line is at the other side of the park is (in hind sight I was about 1/4 of the way from the start of the other line).  Eventually line moves, been people watching cool shirts with pokemon themes.  See the occasional folding chair you can't bring in and umbrella.  Get closer to the front and see piles of soda/water bottles.  Start to feel a bit bad, see piles of donut boxes, coffee cups and plastic bags from convenience stores full of wrappers.  See garbage bags of trash and silver lined 'these people policed their trash and put it all in one spot' saw a small pile of maybe 20 umbrellas by the front.  Got searched opening up all my pockets on my pack and letting them rifle through trying to get whatever I need to do afterwards done after I'm over the line when they're done.  Get through and QR code in.  I'm in.  It's 945 so I run around.  Realized an hour later why Geodude was spawning in the area with Rock flags (Don't judge never said I was always quick on the uptake).  Was in line with two girls from Minnesota I think, get over to stage and walking towards the Instinct Lounge, Heracross spotted.  Can't log in.  One of the girls I was wondering around with didn't get it so I dubbed her Hera Crossless.  Eventually able to log in but manually catching is rough and locks up.  Turns out she actually caught it so I couldn't call her Hera Crossless, Hera Crossible gets a worse look.  People still funneling in during the first challenge window, people chanting fix your game, I can't play, can't log in.  Spend most of the 1st challenge window over by the valor tent since the swag tent had small lines I got in line.  Valor shirt is maroonish, instinct shirt looks orange... I buy two toys.  No Scyther toy though.  PGo+ works just fine I guess even if the app up manually is rough at best.  Spend the rest of the event catching with PGo+ unless an unown or heracross comes up.  Lost the girls I was with around lunch time.  Wander around catching feeling like this is the mad max version of a Pokémon Go Fest event (1st world problem I know).  Ended up taking a nap on the side of the Instinct lounge while charging my phone (fun fact used one of the chargers I had brought since I didn't spend a lot of time in the game) never needed the rain coat or poncho since it was nice and hot the entire time.

5) Crowd was mostly calm.  A few people stated if the crowd off the path didn't start moving they were going to start swinging or shoving their way through.  2k eggs were a mix, I got normal 2k hatches to snorlaxes, larviatar, porygon, dratini, mareep (nothing like saying in your face sucka aloud to your phone while you point on it, everyone realized I had a different problem then connectivity).

6&7) stayed till the end of the event, went to hotel took a shower, went to triple lure my hotel's stops and saw lugio and articuno raids in a towel.  Get dressed and get downstairs to see people in the streets around gym points.  First time seeing over 100 people at a raid point.  Hearing people screaming since they caught their first legendary.  Powerwalk down street to next legendary raid run up on people battling.  Jump in and notice I'm standing next to Hera Crossible and her friend (I still don't know their names DX). They mentioned they lost me in the morning since I wandered off and I shrugged and asked if they mostly had fun.  I am now, seemed to be the answer from them as other people we were in the raid with.  City dance going on with a patrol of people marching to other raids.  Meet a guy who was still green... for a team at 30+ he'd have to choose if he wanted to get a legendary.  Recruited a new Instinct player.  Didn't get in a lot more raids since his phone died, I had a battery charger but not his cable type.  Went back to his place (local) got a cable, chilled and walked around.  Caught another lugia, and a ttar.  Unfortuntaely since he hadn't been to the event I walked off at random while running around downtown to catch a heracross, unown, also porygon, chansey, abra, machop (Don't judge we don't get them around me that much).  Explained to some Black Hawk fans we weren't there for their convention and a little about the game.  Went to bed around midnight which was the earliest I had gone to sleep since getting to Chicago Thursday (usually before sunrise though).

8) The event didn't go as planned Niatic was in the end opted to go transparent with what they were dealing with.  I kind of wished I knew legendary raids were coming because I would have left earlier and formed up a raid hunting squad earlier to get going when they start like an hour after the event ended.  I guess I could be salty and go that route but, I've never been to Chicago and it was humid hot (like muggy I'm make you sweat and you're still hot).  The event could have gone better but it's kind of nostalgic in a bad way to when the game came out.  Seeing people flooding places to get into raids.  Some people asking "What's good against this!!!" actively trying to do their part and a lot of smiles was nice.  Meet some people from Spain that brought their father (they were older than me), a couple that were around my parents age and both played, a guy with one arm throwing nonstop curved excellent (T_T), a lot of people really from all over that loved the game.  Yes all were a mad about the event not going on without a hitch but they were still smiling and likely are still playing.  Definitely room for improvement.  But I still this the event ended more like I Got a Feeling by Black Eyed Peas.

Legendary Raids (I think this is all early access hopefully) will be done by Gen Con.  I'm curious if there's going to be anyone raiding Wednesday evening to knock around downtown with.

So Articuno is running from July 22nd to July 31st
Moltres is running from July 31st to August 7th
Zapdos is running from August 7th to August 14th.

So none of the legendary bird trio will be at Gen Con according the release. However they have not specified when Lugia would end.

Rumor is we should see Ho-oh after the Pikachu Outbreak! in Yokohama Japan which ends on 8/15. This would be a great time for Ho-oh to start.

Be really cool if Ho-Oh raids were happening during GenCon.  I'll definitely be looking for some.

I've been wandering SoCal this week for legendaries, haven't had any luck.  0/2 on Lugia and 0/4 on Articuno.  Hard to look when raids stop 2 hours after I get off work, lol.  Hopefully I can secure an Articuno sometime this weekend at the latest.

Yeah I understand what you are saying. We have a huge discord group here in Metro Detroit that when we see a raid we call it out and organize a group. I think I have done 9 or 10 raids total & have 3 Articuno, & 1 Lugia from raids. I also have my Go Fest Lugia.

Does anyone know of a good PoGO map for the Convention Center Area of Indianapolis?

I've been using gymhuntr, not sure if it's just for SoCal or if it's full US.

Last year, all I remembers were tons of stops, gyms, lures, and Pokemon everywhere.