Babies, babies, babies.

After much speculation and anticipation Niantic revealed yesterday that the generation 2 would begin it's initial release in the form of baby Pokemon! 

Also they released a holiday Pikachu to celebrate the festive season.

People are feeling pretty narky about it and calling it a cash grab. But people, it's no rush the babies are here to stay. Also the odds of hatching a baby is not great.
Sadly it looks like they have left in the old evolved forms, which I personally think they should remove, I mean it's not like you can hatch a Blastoise.

Currently you have around a 2:14 chance of getting a Cleffa or an Igglybuff from a 2KM egg, a 2:42/43 (depending on your region) of getting a Togepi or a Pichu from a 5KM egg, and a 3:16/17 (depending on your region) of getting a Elekid, Magby, or a Smoochum from a 10KM egg. Obviously this may not be the case, I am just assuming it is equal odds of getting any of the possible Pokemon from an egg (even though I swear the chances of getting a weedle are definitely stacked).

So upon finding out this information my first matter of business was clearing out my old eggs, and getting walking. Fortunately I only had 7 in my collection although one of them was a 10KM I'd been holding onto in case there was a double candy event. It was super hot and windy but luckily I was going Christmas shopping in a nice air conditioned mall, full of good Pokemon but sadly only 3 Pokestops. 

These are the eggs I hatched throughout the day, when I finally got to the new ones I was so hopeful considering the odds and on the fourth one I was super excited to get my very first baby Pokemon, a Pichu! Now like most people I find it weird that Pichu is hatching from a 5KM egg whereas Pikachu came from a 2KM egg (although his buddy candy takes 3KM which is a 5KM egg thing)... I think they just wanted to balance out the babies but they should reduce the 5KM egg pool a little before adding to it!

I also managed to get my hands on 9 pikachus, unfortunately none with good IVs but my town has a small nest situation which should last for a couple more days if I'm lucky. 

I don't know how I took a screen shot mid throw, but talent!

Today I continued to work on my eggs but the odds weren't in my favour to score me another bub, I did manage to get a grimer and a tangela which I am super happy with. My 10KM egg was a Magmar with low IVs so dissapointing when 10KM eggs are rare! I probably already have a decent enough one I just can't remember off the top of my head if I do or not.

Anyway, I will continue on my merry way hatching eggs and post here if I get anything nice (I did get a 10 KM egg today). I do hope there are more surprises in store as we get closer to Christmas and New Years, I would love a free incubator or double items from Pokestops!
 

Tracker Talk

So technically I'm a rural player, I don't live in the city. I am super lucky though as I have a few spawn points I can reach from my house. I know my local spawn points when things come up on sightings so it's easy enough to find things if I want to.

Now when the new tracking system came out I was blind. I couldn't see anything unless it was on my screen, even the house across the street which is a spawn point wasn't giving me sightings. So when sightings were fixed this weekend I was pretty happy. Luckily, I am 1.1KM from the nearest Pokestop, if I lived one house to the left I would have nearby rather than sightings on my app, so from my house I can see what is around but once I walk to the end of my street I am blind again. It's okay though since I know the spawn points. hopefully they will make it so you can toggle between the two lists or see both because I am not going to be walking to the Pokestop for spawns - well if there was something super rare I would drive there but historically my town doesn't spawn anything super rare (I checked the stats when maps were on and we did get a few things but always in the dead of the night). 

They would have had the same time stamp if I hadn't been distracted by catching the Hitmonchan!

 

Level UpDate

Thanks to the Thanks Giving event's double experience pay out I was able to level up super quick to level 30 this Monday (28/11). As I have mentioned in earlier posts I wasn't really fussed over this milestone as it means an even bigger grind is to come! 500,000XP to level 31! 

As it has been just over a month since my last badge standings I will write an update for my records. Here is how my badges currently look:

GOLD
Kanto 143 registered in Pokedex
Collector 6213 Pokemon captured
Scientist 682 Pokemon evolved
Backpacker 6577 Pokestops visited


SILVER
Jogger 698.4KM walked
Breeder 438/500 eggs hatched
Battle Girl 594/1000 Gym battles won
Ace Trainer 403/1000 times trained
Youngster 68/300 tiny Rattata caught

BRONZE
Fisherman 43/50 big Magikarp caught
Pikachu Fan 42/50 Pikachu caught 

+ 3 Catch Bonus
Schoolkid (normal) 2490
Black Belt (fighting) 295
Bird Keeper (flying) 1443
Punk Girl (poison) 1144
Ruin Maniac (ground) 569
Hiker (rock) 309
Bug Catcher (bug) 708
Kindler (fire) 584
Swimmer (water) 1207
Gardener (grass) 499
Rocker (electric) 221
Psychic (psychic) 400

+ 2 Catch Bonus

Hex Maniac (ghost) 63/200
Depot Agent (steel) 81/200
Dragon Tamer (dragon) 62/200
Fairy Tale Girl (fairy) 97/200

+ 1 Catch Bonus
Skier (ice) 20/50
 

Ditto!

So much has been happening in the world of PokemonGO but life has been busy! So just a quick post of things that have happened.

I levelled up to level 29 last Friday! 

There is currently an event running for Thanks Giving, double XP and stardust. I'm going to try and get myself some stardust over the weekend! 

They adjusted the CPs of many Pokemon. Moon Moon is no longer my highest CP Pokemon. Gyms should be more interesting, I haven't really been out battling in a while though so not sure if they are all still filled with the same stuff, hopefully not.

The new tracking system is testing in Australia. It is good although sightings are gone from local areas without pokestops which sucks. I guess I'll have to send in some feedback.

I think my town is currently a Charmander nest, so I should attempt to get myself some candy towards a third Charizard.


And finally Ditto was finally added to the game yesterday! I just caught my first one this evening masquerading as a Rattata.

 

PoGO Plus review

I've had my GO Plus for just over a fortnight now and have been testing it out. I mainly ordered it so I could get my passengers to get Pokestops for me when I'm driving but with the new speed restrictions in place that's not a happening thing. For that reason alone it probably wasn't worth the $50AUD.

Pros:

• Small, light weight
• Can choose whether to let it get Pokestops, Pokemon or both
• Can be more observant of the world around you when using
• Can discreetly play
• Apparently better at calculating walking distance (I haven't really tested this - I've been lazy lately)
• Only uses one ball per Pokemon (where I have a 3 ball rule for basic Pokemon I don't always stick to it)
• Can give to children to play and they wont use all your stardust (however they may cry if you tell them Pokemon has run)
• Can play on phone and it simultaneously (e.g. spin Pokestops while battling a gym works to a degree)

Cons:

• Price tag -probably more than I should waste on a game but I figured if I didn't use it I could resell it easy enough.
• Battery life is pretty short, I didn't use it that much but after one week I had the battery light come up. I replaced it after two weeks as the functionality became unreliable. at least the batteries are reasonably priced (about $2 each) and easy to replace.
• Prioritizes Pokemon over Pokestops
• Only uses Pokeballs
• Pretty ugly (I searched for ideas on how to make it look better but no one has anything other than stickers)
• Small enough to lose easily
• Doesn't let you know when eggs have hatched

Here's an amazing photo of mine!

 


 

Halloween Pt. 2

So the Halloween even ended up running a little longer than expected. It was super nice for candy reasons but after walking over 20 KM in the first two days I was super lazy. I really should have taken advantage of it and gone looking for Dratini spawn. But I worked the last two days and was super exhausted from that. 

I did get enough candy from walking Norbert the Dragonite to evolve another dragon once I pick a good Dratini. I am undecided about the ones in my inventory though. 

In the end I have a bit of candy saved, though much less than others, I got sick of the constant Drowzee spawns (mostly because they were all super low IVs).

Zubat 448 candy

Meowth 570 candy

Gastly 253 candy 

Drowzee 941 candy

Cubone 599 candy

I did end up with a better Hypno than the one I had, so that's good. 

Halloween Pt. 1

So the Halloween event has been ticking along nicely and I must say it is seriously spooky how much I started missing Pidgey! Sadly my town has an overflow of every "spooky" Pokemon other than the ghosts, the one type I need. But that said I have managed to get enough ghosts to get my silver medal, so I am pretty happy with that. I don't see myself getting the gold just yet though, but it is good to have future goals.

So I decided to hatch my 10KM eggs as the candy was so tempting and then I found an additional two more so in total I have hatched 7 in the last two days. 

Needless to say I have plenty of Electabuzz candy! I was pretty thrilled to hatch my second Lapras - she is nowhere near as good as my original one but she is still super sweet. Plus she gave me enough candy to finally max out Light. 

She made her gym debut this afternoon. I'm so proud of my girls!<3

Trick or Treat?

Today a Halloween event was announced! From the 26th of Oct until the 1st of November players will receive extra candy for various activities and there will be extra spooky Pokemon around. I'm not a Halloween person but I am excited nonetheless!

I am most excited about the buddy candy bonus, with  4x candy I might just finally max out my Lapras. And then the extra ghosts will be delightful. I went looking for the rumoured Gastly nest on the weekend only to find unexpected rain so only ended up catching one of the two I saw. I would be really happy to work on my Hex Maniac badge a bit over the next week, In Canberra/Sydney I found a Gastly most days but they are pretty rare over here.

Since there is a double candy bonus on eggs I am thinking I'll have to crack open my 10KM eggs early (I told you I was impatient, but double candy is like gold if there is anything good in there!). In good news I rolled 2 more 10KM eggs today so there are now five of them waiting. I really love the update feature that landed today with the different coloured eggs because when you spin a Pokestop you know immediately what type you got: green (AKA Yoshi) 2KM, gold/orange 5KM, and purple 10KM.

 

Some Rat Stats and More!

It's been nearly a month now since my last level up, but I have finally made it to level 28! I am in two minds about nearing level 30, excited because it seems like a huge milestone but also apathetic because of the deep widening void once I get there. 

I am currently attempting to collect nine 10KM eggs to do a big ol' hatchathon. So far I have 3 collected, 2 of which I found in Sydney Harbour. Time will tell if I can be patient and wait until I have nine of them. 

Other than that I have been working on my badges, I finally got my 50th tiny Rattata today! My house is full of rats, just big fat ones - according to my Pokedex I have caught 413 in total (that's only 12.1% which are under nourished).

For my records: 

GOLD
Kanto 142 registered in Pokedex
Collector 4343 Pokemon captured
Scientist 501 Pokemon evolved
Backpacker 4970 Pokestops visited
Jogger 486.7KM walked

SILVER
Breeder 320/500 eggs hatched
Battle Girl 493/1000 Gym battles won
Ace Trainer 225/100 times trained
Youngster 50/300 tiny Rattata caught

BRONZE
Fisherman 42/50 big Magikarp caught
Pikachu Fan 26/50 Pikachu caught 

+ 3 Catch Bonus
Schoolkid (normal) 1702
Bird Keeper (flying) 1030
Punk Girl (poison) 831
Ruin Maniac (ground)322
Hiker (rock) 209
Bug Catcher (bug) 511
Kindler (fire) 391
Swimmer (water) 1063
Gardener (grass) 335
Psychic (psychic) 232

+ 2 Catch Bonus
Black Belt (fighting) 198/200
Depot Agent (steel) 65/200
Rocker (electric) 157/200
Dragon Tamer (dragon) 56/200
Fairy Tale Girl (fairy) 74/200

+ 1 Catch Bonus
Hex Maniac (ghost) 35/50
Skier (ice) 17/50

Spinnin' Around

I've spent the last two weeks on the road visiting friends and family. Along the way I snuck in some PokemonGO. Here are my favourite Pokestops that I saw along the way:

1. Penis Owl <3 - Is it an owl, or is it a penis? This infamous sculpture always brightened my day when I drove past it living in Canberra. I wonder whether the artist purposely designed it as a laugh to see what they could get away with. 
 

2. Flaming Struth My Head is on Fire! - Whoever named this stop was genius. I used to live down the street from this and my sister's friend designed it. It is actually some sporting thing - I think the colours of the sculptures were a nod to the Olympic rings or something. Mostly I like it because of the name.

 

3.Uber Stylish Bubbler - Spotted this one in Sydney, the name says it all. It's a bubbler and it's uber stylish - who wouldn't want to drink from it?!

How to not use Incense

1. Wait until you get to the middle of nowhere
2. Accidentally delete your incense
3. Cry because you accidentally deleted your incense and have had approximately 3 hours of sleep
4. Actually use your incense this time
5. Catch a Rattata
6. Realise you no longer have phone signal
7. Cry some more
8. Get signal back and fail to click on multiple Pokemon as the car is moving to fast
9. Catch a Pidgey
10. Run out of time on your incense
11. Go back to sleep

 

142 Club

After being super patient I decided to risk it and use my lucky egg for my final evolutions on Wednesday afternoon as the storm loomed over us. Luckily I made it in time finishing my countdown just before the power went off for over 14 hours. So it was pretty exciting to say the least.

 

Lil' Boo was the final addition to my Dex <3

So here is what my Pokedex currently looks like:

So now what? Now that I have completed my Pokedex, the next obvious thing is working on my badges which currently look like this:

So, I have a lot of walking, fighting and catching dragons, clams, and electric mice to do. Also I have got to train up some excellent Pokemon if I want to "be the very best like no one ever was". So far I have had two perfect IV mons which hilariously were a Goldeen and an Ekans. The Goldeen tragically rolled a woeful moveset on evolution but the Ekans is okay, for an Arbok I guess, well it could be fractionally better but I probably wont use it for battle anyway. 

Things I learnt during the power outage, 1) tragically after a little while of no power mobile towers also go out, 2) try as hard as you might you can not convince unwilling participants to play murder in the dark, and 3) a lot of people will be having babies in 9 months time (according to the radio, I mean they only mentioned it every five minutes). I was mighty glad of my power packs I had bought as a result of PoGO. So later on Thursday I was able to complete my full list of evolutions and level up to level 27.

Eggs, Eggs, and Exeggcute!

My phone is getting incredibly packed with PokemonGO screen shots so I feel like it's time for a egg hatching update.

Monday:
 
 Also found these gorgeous eggs in real life!

Tuesday:

Wednesday:

Thursday:

Hatched a dratini, which in turn saved me a total of 75km worth of walking with a buddy in the future! Although I currently would need to walk 235km so I'll probably just keep hunting dratini at the beach. 


Friday:

Saturday:

Sunday:  

Hatching a Machop brought me over my total to evolve a Machamp, which left my final Pokemon as Gengar. I was lucky enough to find a couple of Gastlys to get that candy so have switched my buddy back to my Lapras for now. 

Lil' Boo did great! He even came hunting with me (if you zoom in there is a tiny Gastly above the Pokeball) when my app had a glitch.

I am being indecisive about when I will do my final evolutions and complete my Aussie Pokedex. It is totally anticlimactic ending things this way! I will try to be patient so my lucky egg doesn't get wasted, just gotta catch a few more Pidgeys for the party.. so obviously my house which is normally full of them is not. 

A wild Exeggcute appeared!

10K egg reveal!

My plan to collect 10K eggs at the beach was reasonably successful scoring two throughout the day. It has taken me a while to hatch them as it has been raining and there are only so many laps of the house one can do without going insane/being murdered by ones family.

Anyway the first egg was super disappointing.
Yet another Bruce Lee.
I think it might be slightly better than my last one (depending on the IVs).

So I had pretty much given up all hope on scoring anything good from the second one. And low and behold it was amazing af.

Look at my beautiful baby, he's so cute <3
I was pretty happy about this for about an hour until I realised I missed out on catching a wild one cause I was tooling about catching magikarp I don't even need. lol

Sema Sunday Highlights

Before I get started, I must share my Pokemon based insult of the day. My brother said to me, "You look like a Weepinbell". To which I replied horrified, "Oh my [Arceus] NEVER say that. Do you know that people refer to that as 'nature's fleshlight'?". Then we laughed until I cried. 

Yesterday was pretty successful on a whole. Within my first five minutes I found and caught a Lickitung, no running, no innapropriate quid pro quo was exchanged(friend's IRL you may inquire about the "Lickitung proposal" if you wish ^^). 

I finally ate at the Mexican place I had been eyeing off for over a month. So good. Soon I will eat fancy ice cream.

I totally ordered lemon squash, but that was definitely margarita mix. 

Not too bad of a view from the jetty

I hatched a bazillion eggs, and found two 10km eggs (be multiple Lapras).

And I levelled up.

 

A weeks worth of eggs

It has been a pretty non-eventful week (buddy update non withstanding) in the world of PokemonGO for me, it has rained a lot and I was reasonably busy with work. I still managed to hatch a few eggs, although nothing super exciting. I had planned on emptying my eggs to fill up at the beach tomorrow (if that theory rings true) but the rain stopped me from fulfilling that but I'm sure I'll do a bit of walking and hatch the last four if it isn't raining.

That there is some amazing photo editing.
I was pretty happy to get a Chansey as it gave me a pile of candy which means I don't need to buddy up with one in order to power it up. I like leaving Chansey's in gyms as they have such high HP so they are a little annoying.

Anyway over to the more exciting topic of the buddy update. I was finally able to show the world my love for my Lapras, Light by choosing it as my inaugural buddy. 

I got enough candy to power her up then I had to set my sights on my goal of completing my Pokedex and am now walking with my hastily named Gastly, Lil' Boo (I don't feel like a Pokemon without a nickname could be my bud). My theme song for the next zillion KMs will be Walking With a Ghost by Tegan and Sarah (which is thankfully a great tune). 

 

2 months and 2 days later

I've been playing this game over two months now and I'm not sick of it. I usually get sick of these things pretty quickly but surprisingly I haven't. I find it pretty funny when people complain that they have been waiting for months for something or other to happen, when the game hasn't been out all that long and they probably weren't on the beta. I am looking forward to having my Lapras as a buddy though so I can get some candy for it.

Today I got served up some epic burns from my mother that I need some of this:

  






1. Walking down the street she spots a terrifying looking dude in full Pokemon trainer mode, sporting an Ash Ketchum hat and all. She turns to me and says, "hey, there's a friend for you". 

2. I had a Pikachu run away from me, devasted I turn to her and tell her of my woe to which she deadpans, "I would have run away too".

I went for a walk to hatch my 10km eggs this afternoon, as I am kind of interested in the whole theory going around about certain Pokestops spitting out the same Pokemon in their eggs. I'm pretty sure I got my two eggs from the same stop, and my last few had all been Electabuzzes (although I didn't keep track of where I got them). Anyway long story short my eggs did not confirm the theory as I got a Nicki Minaj and an Eevee. I also hatched a bunch of 5km eggs but sadly no Lickitung.

Super Exciting Intro

Hi there, I'm super not into writing intro posts so I hope you aren't getting your hopes up too high. This here blog will be a place for me to ramble about my PokemonGO adventures because I'm pretty sure my family are not interested in my repartees about how I found a terrible Charizard ever again. 

Things you should know:

1. Proud Team Instinct member
2. I like to give my Pokemon stupid names, like so bad I am starting to forget their real names and I used to know them
3. Don't ask me my favourite, I love them all - except Mankey, Mankey can get the hell out of my house.
4. Body by PokemonGO (and Cadbury)

My current Pokegoals are:

1. To be the very best like no one ever was (obviously).
2. Battle everyday to claim my rightful place (and coins - mostly for coins and xp).
3. Complete my Aussie Pokedex (I need 6 more but no rush)
4. Actually be able to run further than 100 metres (more like 30 metres) without dying.