While most of the pictures and stories coming out of Pokémon Go’s first big in-person event of the year are positive, there were several underlying issues that have now resulted in Niantic asking some players to not attend day two of Pokémon Go Tour: Hoenn – Las Vegas.
With the physical Go Tour event running on Feb. 18 and 19, thousands of trainers gathered at Sunset Park in Las Vegas earlier today to take part in the festivities and catch some Pokémon. However, from the onset, some players were reporting issues with the game lagging or just not working at all while playing from the event location.
Based on how widespread the reports of server issues and other gameplay problems were, with Reddit and Twitter being flooded with complaints and responses to Niantic posts complaining, a good chunk of players have not had a positive experience at all. It got so bad that the top post for the subject on Reddit is simply titled “Dear Niantic. Go Fuc*k yourself” and made it to the top of the community page.
This isn’t uncommon either, as nearly every major Pokémon Go event has at least some of these issues, especially when it comes to the big, in-person stuff like Go Tour and Go Fest. It is hard to put on an in-person event, but when players buy a $30 dollar ticket, potentially fly to a location for the event, and pay for a place to stay, they shouldn’t have to worry about not being able to enjoy the content.
Instead of offering a direct fix for the issues, Niantic extended the city event experience for ticket holders and Saturday Extra Day Add-On purchasers for an additional three hours, along with some free Raid Passes. This means more Primal Raids and wild Pokémon encounters—though players are also upset with lackluster rewards when it comes to this content too.
Related: Pokémon Go Tour: Hoenn full event schedule
In addition to that, the company has also openly asked players who did not purchase a ticket to the event to not come out to Sunset Park at all for the final day of Go Tour: Hoenn – Las Vegas.
That’s right. Even though the event has content available for players who did not purchase a ticket and many players may have traveled to the event just to meet friends and play the game regardless of the content, Niantic has now asked those people to not come out to play.
According to Niantic, more than 17,000 players without an event ticket attended the event in Sunset Park. This reportedly caused spotty connectivity throughout the day which resulted in login issues and disconnections.
Obviously, Niantic can’t stop anyone from attending the event if they still want to head out to the public area, but the idea that the fix for these issues is asking players to actively not play Pokémon Go at one of the biggest events of the year is wild—and the community is not happy.
