Niantic
Niantic tasked Pokemon Go trainers with catching three billion Pokemon in just seven days for cool rewards.
The event begins on November 19 and ends on November 26.
Catching 500 million Pokemon will earn trainers double XP and Lure Modules activating for six hours instead of 30 minutes. Catching 1.5 billion Pokemon will grant double Stardust. And finally if trainers manage to catch 3 billion Pokemon then Farfetch’d, a Pokemon only available in East Asia, will become available worldwide for 48 hours while Kangaskhan will become available in East Asia.
According to The Silph Road, Pokemon caught from now until November 26 will count towards the challenge. They also said that rewards are unlocked after reaching each milestone and will last until December 1 at 1 p.m. PT / 4 p.m. ET. They also provided us with a handy chart to lay everything out:
Double stardust, double XP, and two days that EVERYONE can acquire an elusive regional for our Gen I Pokédex? We’re certainly set to have some fun during the (US) Thanksgiving holiday, travelers. (As long as we unlock it all, that is…)
Farfetch’d is not that impressive of a Pokemon, with GamePress rating its combat effectiveness a four out of 10. However his status as a region exclusive Pokemon available only in Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong according to the publication makes it highly collectible. Meanwhile, Kangaskhan, a Pokemon exclusive to Australia according to Eurogamer, has a combat rating of 8.5 out of 10 from GamePress with its normal typing and beefy HP good for defense despite a middling defense stat. Either way, we’re sure everyone will appreciate the extra XP, Lure Module duration, and Stardust. The duration boost to Lure Modules after the 500 million milestone will especially help to catch all those Pokemon since they increase Pokemon spawn rates at Pokestops for anyone who is in range.
Catching all those Pokemon shouldn’t be too herculean of a task. 20,000 players in Europe caught over 59 million Pokemon at the Pokemon Go Safari Zone events at Unibail-Rodamco shopping centers, according to a blog post by Niantic. Just think what 5 million trainers can accomplish. That’s down from 23 million during the game’s peak but it’s still pretty massive.
The Global Catch Challenge is meant to coincide with the launch of a new video series known as Pokemon Go Travel where trailers travel the world to catch Pokemon. The series starts with a group of trainers including IHasCupquake, Coisa de Nerd, and Rachel Quirico traveling to Tokyo, Mt. Fuji, Kyoto, and Tottori in Japan. The Global Catch Challenge will conclude with a celebration at the Pokemon Go Safari Zone event in Tottori on November 26, according to Niantic.
The Raid Boss List for Pokemon Go changed on November 4. Reddit user xaryan on The Silph Road subreddit compiled a list of the new raid bosses. The changes only affected tiers one through four and also included the recently introduced gen three Pokemon. In addition, Raid Timers were set to 45 minutes.
Niantic also added your installed app list to the game’s Privacy Policy earlier this month, possibly to combat GPS spoofing apps.
Today @NianticLabs added your installed app list to GO’s Privacy Policy. Geolocation games’ efforts against GPS spoofing are escalating.
A datamine of the 0.81.1 version of the game around that time uncovered the visual effects files for seven new moves: Doom Desire, Draco Meteor, Psycho Boost, Surf, Waterfall, Yawn, and Take Down. Doom Desire and Psycho Boost are especially notable because those are exclusive moves for the gen three legendary Pokemon Jirachi and Deoxys respectively in the main Pokemon games, indicating that they may be coming soon. Yawn was also a move introduced in gen three. Draco Meteor is also notable because it’s a move introduced in generation four (Pokemon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum). So either dragon-type Pokemon will start getting the move or it’s an indication that gen four Pokemon are coming in the near future. Take Down is being changed from a charge move to a quick one. The update also resolved a bug that prevented players from powering up Pokemon to their max CP, a bug that caused players contributions to reset when rejoining a Raid Battle, and various other bug fixes and performance updates.
