Pokemon GO Is Down And This Time It's Serious
Amid login issues aplenty, this morning Pokemon GO was declared officially down and out for several hours. This is the first time in about a year that the service was down for more than an hour or two – and this time it appears to be relatively serious. This time the Pokemon-based adventure app is having trouble with login and, for those that log in, the entire Pokemon GO universe seems to be barren.
What you should do
Don't PANIC, just fine something else to do. It's going to be a tough journey today, not playing any Pokemon on your smartphone, but there's hope for the future. Everything that happens today will likely be erased and/or reversed once the problem(s) are fixed. Because of the off-chance nothing is reset at the end of this day, there are some issues we'll have to be wary of.
There's a distinct possibility that using a "consumable" item in Pokemon GO today will be a real waste. If, for example, a trainer uses a Lucky Egg, they may end up getting no bonus whatsoever. Not because the Lucky Egg wont work – it probably will – but because there's a worldwide issue with Pokemon spawns at the moment. AKA there aren't any Pokemon in the world for a whole lot of trainers.
NOTE: At the head of this article is an apocalyptic image – one used on one of Black Sabbath's Greatest Hits albums. This is Bruegel's painting "The Triumph of Death" – modified by SlashGear for this article specifically. Don't let the Pokemon GO apocalypse get this far!
What you should avoid
As today's events may or may not be reset by the time this issue is over, it'll be better to NOT use any items. If you already have Pokemon eggs in incubators, there's really no way to stop the progression – but I would recommend against adding any NEW Pokemon eggs to incubators until this issue is resolved.
The same goes for Lucky Eggs, Lures, and even Pokemon Potions. Since the results AND the items could potentially disappear, it's best to just keep the item in your backpack. The same goes for gym battles – today's a good day to keep walking. While you're at it, you might just want to skip catching Pokemon (if you can see any).
OH JEEZY CREEZY WHEN will it END?!
We really don't know. This issue seems to be unlike any we've seen in Pokemon GO history, so we don't know how difficult it will be for Niantic to fix it. In the meantime, I recommend all Pokemon GO players take a peek at Hearthstone. It's a completely different kind of game – in a good way!