New 1st part of anniversary event CONFIRMED! - Fire and Ice on June 13th
You can read the official announcement here (the earlier mentioned leak proved valid):
http://pokemongolive.com/en/post/anniversary2017
Another major thing is gyms will be "soon thereafter" (Jun 16th it seems) disabled! It seems all your Pokemon will be kicked back to you as well so it will sadly be a clean slate (for people with a lot of gyms)...Also, the italian and Chinese Pokemon Go site stated June 16th is when it will be disabled...
http://pokemongo.nianticlabs.com/it/post/anniversary2017
http://pokemongolive.com/zh_hant/post/anniversary2017
(From official Niantic Support on SR):
NianticIndigo NianticSupport
We’ll be sure to provide an advanced warning for when Gyms will be unavailable as we draw closer to the update. Also, it may be worth noting that when Gyms are temporarily disabled, all Pokémon will return to their Trainers. Stay tuned for more information!
Trainers,
We’re celebrating two amazing milestones—Pokémon GO’s one-year anniversary and 750 million global downloads—and you’re invited to join in on the fun! Over the next few months, we’re hosting real-world and in-game events planned alongside some very exciting new features that will get you outside exploring the world with family and friends. Get ready for an action-packed couple of months!
To kick things off, we will be hosting the Solstice Event starting on June 13, 2017. This in-game event will feature Fire-type and Ice-type Pokémon, huge XP bonuses for throwing Poké Balls accurately, and discounted Lucky Eggs in the in-game shop. Soon thereafter, you can look forward to a new update focused on collaborative group gameplay features that will get you playing Pokémon GO in fun new ways. In preparation for these exciting features, we’ll be temporarily disabling Gyms for a short period of time.
We’re also excited to announce our first ever real-world Pokémon GO event coming your way: Pokémon GO Fest Chicago! This event will take place in downtown Chicago, Illinois, USA at the beautiful Grant Park on July 22, 2017. Join us as we celebrate the Pokémon GO community with a ton of exciting festivities. Tickets and more information for Pokémon GO Fest Chicago will be available at PokemonGoLive.com/Fest on Monday, June 19 at 10:00 A.M. PDT, so make sure to mark your calendars and follow our social media channels to be notified when tickets go live! European Trainers can look forward to Pokémon GO celebrations hosted across the continent from June through September in partnership with Unibail-Rodamco shopping centers. We'll be posting a complete schedule for these events very soon. Also, The Pokémon Company is organizing “Pikachu Outbreak”, a Pokémon event in Yokohama, Japan, in August where they’re exploring a unique Pokémon GO experience. Stay tuned for even more details surrounding each of these events in the coming weeks.
Keep an eye on PokemonGoLive.com and our Pokémon GO social media channels for the latest news and updates surrounding the exciting features and events coming your way. See you outside!
—The Pokémon GO team
Answers
I can see how that would be very frustrating. Where I see the benefit of a reset is in my town for example, where I believe many of the players in these stable gyms are spoofers, based on how they arrived. In any event, a change in the game that negates hard work is frustrating. I believe some changes in the game have been for the better, as well.
How would a reset benefit though do people honestly think spoofers are just going to go away for good, of course not. IMO this just gives spoofers more gyms to fill with multiple blissey. I live in a town that Instinct pretty much owns all the gyms ( my team) we are also by far the smallest base so if all gyms are blank valor and mystic from other towns who know don't bother to come attack the gyms often will easily come fill up and be even harder for Instinct to be relevant.
Agree removing only helps spoofers, but like the comment below, I don't think they can change the "co-op" gym play keeping it in place...
As I have like 10 gyms normally, I am sad to see the change, but plan to go back to the "best" gyms that I am not in currently and put something there 1st thing...
Well to make some sense of it, They can not change something completely if something is still active. They are even speaking of disabling gyms. I think they are removing the pokemon because in order to make a drastic change they have to delete the entire gym system(i would rather have my pokemon returned rather than deleted). Also i think it would keep it competitive if they returned each pokemon to their trainers with a 20pokecoin per pokemon return bonus at the time of the return, Think people who got 10-15 gyms would get 200-300 pokecoins and wouldnt be so hot.
Does anyone else feel like this is not going to be the way everyone wishes the game would develope?
Sure, there is nothing concrete. It's like a feeling of disappointment in the air. You can almost grab it..
Also, WTH about kicking everyone out of the gyms?!
I also fought hard as a semi rural player to get those gyms in nomansland.
Not to mention my last 20 10km egg disappointments
Sounds cool but this is what worries me as an instinct player seems like I'm screwed "you can look forward to a new update focused on collaborative group gameplay features that will get you playing Pokémon GO in fun new ways"
I hope they consider that instinct is almost extinct. I know some ppl will say oh man instinct runs my town well bro I guarantee valor and Mystic ratio to instinct is 2-1.. the prestige system has been my savior so I hope they don't take that away
I can see them doing it. This would be their test run to see how it plays out and then do it in other major cities globally afterwards. And this is just theories/speculation, but they could ask for your username when you buy a ticket for an event. Then when you hand it in in-person, they put the username in their system along with a unique promo code for that account. Then when the event starts, you enter the promo code. Then only the accounts with the promo codes will have a legendary spawn for them. This way spoofers can spoof there, but will not have a legendary spawn for them
This is an amazing good news for sure, so much waiting for gym rework...but of course I have to say that punishing legal players in order to take out cheaters from gyms (let's see how fast are they gonna be again on top of them) is not the way to go.
Anyway, all the efforts I made to find areas where my team was strong and worked hard to prestige and go back every week to retain those gyms are for nothing, thank you Niantic I really hope you have a good reason to do this, of course you don't care about a small percentage of players, like rurals, but you know what, we don't care about your company either, only about the game itself.
On the other hand, another big slap in the face with an event only in Chicago, I bet it will be some kind legendary giving the date of it, congrats on the ones that can travel there to get it, the rest of the world will wait, they have stated their priorities once again.
Not nearly enough, months of gameplay, gas driving all over hell seeking out gyms, and countless hours of mindless tapping and swiping to finally have a group of mons stick in gyms for extended periods of time. That's going to be a pretty tough pill to swallow, if they doof this up (history would indicate there is a good chance they will) it could be game ending. No coins, no incubators, not much reason to play.
I know your feeling, I am totally with you on this, it is very hard this action against some of us. And don't forget that after all mons are out and gyms are blank a lot of players that we "won" on those areas are going to come back even stronger, so we are not only losing the gyms, probably the areas were we have our mon to other local people that don't need to travel and work that hard for those gyms...
This is very sad.
