Special: February’s Community Day

February’s Community Day was not the greatest. Thankfully, a Pokemon that would have qualified under the guidelines of Community Day won in Rhyperior.

The selection of Pokemon who contenders for this month’s Community Day were well… not that good if you ask around. They each have their warts. I’ll go through them alphabetically.

• Dratini: Although I would have liked to have Dratini since I missed the original Community Day and my Dragon medal is silver (the only one that is silver, mind you), there were those who were dead set against Dratini since it was a Community Day in the past. I can understand both sides of this one. I also don’t have a shiny Dratini and would have liked one as well. However, the longer term players would not have wanted a repeat. I can appreciate that at least.
• Machamp: This is the one I was working on as the announcement was made, and I was most interested in this. Besides, the shiny looks like “The Incredible Hulk” if you look at it. That was also its biggest wart, that the shiny was already out. It seems like a lot of players want the Community Day Pokemon to be a new Shiny…
• Rhyhorn: The Shiny was not released, so this was good. This is a more common Pokemon though (at least in my experience: I have 6 Rhyperiors and traded at least 1 more) and needs a Sinnoh Stone to evolve. I understand in the past there was another Sinnoh Stone based 2nd evolution and the game gave out Sinnoh Stones with a simple hurdle. Still, this makes it less than ideal overall
• Vulpix: The Shiny was not released, so this was good. However, this is a common Pokemon in 7K eggs, was part of the Red Lunar New Year event (so it was fresh in people’s minds) with increased 7K egg chances and found more often in the wild (which made it even more dime a dozen, and would not have otherwise qualified for Community Day. This only has one evolution (50 Candy) Every other Community Day has been double evolution (125 Candy).

So yes, they all had warts. Some more than others. Then came the announcement of the voting. I was thinking it would be a straight vote. One vote per account, the most fair to everyone. Nope, this was a spin a Pokestop to get a ballot. OK, but it was already filled with a certain Pokemon. So you have a 1 in 4 chance to get a particular Pokemon. If it was not what you want, through it out and try again at the next Pokestop. We were told that in areas where there are less Pokestops, the vote would change every so often if you got rid of it. I do not know, since I went to an area that had a bunch of Pokestops. Still, what if they were more of a certain ballot than others. and it was the one you did not want and the one you really wanted was the least? So if out of 10 Pokestops, you only found 1 of the one you wanted most, 4 of the one you wanted least, and 5 of the ones you were OK with, but really did not want to vote for? How fair is that, especially if someone else founded the same 10, but the 4 that you want least is the one that the other person wanted most? Also, what if in your area it snowed and you were not able to get out? Snow removal work is not as quick on weekends. Or even worse, icing… which is even more dangerous. How fair would that have been that someone had no vote for reasons that were beyond their control? What if before the vote was announced, you made plans to go out and do something else with non-player friends or had a family obligation that would have not allowed for you to play and vote? Next time, the vote should be when someone logs in for the first time of the day, they get a ballot and one vote per player. At least then there’s no bias and everyone gets a fair vote and a fair say in the matter.

In the end, I was somewhat fortunate that one of the Pokemon I was happy with winning got the nod in the end. I was definitely on “Team ABV” – ANYBODY But Vulpix. I truly believed that Vulpix should never have been considered in the first place. I understand that some voted Vulpix for this very reason. I was genuinely concerned that Vulpix would win since all I saw on my social media feeds were pro-Vulpix people.

Since Rhyhorn won, there now is the problem of handing out the Sinnoh Stones. I was hoping that there would be a simple solution, just hand them out or do something very simple like spin a Pokestop and get one. When I heard it was via the PvP System, I was disappointed. I admit it, I don’t like PvP, so to shove PvP down our throats for Sinnoh Stones is not a good thing to me. Hopefully, the 25 fights that it takes to get the max Sinnoh Stones goes smooth and isn’t as difficult as I think it might be. I am just glad that the PvP isn’t like Team Rocket Go fighting where it costs Revives and Potions to heal your Pokemon back up and only participation counts towards Sinnoh Stones. I am glad I saved up from the Sinnoh Stone event. This could have been MUCH worse. Still, I would have liked not to do PvP, but maybe I am in the minority. It wasn’t as bad as I thought as I did it. Still… I don’t enjoy PvP. My solution… hand 3 out every hour. So if you play all three hours, you get all the Sinnoh Stones, plus the bonus 1 to make the same 10 that was handed out for PvP. Reward players for playing and catching Rhyhorns… or at least playing the game.