EDIT: DOH! How did I not see
Kiga's post? Well eitherway my points still stand:
So new info. Here's the summary:
- Trainer Level: As you train Pokemon you also increase your Trainer Level. The higher your Trainer Level the rarer & more powerful the Pokemon you'll be able to find. It also gives you access to better items such as Great Balls.
- PokeSpots: Monuments that gives you items. You may also get a Pokemon Egg which hatch when you walk around with the game, maybe even into a Pokemon you've yet to see in the game.
- Evolution: To evolve a Pokemon you need to catch members of its species multiple times.
- Distribution: As guessed, Pokemon are distributed by location type. For example, generally you'll find Water-type Pokemon near water sources like lakes and the ocean.
- Teams & Gyms: At a certain point (probably at a certain Trainer Level) you'll be asked to join one of three teams (they don't say who these teams are). Once you join a team you can then place one of your Pokemon in a "Gym" located all around the world. If you find another trainer's Gym you can challenge it and if you win you claim it.
- Camera: Remember the demo we saw? That's actually just showing off a feature where you can turn on the camera and have the Pokemon "placed" in the real life location. This feature can be turned off and the Pokemon will just be standing in a virtual field.
- We also get a glimpse at the female trainer avatar.
Trainer Levels make sense, pretty much like progression in the Pokemon games (even though nowadays you can sort of cheat it like buying Ultra Balls with PokeMiles).
PokeSpots sound interesting. I'm wondering whether they'll be real life locations you can visit daily or just temporary existing places which vanish once you visit there. Also I'm curious if you can catch a Pokemon there as they took the name from the Colosseum mechanic. Also if Eggs are a thing does that mean we can possibly Breed Pokemon?
Not sure how I feel about the Evolution method. I mean I guess it gives you incentive to catch the same Pokemon more than once, but if its a 3 stage Pokemon does that you mean you have to evolve all the Pokemon of that species to evolve it again? Or will the evolved form become available in the wild as well?
Hopefully they don't make certain Pokemon exclusive to certain locations only a very select few can get it thus they're the only "supplier" (though PokeSpots giving out "not seen before" Eggs could be a way to circumvent that a bit if the player is lucky, though they'll have a hard time trying to evolve it). But nothing new here.
And now we go into the competitive side of things. So from what it looks like "Gyms" are more like control points, you want your team to have control over the most Gyms. Being how vague they're being it sounds like you can maybe also challenge your own team Gyms making me wonder if there's also a personal reward for owning the a lot of Gyms. Also being you can only place one Pokemon in a Gym is I guess another incentive to have more than just one individual member of a Pokemon species, though what happens to the Pokemon you placed in a Gym that gets defeated? Disappointed the Gyms aren't actually Gyms like in the games, but then again they had to add a competitive feature somehow and what better way to do so than making you own a Gym? Also who knows if they won't have special Gyms.
Yeah, I think most people might keep the camera off unless they're trying to snap a photo.
The female trainer avatar looks alright though hopefully there will be customization.