No worries at the first part. It's just that with the lack of communication, no one really knows what's going on anywhere, so it's definitely important to be extra careful about what's said and where our discussions go, as the last thing we want is for people to take rumors—negative
or positive—as fact (especially given the fact that the way the game works is
still not well-understood by the general population outside of maybe Reddit).
As for whether or not the three-step glitch is a glitch, on a technical level, it looks like you're right about that. Like, it's not
technically a problem with the game (or
they're not describing it as such—I mean, yes,
this happened, but perhaps that's not entirely a good indicator of what they consider it to be), but it's still something they're fixing, seems like. Which is just something I'm saying to get the full newsy info out to people. Yep, Niantic took it down because it was confusing to users, so yep, I stand corrected about the brokenness. (For the record, though, if it helps further speculation, whenever Niantic is talking about the goals and philosophies of the product/game/GO/however they refer to it, they're usually talking about the whole bit about getting people to go out and explore the world. This is also kinda something you see in the SDCC clip linked just a bit ago.) So! Here's hoping that part of the discussion's less confusing to everyone other than the two of us. XD
That having been said! 8D When it comes to people thinking there
might be a conspiracy, it's very true that people will say things and believe things and speculate regardless, usually based on info they receive and misinterpret (because there are a
lot of people who are totes salty and will say anything to get people to not download the game/form their own opinions about it—which ngl is why I'm always on-edge when I see it happen here, although I pretty much let the salt go for the most part), on this forum at the very least, I'm trying to encourage freedom of speech with an asterisk. You're pretty much allowed to say whatever you want (so long as it's respectful towards other members of course), but if it sounds like it'll get people confused about what's actually going on, I'm definitely going to step in and try to kinda push the discussion away from the subject, just because you're absolutely right in saying Niantic's kinda weirdly dark in comparison with Nintendo (which in turn means we get less information about what's going on than we usually do with Pokémon news and releases). So the less rumors, the less confusion and the easier it is to cut through to and discuss the facts, in other words.
In short, I guess you could say I'm afraid folks will walk away from this thread taking something off Serebii as being gospel, so to speak, when we could very well be incredibly wrong. While, yeah, you get speculation all the time in the upcoming games forums (lmao, Sun & Moon), here, it's a little more dangerous because it is really,
really difficult to get a good grasp on what's news and what isn't, and like you said, the conspiracy theories are out there ... in abundance, no less. D:
Sooooo ... yep. Tl;dr, I don't really mind if folks want to speculate in either a positive or negative light, but definitely, definitely back your stuff up (preferably with links) whenever you can. That way, folks can also update themselves and ensure they're on top of what's legit and what's not.
(Lmao, this sounds really lady doth protest too much-ish, but idk, here's hoping you all get what I mean. XD)
And now for the constructive part... I thought maybe, if they really want it to be more like the original games, they should fully embrace the tall-grass concept. As in the original games, the number of species that spawn in each patch would be limited, so that you at least know what to expect, which is good if you are hunting for a specific pokemon to complete the dex. The patches of grass could be made to match only public areas where it is safe to walk, and could even change to adjust to opening/closing times when it applies. That way you can limit the places where people will wander searching for pokemon. This would be more work, but portals in ingress were also built by the community, so it is not too farfetched.
That's an interesting idea, to be honest, especially in light of the evolution system. I mean, you usually have to catch Pokémon in
bulk (and I'm not talking about just Magikarp here), and a lot of Pokémon are difficult for some folks to find. It'd definitely be handy to have them show up with some regularity in very specific spots. Like, I know there are nests, but according to the Googles, these might actually have the tendency to change. And even then, they might not actually be reliable sources of Pokémon either way in that going to them and running around will not guarantee that you end up with the Pokémon you set out to find.
Which is why I'm a little salty that I have not yet caught a Dratini, despite apparently living next to a Dratini nest up until the update.
In short, yes please.