Those who play in the village or in small towns know it: You want to play Pokémon GO, but far and wide there are only a few stops or gyms. A trainer had the same problem, so he took matters into his own hands. We asked how it went.
Of course, when you play Pokémon GO in a big city, the distances are short. In cities like Hamburg, Berlin, or Munich, there are plenty of stops or gyms to use. Spawns, Rocket Grunts, items – you can easily collect all of that with a little walk.
The next 5-star raid boss is often just a small hop away – and with luck, you might even meet some fellow players who want to catch the monster.
But in smaller towns and villages, things look different. It can happen that you have few to no stops, and you have to drive to the next town to complete a raid.
One Italian Pokémon GO player also had this problem. Under the name “AMindJoke,” he shared a tweet of his small town in Tuscany from 2016. There wasn’t much going on in terms of stops or gyms.
On the other hand, he also shared a screen with significantly more stops – and explained that he had done a lot himself to turn his town into a PokéStop paradise.
“At the beginning, it was really difficult”
The trainer named “AMindJoke” plays a lot of Pokémon GO and has been around since the summer of 2016 – so good six and a half years.
He is active in the battle league, occasionally streams on Twitch, and has already caught over 2 million Pokémon in the game. At first, the trainer played several hours a day before work and relationships moved the gameplay to the evenings.
To reach such large numbers, according to the trainer, a schedule and clear goals were needed – but also a good place where one could play. And that is exactly what he created with a few friends in the neighborhood. He tells us this in the interview.
Why did you start submitting PokéStops? “At first, there was no significant incentive to play here. In the first year of the game, I was constantly driving to larger or better cities to play, mainly Florence and Viareggio,” the trainer explains.
At the beginning of 2018, he and a friend started creating PokéStops – through roundabout ways. The two had to rely on the predecessor game “Ingress” to suggest interesting locations.
Because in Pokémon GO itself, that was not possible yet: “Everything started when a friend showed me that it was possible through Ingress to create more portals that were converted into PokéStops or gyms in our beloved game,” recalls AMindJoke.
“We began to play Ingress together as well, so for a while, we played two games simultaneously,” he explains. As a result, he had to use a GO Plus to catch Pokémon on the side – because he only had one smartphone available.
How did you manage to get so many PokéStops? “We knew that there were a ton of attractions in the area that had never been suggested in Ingress. After all, many cities in Italy are blessed with many historical things,” reports the trainer.
But just because they had suitable locations, it didn’t mean that getting the PokéStop was straightforward: “In the beginning, it was very hard for them to be accepted. Only the Ingress community evaluated locations at that time, and there were literal ‘wars’ between them, making it difficult for them to be accepted,” says AMindJoke.
For some really good candidates like historical palaces, even with the plaque at the entrance, it took us 7 to 8 requests before they were accepted!
Sometimes it could take weeks to months for a request to go through. This changed when proposals could also be submitted and evaluated by Pokémon GO players: “From then on, it became faster and we could fill the town more quickly!”
Today, the program “Niantic Wayfarer” is used to evaluate stops.
Do you have any tips on how to turn your neighborhood into a PokéStop paradise as well?
AMindJoke suggests engaging in exchange: “In Italy, there are communities where you can discuss ‘portals’, whether they are eligible for approval, how you can improve your requests and such things.”
The clearer the requests and the more experience you gain, the faster you learn what works:
I think the best way to have more success in getting your requests accepted and to fill your town is to learn the Niantic guidelines for requests and also to talk to people in each community to see what they approve and what not, because ultimately, there are certain things that are more accepted than others in every country!
One such example is mentioned by the trainer: “For example, mailboxes in the UK. They are a common thing for PokéStops there, while they would not be accepted in Italy. So always try to find out which things are best to apply for, and also learn the rules on how to submit a PokéStop (title, description, location, etc.)”
We will show you how to submit stops in Pokémon GO here.
But one thing is clear: To successfully get so many stops, it takes effort and ultimately also time. Because suitable candidates for stops are not necessarily found on every corner. How do you find them?
Here, too, the trainer has found a way: “How do I find all the things I can apply for? During my work breaks, I like to browse Google Street View in my city to look for potential candidates and find the positions to then go there and request them,” says AMindJoke.
How does it look in your neighborhood? Do you regularly submit stops or is everything already full? Do you try to submit stops more often? Tell us in the comments!
Otherwise, currently in Pokémon GO the high voltage event is coming up. What is in it, you will find out in the overview.
