TRAINER'S EYE #3 - "Shiny Pokemon & The Shiny Economy" ft. Ruby

Trainer's Eyes - Episode 3
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David: [00:00:00] Hello everyone. My name is David and you're listening to As the Pokeball Turns.

Welcome everyone to another episode of As the Pokeball Turns, a PokemonGo podcast where we discuss news, events, and other topics around PokemonGo. Today we have another episode of Trainer's Eyes, a segment where we get to hear from you, the community, on how your [00:01:00] PokemonGo journey started, where it has been, and where just currently going. For my guest today, Shiny Pokemon was one of the big reasons why he played PokemonGo. Starting with the red Gyarados back in Gen 2, Shiny Pokemon has grown in popularity over the years within the Pokemon community and has even created a trainer class of its own called Shiny Hunters. With the addition of Twitch streams, going live on YouTube, and even the release of PokemonGo, people are willing to spend dozens of hours and numerous soft resets in hopes of seeing an alternate color for a Pokemon. Now take Shiny Pokemon and mix it with the mysterious Unown and you have my guest for today. Allow me to introduce to you Alec, AKA, Ruby. 

Hello everyone and welcome to an episode of Trainer's Eyes. A segment of the podcast, where we get to hear from various people around the community on how their PokemonGold journey started, where it has been and where is it ultimately going. Today, I'm joined by Alec, a.k.a Ruby. Ruby, my friend. How are you doing today? 

Ruby: Pretty good. How about you, man? 

David: Oh, I can't [00:02:00] complain my friend. I'm glad you can join me on the podcast today and I'm looking forward to it. Let's go ahead and get started. 

Ruby: Sounds good. 

David: So before we even begin, no, for those who don't know you, how about you give a brief introduction and tell people who you are?

Ruby: Hey guys, my name's Alec. I usually am just known by either Saint Ruby or Ruby on the PoGo discord. 

David: And what team did you join?

Ruby: I joined Instinct. 

David: Wow. You're one of the very few Instinct people, right? 

Ruby: Yeah. We are suffering out there in numbers.

David: Well, very cool! So how about you tell people, how did your PokemonGo journey start?

Ruby: I just remember it being advertised a long time ago and I was really, really excited for this kind of game coming out. I was like, this is everything I've always wanted to be able to play and I actually downloaded it a day before it was actually publicly available because you, there was like a workaround where you could download a app to get in the game earlier. So me and a bunch of people did that, which was really, really fun. 

David: Like, was it like the game still functioning, even though you were a day early?

Ruby: Yeah, so like the servers were up one day before, because I guess it was open for people who were playing in Australia and earlier. And so, I downloaded it and I was able to play [00:03:00] in Texas sooner. Not that it matters, cuz it says my start day is the day that it's supposed to start. I was super excited for that and I just joined cuz everybody else was, and I was excited anyway. 

David: That's true. And at least you got to dodge the first wave of server issues we had.

Ruby: I actually don't recall a lot of issues. I remember it being pretty okay. I know a lot of other people had issues, I think, but I feel like I was pretty lucky with my connection. 

David: Do you remember where you went to try playing when the game officially launched?

Ruby: I do. I was just playing around my neighborhood actually. I lived up in the suburbs in Plano and it's a terrible place to play. It is absolutely terrible. But I would try to hit up a lot of the big parks around the area just to try my luck to get better spawns because it was miserable playing out there. The spawn were very thin. 

David: So you would try to get the parks and there just wasn't many Pokemon popping up or were there just not many poker stops or?

Ruby: Yeah, it was just very light content back in the day. Especially like in the, just the neighborhood I lived in. There's one gym, almost no spawns at that park that the gym was at and so I had to go, I think I had to drop about 15 or 20 minutes to like Downtown [00:04:00] Plano to be able to actually like, get a little bit of better content. And that was as far as I was willing to go back in the day, 

David: We know we did what we could back in the day. The game was very bare bones compared to what it is nowadays.

Ruby: For sure.

David: Before PokemonGo, did you have any familiarity with Pokemon in general? 

Ruby: I played since I was a child. Red and blue were released here and me and my sister both got a copy of each. I got Blue and she got Red and so we both played our versions and played together by trading and stuff. So I've been playing since what, '96 I guess is when it came out?

David: I believe so or 90, something like that. It's a blur when we're that young. So I gotta ask you what's been your favorite generation in your opinion?

Ruby: Oh man.

David: I know tough choices. 

Ruby: I think...

David: You can gimme two. You can gimme two, if you want. You don't have to just choose one. 

Ruby: Obviously I'm very nostalgic for Gen 1, but I do think Gen 2 was really, really good. I think Gen 2 added a lot of things that were just very needed for the game. One and two were just really good. I don't think there's any problem with any other gens, just being a child those are my most nostalgic ones. 

David: I definitely enjoyed HeartGold and SoulSilver when they did the remakes because they really fleshed out Gold and Silver because Gold and Silver was a good game because you can go [00:05:00] back to Kanto. Spoiler if you haven't played. You got to battle yourself again, weird paradox moment, but I really just enjoyed how they added so much to the Gold and Silver where you can rebattle the Gym Leaders. They added some features, I think to the gyms as well. 

Ruby: Yeah, the timeline progressed where it was like, I think I can't remember if that was in Gold and SIlver where Koga actually passed on his responsibility as a gym leader to go to the Elite Four 

David: mm-hmm 

Ruby: and then his daughter took over. Okay. Yeah. Cuz I, I really liked that progression, and they had adapted that into other generations too, like Black and White and Black and White 2. 

David: Yeah, definitely for sure cuz you got to see Koga I didn't think much of it the first generation, but it added more, I don't know a specialty, I guess what you would call it when Koga became the Elite Four member to where you remember playing Red and Blue, he goes to Gym Leader and all of a sudden you just see him like, whoa dude, you're a damn Elite Four member now. Like you're a badass. 

Ruby: Yeah. I just think is like that kind of stuff where it grows up with you, I guess a little bit, the it's a, the time is going on in there. It's not just like a stagnant thing.

David: That's fair. Do you have a favorite Pokemon? 

Ruby: Crobat!

David: Crobat? Really? How [00:06:00] come?

Ruby: I just think it's a really good design. I remember Brock, I think Brock ended up getting a Crobat eventually in the TV series and I just thought it was so cool. Playing Red, Blue, and Yellow and how everybody hated Zubats. It was worthless. One, they were annoying. You ran to them all the time. Everybody hated them. And even if you did get one and liked it, it's moveset was absolute garbage through Zubat and Golbat. I think that's why I like Gen 2, cuz it added Crobat and a really good moveset to it and in addition to one of my friend's favorite cards back in the day was Crobat-EX from the Delta series. He would constantly destroy all my friends in the TCG with that card. It was such a good card. Yeah. 

David: Oh, what do you remember what it did?

Ruby: I don't remember what it did, but he was also really good himself.

David: Oh, okay. 

Ruby: It was a nightmare, but also I think the design is just really great.

David: You know, when you bring that up, I'm pretty sure people who played from Gen 1 are having like mental flashbacks of Zubats constantly tacking them from wild spawns. But it is true because I always tried to use Golbats and I was like, [00:07:00] this Pokemon's such a bad ass because it kicks my butt. It never worked for me. I would use Confuse Ray the computer A.I would never hit itself for whatever reason. 

Ruby: See the thing though is it was good. What was the cave? Was it Dark Cave? 

David: Gen 1 or 2? 

Ruby: Gen 1. 

David: It would be Rock Tunnel.

Ruby: Rock tunnel, and rock tunnel. The only reason it was good was because it would had Leech Life and Giga Drain or Mega Drain back in the day. So it would stay alive very long and you ran to them all the time and it would slowly beat you down in addition to Supersonic where it would confuse you. Even though it didn't do a lot of damage all of it's sustaining and you chipping at yourself with confusion, it was just a nightmare.

David: Definitely! Cuz status is foreign, when you're a kid at that age, all you know is just like attack, attack, attack, and...

Ruby: Four attack move Pokemon instead of any status changes. Yeah. I remember those days.

David: Right? They all have the same typing and everything. So when you get something that, adds a little defense for the lack of a better word, it makes it more frustrating, but you know, once you get older, it's not as annoying, but that's just the memories we have as a kid.

Ruby: It really hardened you as a kid, too, you knew what real work was like back [00:08:00] in the day, compared to these easy games like Let's Go Eevee and Pikachu. 

David: Oh, so you're saying the games nowadays are more easier?

Ruby: Yeah, they're less brutal.

David: I know we're off topic, but in your opinion, what makes them easier nowadays compared to back in the day? 

Ruby: Just a couple of the mechanics they did to make it more kid friendly. I think if you did play, Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee or even some of the other mainstream games. If you play with your starter Pokemon, for example, throughout the whole games, they have affection towards you or something like that. There's an affection mechanic to where say the enemy hits you super hard and you're about to die. The Pokemon loved you so much that he just decided not to die, or he loved you so much that he just shrugged off the burn and it's gone now. You know, stuff like that. Or he's fainted and he's like, halfway through Rock Tunnel, your Pokemon just decided to get one HP back, so you don't have to get a revive or something like that. Honestly, I think it is helpful for kids, but we didn't have that back then. 

David: Yeah. We had to suffer while our Pokemon took a hit point every, I believe four steps from poison. 

Ruby: God, that was brutal. I mean, that's still a mechanic, but it goes away now [00:09:00] where you had to heal it off back then. 

David: The games are definitely easier, I would agree, especially with the experience all and how busted that can be. What is it the main one gets to experience and then your team members get 50% of it? No matter what. 

Ruby: I forgot what the math is exactly, but yeah, now experience all and share are natural and they're not like late game items that you use to get from the aids anymore. 

David: Definitely. So you've been familiar with the franchise, of course, throughout the entire lifespan with PokemonGo with how much Pokemon had been out nowadays. So you've seen the game from the bare bones to the complicated eras to how it is nowadays. In your opinion, what would you like to see maybe improved or change in PokemonGo? 

Ruby: Honestly, I don't really know what to ask for at this point anymore. I had a lot of ideas back when I was way more involved than I am now. I'm definitely a lot more of a casual than the hardcore player I used to be in PokemonGo. If it was back in 2018 or 19, if I had a voice in it. Slow down. I think they burned out veteran players and hurt the longevity of the game because they they've burned [00:10:00] through 20 years of Pokemon content and they've caught up to the most recent generations in six years. But that times passed, they caught up and everything like that. I think stop forcing people to play parts of the game they don't like such as, I'm not a big PVP-er I really hated leveling up. I just leveled up to 45 finally because the require- 

David: Congrats! 

Ruby: Thank you! The requirement is to battle 20 or 30 battles or something like that in each league. I hate PVP. It took me that long two years to level up just cuz I hated doing it. 

David: And what about PVP that you just don't like?

Ruby: I've never been a competitive Pokemon person. If Pokemon were in the real world, I'd probably be like, no, we do not use Pokemon for battles kind of person. Not because of that, but I'm also just not competitive. It takes some enjoyment of the game out for me. Like TCG, not a fan of other than collecting. VGC not a big fan other than just watching myself. I will never play, but I think the tap mechanic is very underwhelming making it way less interesting than even VGC.

David: There's a lot of people, it's not just you, [00:11:00] to where PVP is a chore to where-

Ruby: It is! 

David: It's just like even trying to do the Team Rocket Grunts, like there's a reason why people are asking for a toggle button to do the Team Rockets where they just don't want to interfere with it because it's not like how it is in the main series to where you just press two buttons, you do the move, and they all automate. It's more of an involved mechanic to where some people just don't wanna be that involved when it comes to the game. That's why there's people who Shiny Hunt. That's why there's people who hundo hunting. Whatever other goal there is, there's people, there's a reason why people don't do PVP.

Ruby: And for the people who do play, props to you. I think it is a cool addition to the game. I just think making people have to do it is not the way to go and I think that goes into another part where I guess, to go with what you were asking before, what kind of input I would wanna put into the game is. I think the requirements to level up from 41 to 50 was a terrible decision to help the longevity of the game in their mind. It makes sense for them, but I never really understood why they would do that when you just removed the level cap period. I don't like focusing on one thing at a time [00:12:00] like, oh, 40, 44 to 45 was I'm gonna sit there and do, uh, PVP to level up. And then 45 to 46 is, you have to purify a hundred Shadow Pokemon, battle a hundred grunts, and battle a 50 Rocket Leaders. I don't wanna sit there and try and grind that. Which a lot of people's mindset was for hardcore players. It's like, I'm gonna grind this so I can get to the next level super fast. I don't like that grinding mindset. 

David: So just to make sure I understand you correctly. So you prefer that if Niantic did not have the added task to level up and prefer to just keep it XP wise?

Ruby: Yes, I think just remove the level cap and just leave it. Just keep going because I know the idea was wanting to increase the longevity of the game, because if they did just do experience, people would hit 50 immediately. Like our friend Deverock, I know he would've hit 50 the second, the level cap was increased and that's fine. I think they should have been okay with that. They should not have been afraid of that cuz they should have removed any level cap and just kept it scaling up to a hundred rather than trying to Stonewall people at 40 or [00:13:00] 41 with requirements to slow the game down in people's minds.

David: Right I have a lot of XP too and there's a reason why I'm still 43 cuz I'm on the PVP part as well. It's not cause I hate it. I just don't have time to do it. That's the main reason why I'm still 43. 

Ruby: I think time is a lot to do with the PVP thing. It's the animations. Going through like even rocket battle animations, right? You spin the stop. You have to wait for the guy to do their dialogue and then it's like, do you wanna battle? Hit battle. It's just a long dialogue, the animations to throw the Pokeball out and everything like that. It's just... where's the skip button at this point? We're all over it. 

David: Right? We barely got where we can finally skip the hatching animation. It took six years to get that. So maybe in another six years, we'll get the skip animation for PVP and maybe a toggle button for Team Rocket.

Ruby: I agree with you. I think that's, that's a huge wall for people. I don't know. Maybe I'm just being dramatic, but that's enough for me to have taken two years to level up, I guess it was 43 to 44, like you said, To not want to do 30 battles per league, which is what, it's 90 battles in addition to the 20 ones you have to do in the actual online PVP. Which I finally ended up [00:14:00] doing with my baby account. It took like two hours. 

David: Yeah. Two hours and two hours that you don't enjoy doing, you know? 

Ruby: Yeah. It just, wasn't fun. 

David: So you say you don't do PVP and you're not much of a grinder, so, what way do you play PokemonGo?

Ruby: I mostly just Shiny hunt now and I have for quite a while, I feel like there's not a lot for the game to offer other than that. PVP wasn't interesting and I don't raid for IVs anymore. If a new Pokemon comes out, they're not Shiny. I will not Raid them just cuz I don't see a point. They're gonna come back. They're gonna come back for a longer time because they know they're gonna want people to get Shinies. I don't need to keep up with the Pokedex anymore either. 

David: That's fair. I have a policy to where I don't use paid passes for non Shiny legendary because we know the Niantic formula at this point to where they do the normal form. Maybe come back with another normal form for whatever reason. And then finally we get the Shiny form at some point. And I'm like, why would I spend extra money for a non shining opportunity where maybe I can get a Shiny down the road if I just wait a little bit? Now I gotta ask you this. So, you talk about Shiny hunting. So why do you enjoy Shiny hunting so much? Or what do you enjoy [00:15:00] about Shiny Pokemon?

Ruby: I think a lot of it had to do with bragging for me personally. 

David: Okay.

Ruby: Otherwise I just think Shiny Pokemon look cooler. They're rarer. You can show most of them other than Legendaries and Mythicals off In gyms. Aesthetic, style, rarity, bragging rights. That's pretty much it.

David: You definitely can also put 'em as your buddy, too, and then people can look at you. 

Ruby: For sure. Oh yeah. I forgot. That's the way you can show off your legendaries. 

David: Yeah, so what Shiny Pokemon come to mind that are your favorites? Not specifically, but just some that come off the top of your head.

Ruby: Definitely Crobat, just cuz I think the pink is super cool for such a like mean looking Pokemon and then it just is a pink Shiny. And then one of my other favorites it's not even out yet. It's one of the ultra beasts, which I know people are not very familiar with. It's Stakataka, the tower Pokemon. It's just a giant gold tower. It's so cool. I love it so much. 

David: Really? I don't think I've seen that one yet. 

Ruby: It's yeah. It's not out. It's not one of the popular ones for sure. I don't think many people like it, but I just think this giant stack of bricks is a Pokemon with eyes all over it. And it's just a black [00:16:00] brick tower and then it just turns gold for its Shiny. And I'm like, okay, this is amazing! 

David: So I'm looking at it now. I haven't seen the Shiny form actually. So it reminds me of , the Egyptian pyramids almost because it gets like a very, like you said, a very gold color and then the legs are like more darker of a gold.

Ruby: Yeah, the design is just so funky, I love that Pokemon so much. 

David: I can't blame you. It's not a bad Shiny. So, how do you go about obtaining Shiny Pokemon? Do you just get 'em all by yourself or do you do trades? 

Ruby: Lately just I get 'em on my own. I'll just take the time to go look for them on my own. I used to stress over the fact that I wouldn't get it and I would be one of the people that would put in the time and not get it. And now it's like, well, if I don't get it, eventually, if I'm just patient, like people who didn't get a Deino back when it was super rare. Well, it had a community day, it'll come out eventually. I didn't get Shiny Unown-X and I will try to trade for it, even though I don't really care about trading anymore because I don't want to level up friends, another mechanic, I just don't care about, but I most likely just wait to get it on my own at this point.[00:17:00] 

David: You're not the only one. A lot of people didn't get the Shiny Unown. Niantic really loves gate keeping these either through events or through incense. As we found out.

Ruby: I did get two Shiny-P though, and I lost my mind on the first one, but the second one, I was like, I have something to trade for X now. But not that anybody has an X to trade. That's how rare it is. 

David: Yeah. I didn't see hardly any screenshots of X. It's crazy how rare that one's gonna be. If you got a Shiny Unown-X and you listen to this podcast, you're sitting on probably a million dollars basically at this point.

Ruby: I did check eBay. It's worth about $170.

David: Well, there you go. You wanna buy a Pokemon? It's $170. I might need to do something on the next paycheck. So you talked about mentioning Deino having its own Community Day. So there's a bit of a controversial divide when it comes to Community Day Pokemon. There's some who believe that it ruins the Shiny value of Pokemon whenever a Community Day happens, then there's of course the other ones who says it opens it up for other players to be able to attain Shinies that they may or may not have had a chance to obtain. What is [00:18:00] your opinion in regards to how Niantic chooses Community Day Pokemon for Shiny releases? 

Ruby: So funny enough back during the first Community Day, which was Pikachu, I didn't get to play it. I was working that day and I was like, this is cool a Pikachu with surf. This is really cool. I had no idea that it could be Shiny, cuz the only Shiny at that point was Magikarp. You had to get that in the wild and it was pretty rare at the time. But then people found out playing the event that you could get Shiny Pikachu. I found out after the event was over and I was like damnit. And then when I realized, because a lot of people had a lot of Shinies at that point, I was like, I think this is defeating the point of what it's supposed to be. And then more Community Days started happening and I definitely, I remember being very outspoken early on and I was like, Community Days are not good. It's defeating the point of what a Shiny is and now we have these different rates of what we expect different Pokemon to have for our Shiny form. I think Community Day Shinies are not where the game should have gone. I do really like the exclusive moves for [00:19:00] it, but the value in Shinies for a lot of Pokemon have dropped and as much as I hate to say it, cuz I like getting Shinies I don't think we should have gone that direction, period.

David: I would almost agree with you because, you see it a lot with the community to where they complained about repeat Shinies and yada yada yada, because Niantic has kind of pigeonholed itself to where, like you said earlier, they've caught up to the main series basically to where it's at now. And unless you believe Gamefreak has given the green light for Niantic to make Pokemon, Niantic has to work with what they have. And we saw them break the pattern to where they don't do the starters every year now. It's basically every two years. They don't do the 10K you know, like the Dratinis, the Beldums, and you know, those Pokemon, in between cuz there's only so many of those. And then even if you think about what's available now, I think there's what Axew, there's Hakamo- I can't ever say that one. The Hakamo- or whatever. 

Ruby: Yeah, hakamo. Yeah. 

David: Is it Hakamo? 

Ruby: I believe so, yeah.

David: And if it's not a good Shiny, people aren't interested in playing it. 

Ruby: Right, right. Like I do remember Weedle [00:20:00] Community Day and Seedot Community Day. One they're not popular already. Two, their Shinies are not amazing. Like if you think of Beldum and Dratini Shinies, silver and pink man, those are some great Shinies in addition to, they are very good Pokemon. Like you said, I think they pigeonholed themselves and Seedot and Weedle are not the play man. They're not the play. They're not interesting. Unfortunately they started off with Pikachu and then they were like, oh, we gotta pick pop, popular Pokemon for Community Days. And then they immediately did Charmander and Bulbsaur and Squirtle and Dratini and all the other starters, Cyndaquil, Chikorita, Totodile, they did all those. I think they should have just started off with really bad Pokemon, like Weedle and Seedot. Think about the bug event and they released Weedle during that. Nobody's gonna really search for that even if it does have a high shine rate. But if they had held off on Charmander, Bulbasaur, and Squirtle and say the first water event they did instead of the premiere Pokemon being Wailmer or Wingull. It could have been Squirtle. If it was Squirtle with a lower [00:21:00] Shiny rate and it had higher value today, people would be going nuts over that. I think the best way to about what could have been is if you think about Shadow Shiny Charmander, Squirtle, and Bulbasaur. Those are cool. Those are super cool purified or shadow.

David: Especially when you evolve them.

Ruby: Exactly! I went at hard after those and I don't really even support those an incredible amount, but I went hard after this cause I was like, man, I wanna Shadow Shiny Charmander so bad. I'm gonna go really hard on this. And I actually ended up getting one, two days ago. 

David: Ooh, congrats! 

Ruby: Thank you! Yeah, that was a tough one. I think it took me about 57 or 62 Arlos, very annoying. 

David: Oh gosh!

Ruby: Very, very annoying. But I was also leveling up to 45 at that point and I had to beat leaders anyway, so I was like, might as well, 

David: Might as well get something out of it that you would enjoy. 

Ruby: Exactly! But I think if we had held off on really popular Shinies like that, instead of, they kind of blew their load at the very beginning of what was good.

David: I think a good example actually is Starly. So, you know, community has always talked about how Niantic needs to release new Community Day Shinies, right? And we get [00:22:00] Starly, which is brand new and it still wasn't really well received oddly enough. 

Ruby: Yeah, even with the exclusive moves, it's not a premier thing because people are expecting the pseudos or the starters, like I said, whereas if we just kept it, like, you know what, that first community could have been Pidgey and then we could have saved ourselves later on down the road and it could have been Pidgey Community Day along with Pidove and Starly. And then saving the rare stuff for rare events. 

David: No, that makes sense. And especially I saw how hype the community got for Galarian Zigzagoon and that's a repeat Shiny. It's been out for a while and people blew their minds over it.

Ruby: But that one looks good and I think that's a huge difference too. Like Weedle and Beedrill that whole line, not a very good Shiny and it's already not interesting. Of course people are not gonna be that excited over Weedle Community Day.

David: With all that being said, we have the Community Day Pokemon, you have the Shadow Shiny Pokemon. So in your opinion, like what's the rarest Shiny Pokemon currently in PokemonGo that you've seen?

Ruby: I actually was trying to create in our Discords a Shiny economy and I wanted to [00:23:00] create a list, a tier list of things where it felt fair for people to trade certain things with each other and not get ripped off. Obviously value is in the eyes of the beholder and that's okay. I just wanted to create something that would help people be like, well, I have this Shiny Shinx, Pre-Shinx Community day, and somebody wants to give me a Weedle. If that's what you want, sure, but I think you lose out on the value of your Shinx for a Weedle, that was super common. And then Shinx had a Community Day anyway and so they're both not valuable. I think the rarest Shiny that I know of right now is the Pikachu Libre. I think the wall is just that's cuz it's PVP and I don't wanna do PVP , but I also don't support costume Pokemon. I think that's a terrible idea. 

David: What about costume Pokemon you don't like?

Ruby: I think that's another direction Niantic went that we should not have gone. I think we are failing as a community supporting Shiny costume Pokemon. I think we are supporting Niantic getting lazy, getting excited over costumes. That's just my personal opinion. I think [00:24:00] we helped them by being so supportive for hunting these shiny costumes. I think we helped them be lazy and to get comfortable on slowing down the game by releasing more costumes than actual content. I remember Shiny Bowtie Lapras came out and I was like, I can't do this anymore. This is so dumb. This is really embarrassing at this point! 

David: Lapras was just the line that got crossed! 

Ruby: And then I checked my Leekduck Shiny page. They added more! There's three balloon Pikachus There's three balloon Pikachu! And I was like, why, what was wrong with the first two? 

David: They pimping out Pikachu bro. 

Ruby: I know. And I get it on Pikachu, fine. But man, I saw a New Year's Hat Hoothoot.

David: Yep. 

Ruby: God, man, what are we doing? Why are we supporting this? I don't go after costumes, man. Respecting the people that have the Shiny Pikachu Libre. Like if you have that, that's cool, but I'm not gonna waste my time doing that cuz I also hate PVP and that's not what I'm here for man.

David: That's fair. And you know the odd differences between those balloons. I think it's just one of them has a number, if I remember [00:25:00] correctly.

Ruby: There's, I had to look into it and there's three balloon Pikachus. One was the first balloon Pikachu, just a regular balloon Pikachu. Right? The second one was like a five year anniversary or birthday or something like that. It has a five balloon in it. 

David: Yep. 

Ruby: And then the third Pikachu is another regular balloon Pikachu but they changed the color of the balloons. One of them's red or something like that. And I'm like, God, we really should not be supporting this man. We really should not. 

David: I've heard some locals who complained cuz eventually Niantic started doing, I think two to three and even more, especially with the Halloween event, sometimes costume Pokemon and they all could be Shiny. It's frustrating as a Shiny Hunter I can imagine because you not only have a limited time of getting these costume Pokemon, you're not even guaranteed to get them.

Ruby: I know they do very exclusive events too. Even the Pogo Fest this year, I believe it was a Shiny, Shaymin flower Pikachu already to add to the confusion of the other three flower Pikachus we have. There's just the Flower Crown Pikachu, then you have Shaymin Flower Crown Pikachu, and then you [00:26:00] have Flower Crown, Top Hat, Pikachu. I think there's another flower somewhere in there, but I can't remember right now, but- 

David: It probably is. I don't know either. 

Ruby: I think that's a little ridiculous at this point.

David: And the only difference between them is just like either a small design here and there or-

Ruby: The event. 

David: Yeah. The year. 

Ruby: I think it was okay back in the day, like the first hat Shiny was Shiny hat, Pichu and Pikachu, and you could evolve it into a Raichu. And I was like, that's cool. It was super rare back when I was creating my tier list. Super, super rare. I think the only guy that had one was TheTexasDuke on our server and I was super jealous. He showed it off and then they brought it back a second year and I was like, I don't know if I like that. They brought it back because it really diminishes the rarity of this, but it's given me a chance and that's cool. And then they stopped bringing stuff back period and created more hats. And I was like, you know what? they should have kept bringing stuff back because I think they create a really toxic trading community where right now, I know some of the really hot trades right now, which is why I don't trade because there's so many toxic traders, people are looking for Fragment Hat [00:27:00] Pikachu and Witch Hat Pikachu. And if somebody happened to get it Shiny, Detective Hat Pikachu, God bless, that one's an accident, but people are looking for those. And I'm like, ewwww, that sounds miserable, that sounds not fun. 

David: Right ,especially cuz you can only trade 'em once. Once you trade 'em they're stuck there until you either get rid of 'em at that point. 

Ruby: Yeah, and if I'm genuinely honest, when I did care and I was trying to get every single Shiny in the game, I got somebody to trade me a fragment hat, Pikachu and I wish there was a time limit. I wish maybe after a year, maybe two, we could trade it again. I would trade it away right now. Someone that wants it way more than I do, cuz I just, I don't care about hat Pokemon anymore. I did back in the day. Glad I have it. Glad I can say I have it now. I know it's valuable, but I, I would trade it away. I really would. 

David: That'd be a very interesting addition Niantic could add because eventually you get to the point to where you're gonna run outta Shiny or it's gonna become very rare. Like Fragment Hat has only been released once. 

Ruby: Once in 2017 or 18 for a very obscure clothing promotion. 

David: It was an Ingress event, I believe. 

Ruby: Oh, the Ingress [00:28:00] event. Oh my God, God. Ingress, Jesus. 

David: Exactly. the only Ingress crossover we had in PokemonGo. And tha- 

Ruby: Holy Cow! 

David: That's it. And you take away all the ones that have been traded at this point, the ones who are stuck on players' accounts, who maybe either been banned or forgot their login password, and you got what's left remaining and that's probably definitely one of the more rare ones for sure.

Ruby: Honestly, I had considered going back through and updating my Shiny Economy Tier List but again, when I looked at the Leekduck page, there's 798 Shinies now. And I'm like, bro, back when I did this, there was only 400, I say only. And that's still a lot. It's sad to see the Pokemon that are on the bottom of the tier list, which are basically all the starters and all the pseudos because they're worthless.

David: These are the common ones, right? 

Ruby: Yeah. They're really common ones. I believe I created a Community Day Teir list, which was essentially worthless. Everybody has them and if people try to trade them, they're basically are just giving them away and there's sadly, there's a tier list below Community Day tier lists and it's specifically Eevee tier lists. 

David: Oh my gosh. 

Ruby: Because [00:29:00] Eevee had two, two day Community Days. And you got an assured Eevee during a special research back in 2018 or 19. 

David: Oh, that's right. Yeah, you did. 

Ruby: I get that you need nine now for a full set, but phew 

David: Well, at minimum, you gotta get lucky on those first three, cuz Niantic, for some reason, still refuses to add an easier way to get Flareon, Vaporeon, and Jolteon at will. 

Ruby: Every single one of them has a name trick though.

David: If you haven't used it.

Ruby: Yeah. If you haven't used it. Does Sylveon have a name trick or do you actually just have to do friendship? 

David: Sylveon has a name trick too. I can't remember what it is, but I think it's the one. It's the name that's based off in the anime when it made its appearance, I believe.

Ruby: Okay, cause I remember preemptively, I had a Shiny Flower Crown Eevee and I was like, I'm gonna save this for the Sylveon's release. I was guessing at the time and I was like, I only have one best friend Pokemon it's question mark Unown. And I'm like, I'm gonna make Shiny Flower Crown Eevee my second best friend, assuming this is how you get Sylveon. And then of course the date released, they were like, this is how you get it. And I was like [00:30:00] evolve. I got a Shiny Flower Crown Sylveon, everybody just be jealous, please. I really love that Shiny too. That's a good one! 

David: So for those who don't know, you're actually one of the first ones to ever complete the Unown Dex in PokemonGo in the DFW area only behind one other person.

Ruby: Correct 

David: Do you have any like fun stories of trying to go for one of 'em or do you remember the last letter or stuff like that? 

Ruby: I remember a lot about the Unown cause I loved looking for them. I had every notification, every radar, everything I could possibly do to get any Unown that spawned in the area. And I went after every single one of them, even if they're repeats. I went after every single one of 'em cuz I was like, these things are so rare. I wanna get an extra letter and give them to people. That's what I do with most of my stuff is if I have an extra or something, I'll just give it away.

Effect: Awwwww 

Ruby: Unless it's like super rare, like my second Shiny Unown-P, nobody's getting that that you gotta gimme a Shiny X for that, sorry. 

David: That's fair. That's fair. That's fair. 

Ruby: I remember messaging you cuz my reach out into other communities was not as [00:31:00] good as yours. You knew a lot more communities than I did. I was like, Hey, I keep hearing about this guy named jcamacho, I believe is his name and he was the first to complete it and I was very jealous cuz I thought I was gonna be the first to complete it. I was like, Hey man, you got me in contact with him and I message him, "hey, you got an extra Y? I'm looking for Y this is my last letter. The only event that it was released in was in a PokemonGo Safari and the only way to get it is if you trade it with a Spoofer. I was like, I need to complete this stupid dex. I asked him and he was like, I don't have any extra Y, that one's really hard to find, I had to trade for myself, I believe. And so I ended up finding a Spoofer that traded me one. As far as stories going for them, there's a couple that come to mind. I was going for a K and this one was up in Garland and I was like, okay, this thing has a 59 minute timer. They caught it on spawn on the scanner. I'm gonna go drive for this right now. 45 minute drive. I drove for that thing so fast and I was hitting so much traffic and I was watching the timer and I'm like, man, I'm barely gonna make this at this point. This is gonna be within a minute of me making [00:32:00] it. And so I'm down the street from this thing. I was like, okay, I'm gonna make this no big deal. And I pull up to a railroad crossing and the train comes and I was like, no way, am I gonna miss this because of a train? And this isn't the DART. This was a cargo train. This thing had hundreds of cars. I was like, what the hell, man? There's no way I caught this right now. Literally. I'm like, if I could have gotten outta my car and ran across the track and down a couple of houses, I would've gotten it. No, I missed it. I missed it by a long time, even though I was only down the street from it. 

David: That must have been frustrating, like you're right there and a train just stops you. Like, that's gotta be the most frustrating thing when you're trying to chase any Pokemon, but let alone even Unown

Ruby: Yeah, that was one of the farthest ones I drove for too. Otherwise a lot of them were pretty convenient. I do remember seeing a lot of people at some. I remember there was one in Highland park and that one was kind of scary for a second because there was a bunch of these nerds pulling up on Highland park property and then Highland park has their own security and it's [00:33:00] like when are they gonna show up and kick us all out for basically loitering and trying to catch this imaginary thing?

David: So real quick. So for those who don't know, Highland park is like the bougie area for Dallas. So if you are there, you got money and people like us don't have money, so we don't really belong there. So continue. 

Ruby: No, yeah, it is just, I remember there was so many cars there too, and it was just off this little road, cuz they don't have very big roads there cuz they're like private, they're basically private driveways at that point.

David: Pretty much.

Ruby: I was like, I'm just gonna get mine and leave. Like I usually will talk with people that show up cuz it was, it was a huge event. If people found an Unown there was a long time on it. Man, people would show up and they'd chill and talk for a second and it'd be like, oh this is cool. Like I get to meet all the other hardcore players that drove out for this thing at 11 o'clock at night. 

David: And we're talking like waves of cars. It's not just like one or two people. It's like a lot of it's like 

Ruby: It was a lot of people that used to come and that would be that be for all the letters. I really enjoyed going for the letters. 

David: Yeah, that's how it was with the me too. So with Highland park, I never stopped either, cuz I didn't want those issues. But if it was anywhere else like Addison, Plano, [00:34:00] or I think the furthest I would ever go would be maybe North Park area. I think that's probably a far south as I would go cause after that it's kind of too much. You know, I would sit around, it'd be in some random parking lot or some random spot, you would never find it. Like there's no way, if you try to play this game, normally you would never find these Unown because they just be in the most random the middle of a place of spots. 

Ruby: You're right. They were always in the worst spots possible. No one would've naturally found them. I remember, I don't know what letter it was ,one spawned in downtown and I lived near downtown at the time. I was like, this is a six minute drive away from my house and it has a big timer on it. I was like, this is awesome, man, there was so many people there because that one was probably the easiest one to get, because it was just so accessible.

David: Yeah and it's something that people like, unless you grow up with a map, you don't know this. Like, there's a community that happens when you get mapping. And I know mapping is kind of against the TOS. I get all that, but it really does bring people together who chase the rare Pokemon, like Unown or chase hundos like there's a community within just mapping alone to where you find rare Pokemon. As you, ,heard me and Ruby talk about, you [00:35:00] meet out in the car and like, "Hey, the Pokemon's over here." And then y'all get into talking. It's like, yeah, I got this hundo and y'all talk about y'alls collection. In spite of it being against the TOS mapping, in my opinion, really does bring people together. 

Ruby: Definitely don't think there's any issues. It's like if you wanna spoof, do it, if you wanna multi account, do it. If you wanna scan with a scanner and provide for the community, do it. They're all breaking terms of service. I don't think it matters. 

David: It really doesn't cuz ultimately this is just a game. This isn't real life and we got real world problems like with our jobs and bills to pay. Like it's nice just to have an escape

Ruby: For sure! I do remember one spawned in Texas instruments property.

David: Oh Jesus. 

Ruby: And I remember there was a line of people trying to get through the front gate of Texas instruments and the security guards like, hell no, I'm not letting like there's a line of cars of, of nerds driving up. And I was obviously rejected and Texas instruments is huge. And I was looking at the exact coordinates of where it was on Google maps. And I was like, man, if, if I could just like reach my hand into the gate. So I drove around to [00:36:00] the closest point where the Unown was spawned and it was gated off, which is fine, but there was a bunch of cars parked there and I'm like, what the hell are these cars doing? There's no way these cars can reach it. There was a couple that worked at Texas instruments inside the gates and they played PokemonGo. 

David: Really? 

Ruby: And basically everybody was unlocking their phones, opening up to PokemonGo, and they were handing their phones to this couple who were running into the campus, clicking on the Unown for them, running back and giving back the phones to people, so they could catch themselves, getting a new batch of phones to go get more for people. And they were truly the MVPs. That one was super funny. 

David: That's hilarious! Like just random people who played PokemonGo happened to be there. 

Ruby: Yeah, I do remember though during the question mark release, I ended up getting every single question mark I saw and I ended up getting a 93% question mark, which is my number one favorite Pokemon on the game. And the next release is probably just gonna be the Shiny release and who knows when that's gonna be? I highly doubt, people are gonna see a completed Dex without that thing. I actually only have one left and I'm saving it for one of my friends when we finally hit [00:37:00] lucky friends. We haven't hit it in two and a half years.

David: So with this past GoFest, I was in Seattle, that was the most probably sought after Pokemon at GoFest. 

Ruby: In 2022.

David: Yeah and there was a lot of people asking for those question, mark Unown and I didn't realize how rare they were until I looked at, like you said, they've only had one release. 

Ruby: Right. And you were there too for that one. 

David: Yep. 

Ruby: Did you have any extras? 

David: Mm-hmm I do, but I only have like a five or six, but the thing with me, 

Ruby: That's a lot. That's a lot. 

David: Well, I never have Stardust for one and then all our mutual friends already have it. So they've just been sitting my box the entire time. Now if I ever do trade 'em, they're probably gonna go lucky cuz we're talking three years, Marin nation at this point. Or I'm sorry, four years, four years.

Ruby: Four years for sure. No, that's the thing is I kind of wish I saved a couple, cuz I remember coming back and I'm like, guys, I specifically have 22 question mark Unown to give away and I gave away almost all of them immediately cuz people were like, that's so cool. Most of them ended up turning lucky, which was funny. I remember being up in Denton once and I went to a raid and I picked a random person and I was like, yo, you want question mark Unown? And they were like woah, I don't [00:38:00] have an Unown and I was like, yeah, here you go. I thought that was just super fun giving them away. I wish I had a few more so I could raffle them off to people who just straight up don't have any Unown period.

David: Well, let's go and move on to the final question. So, you are a Shiny hunter, of course, or you were, and you love Unown. So what are your thoughts on Shiny Unown being released and how close are you to completing that collection? 

Ruby: Before I quit, I went really hard when G O was released in that GoFest and I got neither of them. They were so valuable at that point. I had nothing that could compete to trade them. And so I was like, I'm never getting these things. Then the letters for ULTRA came out and I went as hard as possible. I think I dropped $300 to try and get all the letters. And I ended up getting all the letters. I got five Shinies and two of them were a repeat. So I traded somebody else that had a repeat. So I did get all the letters for ultra and I quit after that because I was so mad that this is so dumb. I don't know why I just did this. I don't know why I just wasted my life doing this.

David: $300 on the Unown 

Ruby: Yeah I think it took [00:39:00] about 280 something Raids to get all five. 

David: Mm that's a lot. 

Ruby: But when I quit, I do remember saying somewhere, even though I really didn't wanna come back to the game, I was like, if Unown come back Shiny again, I'm gonna probably come back and play for the Unown, which I did. So right now I have 13 Shiny Unown letters. I'm missing F I V J and X. But I wanna tell you this right now, cuz I love question mark so much. Like it's actually my mascot for my Twitch. As much as I really hate having to go so hard for the Unown, I swear I will drop absolutely everything and anything to get a Shiny question, mark Unown in this stupid game. I want that so bad. I know people need question mark too, so I'm just like just release it already. I just wanna, I just want it. That's probably gonna be the last Unown they release Shiny other than explanation point 

David: Well, you've been a joy to chat with Ruby. Do you have anything you wanna say to end the podcast or something you wanna plug in? Maybe you wanna plug in your Twitch channel?

Ruby: Yeah, if you guys wanna watch me on Twitch, Twitch. [00:40:00] TV slash ReubenPopiGlubbo, I know that's really hard to type and spell. Thanks for listening. I appreciate it.

David: Yeah. And if you want help with the spelling, I'll actually put a link to his Twitch in my description notes. So that way you can just click the button, it'll open up your Twitch app, or if you're on the computer, open up Twitch itself, and then you can subscribe on Twitch or follow, 

Ruby: Yeah, if you guys wanna follow, that'd be super cool. I do just do a variety of stuff. It's fun.

David: You definitely gotta watch him when he plays, he plays a mean Among Us game, I will say that much. So whenever he plays Among Us, you definitely wanna watch him. 

Ruby: Yeah. I am a very good liar in the game.

David: That's all I have for today. Thank you all for joining me for an episode of, As the Pokeball Turns. As a reminder, you can subscribe to this podcast on apple, Spotify, or your podcast streamer of choice. If you wanna listen to more, please check out my episodes. As I said earlier, Ruby's Twitch will be linked into the description of this episode. So definitely check 'em out. You can also follow me on Twitter @The1stHamtaro, and I'll see you next time.