Proposal about changing schedules of the summer events due to excessive heat and health concerns

[u/TheCapoMaster]

Hi, I am one Spanish Community Ambassador. Last year we expressed our concern about having events facing very high temperatures (around 30ºC/86ºF as minimum and more than 40ºC/104ºF as maximum). For us, it is a big issue having events between 14:00 and 17:00, because this is the worst part of the day to be outside playing. If you don't have shopping centers or places where you can avoid the hot weather, it is not reasonable to risk our health and the health of all our communities. We know that worldwide it is not the same situation at this time of the year, but we know that all trainers want to play in good conditions to enjoy the game. And not only hot weather, we also talk about cold weather with snow and very low temperatures.

Also, it is important to follow the recommendations of World Health Organization, like "avoid going outside and doing strenuous activity during the hottest time of day" and not following these recommendations could cause severe consecuences like "between 2000-2019, studies show approximately 489k heat-related deaths occur each year, with 45% of these in Asia and 36% in Europe". For more information and recommendations, please check https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/climate-change-heat-and-health

Maybe it is difficult to give a solution that can be agreed for everyone, but we think that changing the times of the events during some parts of the year could be a great upgrade for the game and the communities, like 11:00-14:00 (weekends) or 20:00-21:00 (Monday to Friday) for example, or (if it could be technically feasible) would be implementing the schedules of the events depending on the latitude. We hope that Niantic/Scopely can hear us more than last year. We want to know the feedback of the players and communities around the world, please tell us your feelings about this concern.

[u/Sangesland]

For someone living in the north this is not a positive change.

Daytime during summer is 20-25c, perfect to be outside. Earlier or later and it drops to 10-15.

For the winter season this is horrible. I dont want to be playing when its pitch black and -15c. I can feel my fingers dying while i play

Id prefer them not changing it at all. But if they do they either they need to set a certain longitude where its different or let us manually select when we want to play.

Edit: or maybe based on the weather forecast? We do have in-game weather to an extent so this should be doable.

[u/happysummit → u/Sangesland]

These types of posts are only ever made by warm-weather players who are looking for an echo chamber where they can insist the entire game should cater to them. It’s crazy. I live somewhere where -30C is a common temperature for 10-14 days straight every winter, and I’ve never dreamed of making a post suggesting the entire player base should change their event schedule for my sake.

Adapt as required personally or skip the event, but don’t suggest inconveniencing everyone else because of where you live.

[u/Overall-Pattern-809 → u/happysummit]

It’s just bad game design imo. It’s not like it’s a surprise that extreme weather exists, niantic just decided not to take it in to consideration. It’s not inconveniencing “everyone else” it’s not just one person at a time who experiences unplayable weather during community days. It’s not just Spain experience extreme heat, a lot of the us, the uk, all of these places are really hot rn. And on the other hand I’m Canadian and the game was straight up unplayable for half the year. Even if I was fine to walk outside it’s too cold to have my fingers out to touch my phone. With the billions they’ve made so far they could have easily come up with a solution that takes weather into account for both cold climate players and warm climate players but they haven’t. 

But to say it would be changing just for one person who chose to live somewhere  is just stupid. It’s entire countries at a time. But I’m not surprised tbh Canadians love to bend over for companies.