INGRESS

[Garacesh]

Unfortunately things do still suffer from the one-sided-spiral BUT communities have gotten a lot better and a lot more active.

 

About 10 of us took a day trip to Liverpool the other week as they'd been getting a lot of Resistance pressure and captured everything. Get talking to people in open comms, get into their G+ groups, then see if you can plan an OP with them where they liberate your area.

 

You'll find after doing it once-or-twice things start to even out. Also, recruit people

 

Edit: The Resistance have more players here than we do, but we still manage to hold a local town at Level 7 consistently, and a farm at Level 8. If they trash it, it's back up within 24 hours. A coordinated effort is all you need to start turning the tide.

Edited May 15, 2014 by Garacesh

[AlfaTech]

I know you can still hack enemy portals but they never dropped enough stuff to actually be worth farming.

They have now added the Glyph Game, which gives you bonus kit especially helpful when dirty-hacking. They've also released capsules to help transfer kit between agents and you no longer have to drop your keys on the ground to hack other ones. Although they've seriously upped the mitigation of shields they have also released Ultra Strikes to the rest of us (without Motorola phones).

 

It is true that his game is heavily weighted to the default side - the smurfs, but that's not always the case in some areas. I'm still pretty much outnumbered, but I now have an ally in my area and we are able to totally dominate both our local town and pretty much all of the county (with a bit of coordination and strategic driving here and there). Last week my town suffered 3 total destructions in 2 days and I was out there battling them on the streets, but everything was back up within an hour of them leaving. I did quit the game for a while and have started again but since I've been away places that were pretty much permanently blue (such as Swindon & Wiltshire, Exeter...) are now very green, so it's totally flipped around.

 

There is now more to do after L8 as they have now added up to 16 levels so the level grind is back. (Since February I'm L9 going on L10 already - thanks to the smurfs repeatedly smashing up my town). Beyond that I get involved in big ops. I was involved in the Interitus event but wasn't in London, between me and my ally we smashed and blocked an 8 million mega-field blanketing London from Wiltshire on the day of the event - he even got a medal for it and he wasn't even in London. lol

Edited May 19, 2014 by AlfaTech

[Garacesh]

With the introduction of new levels, a lot of us find we're having to travel to different places to increase our unique portal visits, since you need medals to level up beyond L8. So we found a place all 4 of us had never been to and went there. It was a Saturday, nobody had anything planned, and the weather was nice.

 

Then I had a smurf cry at me because I JARVIS'd his 344-day-old portal. Well, what was I supposed to do? Just leave it? I'm Enlightened. The portal was aligned to the Resistance. Ergo, I don't let it stay that way.

 

@AlfaTech, if you helped out taking that field down you should have gotten on to people like me that went to both events - we got Interitus codes for both, but they're only really 'useful' once so a lot of us (myself included) pitched our codes to our operators. If you helped, I'm sure someone would have thrown a code your way!

 

The Glyph game is extremely useful for farming, especially if you're dirty-farming (as the portal doesn't attack any harder for long-hacks, you get more items if you spend more time) and it also discourages driving and playing (although people in cars can short-hack more portals in the same period of time, so I guess it balances out?). Shields have been buffed twice, yes, but Ultra Strikes are amazing at taking them down - I do find I suffer the 'Virii Dilemma' with Ultra Strikes, too, though haha.

Edited May 19, 2014 by Garacesh

[AlfaTech]

@AlfaTech, if you helped out taking that field down you should have gotten on to people like me that went to both events - we got Interitus codes for both, but they're only really 'useful' once so a lot of us (myself included) pitched our codes to our operators. If you helped, I'm sure someone would have thrown a code your way!

 

I was told that I was going to get one and that we were famous, but I didn't get one in the end - I'm just glad my m8 got a badge, he was the one who took down the field, then I blocked it from Stonehenge. But if it wasn't for me battling those two smurfs who kept taking my fields down that mega-field would've gone up a lot sooner (like 2 hours sooner!). So I guess I'm the unsung hero, although I was thanked on comm by several people. Shame I didn't get the badge tho, but it doesn't really matter to me anyway.

 

Hey if you want to add me I'm +Maester E on G+

[Garacesh]

Ah, I did wonder why it took so long for them to get it up.. Usually they have something up by the start of the 2nd measurement. It was you, was it?

[AlfaTech]

Ah, I did wonder why it took so long for them to get it up.. Usually they have something up by the start of the 2nd measurement. It was you, was it?

Yup. I set myself a little project to make this on the day of the Event - Operation Flint Arrowhead.

 

[Garacesh]

I was involved in Kinder Surprise (you may have heard of it) and did a teency bit of intel for Four Corners (but nothing really noteworthy if I'm honest).

I've yet to devise my own op. I have a few ideas in mind..

 

Ha. Level 8

You gone beyond yet?

[AlfaTech]

Yep, that was when I was L8... I'm now 600k off L10 (I have all the badges already) just need the smurfs to come and smash up my home town a couple more times. lol.

[Garacesh]

Bah. L9 here. 1.2 mil and a silver off L10, but only been playing since January, so I think that's good? I hope that's good

 

Not playing so much right now with the house move, just casual hacking and joining the guys on a weekend if there's much going on.

[AlfaTech]

Yeah that is good! I only restarted since February but my local (and regional) smurfs absolutely hate me so they help me to level up even quicker by smashing up my home town. lolz. I like smurfs, they make me laugh (and these ones seem to take this game way too seriously) I'm just having fun!

[Garacesh]

Some of our local smurfs are vile people. Some of the accusations that they come out with..

 

One of our guys of spoofing (False)

Another is a benefit fraud (He has a disability that prevents him from finding work easily and is often driven to ops/farms/etc by other members as Ingress is really his only way of socialising)

Two more of our guys are dangerous drivers who don't value human life (I've been in vehicles with both of them, they're really not.)

One is cheating on her partner (They're not together anymore, but nothing is happening between her and the supposed guy she's cheating with. Not that it's their business anyway)

One has brought his kid up to be rude and foul-mouthed (I've met him during the anomalies - he's very well-mannered and hasn't uttered a single profanity in my presence)

 

One of them also followed one of our guys (and his young child!) home (admitted it on open comms), whilst another told the other blues he was going to come in and 'spray all the frogs' (whilst at the time having a picture of himself holding a semi-automatic rifle) during a cross-faction meeting - I'm very glad I joined the side I did.

 

Some of the local blues are normal, decent people. But there's a few that just.. Horrible, horrible people.

Edited May 20, 2014 by Garacesh

[AlfaTech]

Yep, same here. I can think of only once nice chap in our area who's on the 'wrong' team (and I've tried to enlighten him and get him to switch factions), the rest are unfortunately rather nasty pieces of work - one of whom is utterly obnoxious to me on comm regularly (so I keep him locked away, trapped under my green fields). Funnily enough I met up with a couple of Enlightened agents at lunchtime today and we were talking about the very same thing. I went to a L8 Farm in Newbury last week and there was outrage amongst the smurfs that 'I' was there - they want me to quit (but I won't). Oh well c'est la vie. It doesn't really bother me nor spoil my enjoyment of the game anyway, it just makes me laugh that I get them so hot under the collar lol. Game on!

[Garacesh]

It's really a shame that some of them spoil the game for others. We used to have a cross-faction group on G+ and even semi-regular meets until things turned sour. It's terrible that some people feel the need to stoop to that level.

 

Christ, one of our guys, his ex is on the Resistance and lives nearby, and they manage to keep out of each others hair (and it was a particularly bad breakup, so he says). So why can't the other guys just get on with it?

[AlfaTech]

Its human nature I guess, stick a different colour on another and call them your enemy and they will behave that way and feel perfectly justified in doing it. Perhaps that's the hidden danger of this kind of game, especially when some (a minority I hope) take it too far. As much as we deride the other side at the end of the day we are all just people and this is 'just a game', so why not just have some of fun, respect others and not take it all too seriously.

 

Also I've noticed that the fella who's so nasty to me all the time only seems to be like that from behind the safety of his comms (or talking about me behind my back, even to my friends) but when I see him on the street he's full of (fake) smiles. I'm not nasty to him, I wish him no ill will, I smile back and say 'hello'. (But then I'm Enlightened aren't I!)

Edited May 20, 2014 by AlfaTech

[GromitTheDog]

@AlfaTech (Pi1grim in-game)... The reason that you get such abuse on the COMMS is because when you played as Kitalon you were a confirmed cheat (GPS-Spoofing), and you admitted it yourself. Since you have come back as Pi1grim you have been suspected of spoofing many time (a leopard doesn't change his spots), the latest example being on Saturday when you managed to destroy and recapture the central portal at Stonehenge at 10:27am, despite the entire area being closed to anybody other than the druids who were there to celebrate the Summer Solstice. Unless you somehow managed to sneak past the marshalls and the 300 police who were there to maintain the peace, you must have a real good story to tell about how you managed to achieve this miraculous feat.

 

Don't go posting in such a high-and-mighty manner when you have in the past, and continue to ruin the enjoyment of the game for the people who actually play fair.

[CAM]

^Uhhh, welcome to Edugeek?

 

Is this on WP8 yet or that still a no-go?

[Garacesh]

No @CAM, AFAIK it's still Android-Only, but I haven't really kept up with Ingress, what with moving house and such.

[Griff]

[AlfaTech]

ROTFL X-D It's not so difficult to get in to Stonehenge when one of ur m8s is a security guard, I can legitimately get in when Joe Public go home anyway, and I know a few of the druids too ;-) Besides everyone had to be off-site by 11am and I was clearly there before that.

 

Yeah I made a mistake once but have since repented, deleted my old account and play this game fairly now so there's no need to flame me on random forums across the Internet grumpysmurf. There ain't no spots on this Kit :-p lol

Edited June 23, 2014 by AlfaTech

[Griff]

[Garacesh]

Pixeljagd - c't Magazin (German)

 

Apparently the iOS release is pretty darn imminent.

They also used a shot of Operation Green Marble in that.. Awesome. I know some of the guys that were involved with that

Edited July 2, 2014 by Garacesh

[AlfaTech]

Yep, me too - my m8 was helping with a local (well UK) blocking field for the op.

 

I wonder if the iOS brigade are going to be the heralds for the alleged 3rd faction.

Edited July 2, 2014 by AlfaTech

[Garacesh]

I seriously doubt it - If the Interitus/Red faction are only able to be iOS users, that means they're immediately going to be at a disadvantage because whilst there are also noob Smurfs and Frogs, there will be no experienced.. What're we calling the reds? Are they even going to stick with Red, given that Red/Green colour-blindness is the most common type?

 

Anyway. No high-level reds vs lots of high-level blues and greens. That would be a terrible move on Google/NIA's part. I think they may roll out offers to swap factions in waves until the numbers are roughly even.

I was rather hoping the 3rd faction would be an AI faction, like a virus, spreading down links and across fields. Maybe they could make portals at the ends of infected links stronger whilst they were spreading down the link, but eventually would take control of the portal once the 'infection' made it all of the way.. Maybe link your portal to an 'infected' one and it makes you able to link further or something, but the portal would be 'taken' in 3 days rather than decaying in 7?

 

We'll have to wait and see.

Edited July 2, 2014 by Garacesh

[TechMonkey]

I think that is the article that popped up Reddit over the weekend saying it would be available by end of the day. Nothing yet!

 

I have a feeling when it finally does come I am going to be disappointed and it will be iOS7+

[SiliconAlley_Sam]

Used to do a lot of Geo-caching with one of my friends down in Cornwall so this sounds right up my street. Annoyingly we're both iPhone users though.