Ingress AMA Archive
October 9th 2017
Q1: I have a suggestion for a feedback mechanism in OPR...will you forward the suggestion to the dev team?
A1: I'll definitely forward it on. They also read these AMA's so I'm sure they saw the feedback already. But good idea.
Q2: Has Niantic been re-considering the no recharge badge decision for Q4 given all the player feedback the last week?
A2: We have been reading the arguments for and against. The decision is unlikely to change at this time.
Q3: Is that EX05 medals r counted for level up?
A3: Yes.
Q4: What are you going as for Halloween?
A4: Captain Obvious.
Q5: Any ideas just what the Exo Precursors are or how they tie into +November Lima?
A5: Not exactly. They seem to be an intelligent life form though and what is happening doesn't appear to be accidental.
Q6: Do you have any plan or mechanism to stop submitting duplicate portals?
A6: There is a feature coming that may help with this. More to come.
Q7: Hi Andrew, good morning. Will there be a VR/AR MODE in ingress in the foreseeable future? What do you think of this idea?
A7: I'm not sure about a VR mode. Unless it was for Intel Operators for an example. That would be cool. But I fear a real world game that requires movement in the real world and a VR experience that takes you out of the real world. AR would be more suited towards Ingress. What will happen in the future? I'm sure one day we'll see it.
Q8: Would it be possible in the future for limited-time events like Exo 5 Controller to be more team oriented? This event for me has been very hard, because my family and I cannot progress at the same time like we were able to for Via Lux Odyssey and Magnus Builder. Also, trolls are able to disrupt progress by throwing BAF fields over the micro-fielding areas.
A8: Good feedback. I'll pass it along and hopefully we can come up with something.
Q9: How to send an offer to conduct an anomaly or MD in my city?
Q10: Good day Andrew!. Are you FOR or AGAINST rewarding Agents with anomaly medals for recharging off site (no physical attendence) and why?
A10: I am for them if we have a way to mitigate abuse. We are investigating something that may allow us be able to identify rechargers for Q1 2018.
Q11: Hi, in last AMA you said that a fountain surrounded by water isn't reachable via safe pedestrian access, therefore isn't a good portal candidate. But you also said in a previous AMA that underwater portals already existed. Now, I guess one can not walk and touch those either, he'd have to swim. What's the difference between swimming to a fountain and swimming or diving to some underwater object ?
A11: Portals that were accepted in the past may not meet today's criteria.
Q12: Where do the portals that were viewed by the agents in OPR go and for which I have not received a response about the reject or acceptance? I saw in screenshots my portals in OPR a week ago, but I did not get an answer.
A12: This was posted to the OPR community yesterday: Please be aware that some OPR submissions, especially those in areas with high concentrations of existing Portals, may take longer to process. We will, in some cases, be performing additional analysis on these Candidate Portals to ensure high Portal quality. In the meantime, you may not receive updates on your Portal submission. Be assured that each submission will be processed, though not always in the order in which it was received.
Q13: Hi Andrew, Could you please clarify the Sojourner badge to me, Is it 24 hours from your last hack you made or is it calculated from the time your first hack was on the day the badge came out? TIA
A13: I don't know the magic sauce. Sorry. I know some Agents report it being a little more than 24 hours but I can't confirm that.
Q14: Are there TOS issues in using a fake camera app to access your photo gallery to submit portals at a location that you are not currently at?
A14: That's a really good question and I don't know that I can answer it at this moment. I'd have to check with our legal department to provide a conclusive answer. I'll see if I can't get an answer.
Q15: With the new portal submissions, you do get AP and a key. I was wondering if there could be something like a capsule that would show the new portal online that you submitted. It would be like a "Trophy Case" where the key wouldn't be used for anything else.
A15: I'm not entirely sure that this is needed with the Key Lockers being in the game.
Q16: Is Niantic aware that the Resistance beacon InGame always is the wrong way? No matter how it turns around, the Key always looks right instead of left..
A16: Huh... so it is. I'll pass this along.
Q17: Is there any plan to make easier new agents recruitment?
A17: Yes. In fact, the whole on-boarding process is being redone.
Q18: Do you think that Coffee Shops that add "Pumpkin Spice Latte" to their menus in October should be removed as Portals?
A18: I wouldn't mind this. Pumpkin spice is a scourge that needs to be wiped from the earth. Pumpkin spice toothpaste and potato chips? It is too much.
Q19: Which are the American primaries for EXO5?
A19: This should be answered in the coming days.
Q20: Will you watch my kid so I can attend a Q4 anomaly?
A20: I'm not sure you want a stranger from the Internet that you've never met watching your kids. Although I do have beard which makes me instantly trustworthy I've been told.
Q21: Hi Andrew! Is there any news on rules or format for the upcoming Bob series of anomalies? Or Exo5, if you must...
A21: Last quarter we gave a preview to the Anomaly POCs to provide input on. We intend to that this quarter as well sometime this week.
Q22: Why there still a signout button if multiaccount is against the Niantic TOS?
A22: It is not against the TOS to share a device with another person. Therefore currently, you can have more than one account on a device as long as the other accounts belong to actual Agents. We see this alot with families that play together. The issue becomes when one person uses multiple accounts.
Q23: What happens with portals on military zones or on closed residential communities? They are inaccesible, and reporting them haven't worked. Can you help me?
A23: I would need more information to offer an informed opinion. The uninformed and general opinion is that they are legal portals which is why reporting them has not worked.
Q24: What Is your opinion on a Mission Banner Tracking System?
A24: I like it. I don't think that it is doable with the current system as we have no way to know what is part of a series without a lot of overhead processing of mission names. Even than, someone could troll by using the same mission name. So we would need to implement a new feature that allows people to tag them x out of y in a series.
Q25: Hi Andrew! Do you think Niantic should change his politics about dismiss portal submission because they're a short distance between two portals?
A25: No.
Q26: Why don't we hear voices anymore?
A26: Change is coming...
Q27: Is it worth resubmitting a portal that was rejected due to closeness of another portal, but was a valid portal? Should the agents reposition in a better place? What is the actual distance needed for this not to happen?
A27: If it was incorrectly submitted originally in the wrong location, yes.
Q28: hi Andrew! is there any plans for a separate decoder badge? like blog posts decoding and anomaly decoding...
A28: Not at this time.
Q29: I’ve discovered evidence that character badges are being abused and sold to those who did not earn them by attending the event where they’re handed out. Will character badges be removed in the future?
A29: Character badges by and large are not about contributions or participation for a specific event. So no, it is unlikely that these will be removed.
Q30: why doesn't +NIA Ops creates a Ingress Council with ENL and RES PoC that can speed up bans from spoofers, ingress accounts selling items, etc?
A30: This currently exists.
Q31: What do you think is the reason for having so many "casualties" inside the Ingress stroyline?
A31: The investigation is about high risk and high reward. Trying to corrupt via a virus all portals like Devra attempted is not a small or easy task. People (and organizations both state sponsored and private) are bound to notice some of these actions.
Q32: Hello Andrew! Consider a situation: agents A and B of the opposing factions have an advance agreement to help each other to achieve highest tier Exo5 medal. Agent A creates a number of fields from one anchor, agent B takes the anchor down and lets agent A capture it back and re-field. They repeat it multiple times until agent A gets the medal. Then agent B creates his set of fields, and agent A repeatedly takes down his anchor to let him re-field, until agent B also gets a medal. Is it win-trading?
A32: That certainly fits my definition of win-trading.
Q33: What's in your wallet
Q34: How about adding a little reward (like 10 AP) on firing XMPs with 20%?
A34: Interesting. I kind of like it.
Q35: pixel 2 or iphoneX?
A35: Note 8
Q36: What is Niantic's stance (and your personal view) on belligerent and rogue agents who sabotage their own factions intentionally during; 1) Normal gameplay 2) Anomalies
A36: It's clearly against the spirit of the game not something I would recommend.
Q37: Ingress has been losing popularity with the rise of other AR games. 2.0 has been the proverbial carrot dangling in front of us for a year and in the meantime more players have left. Anomalies are still popular but the day to day game play seems to be missing. Is there a strategy to address this?
A37: Having seen the data recently, I'm not quite sure it is accurate to say that is has been losing popularity. Relative to the first year... sure. But compared to 6-12 months ago, not really. Don't believe the marketing hype and the bogeyman isn't real.
Q38: Hi, what are your thoughts about allowing submissions for custom beacons, similar to single missions? I think it would be a fun option for local events.
A38: I like it. We would need to find a way to make it scalable and not be abused. I remember my days playing Team Fortress where people could make custom logo sprays on surfaces. I saw a lot of Goatse sprays...
Q39: Good morning, Andrew! More and more people prefer to communicate with TG messenger, even you have an account in it. Is it time for Niantic to open his own official channel in it? I have asked this question last time, and didn't receive any answer, so I ask again)
Q40: OPR: when a portal receives 1 star, it is automatically submitted. When I want to specify why, I have to write a comment before giving the rating. Is this comment then transmitted, or is it discarded?
A40: I don't believe it is discarded.
Q41: Forgive me if it's been asked before but, if you were given carte blanche to introduce a brand new in-game item to Ingress, what would it be, and why?
A41: Probably a virus innoculator to make a portal immune to being flipped. It seems like a natural item.
Q42: A disagreement has resulted in our local chat about the policy of portals in private residential properties following this answer.
A42: Given the description of "guarded residential condo", that seems to be a legit area as it was explained to me. If it was a single family house and not a condo building with multiple tenants it would not be.
Q43: Would it be possible for Niantic to release a breakdown of the top 10 accepted and rejected types?
A43: That's not a bad idea.
Q44: Due to the last update the pixel c tablet is not supported anymore for the ingress app... Do you know why this is done? Any particular reason? Is it coming back again?
A44: I believe I saw an email thread where this was being discussed. I assume (maybe I shouldn't) that this will be fixed.
Q45: Has there been any new talk about a badge to replace Guardian?
A45: Yes. In fact, this was one of the first topics for the Vanguards. I'll be taking all of their feedback and providing it to our product team.
Q46: When will we find out about Ingress 2.0 Beta from Navarro, even if its just "People have been selected and are testing it"?
A46: Soon™.
Q47: Would you be interested in leading a cross faction anomaly best practices group aimed at documenting basic procedures to help increase bonding within the faction and avoid liability issues such as the ones discussed on both sides for Houston?
A47: I'd be happy to act as a third party moderator for something like that. But I don't think I need to lead it. Hit me up on TG and let's chat about it more.
Q48: I have a few questions about the Vanguards. Are they there to help solve problems with the player base and Niantic?
A48: As stated before they are not NIA OPS and cannot officially adjudicate anything. They provide advice to us. Advocate on behalf of player issues. Help amplify certain messages. Participate in the programs that were outlined in the call for volunteers. One example of what they do is providing us feedback on the Guardian medal which I'll be taking to the product team.
Q49: Is there a plan for all those portal submissions that appear to currently be in purgatory?
A49: Yes.
Q50: Andrew Krug Q1 Really enjoying the EX05 builder event, along with the previous Magnus Builder and Via Lux explorer events. Can we have more of these events, but more frequently, say every 3 months.
A50: That is the goal.
Q51: Many potential portals are being rejected for being indoors instead of viewable from the street (hyper local spots, museums, etc). Can OPR training or guidelines be updated to requiring 3 stars for unsure instead of 1 for outright "no" as most people seem to be doing?
A51: Not a bad suggestion.
Q52: How's your HO and TG backlog?
A52: Currently sitting at 234 unread TG and no idea about HOs :)
Q53: What are the chances of you having your own Character Badge?
A53: I'd rather not.
Q54: What do you think of a purifier challenge for a future special medal? It could even measure unique resonator slots destroyed.
A54: Great suggestion.
Q55: What is your stand point on ingress politics
A55: Where groups of people come together, there will always be some sort of politics involved.
Q56: Do you ever have "Bad Beard Days" and how you cope on those days?
A56: Even a bad beard day is a good day.
Q57: What do you think of the direction the story line is taking?
A57: The investigation is heating up. Change is coming. We'll see where that leads.
Q58: Are you able to share what are the plans for improvement for EXO5 anomaly as well as ingress 2.0.
A58: We've done a lot of root cause analysis on the various issues that occurred during 13MR. I think we have done a good job with coming up with plans to mitigate, in some cases fix, the issues that occured. EXO5 should be a lot smoother.
Q59: What can the community do to assist with the return of recharge badges?
A59: At this point, very little. We've been reading all the feedback for and against recharge badges. As stated last week, we are exploring a technical solution for Q1 2018.
Q60: Can you clarify the difference in OPR between the playground "Site" and the playground "Structure" options?
A60: I believe one is the location and the other is a piece of equipment.
Q61: If a bunch of cats jump on top of each other, is it still called a dog pile?
A61: Yes. Dogs can also enjoy Caturday as well.
Q62: I really enjoyed the new behind the scanner episode, but can you do a new ingress storyline video too?
A62: The first one was very time consuming. But doing another recap is something I want to do. I just need to find the time.
Q63: When will you turn your hair into blue?
A63: If the Resistance win EXO5.
Q64: Andrew, can you look at the screen before you as you answer these questions?
A64: You’ve got a little boy. He shows you his butterfly collection plus the killing jar. What do you do?
Q65: How do we get ghost fields fixed I flipped a portal and fields are still showing
A65: Shoot me a message.
Q66: Cake or ice cream?
A66: Cake.
Q67: Will there be raids like in PoGo?
A67: I don't know. But I'd love to see a boss portal or a portal that has a Exogenous creature come out of it that needs to be battled like in the RPG.
Q68: Will we be seeing any results/replies soon? Do I need to move the issue to portal appeals?
A68: That's probably the best course of action.
Q69: In one of the former AMAs you asked about the community's opinion about players suggestions for new glyphs/sequences. Did you get enough feedback to decide whether this should happen or not?
A69: We got some feedback. Not enough in my opinion. Submit more ideas if you have them.
Q70: When can we expect an increase in the amount of submissions from 7?
A70: No idea. Things are being evaluated though.
Q71: Hi again, are we also having INTEL 2.0 ?
A71: Not immediately, no.
Q72: what do think about a button replacing ‘resonators status’ or putting it underneath ‘hack’ or maybe even when looking at the resonators above where it says the XM value and can you pass it on?
A72: Interesting. I'd need to think about it some more though.
Q73: Where have the OPR submissions gone? They have been reviewed, and are not popping up for reviewers anymore, and not denial or acceptance requests have been sent to the submitters. What gives?
A73: Just to reiterate: Please be aware that some OPR submissions, especially those in areas with high concentrations of existing Portals, may take longer to process. We will, in some cases, be performing additional analysis on these Candidate Portals to ensure high Portal quality. In the meantime, you may not receive updates on your Portal submission. Be assured that each submission will be processed, though not always in the order in which it was received. Oh... and no the long delay does not penalize or count against you in any way negatively.
Q74: Given the few unique seasonal campaigns for Lux Explorer, Magnus Builder and now Exo Controller, how about canvassing the players on what they would next like to see as the next medal stat to be focused on?
A74: Sounds good. Everyone, please send your feedback to Gene C who will collate your answers and present them to me in the next 48 hours. I kid. I kid. I'm open to feedback. There have been a few suggestions in this AMA but I welcome anyone sending me a message about what they think.