Ingress AMA Archive
Any clarifications regarding portal/wayspot criteria is outdated.
Please refer to the official Wayfarer criteria for all current criteria

July 10th 2017

Q1: The stock intel map remains useful but it has plenty of room for improvement. Are any enhancements planned for the stock intel map with 2.0 and can you comment on what those may be? and when is the gold Krug medal coming out?? Many thanks for doing this q&a!
A1: I haven't heard of anything planned for the Intel map at the launch of Ingress 2.0. Right now we have our devs focusing on ensuring the basic functionality of Ingress 1.0 in-app works in Ingress 2.0 at launch. There have been many conversations about the Intel map. However, to my knowledge, nothing has been finalized. But stay tuned... we all acknowledge that there is room for improvement. You don't want my mug in your scanner. Trust me. It's bad luck. First you'll grow a beard. Then anyone that touches your scanner grows a beard. Before you know it society will be filled with Lumbersexuals. It doesn't end well.
Q2: As new portals are being approved there are a few rejects that people would like to appeal, is the portal appeals community being monitored by someone at niantic, or is there a better place to appeal a rejected portal?
A2: The Portal Appeals Community is activity monitored by +NIA Ops. To my knowledge, that's probably the best place for those kind of appeals.
Q3: If you had to describe yourself with a 3 glyph combination, what would it be and why?
A3: All, Human, Equal. Why? I try to look at the world objectively as much as I can.
Q4: Any news on those anomaly rules?
A4: As I understand it, the goal is to have them out within the next couple of weeks.
Q5: Will Seer return?
A5: We had a lot of conversations about this. As I understand it, given the last internal conversations, in some form or function it will. It might not be the current Seer (or it might). But the metric of discovering portals is something we are proponents of.
Q6: Do portals have a higher chance of providing more rare/vr items upon hacking when you hack them for the first time (or just for the first time in a long time) ?
A6: It is all a random roll of the dice. There is no higher chance on the first hack or the first time in a long time.
Q7: A few years in game and I still see debate about it: if your only action on a portal is deploying a mod, will your explorer badge be increased?
A7: No your explorer badge will not be increased.
Q8: Do goruck badges possible happened at satelite location or just primary. Sorry I don't have that badge.. so I want to get 1.and Q3 Q4 I going both anomaly was satelite .. not primary. Hope you can spot my question.thanks
A8: If a +GORUCK event is held in a city (primary or satellite) you can earn a badge for it. It is not specific to only primaries GORUCK events.
Q9: What criteria should a city have in order to have an anomaly?
A9: Portals.
Q10: Why does Ingress support multiple accounts at all? What's the reason to support it and prohibit it in the ToS? IMO it causes a lot of problems with multiaccounters and adds almost zero value for legit users.
A10: Ingress is a global game. As such it crosses a lot of boundaries. In some countries, families cannot afford to have more than one device or it is shunned to have more than one device because it is deemed an opulent expense. We do not limit the amount of accounts on a single device because it would prevent a segment of our playerbase from ever enjoying Ingress.
Q11: Shouldn't Niantic ask/listen to agents about what features they would like in new versions of Ingress?
A11: Yes. I wrote down 13 pages of notes from my European travels a few weeks ago and forwarded those on. We do listen and I definetly ask. We do have to prioritize things and base the work on available resources as well though so not everything can get implemented. There is also the matter of keeping the game economy in balance and check. The last thing want to do is introduce a feature that has unintended consequences. So everything needs to be thought out and studied for secondary and tertiary impacts. Keep the suggestions coming though.
Q12: Are the post in the portal appeal category subjecto to review before they are published in the community?
A12: We use Google+'s anti-spam and moderation tools for communities. I believe a new poster will automatically have their post held for moderator review. Frequently something about a post will trip the anti-spam measures and be held for review because of that as well. We do try to review these queues regularly and accept or deny posts based on the content.
Q13: How strictly are the development-teams for Ingress and Pokemon-GO separated? Have you noticed any synergies from the Pokemon-GO-Team towards the development of Ingress 2.0?
A13: Since I am not part of the development team I cannot comment on how tightly they are integrated or not. I can say we frequently have meetings where people working on both products are present which does provide a lot of synergy.
Q14: Why NIA OPS deleted the "report an issue of a portal/mission" category in support website?
A14: We want Portal reports to come via the Scanner. For Missions, we expect the community to reach out to the Author for any changes. If it's an issue with something being inappropriate, use the inappropriate game play form to report the issue.