Ingress AMA Archive

A1: By the rate the engineering team is going, my best guess currently is probably by the latter part of the year. However, that’s based on the progress I’ve seen and the conversations I’ve had to date. Shifting priorities, resources, or any number of external influences could impact that in both a positive or negative way. But today, as of the time I’m writing this response, that would be my best guess.

A2: As of December 26th, 2018 VR items no longer duplicated in Quantum Capsules. This was confirmed by our Engineering team. I’m unsure if that was the intended date or not. But regardless, they no longer duplicate. However, the product team did inform me that we are exploring various ways to enable the duplication of very rare items in a way that doesn’t distort the game economy negatively. An example is a frequently talked about item that would duplicate items based on how far you walk. If this idea were to be implemented I would personally advocate for some limits on it. We don’t people have 100 of these capsules duplicating hundreds of items or having spoofer simply have unlimited items at their disposal. But I think there are creative ways to do something that has a hook into core gameplay as opposed to simply being rewarded for staying home and doing nothing.

A3: At this time, there are no plans to put these specific items into the game.

A4: We have teams of people who have planned and are planning a lot as it relates to Ingress Prime. I think there are some things that can be done prior to new servers coming online, but the bulk of new features will likely have to wait until that to be implemented. I don’t know that I would or could categorize it as “hard and fast” because the constraints for implementing the ideas may change between now and then. However, what, when, and how new features will be implemented is being planned.

A5: Our team is looking into these issues. As with any new process, it has been a bit of a learning experience. Improvements have already been made based on the November, December, and now January IFS events. I don’t foresee these issues occurring in the future as a result of the tweaks. But do keep us posted if for some reason it does happen so we can investigate it.

A6: The patches started to get sent out in early December and I’m told that all of them will have been sent by next week.

A7: We are finalizing the event schedule for the next Anomaly Sequence and a few other events. There is some due diligence that needs to be done to confirm the cities and dates. We also recently asked the Vanguards and current Anomaly Sequence POCs to submit recommendations for cities to host events. We will be evaluating those submissions and comparing it against our event goals for the future. Because of this, the Event Team is hesitant to give a timeline of when the announcement will be made about future events. But they are working on finalizing and confirming things as I type.

A8: Our events team says, “GORUCK will continue to be an Ingress partner on events. We are moving back to the model of separate ticketing for ancillary GORUCK activities, but you will see GORUCK activities around the February and March anomalies.”

A9: We are waiting to do this event for a very specific reason. I wish I could go into more detail, but at this time I cannot.

A10: It is possible. There is a global event we are currently debating on doing and we are weighing the pros and cons on doing it now or at a later date.

A11: The short answer is -- yes.

A12: We will likely not integrate another company’s intellectual property into our artwork unless there is some sort of partnership. That being said, we have toyed around with the idea of altering the visual appearance of an Anomaly medal based on the result of the event. I would love to hear your (the player community’s) thoughts on this.

A13: Yes. This is currently being worked on. I think it’ll be present in either 2.16 or 2.17.

A14: I wish I could provide more details but the quick answer is, yes we plan to do more with stats. I don’t know what is possible in terms of how quick we can turn around results though.

A15: This is a great question and a bit complicated to answer. The problem for the current imbalance is that the current format of the Anomalies is open to anyone who wants to participate -- by design. However, since these are competitive events you end up with teams of various sizes. We could do something like creating a separate instance of the Portal Network to allow only registered participants to interact with the Portals. We could couple an Anomaly instance with gated registration. Meaning, each faction would be limited to 300 people. Once they both reach 300 they could unlock 100 more slots. There are pros and cons to this though and I don’t know if it is the best solution. Alternatively, we could create another type of event that is open and competitive and make Anomalies as we currently know them limited and smaller to first come/first served. There are a number of ways to try to address things that are being debated internally. I don't know that there is a clear choice or best option at this point in time. It is something we are aware of though.

A16: Interesting idea. I’ll float this up to the team and see what they think.

A17: NIA OPS says they will add it. We both would not recommend people walk onto the field during a high school baseball game to hack the portal at the pitcher’s mound.

A18: At the time that this AMA will have been published the most recent and visible change is the Upgrade feature. In addition, the OPR team says they have, “fixed rendering issues and provided the one time (third) retry of the quiz to qualify.”

A19: The OPR team told me that they have not considered this. I’m not entirely sure it makes sense in the context of edits.

A20: I couldn’t get a specific answer on this from NIA OPS or the OPR team, but from a personal standpoint, I can’t see why they wouldn’t. As long as it isn’t simply a stake driven in the ground at Uncle Ned’s backyard. It should have to meet all of the other Portal requirements as well.

A21: If the mural is on private residential property it is invalid. Te eb benbkt.

A22: We would need more context for this. There are trailheads that might have the picture of the trail that would be a good candidate. There are also “you are here” trail signs that might not.

A23: The OPR team thinks this a good idea but they aren’t sure when or if they will be able to implement it.

A24: Thanks for flagging this. I’ll see if we can’t get these sort of discrepancies synchronized across products. As a result of this question, NIA OPS is considering making the OPR Help/Action Guide public. It looks like currently, the difference between the two is the OPR guide mentions memorial benches/plaques (with no other historical/cultural significance) whereas the article mentions standalone memorials (for eg. War Memorials that do not contain human remains).

A25: They do hold the function of being community gathering places. But like many things, it is likely to be very situational. They should follow the same guidelines as the Little Free Libraries.

A26: It is accepted but not ideal.

A27: It would be impossible to set a specific global requirement. We also have to default to local municipalities and their laws. What is required in Thailand for a pedestrian offset may not be required in England. But both are deemed safe by local laws. So there is essentially different criteria and why people of a region and familiar with places review submissions.

A28: NIA OPS replied with, “This would be considered in the same category as fountains and other water features. Accepted as long as they have pedestrian access and meet our location criteria.”

A29: I am told by the OPR team that there are plans for adding this!

A30: This is not a bad idea. There is the option for “Does Not Exist". Let me pass it along and discuss it internally. One of the concerns is that a “fake” option would become a catchall for players wanting to report a Portal because it is not convenient for them.

A31: If they are visually unique or historic they can be accepted. A regular mass produced postbox should be rejected though.

A32: The release of the anime is taking longer than anticipated. The good news is that it is in the hands of Netflix who are doing their final checks on the content before they publish it. We do not have a hard date for this yet.

A33: Nothing has changed from a policy standpoint from the post you referenced. In terms of people being rejected without a history of any actions being taken against them, that’s really tough to speak about generally without knowing specifics. Even with knowing specifics, I couldn’t comment on an Agent’s situation publicly. What I can say, is that being on a list that was published in December of 2017 is not by itself at this time a disqualifier from serving as a POC. Nor have I seen it as a reason given for a rejection recently.

A34: Our legal team says, different jurisdictions have different laws on this. Section 3.6 “Who May Use Our Services” in the The Terms of Service addresses this: https://www.nianticl...

A35: They are treated the same and don’t meet the criteria for a good quality photo.

A36: From NIA OPS, to clarify, the OPR Candidate Action Guide mentions: Water Towers: ACCEPT if accessible without entering a restricted area, is uniquely decorated, or are otherwise a notable monument. Ruins: ACCEPT. Falls under the criteria of tourist spots that showcase local flavor and culture and that make your city/neighborhood unique provided that the site is open and accessible to the public or can be accessed from an open sidewalk or viewing area. Fire Lookout Towers: ACCEPT if open to the public. Falls under the criteria of adventurous tourist attractions. REJECT lookout towers being used as private residences. Unlike residential areas or business parks which are usually accessible by residents/employees, the above candidates may not necessarily have the same level of access. Note that in addition to not being in restricted areas, these candidates also need to meet the criteria mentioned.

A37: I’m not sure that limiting valid gameplay for a non-competitive event is the right response. If people are fielding over an IFS event, and your event is dependant on linking or fielding, I would recommend changing the event type. Don’t let the people who are purposefully trying to troll and impede your event defeat you. This assumes they are doing it intentionally to try to disrupt an event.

A38: If this is regarding the Ingress Shop tickets, it might take a little while longer as we need to work with the fulfillment vendor to track your order.

A39: I do plan on archiving the AMAs. However, Josh Stock has been actively doing this already and a link to his work is provided in each AMA post.

A40: Stop ordering only steamed milk…

A41: In terms of social networks, we currently have a presence on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The use of those will not change. However, I consider Google+ the home of Ingress and neither of the above mentioned social networks really provides the same features that we are looking for when I think of the home of Ingress. We are actively exploring several options at the time of me writing this that provide the features we are looking for in a solution. Since contracts are being discussed it would be inappropriate at this time to comment further on which solutions we are looking at.

A42: There is a Bane meme about playing Ingress in the cold. I can remember the old days when I used an HTC Incredible to play Ingress. It would get so hot that when you got back to your car in the winter you would either put the A/C on because your phone mount was on the A/C vent or you drove with your phone out the window to try to cool it off.

A43: That is a real error message. It’s not a very clear one and doesn’t explain what is happening. But calling it a not real error message hurts its feelings. I think it will be addressed in 2.17.

A44: There would be no Pokémon GO without Ingress. Ingress was the proof of concept that this genre of gaming could be successful and that there was interest in it. The relationship started when Tatsuo Nomura was working at Google on Google Maps (which John Hanke was the lead of) and created the Pokémon Challenge for an April Fool’s Day stunt. I’m paraphrasing the exchange but at some point, the story goes that Tatsuo mentioned to Satoru Iwata of Nintendo and Tsunekazu Ishihara of The Pokémon Company that they should check out Ingress. They said they knew about Ingress and were actually fairly high-level Agents. Conversations about doing something similar with the Pokémon franchise eventually came about as a result of that. We just had our Ingress product team offsite at which John Hanke said, “Ingress is incredibly important to Niantic. It is the most complete expression of our vision to build games, even with its flaws.” Once Ingress has been transitioned over to the new backend servers it will enable us to do a lot. I hate to say Ingress is our sandbox since that implies things may be temporary, fleeting, or not as valuable. But the opposite is true. Ingress will enable us to try things that we wouldn’t be able to do with someone else’s intellectual property. We want to push the bounds of this space with Ingress. Not everything we try will be a success. But hopefully, we do more right than wrong. So it’s a little bit of love and strategic importance.

A45: Yes. If you are an ER, check in to the ER Telegram chat.

A46: Honestly, I haven’t heard anything about an Ingress movie. There is certainly enough material to make one out of it though.

A47: 2019 is a foundational year. We are putting in place all of the core technology that will carry Ingress on for the next decade or longer. This means among other things, releasing a client that uses Unity and transitioning our servers off the proof of concept backend to the Niantic platform.

A48: There are so many ideas it is hard to pick one. An anti-virus mod? A capsule that duplicates items if you walk? A limited use super weapon? A PVP challenge beacon. I could go on…

A49: At the end of the day, isn’t life, in general, a struggle to control mind units? It’s a bunch of choices and decisions we are making and typically we are trying to convince others to agree or align with us.

A50: I did. I took two weeks off and spent it all with my family. Unfortunately, that means I’m also severely backed up on responding to messages. Toss in a couple of work trips in that same period and it only exacerbated my ability to respond.

A51: You pose an interesting question. For starters, the information or verbiage used is what we get from persons of interest who are aligned with a certain ideology. So it isn’t Niantic being “committed” to one thing or the other. I’m not sure if all of those interactions or information have been disclosed yet. Something to keep an eye on and how things shape up over time for sure.

A52: A sash would clash with my tiara and cover up the “My Mom Thinks I’m The World’s Best Global Community Manager” t-shirt.

A53: Consider? Sure. Without putting too much thought behind it, it seems like a good idea to me.

A54: Unfortunately, I’m not able to get an answer to this question by the time it was published. But you have me very curious.

A55: I so badly want to.

A56: I really enjoy the questions asking about how important Ingress is to Niantic. Those strategic questions are important. It’s easy for Ingress to get overshadowed by the success of Pokémon GO. It’s easy to see a product that up until Prime was released hadn’t seen a major feature or game mechanic implemented in years and feel like Niantic was giving up on Ingress. It’s easy to see six months of no events and get the sense that the product is on its last legs. But the truth of the matter is, when you catch lightning in a bottle like we did with Pokémon GO, we had to pivot and make some hard choices which impacted Ingress in the short term. I don’t envy our decision makers for having to make the tough calls. Especially those surrounding resource allocation. At the end of the day, I know they want to make the right choices for the company. Those choice will lead/have led to Ingress benefitting from the company's success. But that isn’t always apparent or communicated. So keep asking those questions.

A57: This is often debated internally. But I’ll be honest, with all the other asks and quality of life improvements we can implement and are working on, it just isn’t a high priority. In fact, I’d argue that revamping the entire mission system should take a priority. Everything from creation, approval, doing them, and displaying them. I don’t want to advocate for adding on things to feature set that should ultimately be re-worked.

A58: Interesting question… The purist in me says that if it can be done using valid game mechanics then it is fair game. On the other hand… this isn’t something that is supposed to happen so could be considered an exploit. So I have to ask myself, does this impact the community negatively? It is unlikely and can be easily undone. So while it isn’t something I will endorse. It’s not something I’m going to advocate devoting resources to stop at this time.