Ingress AMA Archive

A1: Advanced intel will emerge shortly prior to the Anomalies taking place.

A2: According to a number of investigators present on the ground at the Epiphany Night events, several teams of RPE (Remote Participation Experiment) Agents ventured into three different Anomalous zones. The first zone took them to a future Camp Navarro -- where Antoine Smith was pursuing a Prime Object known capable of channeling XM across a Universe-threshold. The second zone led them to Schloss Kaltenberg in the year 1331 where -- amidst a bloody battle between Osiris Cultists and the fragmented remains of a Templar Knight order, a second Prime Object -- capable of locating specific Universe thresholds -- was being protected. Agents, having retrieved these two Prime Objects, were told by Hank Johnson that, in order to avert an XM crisis in our own universe, massive amounts of XM must be channeled into an XM sparse universe. To complete their mission, Agents remotely entered the Niantic Project facility in a universe codenamed ‘OSIRIS’ on the day of Oliver Lynton-Wolfe’s Power Cube test. Almost all groups of Agents were able to successfully channel XM into that universe, causing the Power Cube test to proceed as required. Given the low casualty rate on returning RPE Agents, Director Johnson classified the mission as successful.

A3: What kind of monster do you think I am? Of course I love parmesan on my spaghetti. How can you say no to more cheese?

A4: The wheels are already in motion and the very early phases are already underway. The closed beta hasn’t started yet. If you are expecting a Michael Bay type reveal with giant robots, explosions, and John Hanke riding a dolphin with a tattoo of the Prime logo -- give it some time. John’s and the Dolphin’s schedule had some conflicts so it delayed filming. /s

A5: It is hard to comment on specific portals without knowing more information. All Portals need safe pedestrian access to be able to reach the portal.

A6: I spoke to our events lead and they said yes to both questions. Maybe not every city but we are working with Anomaly POCs and hotel negotiators. If successful we hope to extend the program in the future.

A7: That’s a great question but one that has a complex and broad set of answers. Some I can talk about. Some I cannot. In general, Niantic wants to keep pushing the boundary of geolocation gaming and creating the leading platform to support games of this genre. From an Ingress perspective, we want to continue to develop and iterate on a compelling and fun product that enables people to have amazing real world experiences. That’s the basic answer. It would take me writing a lot more to get into the nuances of things and sadly I just don’t have the time. But pin me down at an event and I’m happy to talk more about things.

A8: I hesitate asking the development team this question because I’m sure their answer would be that we want to be as accurate as possible. So will there be future improvements? I’m sure as the product and technology evolves you’ll see them. One thing I know we are considering is background mode. It might be some time before we see it implemented though. But that could help with tracking accurately.

A9: We made a post and video about this but I realize some people may not have caught it so I’m happy to answer this question. There will be four series that will make up the Osiris Sequence which runs through May 2019.

A10: A very needed point of clarification. Thank you for asking. The “final list” was just for normal events taking place in EMEA. We could have done better communicating that difference. So as I understand it, Mission Days after Anomalies are still being coordinated with Anomaly POCs. I expect that there will be an update to this information once those events are finalized.

A11: I can’t talk about what pieces of information we use to take action against people with. But I can say it isn’t just username. Understand, when you own a device like a mobile phone, you can alter them in ways to control and modify what pieces of information are being sent externally. There isn’t one silver bullet like banning by MAC address, Device ID, that will eradicate this problem as all of that data can be faked. It’s a technological challenge we continue to work on and some changes to Ingress Prime will help address this.

A12: I can’t confirm or deny anything specific at this point in time unfortunately. I can only offer my opinion. I would be shocked if there were not an event sometime in 2019.

A13: There is actually a section in the TOS that says you agree not to, “extract, scrape, or index the Services or Content (including information about users or game play);” This feels like a which came first the chicken or the egg conversation.

A14: I was told there was a bug that was identified affecting emails. It should have been fixed as of today (Monday, June 5, 2018).

A15: I don’t know. I am only L15. Soo much AP. So little time.

A16: In the near future.™

A17: Not before long.™

A18: This information is not public.

A19: ADA’s transdimensional capabilities are not fully understood. It is known that she may have -- in the past -- gained access to the N’zeer computational substrate and used it to gain substantial knowledge and access regarding the underlying quantum nature of the universe.

A20: Without thinking too much about it, I like it initially.

A21: There will not be a dedicated or separate medal for recharging. It will be the same Anomaly medal that everyone gets.

A22: Negative ghost rider, the pattern is full.

A23: I spoke to our OPR team, their response was, “Consider they the same for OPR.”

A24: Bah, that sucks. Shoot me a Telegram message. To verify it is you, send me your order number. I’ll see what we have in the office that I can send you.

A25: No. We have said in public social media posts that only by participating in the XM Festival in Fukuoka, Camp Navarro, Schloss Kaltenberg, or Agent Olympiad can you earn that medal.

A26: Mission Days are events that are proposed by Agents and largely organized by Agents. Therefore, Agents are going to know what’s going on from the start.

A27: When it is ready.™

A28: No. Not just because they changed names.

A29: A few things that are quality of life improvements will exist upon release, like one finger rotate. In terms of game mechanics like bursting, recharging or putting only 2 mods on a portal -- not at launch.

A30: NIA OPS recommend, “Start with one phone and then switch to the other device if they have connectivity issues.”

A31: We love missions! I spoke to the product team and they said that we are absolutely working on it for Prime. It may not be in some or all phases of the beta. But this isn’t a feature that we are taking away.

A32: Buy a friend dinner who doesn’t have an account and recruit them. Maybe if you splurge for a few drinks they will hold items for you. No, seriously, as you know it isn’t possible at the moment. But I’ll pass this feedback to the team. I know from past conversations there is a desire among a few of us to have something like this.

A33: There are no plans at this time to bring it back.

A34: Are you talking about the size of the logo? Yeah, it should probably be larger.

A35: Not in the immediate future.

A36: We’ve had several of those already and you can earn medals every day by just playing.

A37: All good things must come to an end.

A38: Because no one wants a picture of your face or mine in their scanner.

A39: I spoke to the product team and they said, “We can confirm that it’s not going away.” Like everything though, there are priorities in place. It may not be in all phases of the beta. But feature parity is a goal for Prime launch.

A40: We are exploring ways to scale our events to other locations.

A41: We only accept Beardcoins

A42: There was not a mini-anomaly this year.

A43: I spoke to the NIA OPS team and they said, “If there are any the Agent is waiting for, they should withdraw and resubmit while making sure that the Mission meets criteria.”

A44: A source has indicated that a highly resourced Investigator has been exploring the centralOmnilytics probe into the events of #EXO5. This Investigator has (allegedly) been in frequent contact with Felicia Hajra-Lee.

A45: Yes.

A46: It should be July 2nd. My travel plans may interrupt that though.

A47: #slowclap bravo! Well done!

A48: The product team says, “This isn’t finalized yet.” They are trying to balance giving the most players possible a great experience with security and upcoming changes to iOS and Android.

A49: Nothing of substance.

A50: NIA OPS recommend picking up one of the items and let them know the date and time you did. We can research the situation.

A51: Can you contact me on Telegram, @Redsolocup, with information about your Portals? I would like to pass on the information so the OPR team can investigate it. We will need to confirm if you mean your submissions haven't been reviewed or that your agreements in OPR aren't increasing as well.

A52: According to the OPR team, the review range has recently changed to help ensure that all submissions, even those in rural areas, get analyzed.

A53: Absolutely! Send me a Telegram message and let’s trade. My TG name is my Agent name.

A54: I spoke to the product team and the general sentiment is that this is a complex problem to solve. It isn’t as simple as randomly throwing dice to spawn things, we’ve seen the negative impacts that solution has had on gameplay for other products. That said, we are working to improve the experience for our rural players. If you have direct feedback you want to provide me about is not working for your area with regard to Portal submissions/approvals I would be happy to pass it along. I’m sure that when the Ingress servers are upgraded this will be one of the things that gets a lot more attention.

A55: We are aware of the problem and are trying to determine what the cause is and how to best resolve it. Sorry for the inconvenience.

A56: There will be a forced upgrade at some point. The reasons for this are many. Our development team has been focusing a lot of time on Prime performance issues and the experience is getting better every day. We are working hard on balancing the tradeoffs between gameplay and device support.

A57: Maybe not all of the team member initially. But the team POC and Tech lead perhaps. Let me see what I can do about it.

A58: I would love to pass along any feedback you have directly to the OPR team. Please reach out to me on Telegram. For appeals, we are working on it. In the meantime, if your candidate is rejected, NIA OPS recommends resubmitting after improving the title/description or the image.

A59: I think we may need to research this one. Can you send me, via Telegram, the information about your Portals?

A60: Anything is possible.

A61: Our main focus is currently feature parity for Ingress Prime and its release. I’m sure once the backend is upgraded lots of new features and badges will be rolled out. This isn’t an official response just my own opinion based on what I have learned about the development process and timeline.

A62: Given the highly sensitive state of the investigation into the universe codenamed OSIRIS,’ PAC has indicated that he has been going off the grid when necessary to protect himself and the integrity of his work.

A63: Order more of her lasagna and keep eating it because it is THAT good. Send me your information via Telegram and I’ll kindly ask the OPR team to look into. Sounds like something that might benefit from additional research.

A64: I think by the time this is published you’ll have your answer. Enjoy the edits!

A65: Yes, there will be Mission Days taking place after Anomalies. However, Niantic relies on the playerbase to help plan and execute them if there is sufficient demand to have one. If there is not sufficient demand, or support, they won’t happen. I’ll see if we can post the confirmed list of additional Mission Days related to the Anomalies.

A66: NIA OPS says, “Only if they have any historical or cultural significance.”

A67: Yes. I keep trying to type more than that but … [connection terminated] … that keeps happening.

A68: I believe the goal is next week. Don’t quote me on that though as I couldn't confirm it in time to publish the responses. But I'm fairly confident in what I believe is the answer.

A69: I believe this was covered via other questions.

A70: Yes! That wine was really good. If you were responsible for it in any small way -- THANK YOU!

A71: Is it possible? I’m sure it is somehow. I didn’t get a chance to ask the development team the question though.

A72: Send me the ticket number via Telegram and I’ll see what I can do. I can’t make any promises though about a specific outcome.

A73: I’m going to have to dig into this more. I have no idea.

A74: Currently, nothing will change for Mission Authors. Yes! Please continue to submit Missions.

A75: The development team says that this is not something that is changing… yet. I added the “... yet”. They didn't include it. Gotta give them an out. But in talking to them it doesn’t seem like anything will change.

A76: I’ve never been. Could be fun. I’ll have to check my schedule.

A77: I spoke to a couple of internal teams on this and so far the verdict is that it is not a TOS violation.

A78: The Boogeyman isn’t real. The lasagna is though.

A79: I did talk to the Development Team. Regardless of what happens with Prime, codes will still be redeemable via the Intel map. There isn’t a plan to fully retire all Ingress 1.0 codes… yet. Yes, I added that “... yet” in there again like I did for A73.

A80: The OPR team says they recently found a bug with the editing system and sending emails. A fix for that was recently implemented I believe. They are researching similar issues in other parts of OPR to see if they can reproduce some of the other things players have brought to our attention.

A81: I would add a third day to the schedule so that day one and two can be spent building and day three can be hang out and relax day. Then pack up and leave on day four. That means holding over a long weekend probably. Things still felt a bit frenetic and that day of rest/partying could be appreciated I think.

A82: Plan Ingress First Saturday, Mission Days, attend Anomalies, make triangles to help your faction win the checkpoints, recruit as many people as possible, volunteer to be a photographer and document what other people do and their crazy missions. Start a YouTube show about Ingress… I know someone that can help you with that. There is quite a lot and I’m fairly confident you haven’t maximized your options.

A83: Contact me on Telegram and I’ll see what I can do. Fair warning, it might take me two days get your message though. Nothing intentional, I just get a lot of messages. I’ll eventually get to yours though.

A84: Perhaps if I plan far enough in advance.

A85: Honestly, if I told you what to expect would you still post passive aggressive questions that fill my heart with joy or would it just be a boring respectful and non-dramatic way of phrasing what you want to know?

A86: NIA OPS says, “For some locations we may need some more context before we take an action. For example, in this case, it's possible the location wasn't identified as a school. If a Takedown gets rejected, and you have additional context to provide, post it in the Ingress Appeals Community.” That all being said, reach out to me on Telegram with your Portal information. It could be good to research things and see if there is additional issues present.

A87: I’ve been thinking of Ingress FS events a lot lately. I think very soon I’d like to hold a townhall and talk to players about ideas they have on how we can improve things. I have my own but I love to banter around with others.

A88: For now, you are advised to use the Portal appeals community on Google+. The OPR team would love to implement something like this down the road. But first, the immediate priority is Ingress Prime.

A89: There is not a 1:1 map of Portals to places of interest in other games.

A90: The TOS states that you agree to abide by all local laws. NIA OPS does not have the knowledge of every local laws in every city throughout the entire world. NIA OPS is also not the enforcers of policy set by municipalities. If someone believes that a TOS violation has occurred, they can use the Help Center (support.ingress.com) to submit a ticket for NIA OPS to review. NIA OPS says that they are happy to work with property owners/managers if they have concerns.

A91: It is a very creative initiative and I enjoyed their camp at Navarro. I would be interested in reading/seeing/hearing more.

A92: We have to keep some secrets. No, seriously though, it is about Marketing mostly. There will always be a struggle between the forces that want everything now and the forces that want to maximize awareness and exposure. The good news is we’ve broken the cycle of last minute information. So look for things to be released in a more timely manner than in the past.

A93: I’ll pass this feedback along.

A94: According to the OPR team: 1) We can (and will) consider this for Prime. 2) Reporting abusive submissions is being worked on now and will be coming soon directly in OPR.

A95: Hangouts!? Are we still using that? I guess I should check on my unread messages.

A96: Disabling the network intentionally is interfering with the intended operation. I'm not sure if it is against the TOS as I couldn't get a definite answer. But it is against the spirit of the game at a minimum.

A97: Nothing currently.

A98: We are still exploring the legal possibilities of a program similar to what you suggest. Unfortunately, a program like that complicates things from a business perspective and it is just something that needs to be evaluated and worked through.

A99: I spoke to the team and they said, “This is something that we are trying our best at, but need users who can help us improve it. If that agent is interested, we'd like to work with them.” So have the Agent contact and me and I’ll put them in touch with my people.

A100: It is very situational but there are metrics needed to remain an active member of the Trusted Reporter program.

A101: Let me ask you this question. If Niantic were to build a set of community tools, which may include a forum in addition to something along the lines of Google+ that allowed you to create private community space to communicate with/to the members of your private local communities -- would you use it? Tag me in a post about the topic and let’s get a conversation started.

A102: Currently, it sort of is that. I frequently forward questions to the teams to either help inform me as to what the correct response should be or to verify the response I wrote is factually accurate.

A103: We did explore something like this. However, after looking into it almost all scenarios we played out eventually came down to a popularity vote with limited data with the constraints we have. Which I don’t think, and others agreed, would be the best course of action at this time.

A104: There are many things we are looking to to help solve the onboarding issues. Since many are still in development or in the beginning phase or project management I can’t really speak to it. But know that it is something we recognize and want to address.

A105: Not all Portals are Pokéstops.

A106: No disrespect taken. I think once the Prime upgrade is complete (front and back end), there will be a whole host of new features and mechanics implemented.

A107: Select OPS. Go to Intel, Regional Scores (in the top right), select History from the bottom left, select Cycle, and then you should have cycle scores.