Ingress AMA Archive

A1: Soon. There is an internal date but I can’t tell you.

A2: Not sure I can answer that, I like my job.

A3: Yes

A4: It’s not finished yet, so I can’t answer that.

A5: We will be opening up beta tests in the next month/s. The Camp Navarro and Vanguards will be the first and they’ll get notifications. This’ll be in the next couple of months.

A6: At launch, yes. We will migrate to our new platform in late 2018. That will be phase 2, migrating it onto the pokemon go backend - phase 1 rolling it out.

A7: RIght now, yes. If i were to pull out my alpha app it will affect things in the current ingress world - it will run simultaneously.

A8: There will definitely be improvements with Ingress 2.0 and if you’ve been paying attention to our job board, we’ve been hiring for ML that will improve that. We work on algorithms every day to identify bots. One of the things with unrealistic times but in some cases, if people have a helicopter, it can be legitimate. Not everyone’s driving. With the advent of ML they’ll build up a DB to tell what normal times are and identify when someone’s doing that.

A9: The short answer is yes, we’ve told them that especially in NZ when there’s someone going around killing thousands of portals on the weekend… I’ve probably reset 300 in the last 24 hours. They’re definitely aware of it, nothing that’ll happen overnight but something will come in the future.

A10: I have been asking for a tool that will allow us to reset portal ownership and links and mods. I think - I don’t know if my wish will be granted before Ingress 1 is sunsetted, but it is a thing I’ve asked for and a thing that I want to come about.

A11: We’re talking internally, it’s not a straightforward answer, we’ll do something but we’re definitely having those discussions.

A12: No, we’re definitely talking about it but whatever we decide can’t affect the game too much.

A13: There’s merit to keeping the portal alive, we fully recognise it and that’s why the conversation has taken so long

A14: We’ve discussed this as an option on the table

A15: As a passenger ron the left, it’s terrifying, I’m constantly reaching for the left. Your beer is fantastic, I’ve got a beer here that I’ll be sucking down shortly (that’s a cider).

A16: It’s explicitly disallowed, and that's always been in the terms of service.

A17: It’s explicitly disallowed and that hasn’t changed. We don’t need you to investigate, we just want you to flag things. NIA OPS do review every ticket.

A18: I don’t disagree. Auto closes won’t happen any more. The only exception is ban responses for the second or third time. The first time they’ll get a personal response. They’re going to fix the system.

A19: Good question. That’s a good question, I’m going to write it down.

A20: Every place I’ve been to has amazing coffee, don’t know what it is about Australia.

A21: Internal QA groups will test it, we do predictive modelling to see what happens

A22: I don’t know but I don’t think it’s changed very often.

A23: In the short term I think that shop is closed now.

A24: At launch unfortunately no, I don’t think it’s going to change. We just had another internal conversation about that. We definitely recognise a need for it. In addition, things like IITC, we’re looking at a way to make things that don’t negatively impact the community, give them an endorsement or licence, so that may reduce the need to redo the intel map if that happens. Right now that’s in the exploratory phase, lawyers are involved.

A25: Yes, there’s one coming, is what I’ve been told. John Hanke also told me that as a player five years ago. It won’t happen until prime is out and we’re on the new backend.

A26: Yes. It does.

A27: I’m not a lawyer so I can’t really interpret that.

A28: No, NIA OPS is looking into it, I haven't had time yet because I've been travelling out here.

A29: We definitely know that something is coming with 2.0 but without being there I can’t say what it will do.

A30: It depends on the information that is released, and without knowing what they’re working on, we don’t know what impact it’ll have.

A31: I don‘t know, we don’t have the requirements set, we’re not working on them, if that’s something you really want I'll write it down.

A32: Turning the volume all the way up and letting bursters off.

A33: The reason we come out is because it’s a game that’s all about facilitating great experiences and this has been one, I’m going to be double-fisting alcohol.

A34: I think the problem is that there’s not consensus. There are people for and against changing it. Until there’s that aha moment, there’s not been that major consensus. What’s best? The group that wants to keep it? Or the one that doesn’t? I think doing what’s best for the game means sitting down and doing just that, and we don’t have that answer right now. We’re not going to make a rash decision that will negatively impact people. We don’t want to put a timeline on the decision, because it might take longer. Doing due diligence is really in the interests of the game.

A35: Good question, I have to assume yes, I’m not in that team. We know who’s attacking portals and the portal age, so yes, it has to be there. That's a good idea, I’ll write that down.

A36: I think people will be really happy really soon, we recognise that you need long lead times, if what happens occurs, I’m excited for it, because you’re going to have a roadmap and you’ll know what’s going to happen.m Some people say that if we announce things too far in advance… you have to keep the energy up, etc.

A37: They’re separate teams, and that’s about all I can say. There are some people who cross over, especially in the back end. We definitely share knowledge across teams

A38: In my experience, people are doing things too quickly, so take your time. Even if you make your decision in a few seconds, just take your time before you actually push that submit button, otherwise you’re probably going to flag something.

A39: I don’t know.

A40: I think it would definitely come when we move onto the new backend because right now I don’t know if it would be possible, there’s got to be a reason why they haven’t implemented it like they have in pokemon go.

A41: Yes.