This Way To The

[bryant]

I’ve been playing a lot of Ingress recently. Short form: it’s Google’s augmented reality alien invasion PvP game; you physically go to in-game portals, which correspond with the locations of landmarks, public art, and so on, and perform various actions which lead to creating fields of influence over various areas. The two factions are competing to control the most minds; it’s literally scored in terms of mind units. Kind of sinister when you get right down to it.

The game interests me on a number of levels, so I’ll probably write a spate of posts about it before trailing off into inactivity again. The game design is perhaps accidentally interesting, the ad hoc social networks are totally fascinating, and it hits a sweet OCD spot for me in a way which has me exercising. I averaged around 5 miles a day of walking in December. Go me.

Oh, and the lore is written by Flint Dille. Old school tabletop gamers can be suitably amused at this juncture.

Here’s an excellent story about getting involved in the game. It’s what got me and Susan playing, and everything in it is entirely true. Except the bit about the scooter. I can’t attest to anything involving scooter play first hand. I have, however, had experiences analogous to everything else she talks about.

This is a pretty good primer on the game; it’s a little dated, since like any decent MMO Ingress has occasional updates, but on the whole it’s solid.

If you decide to play because you are reading this, you should play Enlightened. The most meaningful currency in Ingress is time. Skill matters some, but the balance is skewed way over towards time, particularly before you get to the tippy-top of the elder game. The only way to generate time out of thin air is to convince people to play on your side. So: play Enlightened.

Yes, the Resistance is the attractive spunky underdog group. Next post sometime this week I will provide you with a conceptual framework that explains why the Enlightened are the real underdogs, which hopefully will allow you to play Enlightened without feeling like you’re supporting the Illuminati.

Mirrored from Population: One.

Comments

[ckd]

Given that the Resistance were duped into being the tools of a mind-controlling AI (the ADA takeover of Klue), it's fairly clear to me that ENL is the way to go.

(Oh, and as for Mind Units -- fields over uninhabited water get them too, and in such cases "MU" is referred to as "Mackerel Units". :-)

[bryant]

Indeed!

I like Mackerel Units.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

clauclauclaudia plays and when it launched for iphone she told me I could play or not play, as I chose, but that if I played I couldn't play Resistance. :) So we're a green-team household.

I played a bit, but after hitting level 8 my interest has substantially tailed off. Part of it is that I'm mostly lone-wolfing of late. And for now, the weather is cold and my heart belongs to Elite:Dangerous.

[alex-victory.livejournal.com]

I played the game when it first launched but eventually got bored because I wasn't actually making any progress and there wasn't any fail condition. It was just like -- go to this location, tap some things, repeat tomorrow. But this was two years ago or so, is that no longer the case?

[bryant]

It's a full game in isolation. Um, I have a long answer to this which I will make as a separate post, it deserves room to breathe.

As far as I know, Niantic has very little previous game experience and they didn't intend to make a huge thing out of this; it was an experiment. They made a couple of decisions that result in a game in which it's nearly impossible to build a self-sustaining advantage. This means that solo play can be really tedious. I think it is possible to get results in the (unintended) group context, but entropy is still fierce.

[ckd]

They've added UGC (missions), events (anomalies), and ongoing scoring (checkpoints) since then. It's also significantly more fun if you have or find other people to play with rather than lone-wolfing (which is one reason the anomalies came along, I suspect--the design encourages people to meet and work together at a specific time and place).

[tavella.livejournal.com]

I got a beta invite for Ingress a couple of years back, but stalled out at the select menu because I couldn't decide which side. I have occasionally looked at it since, and still can't decide so I back out again.

[bryant]

See, and I've given you an answer!

I suspect both sides are pretty much the same in non-lore terms. I know nice people and jerks on both sides. The canonical advice is to look at your local area and help the underdogs but it's too transient for that to be a sure thing.

Worldwide, Resistance won the most recent multi-month event.

[mneme]

Please. The Enlightened are the tools of a mind controlling AI, whereas the Resistance is Earth's Last Best Hope.

Smurfs forever!

More seriously, you should play whatever friends close to you play, since being on opposite sides of your close friends can be awkward, given how social the game is.

[bryant]

More seriously, you should play whatever friends close to you play, since being on opposite sides of your close friends can be awkward, given how social the game is.

Wholly true.

[emilytheslayer.livejournal.com]

FUCK YEAH GREEN GREEN FOREVER!

[bryant]

OMG I had no idea.

[emilytheslayer.livejournal.com]

OH we play constantly. We still own some portals in Pittsburgh from a weekend in November.

[bryant]

Hah. We've been playing since like September. Let me tell you about our trip to Walt Disney World, that was something.

[emilytheslayer.livejournal.com]

We've been playing around 6 months? I'm level 9 and S is super close to that.

[michele-blue.livejournal.com]

We're 9 (me) and 10 (him), but seriously, that one week in Disney World was more than entire level's worth for both of us. We had a little green farm over our hotel, and would do Viking-type Enlightened raids on other hotel properties. It was awesome.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

That's great.

[kirbyk.livejournal.com]

Green is good! Blue is bad!

My current job's office (for another few weeks) is literally above a portal, so I spend a lot of time fighting over the New Modern Grill. (Pro Tip: Don't eat there.) I just hit level 4 yesterday!