The last Ingress fragment here was back in May, reflective of the fact that I, like many who leveled all the way up, lost interest and drifted away. But I’ve been out a bit in the last couple of weeks; in particular spending quality time in graveyards. the game remains an interesting and under-reported story.
Previously in this series: Ingress, Things About Ingress, Ingress, Month 3, Ingress Weekly, Ingress Tourism, Advanced Ingress, and Ingress Chase Scene.
Where we play Ingress; for details, read on.
Time and numbers · That’s what the game’s about; in any given locality, the faction that can bring out more L8 players for more hours is going to dominate the map.
But it’s tough, because Niantic, having designed a really pretty good leveling system for the game, never really quite figured what happens once you work your way through it; so a lot of people get to Level 8, enjoy the awesome weapons for a few days, then stop playing. Our local L8 Resistance chat has 65 members, but many haven’t been out in months, and I hadn’t seen double-digits groups in forever. The absentees notably included me.
Climbing back in · But then... There was a disturbance in The Force; agent Mitallust organized Operation Back to School, with the insane-sounding objective of seven consecutive days of L8-portal-building. Read his write-up; it worked.
And, I’d noticed that after a couple months of not playing and thus dramatically less walking and biking, I was feeling stiff and fat. Second, my wife for some reason got interested and, given 2013’s high portal density, made it to L7 without going more than ten blocks from the house. Third, I found I missed hanging with the Resistance peeps.
So I pitched in on three of the seven evenings, had fun, gave my legs a workout.
When Back to School launched, for no obvious reason the Greens came up short in terms of L8s with time to play. And also some months-old investments in portal-submitting paid off; particularly in graveyards.
All the L8 portals in Greater Vancouver, 2013/09/07.
The central and eastern blotch are both graveyards.
After a few days of this, your average blue L8 had like 500 L8 bursters.
The picture at the top was from the central blue blotch, Vancouver’s Mountain View cemetery. It’s a nice place to walk. One of our guys decorated an entrance.
Vancouver’s biggest cemetery: Resistance territory. The graphic will be instantly recognizable to anyone who lives here: our city hall is sort of Stalinoid but has a pink neon clock; the combo is distinctive.
Weird times; and maybe they’re happening elsewhere in the still-flourishing (near as I can tell) Ingress world. The other side will come back though.
I could fill in a few paragraphs on Principles of Major Farm Construction, and Inventory Management In Times of Wealth (hint: Nobody needs more than 100 L8 resos), but that’s probably not of general interest. The fact that the game is Still A Thing ought to be.
Comment feed for ongoing:
From: Steven O. Moore (Sep 12 2013, at 02:14)
I prefer to think my front yard (the graveyard) as an Ingress location as it tends to change hands on a moments notice...
PS. Playing within during a full moon is magical.
[link]
From: Steven O. Moore (Sep 12 2013, at 07:22)
I prefer to think my front yard (the graveyard) as an Ingress location as it tends to change hands on a moments notice...
PS. Playing within during a full moon is magical.
[link]
From: Steven O. Moore (Sep 14 2013, at 01:31)
I prefer to think my front yard (the graveyard) as an Ingress location as it tends to change hands on a moments notice...
PS. Playing within during a full moon is magical.
[link]