Ingress

[Lazybones]

https://www.ingress.com/

Sort of a google maps capture control point game with way-point missions.

I joined the resistance..... Curious if anyone here has checked it out...

Game summary video
https://youtu.be/Y6-JAm3NCAk

[Mr. Analog]

Looks cool

[Darren Dirt]

https://www.ingress.com/

Sort of a google maps capture control point game with way-point missions.

I joined the resistance..... Curious if anyone here has checked it out...

Game summary video
https://youtu.be/Y6-JAm3NCAk

I read about it maybe a month ago -- watched some videos and skimmed a Wikia page or two.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingress_%28game%29

http://ingress.wikia.com/wiki/Ingress

To sum it up in brief: augmented reality mobile app meets MMO.



Seems like it would esp. be cool for those who travel a lot for their job, because they could go visit famous RL locations and tourist spots etc and might find some in-game zones there... but in the end imo seems like if you don't play a game like this a lot then you get kinda punished for not being hardcore, compared to serious grinders who will keep undoing your capturing successes etc.


Neat idea though, and cool that it expanded onto a big enduring success (2.5 years and ~7 million "players" [maybe most are not active, who knows], and still gets mentions on people's Twitter about how they are addicted to it, getting more word-of-mouth out there etc.). One thing that I noticed people often mention is that the devs have done a good job keep the opposing sides pretty balanced.


I also am pretty impressed in the writing by the looks of things -- how deeply detailed the backstory is and stuff like. For those who like reading sci-fi novels with this kind of "major event or discovery compete changes human culture/civilization and now we are facing the possibility of our extinction... or our re-invention" story/theme I'm sure it's a hoot being actively involved in the plot...

Then again my fear when I looked into it was that you might get hooked by the story and some gameplay aspects but then it might eventually boil down to a crafting-gathering min/max "gota capture 'em all" type of GRIND like most mmos, who knows...

[Lazybones]

Yes, it does appear to be a great deal of grinding.

There are the waypoint musings which can be fun to get you out and about however.

I am going to give it about a week and see.

[Lazybones]

So I gave it about two weeks and I have concluded that for me at least it is a very weak game.

- team or solo there isn't an effective way to defend portals from a force equal or even a little bit lower than your own
- portal turn over is constant so there is little sense of achievement or progress
- grinding levels is very boring as there is little "game" to it just lots of travel

Uninstalled and moving on. Some people will say it is all about the community but do you truly want to physically hang out with a group that roams around town capturing virtual portals over and over then spends countless hours on upkeep?

[Mr. Analog]

Aw man, sorry to hear that! I didn't expect it to be so volatile.

[Darren Dirt]

So I gave it about two weeks and I have concluded that for me at least it is a very weak game.

- team or solo there isn't an effective way to defend portals from a force equal or even a little bit lower than your own
- portal turn over is constant so there is little sense of achievement or progress
- grinding levels is very boring as there is little "game" to it just lots of travel

Uninstalled and moving on. Some people will say it is all about the community but do you truly want to physically hang out with a group that roams around town capturing virtual portals over and over then spends countless hours on upkeep?

I got the sense of it like that too -- I even watched some videos on their official channel, and there was a lot of walking around (doing "missions", including one World Record breaker) but the people they were walking around with, most were very task focused so it was less like a social GAME and more like work

Although if you have a lot of adult friends who don't drink or play video games at home it would be a fun change of pace from passive movie/tv watching I guess

[Lazybones]

I actually like the walking around part, however there is so little game to the capturing of portals it is boring, I should just go for the walk and put my phone away.