Ingress: State Of The Game: New York City

There is no accurate way to measure, but I think right now the city is looking over 50% green. Only a few weeks back the city was the bluest I had ever seen since I started playing the game on February 1. The city looked 66% blue. Bringing about a split between huze and me was a green political move. ("Oh, we have been getting intel from his pictures!") Huze got used.

The green team has major momentum. I have a feeling they will go all the way to 66% green. At that point arrogance sets in and the team starts making mistakes. Then the pendulum swings again.

We all know portals are not for keeps. Portals flip, all the time.

Staten Island, Bayonne, Southern Brooklyn, Bushwick, Upper West Side, Columbia are still solid blue. You can't shift those regions without cultivating local players. Visits don't do tricks in such solid regions.

I am riding out this storm. And I am glad I am.

Instead I have been making portal submissions: over 220 made just this weekend. I think I might have made over 500 so far, most of them in the past two weeks. One day 20 of my submissions went live and that gave me a jolt to submit more. And so I did. Central Queens will look very different in two months.

Once the green team hits 66% -- heck, if they play it right they might even hit 70 -- and there are five times more people playing the game in the city I am going to start building a new Resistance team called The Squad. For now I am on a sabbatical.

It has been my contention derp is the top Ingress player in the world. And AP is the only way to measure it. Right now I want to see if the guy will break that 66% barrier. It is very hard to do.

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Ingress: L8 Farms: Getting 8 People To Show Up

Level 8 farms are clearly superior to L7 farms. Although you need only three L8 agents to build a L7 farm, you need eight L8 agents to build a L8 farm. And you might not have 8 local L8 agents in your area. So you need to help each other level up fast. And even if you have them, you might not know each other. You might know each other, but not everybody might know everyone else. Or it might be hard to get them all together. That is where the Ingress twin Google Plus comes into the picture. Google Plus is the necessary alternate app to the Ingress experience. You can't have all the fun with only the Ingress app. Although it is possible to overdo Google Plus and make it get in the way of the Ingress experience. There is overkill.

L8 farms are so important that it is my claim the team that organizes more L8 farms in a given territory is going to dominate that territory. That one metric alone can be the deciding factor.

People who play the game are aware of the importance of L7 and L8 farms. And so there is a constant attempt to bring down the other team's L7 and L8 farms. There are top agents in New York City on both sides who specialize in bringing down L7 and L8 farms. The idea is to deprive the other team of high level ammo. There is a certain thrill to showing up to take down a farm. You usually end up having beer with those agents on the other side whose attempt you just foiled.

L7 farms are trickier. It is possible there are three local L8 agents in one location. The attacking agent might have to travel. But how much traveling can you do? There are some parts of the city that boast of near permanent L7 farms.

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Ingress Suggestion: Portal Enhancements

I think more incentives should be added to portal ownership.

One would be the concept of collecting rent. So for every day you own a portal you collect maybe 10 points. That would also increase the velocity of the game in that you want to take back a portal before those 24 hours are up. There are players who nurture about a dozen portals or two that are close to where they leave. I think they should be rewarded for keeping those going. Or even 20 points per day. So 10 portals at 20 points per day would bring you a cool 200 points, which is not a whole lot, but it is something. It would make remote recharging more rewarding. And as more portals are added this would make it less likely that portals go out of use and decay.

Another would be the concept of portal history. When you collect a key for a portal it would also have a section that gives you a history of all agents who have owned that portal in that portal's entire history, time stamped.

These two enhancements would make portal ownership more rewarding, and more people would go for it.

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Ingress: 300K In 2 Hours 15 Minutes

I was able to do 300K in 2 hours and 15 minutes earlier today. I did about 450K total for the day, which is the most I have ever done in one day. I think I am about half a million points from being the top blue agent in New York City.

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Ingress: The Game Changes
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Level 8 In A Month

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Ingress: The Game Changes

I don't understand people who hit Level 8 and then give up. I can understand slowing down because you are pressed for time, you have other obligations. But plain giving up? Why did you get started in the first place?

Not only am I in, at four million action points I feel like I am just getting started. This is a game. And it is great fun. That is the starting point. It is a great game.

In 2010 I wrote a blog post called Mobile First. Fred Wilson read it and wrote a blog post echoing the theme, and that blog post of his became his top post for that year. Ingress is futuristic, in that it it about mobile, about gaming, about location, and a few other things. So for industry watchers it is a great way to get into the action. This is not a waste of time.

It also allows you to get to know a neighborhood like a local. It opens up the city's geography. And that is a big part of the game for me. Seeking opportunities to deploy Level 1 resonators still has appeal for me, and this is a big reason why. I am at a point where I can get any amount of ammo of any level. Ammo is no constraint. Time is. And you use up low level resonators like anything when you go for it.

The point of having high level ammo is to have the option to use it when it makes sense to do so.

This is a simple game like a knife is a simple weapon. I don't think a knife is a simple weapon, if you know how to use it. Some very complex strategies will become possible when there are 10 times more people playing the game, or even 100 times. The velocity of the game increases and more options open up.

Most people who play the game think there are two sides in the game. And the mind unit count makes that suggestion as well. But I think that is the simplistic version. More than two sides are possible. There are many many sides in the game. The AP count is the compass, and many, many sides are possible. Small, agile teams can do more, I believe, than large, scattered teams that waste a lot of time "socializing" on G+.

You still have two basic tools, you have the app, and you have the Intel map. And you are good to go. Time is the only ammo worth counting.

I am at a phase where I need 10 times more people playing the game in New York City to seek the next level of fun in the game for me. Until then I practice the basics, get to know the terrain better, get more intimate with the city's geography, make good use of the two tools and, yes, socialize.

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Level 8 In A Month

Level 8 farming for Level 8 ammo is probably the top collective activity in the game right now. And it is no secret. A secret is something that only one side knows. If both sides are doing it, it is not a secret. Both sides build and harvest L8 farms. Both sides try to be as secretive about it as possible. My observation has been most of the harvests get used for vain claims to territories. People use up a lot of ammo to keep what I call their vanity portals. I wish more of that high level ammo were used to create spectacular events. You are not building anything permanent in the game. All you can hope for is screenshots. And perhaps event reports when the screenshots do not do justice.

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