Ingress is not a complex game and the two teams have ended up with pretty much similar strategies independent of each other. L8 farms get attacked as soon as they show up. And so maintaining "radio silence," as in doing nothing that shows up on the COMM -- something both sides do -- makes sense to an extent. But I have yet to hear of a L8 farm built by either side in Manhattan that lasted a long time because, guess what, "radio silence" was maintained! As soon as your first L8 portal pops up, it shows up on the map. And by now I believe the map of the city gets "watched" pretty much 24/7. So no matter how much "radio silence" you maintain, your L8 farm is not going to be a secret, it never was. And for some reason both sides are leery of trying something obvious: like, how about looking for farm spots outside of Manhattan! But then derp and Das did show up at the Flushing Meadows Corona Park at one in the morning when Queens built its first ever L8 portal! And Kogent drives over to New Jersey as necessary. On Staten Island there is one guy hacking the blue L8 portals, so it probably makes sense for the green team to let him hit his 2,000 limit instead of bothering to take down his portals.
This is tic tac toe. The make believe I have no patience for. And there are green agents who are like, don't tell me your secrets, because if I know your secrets, my fun vaporizes. The idea of L8 farms: no secret. The idea of "radio silence," not a secret. But wait, maybe the idea of a G+ group is a secret. Maybe the green gremlins organize conference calls, and if they found out the blue smurfs instead use G+ to organize their L8 agents, they might copy the practice, and then where are we! The advantage has been lost!
Event venues and times are secrets that should not be revealed. I buy into that. But the last L8 farm I hacked to burnout I found on the Intel map! Maybe others can do it too!
And there are the really obnoxious agents. They end up suggesting nothing less than that you are maybe playing t-h-e-i-r game! Oh, really!? Elected leadership would make zero sense, and unelected leadership is heresy. Basically the point is, Don't tell me what to do.
What it really boils down to is that this is a game, and it is supposed to be fun. Your Ingress operation is not a CIA operation. All you can hope for is spectacular events. Even there you don't build anything permanent. All you got is not a lousy T-shirt, tomhuze, all you got was a few screenshots. But wait, those can not be shared!
Al Gore invented the Internet and tomhuze and rmazzara invented Ingress! Give me a break. Mazzara is not even at 1.4 million AP. Wait, the guy might have hit 1.5!
This whole thing about helping low level agents level up is also on the weird side. My observation is and has been that there is a reverse pyramid out there. There are way more high level than low level agents. So just go duke it out.
Some people's idea of the game is, oh, you play Ingress? Me too. Wait, you are Resistance? Me too. Let's go have beer for four hours. Today, tomorrow, and the day after, and what is your schedule looking like next week? Nothing wrong with that. It's just that I believe there are other gaming ways possible. And by the way, don't let the other side know we are having beer. All secret societies have secrets.
For my squad membership starts at 2.4 million AP but is not automatic. And for leadership positions you need 4.8 million AP, which I don't have, which I am now working towards. And so when I harvest and deploy an endless number of L1 resonators, maybe I ran out of L8 ammo (NOT) or I am just trying to hit five million in AP, or maybe I am helping low level green agents level up! The game has more than two sides.
This is a game. It is supposed to be fun. And it is not supposed to take too much of your time. It is just that intense fun asks for an elite squad, I think. Niantic, open up the floodgates, let in 10 times more people.
