How did you find your local Ingress Community - or did they find you?
I know many of us find the Ingress Community to be one of the things that helped us get addicted to the game. What's your story? How long did it take you, as a new player, to find your local Ingress Community? Or did they reach out to you first?
I started playing in September of 2015 - I picked the game up because I was an avid Pokemon TCG player and heard there was going to be a phone game coming out. That led me to Ingress, and from Day 1 I was immediately hooked. By the time I reached Level 3, players from both sides were messaging me in comms, which freaked me out slightly and I ignored it at first. But after a few more days I got braver and answered one of the Res .... they quickly got me into a conversation in a Hangout (yep, that's what we used back then lol) then got me hooked by giving me gear and teaching me how to field and helping me level up. Then I found out about farms and Mission Days and Anomalies and that was it.... I'm a social person and playing a game as part of this community became a part of my life.
How about you?

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Ooh, I'm trying to remember…
I started playing December 2014. I somehow stumbled across a minimal website that had a link to a contact form(?) for the local Resistance community, and a link to a guide on how to play the game. (I think I still have that guide sitting around somewhere.) I filled out the form and waited. And waited. And waited some more. Maybe a couple of weeks passed before I gave up and tagged someone in Faction COMM. That got them to reach out to me via Google Hangouts. I must have then passed the "not an ENL spy" test as I was soon invited to group chats.
Skip ahead to today, and I'm thankful for Telegram's search feature, which is probably the only reason I can make sense of all the chats I'm in. 😅
I was level 6, 5 days into playing Ingress, when I was invited to a gathering of 30 random strangers on a tropical island, with no road access.
I said "Sure, why not.".
I think many great adventures start off with exactly those words.... :-)
Ohh, lemme try to remember. I think they reached out to me and sent me a link to a minimalistic sign up form. After that, I met with them and got invited into the local TG groups. Pretty straight forward really.
I captured my very first portal and got a comm message from a local (I deployed straight on the portal, noob me).
Later that day, I was meeting 3 of them in a nearby town where they helped me level up.
December 2018, I finally picked up the game. I had seen decals at a drugstore near work years earlier. I was sent stuff in Comms starting as who is the new player? They found me because I was being active and doing things in an area that I now know as very aggressive tactics.
June 2019. I found the countrywide chat group first, the local group found me there. Now I’m leading some local groups to help them boot up.
Checked Ingress out just before POGO launched to check out where PokeStops would be. Got invited into a pretty rough Ingress community within a few days but loved the concept of Ingress. I moved a few months later to somewhere kinda remote and a saint of an agent from the "other" faction trained me and gave me gear to level me up since he was the only active agent for an hour's drive and he wanted competition. I moved again after a year and reached out to the local community which turned out to be some amazing people. I've since started traveling the country with these nerds and couldn't be happier!
I was Level 5 and tossing some derpy links (which I thought were quite good at the time) in downtown Tacoma, WA in July 2014. The locals reached out immediately and I met about a dozen of them a few days later at a pizza place. They took us on a driving tour of the city which was almost entirely R8, and ended the night getting dropped a bunch of Level 5 & 6 gear I needed at the time. I was invited into the chats and got hooked as we spent the next 2 months getting ready for Helios Tacoma.
I asked on COMM "reached level 8. now what?"
reply was "unlimited power" and a telegram invitation.
My wife and I had been playing for a month maybe? We were at a large park and two nice fellows from our faction walked up and introduced themselves.
Got added to Hangouts and went from there.
I started playing to get the portal nominations and edits to help out my area for pogo, I got advice from an ingress player who also played pogo, after a few months of seeing I was playing more and more, he invited me to join a couple of groups, so I did, though those groups have gone quiet, but because of that some of the older players seen I was playing g and involved me in some plans, one of those has now moved away but me and the other person who was part of this have started working together constantly now. So im not really part of my community anymore as the res in Scotland aren't too active, but thats how I got in touch with them ...... the frogs I think I only talk to a couple, the rest I burned those bridges due to their ... let's just call it less than stellar law abiding during these covid times
LOL brilliant 😂
who said that? it would sound like ramii would say that 🤣
for me, i was pinged in the comm by a local experienced player
I knew one person from a PoGo Discord server who had mentioned Ingress. I had no idea what I was getting into, but initiating this conversation opened all of the doors
So many stories here
When I hit level 6 a player in one bordering county congratulated me and invited me to their local hangout. After I hit level 8 a player from the other bordering county met me in my main play area to give me a capsule each of level 7 and level 8 resos, and invited me into their local chat.
But the real difference came when one of them invited me to help with a large op. After some pre-clearance I met a group of agents late at night at one of the anchors, and suddenly I was connected with agents from around the country.
They found me. I posted something on the Ingress subreddit and there was discussion that they’d spotted the name was similar and then was added to some groups.
I found a warm and caring community that requires a bit of traveling, but it was all worth it. Interacted with some helpful agents who continue to encourage, guide, inspire, and teach me in the different aspects of the game such as fielding, completing missions, learning history associated with each portal, and most of all have fun.
After stumbling across the game entirely by accident, I had been playing for a while when some fellow players caught my attention in the in-game chat. Decided to talk to them and eventually I met up with them in person. This was way back, when the game hadn't gotten a Prime version.
They've been really good people, and I look forward to seeing them in person again after all this COVID mess is either properly contained through vaccines or if it were to somehow just stop. Though the latter is a bit too hopeful, ain't it? XD
Who needs the community ?
The best players play alone !!!!
God that is roo long ago nut here in phoenix usually the opposite side reached out to me before my side did.. Meet some interesting characters from the "toad" side...
The very first thing.. They tried to convince me the other side was so much better.. Bribes were offered with hands out (lol B.S.).
Surprised they didn't offer hookers and blow... But I digress.
I have earned my stripes in phoenix..
1C0m4u
Phoenix.. Come see us ..... 😎💙🔨🐸
Although we all do talk a good bit about community and what it means to us, one of the awesome things about Ingress is that it can suit many different play styles. I'm glad you are playing and having fun adventures!
I started playing because my husband got introduced to game at work. The local players then pulled him into the community and he dragged me along :) (we won't discuss his regrets about that lol). I have definitely stayed in the game because of my local and global community. The player that introduced us to the game has moved on, but back then COMMS was how most of the locals were found and invited in.
I downloaded Ingress out of curiosity, a friend warned me not to do it because it would end up being addictive, I did not believe it, this was approximately 3 years ago, and here I am :D, reaching level 3 I could already notice the messages in the COMM, inviting me to first their WhatsApp group and after having "graduated" (reaching level 8) they passed me to TG ... =D
And then you got the ban! 🤣
Sure !, but I am grateful for the opportunity and I do not plan to miss it, grateful to be surrounded by good Agents, and share the same goal, to help us all go to the next level! 😉
I was at level 5 at the time and was struggling to maintain my fields due to one high level recursed Resistance agent whose commute was around the same area. I had mistaken their attack for retaliation (I had captured one of their portals to disrupt a field). After some polite discussion, i realized that it was a coincidence that several of my portals were taken out, and that resistance agent helped me get in contact with the top agent in my cell, who connected me to the local community. With their guidance, i was able to get to level 6, and start using the kinetic capsule.
I joined my local group when I was level 8 then they decided they didn't like me so made up rumours about me and banned me from the group. Since then just been playing solo.
I've been added on a TG group after being pinged in COMM, but I don't really remember the context since I gave up on Ingress after reaching level 8 or 9. And then I went back 6 months later, someone said "Beers ?", I was seduced.