Battle Beacon Event - St. Louis, MO
I was hyped up for this event. First non-virtual event.
We got four beacons between 11 am and noon. Then nothing. Me and @grider80 wandered around looking for the Niantic person. We never saw anyone wearing anything Niantic. grider80 was advised on Niantic Social that the person would be on Grand Blvd in near Tower Grove Park. But it was a ghost town. 36F (less with the wind chill). Grand Blvd is a very busy road as well. Poor location choice. Seemed odd since the park (Tower Grove Park) is where they had the recent Pogo Safari thingie a month or two ago.
I don't currently have access to Niantic Social (invalid username issue, there is a ticket for it, so soon?), so I couldn't even see the event location. grider80 noted that once the event went live at 11 am, the location disappeared. So if you were late to the event, you wouldn't be able to find the pin. Seems that it should be something similar to a beacon you put on a portal, and live until the end of the event.
After we left the area, some more beacons popped up. Mostly in Tower Grove Park (which would of been a much better location identifier than "South Grand BID")
Former Christopher Columbus Statue got one. I capped it earlier when turning around in the park, so we got the victory there. Funny the statue poi is still there, since the statue has been gone for more than a year now...it somehow got renamed, but the removal was denied.
It was cold and disappointing. No Niantic person(s) to be found. Only four battle beacons, then nothing for about an hour. We both paid for 2 hours of parking, then left when that was up. grider80 drover over an hour for this "event". Thankfully, I'm much closer, but still, it was basically just a waste of time.
I'll give it 1 out of 5 stars. They actually did have a few battle beacons up. But no one around, no information was able to be found about Niantic people or where they might be located. Poor location. Barely any notice of the event didn't help much either. And timing, the last weekend before Christmas?
I'm actually glad no one else showed up. Would of caused even more agents to be upset at Niantic in general. Oh, and even thought there was no one else active within a 20 km radius of us, there was still lag.
Comments
Wow that must have been fun ☹️
Thank you for posting this. I was kind of in the area for the one in Washington and decided against making the drive since they planned it at a park that’s not really near any highways and kind of tucked away, plus it’s windy and rainy here.
i am close enough to see there is one active BB deployed and three finished. Tempted now to at least go scope it out, but the 4th one is live, so maybe a pass… ugh. doesn’t look like anyone else was out there
Would have been nice to work with someone on the ground to help with this. I’m in two pretty big res groups in the Seattle area and neither had any mention of these. No one was interested or even knew about it…
I’m so sorry you had this experience. The Alexandria, VA location actually worked pretty much as well as can be expected for a first of its kind event. The Niantic representatives were visible and personable - they didn’t really know anything about Ingress but they did have Niantic stickers and patches and were friendly.
About half a dozen people from each faction showed up. At least 19 rare battle beacons were deployed (that’s what I got credit for) sometimes overlapping 2 at a time, sometimes just 1, but there was always something going on.
it was good to see people again. I’d have hoped for more people but between the short notice, Covid, holidays, and overall local interest levels, a dozen people wasn’t bad.
I have some more constructive feedback but I think I’m going to make it it’s own post.
Overall it seems like the majority of the battle beacons were deployed in Tower Grove Park despite the location being a block or two away from the park.
A few were across the street from the park. This area the roads are very busy.
Earlier we watched a metro bus blow through a red light in the area.
Maybe Alexandria got more beacons because agents played them? (not Niantic) @vidicon
Nope. You can see who placed them now, and it was NIASection14. Only one battle beacon was placed by an agent, and it was a VRBB
Was NIASection14 really there, or did they spoof? 🤓 🤪 🤭
Sounds like Niantic is out of practice for live events. (Maybe past organizers left, so everyone is new to this.)
The account NIASection14 was also dropping BB on my stuff in Oakland. Presumably there was either a rep there who could do it or they were pre-programmed.
It's all preprogramed. NIASection14 was in Riverside and Fontana at the same time the Oakland event was happening.
Whats most weird here is that @EvilSuperHeros never found anyone from niantic at the place even tho it was advertised someone from niantic would be there ? strange
I went to the Boston MA event. Neither the Ingress agents or pokemon go players that I ran into found the NIA rep. There weren't a lot of people there. It started lightly sleeting for about 15 minutes which switched to snow for awhile. It rained later. We had just under an hour of clear skies near begining of event. I did like having a live event after a very long time. We had the beacons start on time. I think it could be improved by having a meet-up beacon near the starting portal. I think people were disappointed it didn't flip because after the first 2 beacons I started playing other games. I'm lazy and easily distracted and they had no one to battle against then. Maybe have some of the beacons be very rare and some be rare.
I don't get it. What was the point of this event? I never really found an explainer anywhere or what incentive there was to show up. Why such short notice? How many sites had Niantic employees twiddling their thumbs because no one showed up?
It's frustrating that's for sure. The other agent here was asking Brian Rose about the Niantic people on Niantic social and he basically kept saying that they were in the area. (not helpful at all). Both @NianticBrian and @ace mentioned in Niantic social chat that they shared their locations was nice. Would of been nicer if the Niantic people on location at the different cities would of done the same thing. Wouldn't of helped me but the other agent had Niantic social working at least.
Since it was cold out I'm guessing if they were on location they were in a coffee shop somewhere enjoying the warmth.
Hope they didn't pay those workers too much for their non-appearance.
Local agents acting as Poc's could of easily done a much better job. I mean we're used to working for free for Niantic.
It just felt like wasted time. Especially since it was the weekend before Christmas.
Wonder how many agents drove more than an hour to get to one of these events? Did they locate the local Niantic people at their sites?
@EvilSuperHeros I drove a half hour to the station and rode the train for another half hour. So, yeah about an hour to get there. But I got to see people I hadn't in awhile, meet new ones and play with the new stuff. It's also difficult to be a bad mood when the day includes seeing the outdoor seal tank at the New England Aquarium. It's free.
There weren't many people including pokemon go players. I think it's just too cold to really do live events in New England.
The choice of location was a Rose Kennedy Parkway which is chopped up green space with several street crossings. It was ok but most play pokemon community days on Boston Common and Boston Garden. So, simliar to you situtation where the less desirable area was choosen but it was decent for play even if most favored area.
Definitely a wasted opportunity for engagement with the community. I don’t think it would have taken much work to nail down 10-15 communities to work with. He||, you have years of data of people running FS events, that would have been an easy place to start. Not only in promoting these, but in helping choose locations that could accommodate more people and also people using public transportation.
maybe next time
It sounds to me that all that needed to happen was:
Anyone who's ever had to meet up with friends and family in a busy space knows how that second point works.
Unless the idea was for folks to go on a hunt for the representatives?