Why Ingress needs story and live events

GrogyanGrogyan ✭✭✭✭✭

A look back into what truly engaged players.

Since covid-19, two thirds of Ingress remains missing, and hopefully this video will show why these things need to return.


Tagged:

Comments

  • ZeroHecksGivenZeroHecksGiven ✭✭✭✭✭

    I haven’t seen half the stuff mentioned in here in the 3-4 years I’ve been playing. Around 17:50 Hanke talks about how important events are to player engagement and I’m not talking 2xAP for deploying beacons, get real. Medaled events that actually mean something to factions, etc

    I get it, Covid kinda changed the trajectory of everything. But Niantic has had two years at this point to figure it out and all we’ve had is virtual FS and nerf’d mission days. Meanwhile PoGo seems to have events every other week with semi-interesting sets of quests to accomplish, all without having to get near other people. Instead, we’re continuing to tip toe around the idea of “events” because some small county I can’t pronounce is on lockdown and that wouldn’t be fair… Let’s re-think what an event might be and/or entail and get people engaged.

    Y’all dropped 90% of the story line and any sort of exciting events and wonder why you have to beg people for 5* reviews. And then you ban one of the biggest names in the game in South America and are going to let that simmer for the entire weekend before addressing it. So much facepalm…..

  • mortuusmortuus ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited January 2022

    Im surprised they havent made so that jarvis/ada gives ingame objectives to agents and u give a connection to agents as most probably dont even understand or know who jarvis or ada is or what they roles are so no need for live actors really... it could be weekly or even monthly tasks for the team in cell for example it could be fun perhaps and all agents could feel they give something as the todays MU battle is just a few players who change whoever wins the cell cycles. i agree that 2x deploy for beacons fireworks is kinda meh for events really not really something that engages players much... or maybe connected cells battles could be fun too and since this game is heavy team based there should be tasks that involves the entire team in all cells .


    i mean we dont even have a live story now... is it ever gonna come back or restart?

  • ToxoplasmollyToxoplasmolly ✭✭✭✭✭

    Were you around for The Tessellation?

    My two cents: It was a fantastic event where faction pride was on the line, if nothing else, and it adapted wonderfully to COVID.

    Unfortunately, I believe the creative spirit behind it left Niantic after its conclusion. What we've been left with is a team that can deliver on player requests but is otherwise incapable of exercising (or unwilling to exercise) any sort of creative vision of its own.

  • GrogyanGrogyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    I cannot see Ingress live events ever being as popular as they were without a storyline. They go hand-in-hand.


    When prime beta came out there was a separate website that suggested that Ada had eventually split into two AIs, Ada and Jarvis AIs. Where the AIs evolved depending on, presumably, in game actions, and using the website to chat to the AI to get more information.

    It was a lovely concept, but was dropped in favor of a linear story with live actors, cheesy as they were, was great.


    Maybe the dual AI story will return?

  • ZeroHecksGivenZeroHecksGiven ✭✭✭✭✭

    I was, but only in the form of seeing passcodes and putting them into the intel map. I’m in two local res groups, but I don’t think anyone ever talked about it. I think the xma’s are a cute idea, but I think having local ambassadors makes more sense for driving engagement and attempting to keep people interested. All I hear about is stories of the good ole days of the game, but rarely anyone talking about doing anything these days besides winning a cycle that doesn’t mean anything to me.

    I agree though, hasn’t been much for creativity. That was my point about the team having two years to come up with some fun events that aren’t virtual FS or similar rehashed events. There have been a few glimmers of it, like the matryoshka deal. But, still, when I think of a game like PoGo that has been on an event grind, with events that actually keep players engaged, I can’t help but feel like the Ingress team has been taking this pandemic a little too lightly, in regards to effort. Even simple things like a drone distance medal, drone unique medal, a new version of the seer medal and a ton of other community mentioned ideas have been returned with only silence. We still can’t get decent communication, so I shouldn’t be too surprised…

  • DrHydrosaurDrHydrosaur ✭✭✭✭

    I would like them to have an event where drones can follow links in addition to the local ~500 m. Then we can have competitions to try to get our drones to target portals (i.e. a kind of drone shards event). Faction with the most unique drones wins that portal.

  • How exactly did the Tesselation work? It did not generate a lot of interest in my community.

    Was the Tesselation a one-off event, or will it be repeated?

  • KhatreKhatre ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited January 2022

    most agents didn't cared at all until a medal was announced, then a lot cried that it was too hard to obtain 🤣

  • Otrera35Otrera35 ✭✭✭✭
    edited January 2022

  • Too hard? Not once did I upload a Tessera. I got my Knight of Tessellation and Paragon medals (along with the Tracker forum medal) by making a couple of forum posts. That's it.

  • Unfortunately, COVID interfered with the Tessellation and made it a virtual only event, or super-event that lasted almost a year with weekly/biweekly challenges to people following it. Besides, we haven't seen the official conclusion to the Nemesis/Osiris saga (AKA the Tessellation) with the Requiem anomaly, which was also a victim to COVID. At least the name Requiem suggests an ending or conclusion to the story.

  • MirthmakerMirthmaker ✭✭✭✭

    Agreed. Would love if COVID allows, is a big deal this coming November. Anomaly level action for the X anniversary.

  • I understand that some people are really into the Ingress backstory. I've only ever found those people in this forum. I don't think storyline is required to have an anomaly - I think most people ignore the storyline.

    At the same time, I love that Ingress has so many aspects - different strokes for different folks. Thanks for showing me that good agents are very interested in this aspect.

    I believe that Niantic will work on the storyline IF they see it as benefitting their profits. They could save creative costs by allowing fanfic from passionate agents. But, they use the storyline to introduce / change game elements, and probably wouldn't want to give those "spoilers" to fanfic writers. So, who knows.

  • MirthmakerMirthmaker ✭✭✭✭

    Some of us come from LARPing environments and the skeletal story amplifies day to day, pitched trench battles.

    Covid is putting a damper to those stories being given larger play right now.

    What would be fun is a story where individual boxes are having curious things happen mechanically, hacking, or physical/virtual drops are happening that otherwise large enough to entice out of box players to play hard in boxes they don't usually play.

Sign In or Register to comment.