There is no atmospheric gameplay in ingress prime.
I play video games from the era of the first personal computers. And the modern interface of the Prime, and the gameplay itself, I do not like more than completely. Yes, the interface is functional, yes it is convenient, but it is not attractive. The newbie who downloaded the game does not see in him a smooth immersion in the world of secrets and mysteries, the secret battle of powerful factions with great power ... There is no feeling that you are an agent on a secret mission ...
For the first time, there is no Devra Bogdanovich and Henk Johnson for the person who downloaded the scanner; he is not aware of the solution to the passcodes and more.
Training and gameplay generally does not introduce the player to the characters of the game. There is one flying head and another flying head, and they quarrel among themselves. on this the plot ends. If a player is not met by a more experienced player who leads him to the plot chats, he will not know what kind of heads they were. Take a look at the game about Harry Potter, each level has a story dialogue, the player reveals new details of the magical world. And here “two heads” got into a fight, and what to do next is unknown. To infinity draw triangles from portals? monotonous boredom.
And this is really point of view of a beginner, you will draw triangles from level 1 and 16. And the main thing is not clear "why??????" . If I Do not have time to pick up the player and explain "what" and "how" - he already took level 4 dejectedly looked at the "game" and deleted it from the smartphone.
Prime does not immerse oneself in the science fiction world, it is a map for drawing triangles from level 1 to 16. This is the main problem of the game. With this scanner it is impossible to plunge into the world of secret operations, the atmosphere of the game does not contribute to this.
Doesn't it seem to you that the prime is completely different from the software of a secret agent who decided to enter the battle for our world?
And how do you think it should be completely changed?
Comments
Whole heartedly agree.
The lore is a great idea but terrible execution.
look at these two terrain maps, they are much cooler than what we have in prime. This is what I call an atmospheric game.
Even a simple gradient is much nicer than the black emptiness underfoot.
I think part of the problem is that the lore feels irrelevant to the game. As a newbie (41 days sojourner) I learned pretty quickly that media has no value. I tried watching a few, but they made absolutely no sense, so now I just throw them all away. I'm half way through watching the anime, but it just feels like it's trying too hard to justify the game. As for who all these characters on badges are, what the obsession with numbers like 1331 is, I'm sort of interested, but I can't seem to find anywhere to get the big picture, I'm just seeing lots of unconnected snippets.
Remember Ingress is a game that is played outdoors in often difficult lighting conditions (eg bright sunlight).
So legibility should trump immersiveness or "prettiness". Prime is already quite bad on this front, for example a single layer field covering most of the screen can be difficult to see in bright sunlight. I have already wondered why I couldn't link 2 neighbouring portals only to later realize I was under a field I hadn't seen on the scanner.
As to the lore, it is true that it doesn't have enough influence on the gane.
However I think the most important thing is that Ingress is not supposed to be an individual game. You are not supposed to install it and understand everything then play by yourself but contact your local community and join a team
I have never met any Ingress player that plays for the lore and from what I have seen our gameplay has no actual long term effect from that lore.
If you ever get into any of the lore, it's going to be swept away and forgotten in a few weeks/months, anyways. The tecthulhu stuff was the first (and only) time I started to actually pay attention to story stuff. All gone now, though. It feels like constant fan-fic's at best, from a group of people who cannot commit to anything.
Why 1331, triangles and mind control?
Read about Iluminatti and Freemasonry things.
OLW Prime built his own Tecthulhu back in June and used it to convert himself into shards. Nemesis then stole it and have modified it so they can shard and reform themselves at will, which is why we're dealing with Nemesis shards these days. I would hardly call that "all gone now."
Here I thought I was somewhat paying attention and I missed all of that. ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ノ︵┻━┻
This is why i wrote an original and alternative storyline. I am Bl4ckPriest, founder of the global team "R.U.N.E." Read chapter 1-6 here.
The Book of R.u.n.e.
https://t.me/bookofrunexf
The one thing I enjoyed about the anime is the how the fields can affect area. It really felt connected to the rest of world where people were just talking about the game as if it was just game.
Honestly, I like the lore behind the game. I love the idea that I'm making those fields and making my mark on the world. But, I think that's because I came in after watching the Ingress anime. If I didn't watch that, then I'd probably have the same view as the original poster. Perhaps more storyline could be added when an agent starts Ingress for the first time.
I believe one of the things that deepens the lore are those media drops that periodically drop from portals. That's the reason I love the Msg.Acolyte and Msg.Jahan drops, and the reason why I refuse to recycle those media even after I hit the inventory cap. Whenevrer I see one of those large xm fields, I can't help but wonder how that field is affecting the world. And, when I first came into Ingress, I could envision my future self, making fields and making my mark on the world, like a boss!
Unfortunately, I think the story has problems. After watching thre anime, and after I watched Msg.Acolyte, <link omitted because I'm not sure that is supposed to be public.> The next media that I got was Dunraven27. You can view Dunraven27 here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmYCt_IeO9M
I remember watching Dunraven27 and thinking that the game looks less like a secret war between factions and more like a reality game show, like Survivor. This opinion was further deepened after I logged into Ingress Intel and saw the Ingress Report, which showed both teams cheering together and being interviewed like they are on some kind of game show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcw3nhGVgvg
This wrecked the illusion for me.
When I think about it, it shows a potential problem for the story. On the one hand, this is a game, and is being promoted as such. So a lot of emphasis is given to making it welcoming, fun, and competitive for all. But, lorewise, this is serious business, and forces are vying for human loyalty in addition to the awesome power that springs forth from the XM portals, and humankind's fate hangs in the balance. These two goals conflict with each other.
To me, a potential solution is to rebrand Ingress by separating the gameplay and the lore as much as possible. According to Ingress lore, someone leaked this technology and disguised it as a game. So, one could make two "faces" of Ingress. One face would be Niantic's public face, where only the game aspect is promoted. Officially, the game is a capture the flag / king of the hill / strategy game, where players compete to hold real life territory for their faction. Occasionally, real life competitions will be held, where new challenges are given to the players.
The hidden "face" would materialize from media portal drops. These media drops would show the struggle going on between the Shapers and Na'zeer. They would also point to "unofficial" Ingress websites where the truth is hidden behind puzzles and fragmented media. It would be easy for an agent to figure out there is something more, but it would require a little more work and dedication to dig deeper. Of course, those who solved the puzzles would probably want to boast about their findings, allowing all ingress fans to piece together the story.
However, this would require rebranding Ingress. I'm not sure if that can be done successfully, given how long Ingress has been out and how known the xm struggle is. Further, it may turn people who may be interested in the lore away, because they aren't seeing it immediately. And, there is a risk that agents would take the lore too seriously and react violently to the opposing side. So, this may not be a great idea. But, it is an idea.
Another possible solution is to go the other route, and merge the good will of the game with the lore. With this idea, Instead of the Shapers and Na'zeer trying to exile each other, they can be in a friendly rivalry with each other. Maybe the Shapers could be for nature and inspiration whereas the Na'zeer could be for civilization and science. Both sides believe that theirs is the best way and want to push the world towards their end (much to the other side's dismay.) To push the world to their ideology and recruit people to their side, they've created this game. But, occasional threats do appear, such as Nemesis (if Nemesis is a threat) and both sides occasionally have to join forces to stop this external threat.
Also, there's an issue with the resistance in the lore. It's not really known what the resistance stands for. At first, I understood that the resistance were trying to stop the spread of XM whereas the Enlightened were working to spread and harness the power of XM. Then, the tutorial showed up where the resistance were rebranded as a group opposed to the shapers, and the enlightened were working with the shapers to harness XM. Then, when I saw Msg.Jahan, the resistance were once again rebranded as a group helping the mysterious group known as the Na'zeer. This is a bit confusing. And, I'm not the only one who thinks this. The comments of YouTube video of Msg.Jahan show people who were a little confused and annoyed by this sudden lore change.
I think the resistance's cause should be clarified. Or, maybe not. Maybe there's a lore-wise reason behind this murky cause.