What is 'community' and how can Niantic 'help' it?

24

Comments

  • Unfortunately that was not maintained, long before G+ died.

  • ZeroHecksGivenZeroHecksGiven ✭✭✭✭✭

    If you enable it.... Weird that people would know you’re location if you turn on a feature called, “People Nearby.”

  • Otrera35Otrera35 ✭✭✭✭

    I am sure there are other messaging apps that are more secure than Telegram out there.

  • 1valdis1valdis ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited January 2021

    I saw the article a few days ago and that is one of the dumbest articles I've seen lately tbh. Not only the button to enable that (by default it's disabled) is called "Make Myself Visible" (wonder what could that mean), but there's also a popup warning you about possible implications.

    That's not a problem of "security", that's a problem of users sho.oting themselves in the foot and thinking that the app should prevent them from doing so.

  • I think we've gotten off track on "Which alternate chat platform should we use?". Communities can pick their own and there are plenty of options.

    Aside from Facebook and Band, there aren't a lot of places to have long term posts since G+ shut down, and Niantic's role in all this would only be to point people to the group in their area, unless Niantic is going to provide the platform to use. Telegram security isn't really relevant to the discussion.

  • Otrera35Otrera35 ✭✭✭✭

    Providing a secure means of chat/communication is relevant to the discussion. How do you expect other agents to participate in an IFS if Niantic and the Local IFS groups cannot provide and utilize a secure communication platform?

  • Because Niantic has never, and will never provide a secure communication platform, any more than it will provide you with a way to order pizza. It's not what it does.

    If every single chat platform in the world is destroyed, someone will make a new one. This is a question far larger than Niantic, or our community.

  • Otrera35Otrera35 ✭✭✭✭

    No wonder some players state that Ingress is a dying game.

  • Given that the game thrived using Hangouts, panicking over what's a government-secure chat app is kinda ridiculous. Communities exist on many platforms, including Telegram, Hangouts, Slack, Discord, even GroupMe.

    But all of those are ephemeral "don't pay 100% attention and you'll miss it" chat apps. G+ provided a niche that allowed longform discussions and pinned posts, strategic discussions and reviewable post notifications, in an enclosed group membership.

    Niantic isn't going to provide that sort of environment just for Ingress, but the game's communities have definitely suffered for it's lack.

  • oscarc1oscarc1 ✭✭✭✭✭

    To be fair to Niantic, the last month (15 December-15 January) is usually pretty quiet for a lot of industries as they wind down for the Christmas holidays. No idea if that is the case with Niantic, but it's important to remember that the teams producing these games are still human, would still have families, etc. Constantly begging and whining for releases over Christmas is just selfish, as there is usually a lot more going on than what we are privy to.

  • Otrera35Otrera35 ✭✭✭✭

    Always hear other seasoned agents encouraging newbies to reach out local communities, but it is easier said than done. Are there other factors why new agents cannot find suitable communities such as the fractured local community or the opposing faction is so toxic to the point that they prevent the newbies from finding the community they want to join.

  • Typically this is the issues of a given community itself. Niantic isn't going to (and can't) solve personal dramas or power plays between two different Agents, or solve the rift of half of a community "accepting cheating" etc.

    And often "The other side is so toxic" is usually one or two visible agents, who the rest of the other side don't like, which can be solved by having more XFac events like IFS, and general chats where it can be seen that "they're not all like that".

    But again, these are not things Niantic can solve everywhere for every community. They can only provide tools like the locator map or change the game, to encourage people to work together.

    Part of the impetus for this post originally was all the people saying "Niantic destroyed the community, they need to fix it" when what they really meant was "Niantic depressed the player base, they need to recover the number of players".

    Niantic didn't create the communities. We did. They can't fix the communities, only we can. But they can provide mechanisms and tools to help us, which is what this post was asking for ideas about.

  • ZeroHecksGivenZeroHecksGiven ✭✭✭✭✭

    I find it quite telling that no one from Niantic has joined this conversation...

    Silence, that’ll build community! 🎉🎉🎉

  • MonkeyPeltMonkeyPelt ✭✭✭✭

    To be fair, Niantic rarely joins any conversations on their official forums. #CommunicationWin /s

  • Otrera35Otrera35 ✭✭✭✭

    You mentioned that Niantic cannot fix existing communities and it is up to its members to fix itself. What if the community fails to acknowledge and take responsibility that something is broken and needs mending? Which goes back to the original question, “What is a community?” Does it help new agents out there or does it serve a few members who just want entertainment because they find the game so boring already? 

  • edited January 2021

    That's an eternal struggle. How to convince people to that being good is better than being bad. The most common way is someone showing the right example and others joining them.

    It's impossible for Niantic to police this from on high though.

  • Otrera35Otrera35 ✭✭✭✭

    When it comes to a local community, it all goes down to luck. It is just a shame if a new agent lives in an area where charades, drama, and toxicity prevails. You know what they say misery loves company. In those instances, Niantic has to step up because the outlook of the game is not good, particularly its lifespan. Otherwise, avoid joining a problematic community and be involved in its own problems.

  • In all honesty, this wasn't tagged with any Niantic employees, because it was for players to think of ideas, not "Hey Niantic, you're doing this wrong".

    But your input is, as always, appreciated. 👍️

  • Otrera35Otrera35 ✭✭✭✭

    In addition to what was mentioned above, Niantic needs to improve its tutorial for new players. It should also include other topics such as why attaining Level 8 is important for every agent, how to create a farm and get gears for himself/herself particularly when an agent is in a rival faction's territory, drone hacking, & completion of special ops banners. If you do not want a long and boring tutorial, at least create a link or additional learning resources for those new agents. Not including the above important information in the tutorial sets up the new players for failure or other options. Help the new agents be self-sufficient by providing them enough information and resources to succeed in this game and in accordance with the rules.

  • It's not really a "community" idea, but a website by Niantic, that explains the game in more detail would be great. In terms of things like AP and badge requirements, how to calculate link lengths, how many resonators can be deployed etc.

    There really hasn't been a good, easy to navigate, and maintained site for that in quite a few years.

  • 1valdis1valdis ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited January 2021

    I believe @ZeroHecksGiven in a nearby topic has summed things up very neatly:

    These days, devs are communicating with their people. They're active, they're hyping their own game, they're giving sneak peaks, they have easter eggs, they have fun with the game. And not even just game devs, but other app developers as well. This veil of secrecy is doing more harm than good and y'all still haven't figured that out.

    ...

    But lets talk about possible features, lets flesh them out a bit before you spend valuable development time on something. Maybe even have some fun with it. You've got three ideas, hold it to a vote. Preface it with a, these aren't promises the other items will ever make it to the game or some other sort of warning.

    There are many clever and dedicated people in this General forum section and probably if you do some shenanigans (I mean polls, discussions and stuff) here without announcing them in social media, it'd be understood in a correct way, not as promises etc. Speak to us, be clear with us (you're already good at this one), tell us stuff. Technical too! As a backend dev myself it's really interesting to read how stuff works, take your latest explanations on uniques as an example.

Sign In or Register to comment.