Umbra Dresden 2019

edjwriteredjwriter ✭✭
edited October 2019 in SITREPs


A few years ago a friend of mine showed me a different game where you had to walk to play.

Years later here I am, not only walking but traveling between countries discovering new places, new cultures, foods, beers and the best part, new people.

Some people ask me why I am so stupid for wasting time and money with this game - traveling to other countries to attend anomalies. But I am not wasting money or time. If people don't believe it, I will explain how this game works for me:

October 9 - took a bus Lisbon-Porto arriving at 9pm, eat something and rested a little because at 3am I needed to be at Porto's airport. 

5am - took off to Amsterdam's airport. Now the boring part I only have flight at 3.20pm, so what to do in 6 hours, nothing really besides walking around the airport capture some portals. But, the time to get into my last flight of that day has arrived! Destiny - Berlin TXL airport. 

Exactly what you are thinking: the anomaly was in Dresden. So after arriving at the airport, I picked a bus to Dresden.

Finally, after almost 24h between bus, airplanes, airports and bus again I was in Dresden, @robb2k4 was there, waiting for me. The fun would start!

I meet @robb2k4 in Lisbon when he was there visiting the city. When Lisbon was announced one of the anomaly sites for 2019, I invited him to join me. In the end of Lisbon's anomaly he asked me to visit Dresden one day. And 6 months after Dresden was announced as an anomaly site, there I was! 

It was time to eat and rest, but before going to rest we went to drink a beer, after all I was in Germany, beer is mandatory. Our path crossed with local agents that joined us for a couple of beers and some chat.

October 11th, 9am - several locals agents get together to prepare the last pack of swag. I stayed with them, helping in what I could and meeting everyone. What I saw there, I will never forget, besides all the stress and tiredness of the pre-anomaly, they were having fun and being such an amazing hosts, making me feel like part of that family. After a few hours, works finished and everyone was chilling, it was time to move and visit part of the city with incredible monuments, marked by the dark history of the bombing of World War II.

So I took the tram, had something to eat and did typical tourist stuff, visiting some monuments and taken some pictures, until 7pm when I went to pre-party anomaly. There, I found everyone having fun and not showing any sign of stress or tiredness. It was time to make some uniques beers on Untapped. In this process I found several agents from previous anomalies and meet new ones as well. In the middle of all this I was able to find my team, the same team from Amsterdam's anomaly. Suddenly something really bad happened, something that let everyone sad. The Pub closed! So, it was time to get some rest and prepare everything for the next journey. 

October 12, 9.30am, it's anomaly day!!! It was time to get everything ready:

Step1: wake up

Step2: take a shower

Step3: get dressed

Step4: drink 2 coffees and have breakfast

Step5: organize the Anomaly bag (cables, powerbanks, headphones, snacks and liquids)

Step6: go to the team's meeting point for a last briefing.

2.30pm the anomaly started…

For the first 90 minutes it was impossible to play, scanner  freezing, the app logout itself, don't restarting, nobody could fire, hack, deploy or link. 

In my opinion this was a total failure from Niantic part and a lack of respect towards the players.

1- because when you charge for a service it is supposed to work minimally well, if not, the money has to be returned.

2- there were 2 events before, for testing, and it should be more prepared for this anomaly, mainly because the players had paid for participating.

It has been 5 years of anomalies, it wasn't the first event Niantic had.

With this I'm not saying that I'm against Prime. If someone asks if I like it, my answer is I prefer Redacted but I'm able to adapt, so if the game is working properly I will play as I know and can.

But move on, after all this chaos with Prime not working, suddenly it starts to be playable. And it had begun to look like the type of anomalies I know, moving around and playing until the last measurement. 

At the anomaly's end the team get together to take a group photo and go to the after-party, have  something to eat and drink before the announcement of the results. 

After the group photo, ORGA announced that: 

Enlightened scored 40.66

Resistance scored 59.34

Dresden was taken by the Resistance.

It was time to celebrate! 

Until the end of the night I was able to find old friends, make new ones, meet players that I only had spoken behind the keyboard of some chat. 

October 13, 10am time to wake up and go to the Mission Day. We start the missions and travel around the city doing two things: tourism and Mission Day's missions. We taste typical German food and beer at Watzke am Goldenen Reiter, see and take pictures of some monuments like the Zwinger, the Ópera Sempre, the Dresden's Castle and the Frauenkirche. In our way for the MD check out, we crossed our path with other agents that invited us to go to experience Dresden's street art with them. So we "kidnapped" Mr. Unicorn and went to observe Dresden from another perspective.

October 14, 6.30am time to do the reverse of what I had done to get to Dresden: bus to Berlin's airport, fly to Amsterdam's airport, fly to Porto's airport. 

Time to back home...

This was one of the best weeks anyone could ask for. Everyone in Dresden was 5 stars and I hope to see them all again. A big thank you to @robb2k4 for inviting me to his amazing city and opening his door to me. If it were not for him I would never be able to have so much fun, never had the opportunity to meet so many people in such a short time. 

Returned home tired but richer in knowledge and friendships. 

This is how this game works for me: making friends and having fun!


edjwriter



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