Best and Worst Mission Memories
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I'm not a huge fan of Banners but, I do enjoy Missions. My favorites are some of the ones I made (Aloha Banner, Honu Banner, Volcano Mission) that when completed provide a meaningful, unique picture.
My most hated Mission Banner memory was when my family became obsessed with finishing a banner that was just outside Hong Kong Disneyland. It was pouring rain and we weren't prepared. In flip-flops, getting soaked like idiots. We only went into the park when it was too late to see anything. And, we ended up with the flu for weeks after. What was exciting however, was someone from my family had gotten his shiny new 100 gold badge that day, the day of his birthday, and on the 10th anniversary of the park. It was a proud moment.
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I've never done a mission. It's not my playstyle, at least not for the last 3 years of playing Ingress. Not to nitpick, but you caught a cold. "The flu" is influenza, which is a virus. Like Jarvis, if I can put it in a relative context.
It would be really hard to pick my best, there are so many candidates. Going out to complete mission banners has been a wonderful way to visit new places and explore them.
My most proud moment was completing a banner I made in India. I used to live in India, and about 6 months before a planned return trip I created a banner for the town I lived in. I was so happy to have it as a goal, and so happy to get it in my scanner. (Also relieved that all of the portals I used were accessible!!) It was a view down the mountain I had photographed on a previous visit a couple of years before.
Telling about my worst moments would involve slagging off real people, which I don't want to start doing in here. A badly designed mission path just results in a bad (or less enjoyable) experience.
@Pangarban which part of India? I found it difficult to play Ingress there. Easier in Darjeeling than in New Delhi. But, it was the home of some record breaker agents. A very friendly bunch I remain in contact with till this day.
That banner is beautiful.
There are some mission designers I could ring the neck of. I get it.
Ring some necks of mission makers?!? Haha! Yeah, I've definitely done that in mission chats, but would refrain here as well... I wasn't even brave enough to make any until after I had 1k, but that's an almost impossible luxury for rural players.
I swear that the old church singles were the best thing for explorer badge even though some old head missionaries HATE them. Lolz! ⛪🕌🕍
My favorite set is 'How to be a Panda in the West Village' in NYC. I really like the message of the pic (some people swear it's a statement about gentrification), and it's laid out well and super simple. 🐼
My most memorable moments are ones of struggle... Like not being able to complete the Palisades set due to darkness and losing the trail while realizing the rangers were going to be pulling me out of there if I didn't turn back. Definitely not trying to get myself added to the list of agents we've lost. 😭🧗🏼♀️
I really appreciate sets that are educational, take me to a new place, or challenging in some way that isn't impossible. 😍
There is a mission creator in Central Ohio in the US that likes to make his missions as obnoxious as possible (I won't name names lol) Sequential, makes the agent backtrack, has random passwords that make no sense whatsoever. I did one of his and learned my lesson, never again.
Thank you for the compliment. That banner is in Mussoorie, a hill station in Uttarakhand. I agree it was harder to play in India. Low portal density even in the largest cities. But Delhi has some good parks with a lot of portals: Lodhi Garden, Safdarjung's Tomb, Humanyun's tomb, Purana Quila. No banners that I was interested in, though.
I had a bad time with Berlin banner Oberbaum.
It had questions in english but with german answers including special german letters, information hidden on nearby items which were not fixed and real hard to find answers for non-locals. Worst one was the reason why a certain neightbourhood was known: after 30 minutes googling, answer turned out to be "drugs".
When we got to mission 13/18, we were seriously discussing about quitting. By far, my worst banner.
My best memory was getting my Onyx badge in York in the UK, such a beautiful place. It was just a single mission, but it was the end of a journey. I enjoyed the banners in Norwich, again a lovely city, I'd recommend travelling to both.
Worst has to be London, multiple london banners. The Abaddon banner involved trying to hack a couple of portals near a large construction site (can't be helped, construction comes and goes often there) and it was nip and tuck if I hacked it or not. I'm particular with my banners in my profile and like them to align so it would have been annoying if I couldn't finish it. Also walking around London all day with all the pollution, having to cross busy roads every 5 minutes to reach portals on the other side therefore endless waiting at traffic lights - just not for me.
Also there was a small series of missions, I can't remember if it was Norwich or London, where the first portal of one mission was the same as the last portal of the last mission. I think I had just enough common heatsinks, annoying design.
I've almost missed my flight home due to a mission... "Rome to London", single mission (Hack 5 portals at Termini station, 1 at Waterloo station). I had a 5-hour layover in London on my way home from Rome, and I figured, hey, why not. It's only 1 hack in London at Waterloo, how hard can that be...
Turns out, it wasn't that quick afterall. After an hour to clear passport control, two unscheduled stops on the Heathrow Express and a run to from Paddington to Waterloo and back, I made it back and through passport control with only 20min to spare before boarding.
Sweating bricks all the way, and questioning my life choices
Can mission day count? My first MD in Provo, UT. It was a blast. I got to meet so many people on both factions and the interaction was great.
Favorite was the second Goonies mission in Cannon Beach, Oregon. Wife and I were the first people to do it. I think it's been since removed from the mission, but there's a Field Trip point in it at the time that required sprinting out at low tide, hitting the waypoint, and then sprinting back before the ocean rushed back in. Loved that!
Worst: the Link Amp cat banner in Sandy, Utah. Though, I did actually love it. I didn't like doing it in the middle of the night. It involved a lot of church portals, all the churches look the same (literally, using the same overall building plan, materials, etc) and it was really confusing for me, having not been in Sandy before.
@ArtilectZed , the one in Sandy is worse just because of the BAF that is in effect most of the time.
If done right, it's very helpful for a new mission to begin on the last portal of the previous mission. But instead of another hack, it needs to be a passcode. The best examples simply ask, "What mission number is this?".
The advantage of that method in a city crowded with banners is you don't have to search for the next mission on the list. You just click on the same portal and click on "Missions" within the portal view.
The power of Jarvis compels you!
My most memorable mission banner was Lost Boys if Santa Cruz in Santa Cruz CA. I had dropped my oldest son off for his freshman year of college and wanted to stay out of his face but stay nearby just in case he needed something, so I decided to do that banner on foot. It basically walks you miles and miles all over Santa Cruz. About halfway through, mile 6 or so, ENL put up an amazing BAF that covered all of California...so many layers you could barely see the portals. By this point it was almost 90 degrees and I was sweating and tired and wanted to quit. But I pushed on under those oppressively green skies. Finally got to the last portal of the last mission, 12 miles of walking and sweating and swearing at the BAF which I could do nothing about. But the last portal was behind a construction fence! Just barely out of reach. Holy cow! I almost cried. Maybe I did cry. But with some heroic contortions I was finally able to drift onto the portal and get a quick hack. Banner complete. My son never needed me that day. I was sunburned and foot sore but I saw every inch of Santa Cruz and completed that darn banner. The BAF was killed but ghosted and remained there until the next day but that's another story :-)
@MysticalGnu
"Finally got to the last portal of the last mission, 12 miles of walking and sweating and swearing at the BAF which I could do nothing about. But the last portal was behind a construction fence! Just barely out of reach. Holy cow! I almost cried. Maybe I did cry"
I have not been in a situation this intense. But, I have reached the end of a Mission and wanted to cry because I feared I wasn't going to be able to complete it. It's impressive to me how such things can bring such emotion. You think you're just bumming around having fun, but you're actually investing a lot of time and effort and when it feels like it's all for nothing... you wonder if you should be reevaluating your life like @Azhreia.
Reading all of your lovely entries made me think of an experience I had years ago. I was traveling with some bar friends who had the game installed but weren't much for playing. I needed to complete a couple of missions to get a shiny new badge so I asked them if they wouldn't mind detouring. They seemed interested in why I was being so particular so I explained and this encouraged them to get their phones out. We ended up spending the next 3 hours driving all around down blasting music, hacking, smashing and having a great time.
After we were done, one of the guys said, "I finally get it. This game is way more fun when you're playing it with friends."
🐟️ hooked
@TrinityPrincess
"I swear that the old church singles were the best thing for explorer badge even though some old head missionaries HATE them. Lolz! "
I concur. They hate them. And, it makes me feel bad. This propelled me to look up local laws to find out if all churches were considered to be public or if they were indeed private. Parking lots too? Unknown.
i like to do missions so i get a souvenier of new cities/ countries i've visited. my most memorable mission was for my first anomaly (kyoto shonin) i was really sick the day before and i thought i could not complete the mission (it was a banner to commemorate the anomaly)
I got up superearly the day after anomaly and i was feeling still sick but i knew i had to do the mission,i went to family mart got lots of coffee, turns out the rains came too but i still went and completed the banner before having to take the train back to tokyo. as it was early and a sunday i was almost alone walking the streets, kyoto is beautiful and it was a nice memory.
my worst mission was in a car in indonesia being led by some overeager agent who was adamant there was a secret mission linked to the anonymous hacker group, we spent a few hours getting lost and being late for reuniting with our group looking for the location of the mission. in the end it was down a dirt road with no lights, in a small farm with a wooden hut and chickens - pretty sure it wasn't the HQ for Anonymous...
My worst experience with a banner was one at Disney's Animal Kingdom. The person who created the banner didn't stop and think to have all the portals be accessible by guests at all times. Mission 13, the giraffe's head involved hacking a portal that is only available to guests that pay for a separate ticketed "Breakfast Safari". So yeah, instead of a giraffe there is a random mission for that spot. I don't think she ever changed it despite being told in comm by multiple players, so a lot who have done that banner have one thing different in that spot.
Edit: she was a cast member and kind of oblivious to the fact not all guests could access all portals. I think someone eventually created a substitute mission that let you complete it but it was too late for myself and many others by then.
I hope you've said so in a review on ingressmosaik.com? (EDIT: there is a review which says it's not possible to finish).
The possibility of something like that is why I didn't do any banners when I visited Disney. I'm a bit wary of doing banners when travelling anyway. It's not as simple as revisiting a nearby banner later.
@Pangarban I've never used ingressmozaik
You should, it's great for finding good banners, and for seeing if there are problems with it. You can see a map of the path, read reviews, etc. It tells you how many unique portals you're visit, and even estimates the time it will take.
https://ingressmosaik.com/ is a great way to avoid those "worst mission" experiences. 🙂
(EDIT: change k to c for the English version: https://ingressmosaic.com/)
@Pangarban thanks.
best memory was trying to get an unreachable portal by trying to not run into a wall. (you drifters know what I'm talking about).
Worst memory was gps. Twice, on two separate phones, I attempted to do a banner mission that was located in a cemetery. Both times my GPS had me located outside the cemetery even though I was standing, literally , between 2 grave stones. needless to say that mission banner, that I would have loved to see on my phone, never got done
worst mission i have done is , climbing up 2hills , spent 4hours for a badge.