User to User Direct messaging

ATR0P0S

It would be great (it's essentially really) to be able to direct message users. This is especially important for private group codes eg if I want to invite a person to a private group then I have 3 options currently:

1) post the group code on COMM/public group, thus defeating the point of a private group

2) meet the person IRL and manually type the code over. This is laborious and not always practical given the international/national nature of a lot of Ingress communication

3) send the person the code in an alternative chat platform. This then begs the question, why not just use that alternative platform in the first place rather than Niantic Chat

MAgent23

Agree. A private message function with "@" to search friends is more convenient for us to invite our friend. Current we only can invite friend in a same group through their profile.

Grogyan

Was hoping someone else would ask for this. 👍

Morganza

Yes, yes, direct one to one messaging will be critical. Without it people will need to rely on external messaging apps, and once you need those, the value of a Niantic Chat diminishes to a way to invite people to the real chat.

holdthebeer

I'll bump this topic, here's my experience from the current open beta (2022):

Context: planned to share some information with an agent not playing in my area, and since direct messages on forums are disabled, why not try niantic social? I knew the agent was in open beta already. Tried different options:

1) "initiate direct message" in niantic social does not auto-complete agent name, and did not let me send DM when I fully typed it. Sad.

2) "send friend request" DOES auto-complete the name, and friend request can go through WITHOUT FRIEND CODE. Was not a good option for me, especially when friend request did not let me add a message. Would work if there was text field to type "hi there, I'm agent X from Y, want to share this info via DM".

3) in open beta, could click agent name in COMM, and DM from there. Unfortunately, another agent was too far (and I did not want to ping that agent from my area to have @ name in comm).

4) find if agent mentioned their area on forums or outgress, visit local public groups in niantic social, look for the agent. Did not work, the agent was not listed in public groups.

5) Give up, tag the agent / send message with part of the info through intel comm in remote location (+ opportunity to get DM back from the message alert). Worked, the agent initiated DM from the comm message.

So. Really need an option to initiate DM by name. Imagine another game without COMM - there is no way to do it. Also, in my opinion, friend request is too open, should either require code, or should be an option in DM. I.e. message first, send friend request later.