Our lockdown has been extended through September too. But may be able to get out for some local exercise.
I understand many agents are precious about MD badge abd afree it should be limited to special events. I'd like to see Second Sundays become its own unique badge.
Thing is, a badge is a long term commitment. Who's going to want to do this version of the event when regular Mission Days return? I think it would become an abandoned badge upon the return of MD with a bunch of people stuck on bronze or silver. Or worse, MD would be abandoned and we'd be stuck with this forever.
It's sad. Covid times are going to over finally and MD is opportunity to meet in selected cities as XF event. We had really nice time last month meeting in dozens again and nobody got covid as we are already vaccinated/recovered. Letting earn MD badge count by doing any missions is just... devaluating MD done in past. Originally we had to travel for one time MD city. Now we can choose from multiple MD cities from past and it was nice compromise. Letting earn MD badge by doing random missions is just killing soul of this badge and game.
I don't hear anyone whining about how Virtual First Saturdays killed off the IFS medal and that we should have a different medal for the ones where we don't have to travel to an IFS city. (Maybe that was in another thread and I missed it.)
Just sticking in my 2c worth. The Mission day badge is a special badge that for me rewards myself making the effort to go and undertake a "traditional" mission day. The experience, the atmosphere, the memories are unique to MD events. I would like my badge tally to reflect that.
Ingress Second Sunday, (ISS, I can't call it SS), is a great idea to get people out doing missions, however it's not, nor will it ever be a comparable replacement for a mission day. I get that mission days are administratively harder for them to manage, but damn it, you've got to spend some of my CORE membership on things I want, and I want real MDs back. So if they don't come back before mid 2022, so be it. If they come back in limited release in those countries where restrictions allow it, so be it. But please don't pretend ISS days are the same as MD days, and as such ISS should have their own badge.
ISS is a non competitive IFS, it's a great community event, it's a great way to get people to work together to get together. I can see groups popping up and creating ISS banners, having socials, or even just nominating cities or towns to meet up in and getting out there with the scanner.
IFS and vIFS are basically the same thing, locally organised, locally run, open to anyone who can make it. Fine, use the same badge, I applaud that adaption to the circumstances, but not SS, not my MD, they aren't the same.
IFS is a fun event, but IMO it is not as special as MD. The IFS badge had only been out for a little over a year when Covid started shutting things down, so the badge didn't have the same long history as the MD badge. It's a badge that's easier to get because the events have been run by players from the beginning, so there are a lot more events; and in a lot of areas, it is predictable that you'll have this event happening every month. Especially true after Covid when you can join any virtual event. MD has a history of being more scarce and random, kind of like anomalies or NL-1331. It was exciting when you heard about a MD coming to a city near you, or if you had to make a decision to travel to one 100, 250, 500 or more miles away. As for the event itself, with MD there is a very specific thing that you are assigned to do: complete at least 6 of the official missions provided by NIA, and doing those official missions was a way of showing you were there. With IFS, it's more of a "anything goes" event to get as much AP as you can, which you can also do just simply by recharging.
Good decision based on lack of NIA missions in most cities.
I hope that sometime in the near future, it will be possible for players to create mission banners and request to have them recognized as MD banners if they meet certain criteria's.
In order for this to work, changes needs to be made to the mission approval team, or at least have those requested as MD banners be judged by a more qualified "MD team", as I have never been too impressed by the regular mission approval team, nor the random reasons for not approving individual missions.
About that NL-1331... I've a bronze badge and a '2' count, and I've never even been in the same city as the van.
At least for Second Sunday you have to actually go out and do something. I don't know how this is going to continue for the rest of 2021 and into 2022, but we're talking about... maybe 4 to 6 events that weren't proper mission days? So yeah, perhaps it's a 'free' gold medal, but to get onyx you need 20 so that will still be a good majority of going out to a proper mission day unless this Second Sunday thing becomes a permanent fixture.
It's like how all the double AP events help you to get to level 16, and all the drone cooldown events help you to get your Maverick medal. And you haven't had to go outside to get your Sojourner for well over a year now (although I've made a point of doing so, even so). These things happen. Second Sunday doesn't need its own medal unless it's to become permanent (and so far there is no indication that it is).
Traditional mission days are never coming back. Niantic was phasing out full scale live events and moving to a distributed model with no physical presence even before the pandemic hit.
This second Sunday event is all we will get going forward, the only question is if it will settle into the July model, the August model, some other model, or remain Calvin ball with the rules constantly in flux.
While there is a valid argument that the second Sunday events should have gotten a new badge and the mission day one left as a legacy badge, it's too late now. We are two ticks in, the cat's out of the bag and there is no going back.
Im sure anyone who cared enough for the medal would be fine for 2 - 3 years. For those who havn't missed a FS event are on the verge of getting their Onyx after almost 3 years.
For a 2S badge, niantic could filter the missions like they did for prioritising FS missions which required #firstsaturday in the title.
They Could restrict the badge to only agents that completed a badge with "#SecondSunday MM/YYYY" in the title on the day.
Rural players would be required to create new missions for each month and communities could create thier own group events and explore different areas with unique missions.
And what's wrong with gatekeeping? I don't want the badge to devalue with precense of ability to get ticks for it while doing local missions, instead of while travelling. So what?
Most of those alternatives are worse. The mission-approval process is already slow enough without prioritizing another monthly wave of missions that are only going to be used for one day. And really rural towns don't have enough portals to create an infinite number of missions without getting ridiculously repetitive.
I went to 3 Mission Days in The Beforetime (pre COVID). They were GREAT, but they weren't sustainable. So few places have xfac cooperation, AND enough people wanting to put in the time - to get city council approval, make hotel arrangements, get permission for each mission and its photos, do Niantic paperwork, staff the sign-in and sign-out tables, etc. So many places started to plan a Mission Day, but one thing or another fell through, and it didn't happen. Late 2019, Niantic was already planning to make Mission Days easier for any place. Yay! Anomalies may be worth that much trouble, but requiring it for anomalies AND Mission Days is just too much.
I'm glad Niantic doesn't want to be COVID enablers.
And I'm glad they keeps giving us challenges. This challenge is: "Do six missions on September 12."
As soon as I found out, I submitted ten new missions. Now we're considering a backup plan, in case they aren't approved in time. (Please approve in time!)
Second Sunday! Enjoy it. Don't make it a burden. Open it up to more people, without opening anyone up to harm.
This is great! I can't travel to cities with missions that would have qualified because of the Delta Variant. Now I'm still able to participate and see some of the missions my smaller city has to offer!
This is nonsense. MDs used to be worth something, now it is just pleasing anyone like in PoGo.
My vacation calendar used to be aligned with the Niantic events calendar for years. Now it's just "everything free for everyone and make sure you don't move to far from your comfort zone".
This kills MDs essence. I hope real MDs are brought back when covid situation get better, letting us explore new cities while achieving a challenging badge.
Comments
I'll make sure to follow your exploits
This is fantastic news, We missed out.
Missed out on August due to local lockdown laws.
Our lockdown has been extended through September too. But may be able to get out for some local exercise.
I understand many agents are precious about MD badge abd afree it should be limited to special events. I'd like to see Second Sundays become its own unique badge.
Question for everybody asking for a new Second Sunday medal: Don't you realize Niantic would make it a medal that takes 3 years to get to Onyx?
Some of you small-town players could end up doing the same six missions once a month for 3 years. Does that really sound fun to you?
Thing is, a badge is a long term commitment. Who's going to want to do this version of the event when regular Mission Days return? I think it would become an abandoned badge upon the return of MD with a bunch of people stuck on bronze or silver. Or worse, MD would be abandoned and we'd be stuck with this forever.
No problem, I'm ready to wait a couple of years for new offline MDs, as I waiting NL in Europe (or CIS, where I from).
... Also waiting for seer medal :)
It's sad. Covid times are going to over finally and MD is opportunity to meet in selected cities as XF event. We had really nice time last month meeting in dozens again and nobody got covid as we are already vaccinated/recovered. Letting earn MD badge count by doing any missions is just... devaluating MD done in past. Originally we had to travel for one time MD city. Now we can choose from multiple MD cities from past and it was nice compromise. Letting earn MD badge by doing random missions is just killing soul of this badge and game.
I don't hear anyone whining about how Virtual First Saturdays killed off the IFS medal and that we should have a different medal for the ones where we don't have to travel to an IFS city. (Maybe that was in another thread and I missed it.)
Just sticking in my 2c worth. The Mission day badge is a special badge that for me rewards myself making the effort to go and undertake a "traditional" mission day. The experience, the atmosphere, the memories are unique to MD events. I would like my badge tally to reflect that.
Ingress Second Sunday, (ISS, I can't call it SS), is a great idea to get people out doing missions, however it's not, nor will it ever be a comparable replacement for a mission day. I get that mission days are administratively harder for them to manage, but damn it, you've got to spend some of my CORE membership on things I want, and I want real MDs back. So if they don't come back before mid 2022, so be it. If they come back in limited release in those countries where restrictions allow it, so be it. But please don't pretend ISS days are the same as MD days, and as such ISS should have their own badge.
ISS is a non competitive IFS, it's a great community event, it's a great way to get people to work together to get together. I can see groups popping up and creating ISS banners, having socials, or even just nominating cities or towns to meet up in and getting out there with the scanner.
IFS and vIFS are basically the same thing, locally organised, locally run, open to anyone who can make it. Fine, use the same badge, I applaud that adaption to the circumstances, but not SS, not my MD, they aren't the same.
IFS is a fun event, but IMO it is not as special as MD. The IFS badge had only been out for a little over a year when Covid started shutting things down, so the badge didn't have the same long history as the MD badge. It's a badge that's easier to get because the events have been run by players from the beginning, so there are a lot more events; and in a lot of areas, it is predictable that you'll have this event happening every month. Especially true after Covid when you can join any virtual event. MD has a history of being more scarce and random, kind of like anomalies or NL-1331. It was exciting when you heard about a MD coming to a city near you, or if you had to make a decision to travel to one 100, 250, 500 or more miles away. As for the event itself, with MD there is a very specific thing that you are assigned to do: complete at least 6 of the official missions provided by NIA, and doing those official missions was a way of showing you were there. With IFS, it's more of a "anything goes" event to get as much AP as you can, which you can also do just simply by recharging.
Good decision based on lack of NIA missions in most cities.
I hope that sometime in the near future, it will be possible for players to create mission banners and request to have them recognized as MD banners if they meet certain criteria's.
In order for this to work, changes needs to be made to the mission approval team, or at least have those requested as MD banners be judged by a more qualified "MD team", as I have never been too impressed by the regular mission approval team, nor the random reasons for not approving individual missions.
I think this would encourage players in cities that lack missions to create new ones.
Your logic is flawed for the simple reason you could of organized an ifs anywhere you like,
Ifs should never have gotten a medal IMHO but that's another topic entirely...
About that NL-1331... I've a bronze badge and a '2' count, and I've never even been in the same city as the van.
At least for Second Sunday you have to actually go out and do something. I don't know how this is going to continue for the rest of 2021 and into 2022, but we're talking about... maybe 4 to 6 events that weren't proper mission days? So yeah, perhaps it's a 'free' gold medal, but to get onyx you need 20 so that will still be a good majority of going out to a proper mission day unless this Second Sunday thing becomes a permanent fixture.
It's like how all the double AP events help you to get to level 16, and all the drone cooldown events help you to get your Maverick medal. And you haven't had to go outside to get your Sojourner for well over a year now (although I've made a point of doing so, even so). These things happen. Second Sunday doesn't need its own medal unless it's to become permanent (and so far there is no indication that it is).
Good choice considering covid situations in a lot of areas.
Traditional mission days are never coming back. Niantic was phasing out full scale live events and moving to a distributed model with no physical presence even before the pandemic hit.
This second Sunday event is all we will get going forward, the only question is if it will settle into the July model, the August model, some other model, or remain Calvin ball with the rules constantly in flux.
While there is a valid argument that the second Sunday events should have gotten a new badge and the mission day one left as a legacy badge, it's too late now. We are two ticks in, the cat's out of the bag and there is no going back.
Im sure anyone who cared enough for the medal would be fine for 2 - 3 years. For those who havn't missed a FS event are on the verge of getting their Onyx after almost 3 years.
For a 2S badge, niantic could filter the missions like they did for prioritising FS missions which required #firstsaturday in the title.
They Could restrict the badge to only agents that completed a badge with "#SecondSunday MM/YYYY" in the title on the day.
Rural players would be required to create new missions for each month and communities could create thier own group events and explore different areas with unique missions.
Mission Days will be back... even with the the full automation as seen during the last round of mission days.....
And what's wrong with gatekeeping? I don't want the badge to devalue with precense of ability to get ticks for it while doing local missions, instead of while travelling. So what?
There is no point making a second sunday badge at this point...
Most of those alternatives are worse. The mission-approval process is already slow enough without prioritizing another monthly wave of missions that are only going to be used for one day. And really rural towns don't have enough portals to create an infinite number of missions without getting ridiculously repetitive.
I went to 3 Mission Days in The Beforetime (pre COVID). They were GREAT, but they weren't sustainable. So few places have xfac cooperation, AND enough people wanting to put in the time - to get city council approval, make hotel arrangements, get permission for each mission and its photos, do Niantic paperwork, staff the sign-in and sign-out tables, etc. So many places started to plan a Mission Day, but one thing or another fell through, and it didn't happen. Late 2019, Niantic was already planning to make Mission Days easier for any place. Yay! Anomalies may be worth that much trouble, but requiring it for anomalies AND Mission Days is just too much.
I'm glad Niantic doesn't want to be COVID enablers.
And I'm glad they keeps giving us challenges. This challenge is: "Do six missions on September 12."
As soon as I found out, I submitted ten new missions. Now we're considering a backup plan, in case they aren't approved in time. (Please approve in time!)
Second Sunday! Enjoy it. Don't make it a burden. Open it up to more people, without opening anyone up to harm.
This is great! I can't travel to cities with missions that would have qualified because of the Delta Variant. Now I'm still able to participate and see some of the missions my smaller city has to offer!
This is nonsense. MDs used to be worth something, now it is just pleasing anyone like in PoGo.
My vacation calendar used to be aligned with the Niantic events calendar for years. Now it's just "everything free for everyone and make sure you don't move to far from your comfort zone".
The latest announcement says the missions have to be official MD missions again. Please clarify.
Which annocement is this???
Never mind. It was on a telegram channel. Turns out it was not official. Any missions will do. Apologies.
No worries thats what you get when the goalposts keep changing.....
The first weekends event should of been a one off mission day increase
Then a new badge.....
This kills MDs essence. I hope real MDs are brought back when covid situation get better, letting us explore new cities while achieving a challenging badge.
I would really like to see Niantic be more loyal to the approval of mission days in cities in the future.