Niantic Chat v1.3.1 Coming Soon! | What's New and What to Expect
Hi Agents,
We will be releasing the latest version of Niantic Chat this week, so we wanted to share the upcoming changes and how they will impact the Closed Beta.
Niantic Chat as a shared experience across multiple games
Niantic Chat has been accessible via Ingress (Closed Beta) as well as CATAN - World Explorers for the past two months. And while you could access Niantic Chat from either game, the experiences did not overlap, so Ingress players could not interact with players or content from CATAN, nor could CATAN players see all of the groups and events you’ve created within Ingress. This latest update will bring Ingress and CATAN players together so that both games will have a shared Niantic Chat experience: Ingress players will see public CATAN groups, events, and content, and vice versa.
How does this affect the Closed Beta?
With last week’s news about CATAN - World Explorers winding down, we plan to welcome the CATAN Explorers that are already using Niantic Chat to the Ingress Closed Beta. In doing so, they can continue to manage and communicate with their Niantic Chat groups even after CATAN has sunsetted, and also be introduced (or re-introduced) to the global Ingress communities and events you have already created within Niantic Chat.
Introducing Niantic Username
Your username and display name are currently one and the same, but this week’s update will introduce Niantic Username as your unique identity and will be separated from your display name. Your Niantic Username is currently defaulted to the username you selected when you first logged into Niantic Chat. However, we recognize that some of you may want to change your usernames now that Niantic Chat is a cross-game experience, so we will be offering Ingress players the opportunity for a one-time username change. We will be following up with more information in the coming weeks, but if you’d like to keep using the Niantic Username you have already selected, then there’s no action required.
Integrating Niantic Friends
Add and remove friends from your Niantic Friends List directly from Niantic Chat! Note: your Niantic Username will be how you appear on the Niantic Friends List, so please keep this in mind when choosing a unique username.
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With your feedback, we have decided to wait on adding the next wave of Ingress Closed Beta participants until we have built out some more features including real-time location updates, more moderation tools, Direct Messaging (DM), and Group Messaging. We thank you all for your feedback and patience throughout this Closed Beta - more to come soon!
- NianticZenas
Comments
Thank you for the update and is good too see progress being made.
I would reiterate our concerns around cross platform visibility given our concerns around privacy and that the whole reason we have the option to not share game IGNs across products is around mitigating harassment. Allowing cross platform chat without due controls to allow players to manage how other users see them is very problematic.
On cross platform things - you'll need to bring in product filtering into views and enable group gatekeeping to allow groups to be limited to only those with accounts against specific products eg only Ingress players can join an Ingress group as well as within product elements eg Faction to only allow players of a certain Faction to join groups.
I see the desire from Niantic to have a big group hug of a product but that is emphatically not wanted by the Players - without significant changes, you are not producing a product with an audience.
Regarding the one off name change - what safeguards are in place to prevent users impersonating other users? Will name changes be validated against existing Niantic Profile names (all products) to prevent this?
Thank you for this update.
With this becoming a shared experience, how will you address the faction/team/school identifiers?
The biggest thing that Niantic Chat can offer that none of the public social media and chat platforms can offer is a way to identify a player's faction. For Ingress this is key to the core function of the game. And it plays into privacy of our groups (we want faction-specific "public" groups) as well as onboarding new players into our respective local faction communities.
Also, has the bug list/fixes been updated?
Additionally, for Catan users who are not Ingress users (or wish to not make their Ingress IGN visible), how will they access this forum section as an Ingress profile is required
Thanks for the update.
As I've posted before, I'd like the community username to be fixed to the ingress agent name to prevent spoofing.
I'd like to see the community username fixed to the ingress agent name to prevent spoofing, or to see what the benefits are of having an arbitrary name.
Please let me know if you have any ideas on how to prevent spoofing.
One more thing.
Also, one of the XMAs, @miu2d4r does not have access to this “Niantic Chat Closed Beta" community group yet.
I'm sure pooja contacted you,
but he hasn't had access for over a month.
I'd like to know if there's a problem.
I hope he will be able to view the updates and bug list by himself as soon as possible.
@Juuuuuice @NianticBrian
@Rendzvous I've added @miu2d4r to this space!
Regarding spoofing - my understanding is that some players will have multiple accounts for the purpose of accessing hard to reach portals. Currently, Niantic Username would not directly prevent this, as players would still be able to create multiple Niantic Usernames. But this is something that we're trying to learn more about!
Thanks guys! Finally I can see here!😊
I'm glad to finally welcome miu2d4r to this community.
Thank you for your support.
As for spoofing, that was a translation error on my part, sorry.
I am not referring to the so-called "location spoofing" in the Ingress game.
I am concerned that if NianticChat allows users to set an arbitrary name that is different from the Agent name, it will be possible to use someone else's Agent name without permission.
If the name on the Chat is locked to the Agent's name,
it will be easier to find Agents in the neighborhood that you haven't talked to yet.
If the name is locked by the Agent name, it will be a little more effective in preventing inconsiderate comments.
It would be nice to eventually be able to choose a Niantic game account name, such as PokemoGO trainer name, as an option.
I'm looking forward to future updates.
If you need a survey or something, we'd be happy to help.
As ingress players, we want Niantic Chat to serve the following purposes:
- A way for communicating with other agents: COMM already do some part of the job, but it is insufficient, because we only have 2 channels: CrossFaction, and Faction Only. No way of having a secure message delivered without unwanted eyes.
- Recruiting: we need to identify and verify agents from our same faction. Using a Niantic Username is of no good if we can't establish a link with Ingress Agent Name and faction. Again, if we are not provided with this information, there is no way of knowing who is to be trusted to deliver a secure message.
- Creating Private Groups for our communities: getting access to some communities is based on trust. Trust is obtained with reliable info. Someone named Jhon stating his agent name is Frederick, and stating he belongs to the group faction can't be proved by just sending messages and images... We need the ability to see this relations to create trust.
- Organizing Events/Missions/Operations/activities: events can be public, or can be for specific private groups. For operations we need communication with a group, or with a specific agent, and to maintain secrecy to avoid sabotage and share location and Intel on real time.
Right now a lot of ingress related communication, groups, and organization is done on different commercial apps and specific tools developed by the agents.
If Niantic Chat is to become "THE" place for Ingress Agents, it has to offer the same or better than all of these other apps and tools. Otherwise, agents will just stick to what they have now.
@Juuuuuice Many thanks for your update here. I got an invitation for friend in Niantic chat this morning. Find it difficult to access profile of the request. Will it be possible to allow a new feature to access profile befote accept friend in later update. Easier to know who is request as friend here. ;)
@Juuuuuice are we allowed to share screenshots of Niantic Chat (with folks outside closed beta) regarding the new username display and friends list features?