Would GPS-less play work in Ingress?
PkmnTrainerJ
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in General
Another AR game where you go out to play is introducing GPS-less play.
https://jurassicworldalive.com/news/gps-less-play/
I don’t think it would work in Ingress but wanted to see what others thought.
The only thing I can say is that unless you’re moving there’s not much to do in Ingress. Some of the other Niantic titles I can do some activities at home (feed Pikmin, boost up my Pokémon, battle a monster I paintballed earlier on a walk) so the addition of something like that might be nice but I don’t think we need a GPS free mode.
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Thought I’d share as well as it’s prompting discussions in the other Niantic games as to whether there should be this type of mode.
a mini-game with the drones maybe ? then u can be home and play somehow..
mini games and gps-less play don't support Niantics bottom line. How can they make money from you if you're sitting on the couch moving drones around? They need you to be scanning wayspots, creating wayspots, generating gps data, or beta testing features that will be fine tuned for other Niantic games, etc
I assume Hanke or whoever is steering the ship, is asking for Brian and the Ingress team to focus on features that bring value to Ingress. Unfortunately, value to them and value to us is completely different.
Don't you mean "wring value out of ingress agents". 🤣🤣🤣
Oh but they do.... if u charge for them...
JWA is still alive??? - wow
On the other hand Niantic provides us with the game Ingress free of charge. You paid nothing to join the game. The only money flowing to them is that which we of our own free choice decide to spend on it. And many do not spend anything, they choose to just play the game and enjoy it for free. Now please tell me why Niantic should not be getting something out of it that does not rely on our donations? The fact that they are providing a free fun game and in the process gain value that they can capitalize on makes perfect sense. What does not make sense is expecting to get something for nothing. Has the game changed in the 10 years I have been playing, of course it has, and will continue to do so. And as long as it stays fun for me, I'll keep playing and will continue to choose to send them money to enhance my experience and to also keep the game going. When it stops being fun for me, I'll bow out and find another enjoyable activity to participate in. That is something certain others should really consider.
Any competition with Niantic is a benefit for us. JWA uses the Google Maps API for generating interactive spots.
I think the thing that keeps people a little bitter is the fact that Niantic used to care what agents thought or wanted. Sure, the game has changed, but there is no denying the decline of attention from the Ingress team, especially as feature after feature rolls out that seems to have less and less to do with traditional Ingress gameplay and long time standing features, are ignored for years.
I wasn't asking anyone to quit playing or that they shouldn't support Niantic/Ingress, I'm just pointing out that it's a pipe dream if you look at the last 3-4 years of the Ingress team and their ability to provide agents with anything other than what supports their own interests. One would think there is some correlation to agent activity versus the content they provide, but there is clearly other factors at play as well.
They’ve switched to Mapbox now. Google Maps API got discontinued
Precisely. There is basically no communication now.
No community manager, no AMAs, no lore. No ingress reports, no videos at all.
What annoys me more than all that, is there are agents who have been playing (almost) as long as me who just seem to be good with it.
They keep funneling money into niantic via the store, core, swag, etc. They are paying more and getting less. That is what simply blows my mind.
What blows my mind are players who are clearly not enjoying the game anymore but just don't have the intestinal fortitude to quit and go find something they actually enjoy doing. And I for one cannot find a better game and am quite willing to continue to invest in this one.
In the end niantic needs the game to make money there are no shortcuts
I will make the stance that Ingress not using GPS for play, assuming normal play will be aggressively used by bad actors to make players lives far worse
As for "at home play" gameplay.
I have already suggested games which can be done with the drone, with little effort on the dev team to implement. Assuming Drones fly on links.
Officially as of last year when I chatted to one of the staff, the Ingress team are not interested in revisiting the Drone
A 1-on-1 glyphing mini-game with a leaderboard could be interesting
I’m speaking for myself, but I’m going to assume it’s a similar feeling as others. But Ingress is probably like your favorite sports team having a few rough years, but you keep watching because you’re invested in them, have memories and genuinely hope they’ll return to their glory days. Now, is Ingress going to make a comeback or be someone like the Mariners and basically just be lame forever (Mariners fan here) and give you very brief glimpses of fun.
I dunno, but you can’t fault people for being annoyed with how things have changed with this and not just walking away completely. We’re all invested in one way or another
One lesson to be learned, esp for Game Devs.
Don't put all your eggs in the Google basket. They have a habit of discontinuing things after a while.
Its called they want money, even if you don't wanna move.
This type of a change would defeat the purpose of Ingress. It's time to move agent!
"Can we play without GPS".
No. The purpose of the game is to go out into the world and explore, no matter how distorted players have made the activities. You can already do activities without leaving the house, however you still require a GPS lock for those activites because they're range based.
Agent, it's time to move.
If you want "GPS-free gameplay" there are a thousand better console games and a thousand better PC games that require no GPS at all...
Everything to everyone, all the time, is a recipe for disaster.
Not everything is range-based. As far as I can tell my current location is irrelevant to drone hacking and moving a drone that is already on a portal. If I can move my drone from halfway around the world why should Ingress care where I am?
I can also imagine mini-games that would gain you a little bit of walking distance on kcaps, although that would have to be capped at some fraction of the kcap distance to prevent abuse. Maybe a glyph game that earned like 20 meters of walking distance for each correct sequence, and the sequences got faster over time to make it more challenging?