October 2019 Ingress AMA Question Thread
RedSoloCup
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Rules: https://community.ingress.com/en/discussion/1306/ama-rules
It is that time again. Ask your questions in this thread and at some point, in the near future, I'll close this thread. I'll then curate the questions and work with our internal team to answer as many as we can. It can take a little as two days or as long as two weeks to publish the responses. Given that there is an Anomaly this week, it'll likely take about two weeks to complete.
Make sure you read the rules. Once you do that, ask your questions!
Post edited by RedSoloCup on
7
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Why isn't the Moon Landing Site a portal?
In OPR, does the "What is it?" section effect your rating status at all? Can you tell us what that data is being used for?
On Aug 21, 6+ weeks ago, you said that the current iteration Trusted Reporter program was ending as of Aug 26, and that its replacement/refresh would be up by "late next week [week ending Aug 31] or the week after at the latest with more clarity and ability to address issues at a larger scale." On Sept 6, you said you were "ironing out the details" and that "it is a high priority for you and the Ingress Team." A month after the latest update, what is the status of the new Trusted Reporter program? I don't need or want to know who the TRs are (confidentiality is apparently A Thing), but I do want to know if there is a replacement for the TR program in place.
Do coin-operated machine play areas like this in front of stores and in malls make acceptable portal candidates?
During the Field Test, and again during Ingress First Saturday events, the servers don't seem to have been capable of handling the increased load. There was significant down time, unresponsive scanners, problems logging onto the scanner, etc etc etc that made for significant problems, which were recognized here https://community.ingress.com/en/discussion/4301/field-test-medal-for-all-participants and here https://community.ingress.com/en/discussion/comment/33976/#Comment_33976
That latest comment indicated that Niantic is using past Anomaly attendance/server load as a baseline for Oct 12 needs. A few questions related to this:
-Why did users report this and struggle with issues for hours before Niantic responded to scale up server capacity? Aren't there automated alerts set up? Or dynamic scaling?
-What is Niantic's contingency plan for addressing latency during large events in the future? Will people actually be online and paying attention so players don't have to alert GCM who has to (presumably) wake up the right people to do things?
-Finally, will Niantic commit to refunding tickets for paid participants at this weekend's Anomaly Events (both onsite and offsite) if similar server issues render the game unplayable?
Last year when recursion was rolled out, agents who recursed were assured that they would still receive the year 6 onyx medal, regardless of their current level after recursion. Can you confirm that this will also be the case for the year 7 medal?
When will Ingress Prime exit beta?
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bo9vbt9AfOT/
Just 1 year ago Niantic posted this.
Are you satisfied at the progress you've made over the past 12 months?
What is the status on "rewriting the backend servers"? Last I understood, all data was still being routed through the Shim Servers. Are we nearly done with that process?
Q: When will Pokemon Go players be allowed to review in OPR and are there going to be any special differences between Ingress and PoGo reviewers or the processes they go through to access OPR or do reviews?
Why was I so foolish as to not practice using prime until it was too late?
https://www.instagram.com/p/B3UlWfEF69Q/
At the very top of this image, it reads "NIA vs Nemesis". It seems that there has been a greater emphasis on Players vs [Bad Guys] or individual stats lately, rather than Faction vs Faction. The metrics for Field Test were all individual actions, global shards were xFac, more Anomaly points are related to individual metrics (in aggregate) like Unique Portal Hacks or Media collection vs true PvP competitions. Are there technical limitations involved in the Unity engine or the Real World Platform that make PvP more difficult to scale? Should we anticipate more "coopetitive" play (ie ENL+RES vs [Bad Guys]) in the future? If so, what is your opinion about how that changes the dynamic of the game over against its ~7 year history of Faction emphasis?
Q: Can Portal edits be expanded to the entire country like reviews are?
Q: Are there any indications that OPR is not being used enough in various regions? Can we get an idea of where we can place our bonus area to improve output?
In light of the recent push for "financial sustainability" in the form of charging for Anomaly participation, and other forms of increased monetization and reduction of costs (no swag that requires inventory, no official on-site Niantic presence at anomalies, no 'production value' at anomalies, etc), do you think it was a good choice to spend money on the Ingress Anime, or to rewrite the website to something prettier but less functional (ie the AI portion of the site)?
Alongside that, do you anticipate any significant marketing pushes or advertising to attract new users to the Ingress Prime property, or can we expect the current bleeding of users to continue into the future?
Would painted murals or other hand painted art on Trash Cans in public areas like parks be vialble portal candidates similar to how utility boxes are?
In a recent, AMA community pools were placed on a “not acceptable” list, is there any clarification on this? A lot of the community believe pools promote exercise, similar to a sports field and also work as a community gathering location. I think for the community as a whole to understand we want clarification about why they don’t meet the criteria.
Are there any new plans to help encourage more OPR reviewing with some kind of added incentive other than the badge and upgrades, like CMU per agreement or limited-time events?
Can we please have a comment on the Trusted Reporter program progress and please, some feedback on why spoofers are escaping bans of late?
Also please reassure that spoofing location does not result in only a warning from NIA Ops.
We have carefully reported within the recommended guidelines for multiple obvious spoofers recently and no luck, (even for places like Antarctica).
Thoughts on piers/fishing docks/boat launches at a parks being acceptable portal candidates? They support the ongoing adventure, gathering spots, and exercise. These are used by the community and often very popular locations.
Would NIA be open to allowing players below level 12 access OPR if it were to be reviewing things like only Portal Edits, maybe with some kind of incentives such as upgrades?
There was a recent debate on reddit about “Bridges” being portal candidates. Regular car bridges clearly should not be portals, however what about wooden walking trail bridges throughout a park or nature preserve on the trail/path?
Disc Golf “Frisbee Golf” is set up at a lot of public parks. The debate is if each area for the disc golf should be considered for a portal as they are in a park and more similar to trail markers than they are actual golf holes? Could you please give us your opinion on this?
Q: Will we ever see a reevaluation of sales of items on the Ingress Store? For example, selling R8s and C8s, but not X8s or U8s.
Are there any plans for a "Nightmode" or "Darkmode" option for the forum?
Are there plans in place or bring developed to help grow the player base? Is the priority to reengage older players or bring in new players?
Has the 500AP bonus for additional portal photos been removed or just omitted from the emails?
PORTAL PHOTO REVIEW COMPLETE: <redacted>
Good work, Agent: we’ve accepted your additional photo submission, and this photo is now available on your Scanner. Remember that photos with the most thumbs up votes will become the Portal’s cover photo!
-NianticOps
Can we expect new store items any time soon?
Thoughts on being able to buy more submissions? Doesn't guarantee them being approved though.
Q: There was a Beta team for the Prime pre-launch. What's the chances of having a similar but ongoing Beta team for evaluating items pre-release, to identify bugs and stop them going live, and give feedback on new features like vibration settings?
I feel that communication problems have increased since becoming prime. The server problem was mentioned as a problem. Is there any other countermeasure such as reducing graphics?