The dislikes on my comments are a bit depraved tbh, agree to disagree. I’m looking at it in the best context from my point of view. A Pokémon player is going to see this subject in a different context than an ingress player will if you haven’t noticed that already
it’s not a big deal to me either when a submission gets denied, I’m not talking about that though. I have had more success than I have had rejections. That’s beyond the point. My entire conversation has been about fixing ingress portals that are incorrect on my map local to me. I’m not planning on faking anything. My entire conversation has been blown out of context & it’s quite ridiculous to say the least. I’m trying to help make the game better & it seems to me as if someone with multiple accounts is disliking my comments to benefit themself to make it seem as if that’s not what I’m trying to do. We have all worked to get here. We should be able to edit all locations together. Ingress should be equal to those of us that play Pokémon. We’re all doing the same thing trying to make these games better for everyone
I understand that you want to make the games better. As for "Ingress should be equal to those of us who play Pokemon", that's a wonderful fantasy. It would be nice if Ingress got half as much development effort as PoGo does but that's a can of worms that doesn't really belong in the Wayfarer forum.
I don't think you're getting multi-accounters disagreeing with your comments. Rather, I think that there are quite a few players who legitimately disagree with what you are saying as evidenced by the pushback that you have been getting in the discussion. I'm sure you're looking at it from the best context from your point of view but other people have other points of view that are equally legitimate. I don't think it makes sense for PoGo players to make changes to things that don't appear in that particular game. Part of the reason that I think this is a bad idea is that PoGo players have a long history of trying to move wayspots in order to create advantages in PoGo without regard to the impacts they are having on other games. (Did you know that every time you move a portal you break any links that are connected to it? That may be no big deal in most cases but it could occasionally undo hundreds of dollars of investment in getting to a particular location to capture and link a portal.)
Even if some of these edits are made in good faith, there will inevitably be movements that are affecting acceptably placed portals in order to gain more stops, and this can affect the gameplay of Ingress. Links are taken down on successful moves, potentially ruining a well-planned operation.
If the portals need to be corrected to their POI, agents should be the only ones making these suggested edits (as they're the only players who can interact with them, anyway).
If Pokémon were using it’s own entire system to show POI separate from Ingress both games would thrive so much more. Pokémon should not depend on the same maps that ingress uses. I can agree there. That would fix everything entirely.
Ingress development may get better because of Pokémon. Pokémon is breaking major records for best mobile game ever. Niantic has made at least half a billion from it. They need to figure something out fast. I wasn’t saying this for my own benefit. My statements above are triggered at them so they could potentially fix the entire system because I agree it’s massively flawed. I think we all agree there. If they don’t fix it soon. I think Ingress will fall apart because if Pokémon so I agree. Ingress does need some recognition. I’m on your side there. Ingress paved the way for Pokémon. But without Pokémon Niantic doesn’t have the funds to make these games better. Hopefully they get the ball rolling soon before it’s too late
Regardless my views won’t change I think we should be able to either see all of the Ingress portals in Pokémon too or possibly fix the entire system all together. They have the money & resources to do it. This entire discussion about needing to move these portals wouldn’t even be necessary then
So remove all Pokemon Go POI and start from scratch? Why would anybody want that? Without agents, Pokemon Go players would have had no stops, aside from the initial seed portals.
I started playing Pokemon Go, and have many, many agents to thank for their efforts in adding portals. Even if all of them didn't make it into Pokemon, quite a few did, and it made my experience richer.
Now that I'm on the other side of the fence, playing Ingress, I just want to add as many valid portals to the network as possible. Not all of them will make it into Pokemon Go, but I hope the ones that do are thoroughly enjoyed by trainers.
I’m here to help make things better for all of us. I’ll go down with the ship trying to make all of these games better. I may not play ingress but I do have friends that do. I also have friends that play Harry Potter. It’s up to us to make things better. We have to make our voices be heard so they understand what we want. One person can’t do it all.
@BaltiCalling-ING exactly without ingress Pokémon would be nothing. But... without Pokémon Niantic wouldn’t have the funds to make ingress better.
Regardless I agree with you entirely & I understand what you’re saying as well
What needs done is that both games need to have their own separate interfaces. We don’t need to depend on one another. They need to put in the work to make it better. It’s not up to us. It’s up to Niantic
I believe that Pokémon players should be able to edit a portal. Maybe leave it up to ingress players to accept the edit. Something needs done to fix the flawed system. @BaltiCalling-ING Niantic needs to fix the issue where it terminates the links from the portal then. I know a lot about programming. They don’t need to remove links in ingress from portals when editing them. They just do because it’s easier on their end
If you're not able to change your views then there's no reason to try to talk with you.
People should be able to talk, listen to other points of view, argue what's right or wrong with them, check previous comments about the same subject (it might be a surprise, but there are tons of threads about this topic) and then present new evidence that shows what's wrong and finally twist the mind of Niantic and Nintendo's managers in order to change their attitude towards the game that you love so much.
Now imagine that Ingress doesn't exist, that doesn't mean that all the "hidden PoI" will appear automatically in PoGo, the game will remain restricted to the S2 cells rules, so maybe you should change the focus of your energy.
Leveling up in Ingress is quite easy as long as you have a few PoI and some competition, in no time you can reach the level required to edit whatever you want and as a bonus reward you'll get 14 extra nominations to improve your surroundings.
So you can keep on arguing here or play a little that game.
@WheelTrekker-ING I’m not saying no one has their own opinion. I have a right to my own opinion. We all do. I’ve done all of that & more. And I’m positive others have too. No luck because I’m just one person. It takes all of us speaking up. I know about S2 cells. I’m talking about doing away with that or making it where Ingress portals aren’t moved when a Pokémon player makes an edit to a portal. Something can be done & something needs to be done.
I’ve heard that a thousand times before but I’m just not a fan of ingress. It’s just not my cup of tea & im not going to be forced into playing it just to be able to edit a couple portals. It’s not fair. The system just needs fixed. Give ingress & Pokémon their own wayfarer systems. Something/ anything. Carry over the original systems & give Pokémon players the option to edit the portals that aren’t in game. We don’t need to depend on one another anymore. Problem solved. They need to spend some money to get the issues fixed. It will make both platforms far better than they already are
Without using the centralized database that Niantic has right now each game would launch with no wayspots at all. Imagine that you're a brand new Pokemon Go player starting in a brand new Pokemon Go game. There are no Pokestops. There are no gyms. There are no lures because there's nothing to lure. All you can do is catch Pokemon and ... oh, hey, where do you get balls and berries when you run out? There are no stops or gyms around, and you can't even begin to get any until someone in your area levels up to L40. Do you think that would have been a fun game for players? A successful game?
Expecting Niantic to maintain separate databases for each game would be creating an ever-complexifying nightmare for them. There are currently four Niantic games out in the world right now, and who knows how many there will be a year or two from now. Six? Ten? Twenty? If you find something new and cool like that really cool mural on a building in your neighborhood you'd have to go to every single game and submit it, then it would have to be approved in each game-specific version of Wayfarer. (If you had a unified Wayfarer reviewing things that were only for one game you'd constantly get people whining that they shouldn't have to review things for games they don't play.)
There is really no reason that you NEED to edit wayspots in a game that you don't play, and there are plenty of reasons that you shouldn't do that.
no it wouldn’t be fun. That’s why we are appreciative of the work that was done before Pokémon players could submit & we still are appreciative. Niantic has the funds to do anything that we need them to do to make the games better & they should. Not just for you or for me but for all of us. I know you are afraid Ingress will get ruined by Pokémon players, you all are afraid but if they do things the right way. These games could be so much better. You have your opinion & I have mine. If I’m not allowed to have an opinion please don’t comment to me. The topic here with Ingress players is that regardless it’s always going to get pushed to another subject to cover up the real problem at hand. I get it. We all do. To fix that make it where you’re only reviewing for the game you play. 🙄
@TheZodiac007-PGO You're absolutely allowed to have opinions, but other people are also going to have opinions about the things you say. If you're not willing to have rational discussions and listen to other points of view then perhaps discussion forums aren't the place for posting your opinions?
You are right that Niantic has the funds and skills to make games better, and they do that. The disagreement is over whether allowing players to muck with wayspots that don't appear in their game is an improvement or not. You think it is. Others have explained to you why they believe it isn't. To be honest, this whole discussion sounds like a tempest in a teapot.
PoGo is not the only game that can't see portals. HPWU can't either, and I don't think Catan can. If you need evidence I can send you screenshots from the same location in the first three games.
You're mistaken if you think that we're Ingress players just because we used our Ingress account to login into these forums.
I wouldn't be surprised if several of those "Ingress players" have PoGo accounts that are above most of the people that login as PGO and they care about PoGo as much or more than you as they decided to play that game in order to improve their Pokemon experience.
This is why Pokémon players keep quiet & don’t say anything. I guess I’ll just keep my opinions to myself like everyone else. Pokémon players believe that the system is flawed just like I do. We all believe it’s unfair & it is.
@WheelTrekker-ING You chose the ingress account because it’s your game of choice. I care about all of the games. I’ve got friends that play the other games. I’d just rather spend my time playing Pogo. I started off playing ingress honestly. I just feel like Niantic has the funds to make things better for all of us, & they should & others instead of disliking comments to hurt someone’s rating should agree with those comments to try to help get Niantic to fix the issues instead of letting them lie dormant like they will. I’ve heard some people go as far as saying Niantic should remove ingress permanently & go strictly with Pogo. I’d never go that far. It is a great game. We are here to work together. If we hide in the corner they won’t fix the issues though. But if the issues don’t get fixed who knows what could happen next
@Hosette-ING ill clarify better. Pogo can see the least amount of those portals.
Also: There has been a completely mixed reaction it’s not just others against me alone. It’s a mixed reaction completely. Strictly Pogo players more so likely agree with me, strictly ingress players do not & then there’s some in the middle. Everybody has their own opinion regardless. A forum is for discussing like we are. I don’t know where else we could raise awareness like this
So. Long thread, no progress. Here's my general take.
Niantic's one and only "money maker" is their single proprietary database, of a collection of points of interest (now collectively known as "wayspots"). These wayspots are NOT "portals" nor "stops" nor "inns" nor whatever Catan will be calling them -- they are gps-located maps of "interesting" things, FSVO "interesting".
They license this database to other IP holders. Ingress is a special case, in that Niantic itself holds all those IP rights themselves, and can do with it as they will. And they leveraged their Ingress stewardship into growing that database, demonstrating that people wanted and liked to play (relatively) mindless and simplistic games out in the real world, interacting with their peers. AND they use Ingress in order to prototype new technologies, like all the upcoming things with their "portal scanning".
But NOTHING in that database is ever going to be Ingress-exclusive or Pokemon-exclusive. Shredding it into little bits and pieces where nothing in one game ever has even a minor impact on the others? Ain't gonna happen. That dilutes their moneymaker, and makes it more expensive to maintain.
Of their games, I personally spend the most time playing Pokemon Go. Not because I prefer it over the others (I don't), but ... because there's more for me to do in it than the others. Yet I'm also the highest-level player in HPWU in my city, a well-respected member of all the xfac communities in my region, and a fairly frequent commenter in these Wayfarer forums.
I never learned to drive, just a personal choice, didn't care to exacerbate all the bonus weird life issues when your job entails sitting at a desk 8-12 hours a day most days a week. Yet I've created 300+ wayspots in my area (and beyond!), more on the way.
There are Pogo-only locations in my city, such as one that must be from the relatively recent "support local businesses" sponsorship initiative. Am I mad or jealous? Meh. (Although I did ping @NianticCasey-ING at the utter ugliness of the chosen photo which not only included PII -- a license plate! -- but was, of all things, sideways. It'll get fixed or not.)
There are Ingress-only locations in my city, such as in the "sensitive locations" area, a historic cemetery. The city complained, and now everything in there is Ingress-only, no more mad storms of Pogo raiders bothering funerals. Am I mad or jealous? Meh. It's really the city's business (ie. the legal property managers) how they want their land to be used, not mine.
AND there are HPWU-only locations in my city! Due to the weird mechanics of wayspots, a playground was deemed "too close" to the previously existing Ingress portal of the park it was in. And when HPWU was initially seeded, the automated system picked the hidden wayspot, at the expense of using the Ingress/Pogo-visible one instead. So now nobody playing either game can effect any changes, including (should it ever be required) renaming it, removing it, adding updated pictures, etc. Am I mad or jealous? Meh. At worst I know how to contact people who can make those changes for me, via these forums and/or messaging poor overworked Casey.
But Niantic has a few fairly strict rules about placement and movement of wayspots, perhaps not explicitly documented, but certainly it's still "findable" information if you're willing to do deepdives of these forums, or (like some of us including @Hosette-ING), we've been paying attention to these forums (and their OPR predecessors) for quite a few years now. These include:
Only place a wayspot's GPS at its actual physical location; doing otherwise is considered abuse, which can lead to repercussions against your account(s)
A wayspot may be large enough that there is no fundamentally specific "correct" location. ie. place the gps at a church's front door? at its sign? at the cross/steeple? in the dead centre of the building? All are correct
Trying to move a wayspot from one correct gps location to a different "also correct" location is generally considered "shenanigans", and is also potentially considered "abuse"
Moving a wayspot from an incorrect spot to a correct one is encouraged. If you are unable to do that in-app (because the movement is more than 10m), then they have created a mechanism in these forums where you appeal directly to Niantic staff to move the wayspot for you. Their answer may still be "no".
Even if you cannot see a wayspot that is exclusive to a game you don't play, Niantic staff themselves have actually suggested that one uses an Ingress account. You don't have to play the game in order to see how other wayspots are physically laid out. And indeed, if you are using any of the never-publicly-acknowledged-as-"legal"-by-Niantic "IITC" apps, you are already doing just that.
At its heart, even with its immense-to-us "profits", Niantic itself is still a small development company.
@WheelTrekker-ING I said people were in between. I should have explained that better. There has to be a reason for the ingress account choice though especially if Pogo is your go to
@0X00FF00-ING I agree with what you have to say & I understand. Possibly what I’m thinking is Niantic’s responsibility possibly may not be then. Who knows? I just wish for all of us they could just fix the minor hiccups. Whomever is in control. This will blow your mind but I’ve too have been in and out of these forums as well. I’ve seen some where some of you have commented years ago where I was commenting. I’ve helped submit probably close to 1,000 locations. Around 500 myself. I’ve submitted almost everywhere around me in a 20 mile radius. I just sometimes find it too much & feel like we should all receive the benefits of those POI. Maybe someday we will be able to. I will just have hope
I apologize @Hosette-ING@WheelTrekker-ING & anyone else who is offended. I technically just want to raise awareness, for all of us. Thank you for your comments regardless whether I agree with you or not.
It's important to remove focus from just PoGo and acknowledge that each of the four Ninatic games each have their own rules from the database.
The location might be correct, but not showing in one or two games for example, but it doesn't mean it won't appear in the other games. Making changes with a focus on just PoGo will affect the other games, either benefit them or be an adverse change. Therefore, there is no right or wrong.
Ultimately, the Wayspots were accepted into whatever position they are now because the community/Niantic agreed that is the correct location (not counting the seed Wayspots). Wanting to move them now for the benefit of one game will either mean the location will become inaccurate (unless elected by the community) or will have changes in other games.
Niantic have their reasons why each game has different spacing rules and it's important to respect that. Now if the location is totally off, go ahead and correct it, if it appears in a game, then great, if not, then it might appear in a different one. Many different games, many different rules, many different players.
And for the record, I play all four games, so I have no game-bias, just a bias towards ensuring things are correct.
First person I’ve seen say that. Thank you for your comment @oscarc1-ING. There are only two I want to move & im positive they will get accepted through the form. They’re that messed up
@TheZodiac007-PGO Thank you. I was not offended, just slightly frustrated that it didn't seem like you were interested in hearing the other side.
I well and truly understand being frustrated that Niantic has designed a system sub-optimally. I've been playing Niantic's games very heavily since December 2013, including PoGo since it was in beta, and I've invested quite a lot of time and energy in running events and working with Niantic on ways to make the games better. One of the advantages of living in the San Francisco bay area is that I know several people who work or worked at Niantic, and I've had quite a few conversations with the CEO... and we have a long-standing friendly Ingress rivalry. I've had quite a few chats with Niantic over the years about problem areas and how to improve them.
One of the things that I've learned from this is perspective. If I was primarily or exclusively a PoGo player (currently L41 but I don't find the game that interesting) I would probably be a little bit annoyed that I couldn't fix things that weren't live in PoGo. However, on a scale of 1-10 on the issues that I would prioritize for the game I'd make that about a 2. For Wayfarer I'd rank it well behind local cabals making their own rules and multi-accounters putting their thumbs on the review scales. Both of those things cause things to be reviewed unfairly and can have serious impact on local areas. Well, on the rules as a whole, as it turns out. If it wasn't for local cabals cheating the system we would still be able to move things more than ten meters.
Here's a funny photo as a peace offering... it's my team from Operation Clear Field in Oakland California, August 2017. That's me taking the photo with John Hanke's green bandanna hiding my pink hair, and that's John in the back wearing my blue Resistance scarf and looking exuberant after just having bought ice cream for all of us. The joke is that John's on the green team and I'm on the blue one, and rivalries in Ingress can be strong. I jokingly put the scarf around his neck when he joined the team and he said "I'm not wearing that!" then rummaged around in his backpack for the bandanna and added, "unless you'll wear this." I called is bluff and we spent the night flying the other team's colors while cleaning up the area and making donations to a food bank. It was great good fun. There has never been anyone more enthusiastic about cleaning up a park than John... he was running ahead of the team picking up all of the trash before any of us could get to it.
Comments
The dislikes on my comments are a bit depraved tbh, agree to disagree. I’m looking at it in the best context from my point of view. A Pokémon player is going to see this subject in a different context than an ingress player will if you haven’t noticed that already
it’s not a big deal to me either when a submission gets denied, I’m not talking about that though. I have had more success than I have had rejections. That’s beyond the point. My entire conversation has been about fixing ingress portals that are incorrect on my map local to me. I’m not planning on faking anything. My entire conversation has been blown out of context & it’s quite ridiculous to say the least. I’m trying to help make the game better & it seems to me as if someone with multiple accounts is disliking my comments to benefit themself to make it seem as if that’s not what I’m trying to do. We have all worked to get here. We should be able to edit all locations together. Ingress should be equal to those of us that play Pokémon. We’re all doing the same thing trying to make these games better for everyone
I understand that you want to make the games better. As for "Ingress should be equal to those of us who play Pokemon", that's a wonderful fantasy. It would be nice if Ingress got half as much development effort as PoGo does but that's a can of worms that doesn't really belong in the Wayfarer forum.
I don't think you're getting multi-accounters disagreeing with your comments. Rather, I think that there are quite a few players who legitimately disagree with what you are saying as evidenced by the pushback that you have been getting in the discussion. I'm sure you're looking at it from the best context from your point of view but other people have other points of view that are equally legitimate. I don't think it makes sense for PoGo players to make changes to things that don't appear in that particular game. Part of the reason that I think this is a bad idea is that PoGo players have a long history of trying to move wayspots in order to create advantages in PoGo without regard to the impacts they are having on other games. (Did you know that every time you move a portal you break any links that are connected to it? That may be no big deal in most cases but it could occasionally undo hundreds of dollars of investment in getting to a particular location to capture and link a portal.)
No.
This is a horrible idea.
Even if some of these edits are made in good faith, there will inevitably be movements that are affecting acceptably placed portals in order to gain more stops, and this can affect the gameplay of Ingress. Links are taken down on successful moves, potentially ruining a well-planned operation.
If the portals need to be corrected to their POI, agents should be the only ones making these suggested edits (as they're the only players who can interact with them, anyway).
If Pokémon were using it’s own entire system to show POI separate from Ingress both games would thrive so much more. Pokémon should not depend on the same maps that ingress uses. I can agree there. That would fix everything entirely.
I understand your statement about moving portals, none of the portals I am intending on moving are captured or linked
Ingress development may get better because of Pokémon. Pokémon is breaking major records for best mobile game ever. Niantic has made at least half a billion from it. They need to figure something out fast. I wasn’t saying this for my own benefit. My statements above are triggered at them so they could potentially fix the entire system because I agree it’s massively flawed. I think we all agree there. If they don’t fix it soon. I think Ingress will fall apart because if Pokémon so I agree. Ingress does need some recognition. I’m on your side there. Ingress paved the way for Pokémon. But without Pokémon Niantic doesn’t have the funds to make these games better. Hopefully they get the ball rolling soon before it’s too late
Regardless my views won’t change I think we should be able to either see all of the Ingress portals in Pokémon too or possibly fix the entire system all together. They have the money & resources to do it. This entire discussion about needing to move these portals wouldn’t even be necessary then
So remove all Pokemon Go POI and start from scratch? Why would anybody want that? Without agents, Pokemon Go players would have had no stops, aside from the initial seed portals.
I started playing Pokemon Go, and have many, many agents to thank for their efforts in adding portals. Even if all of them didn't make it into Pokemon, quite a few did, and it made my experience richer.
Now that I'm on the other side of the fence, playing Ingress, I just want to add as many valid portals to the network as possible. Not all of them will make it into Pokemon Go, but I hope the ones that do are thoroughly enjoyed by trainers.
I’m here to help make things better for all of us. I’ll go down with the ship trying to make all of these games better. I may not play ingress but I do have friends that do. I also have friends that play Harry Potter. It’s up to us to make things better. We have to make our voices be heard so they understand what we want. One person can’t do it all.
@BaltiCalling-ING exactly without ingress Pokémon would be nothing. But... without Pokémon Niantic wouldn’t have the funds to make ingress better.
Regardless I agree with you entirely & I understand what you’re saying as well
What needs done is that both games need to have their own separate interfaces. We don’t need to depend on one another. They need to put in the work to make it better. It’s not up to us. It’s up to Niantic
I believe that Pokémon players should be able to edit a portal. Maybe leave it up to ingress players to accept the edit. Something needs done to fix the flawed system. @BaltiCalling-ING Niantic needs to fix the issue where it terminates the links from the portal then. I know a lot about programming. They don’t need to remove links in ingress from portals when editing them. They just do because it’s easier on their end
If you're not able to change your views then there's no reason to try to talk with you.
People should be able to talk, listen to other points of view, argue what's right or wrong with them, check previous comments about the same subject (it might be a surprise, but there are tons of threads about this topic) and then present new evidence that shows what's wrong and finally twist the mind of Niantic and Nintendo's managers in order to change their attitude towards the game that you love so much.
Now imagine that Ingress doesn't exist, that doesn't mean that all the "hidden PoI" will appear automatically in PoGo, the game will remain restricted to the S2 cells rules, so maybe you should change the focus of your energy.
Leveling up in Ingress is quite easy as long as you have a few PoI and some competition, in no time you can reach the level required to edit whatever you want and as a bonus reward you'll get 14 extra nominations to improve your surroundings.
So you can keep on arguing here or play a little that game.
@WheelTrekker-ING I’m not saying no one has their own opinion. I have a right to my own opinion. We all do. I’ve done all of that & more. And I’m positive others have too. No luck because I’m just one person. It takes all of us speaking up. I know about S2 cells. I’m talking about doing away with that or making it where Ingress portals aren’t moved when a Pokémon player makes an edit to a portal. Something can be done & something needs to be done.
I’ve heard that a thousand times before but I’m just not a fan of ingress. It’s just not my cup of tea & im not going to be forced into playing it just to be able to edit a couple portals. It’s not fair. The system just needs fixed. Give ingress & Pokémon their own wayfarer systems. Something/ anything. Carry over the original systems & give Pokémon players the option to edit the portals that aren’t in game. We don’t need to depend on one another anymore. Problem solved. They need to spend some money to get the issues fixed. It will make both platforms far better than they already are
@TheZodiac007-PGO
Without using the centralized database that Niantic has right now each game would launch with no wayspots at all. Imagine that you're a brand new Pokemon Go player starting in a brand new Pokemon Go game. There are no Pokestops. There are no gyms. There are no lures because there's nothing to lure. All you can do is catch Pokemon and ... oh, hey, where do you get balls and berries when you run out? There are no stops or gyms around, and you can't even begin to get any until someone in your area levels up to L40. Do you think that would have been a fun game for players? A successful game?
Expecting Niantic to maintain separate databases for each game would be creating an ever-complexifying nightmare for them. There are currently four Niantic games out in the world right now, and who knows how many there will be a year or two from now. Six? Ten? Twenty? If you find something new and cool like that really cool mural on a building in your neighborhood you'd have to go to every single game and submit it, then it would have to be approved in each game-specific version of Wayfarer. (If you had a unified Wayfarer reviewing things that were only for one game you'd constantly get people whining that they shouldn't have to review things for games they don't play.)
There is really no reason that you NEED to edit wayspots in a game that you don't play, and there are plenty of reasons that you shouldn't do that.
no it wouldn’t be fun. That’s why we are appreciative of the work that was done before Pokémon players could submit & we still are appreciative. Niantic has the funds to do anything that we need them to do to make the games better & they should. Not just for you or for me but for all of us. I know you are afraid Ingress will get ruined by Pokémon players, you all are afraid but if they do things the right way. These games could be so much better. You have your opinion & I have mine. If I’m not allowed to have an opinion please don’t comment to me. The topic here with Ingress players is that regardless it’s always going to get pushed to another subject to cover up the real problem at hand. I get it. We all do. To fix that make it where you’re only reviewing for the game you play. 🙄
Pokémon is the only one that can’t see the portals
@TheZodiac007-PGO You're absolutely allowed to have opinions, but other people are also going to have opinions about the things you say. If you're not willing to have rational discussions and listen to other points of view then perhaps discussion forums aren't the place for posting your opinions?
You are right that Niantic has the funds and skills to make games better, and they do that. The disagreement is over whether allowing players to muck with wayspots that don't appear in their game is an improvement or not. You think it is. Others have explained to you why they believe it isn't. To be honest, this whole discussion sounds like a tempest in a teapot.
PoGo is not the only game that can't see portals. HPWU can't either, and I don't think Catan can. If you need evidence I can send you screenshots from the same location in the first three games.
You're mistaken if you think that we're Ingress players just because we used our Ingress account to login into these forums.
I wouldn't be surprised if several of those "Ingress players" have PoGo accounts that are above most of the people that login as PGO and they care about PoGo as much or more than you as they decided to play that game in order to improve their Pokemon experience.
This is why Pokémon players keep quiet & don’t say anything. I guess I’ll just keep my opinions to myself like everyone else. Pokémon players believe that the system is flawed just like I do. We all believe it’s unfair & it is.
@WheelTrekker-ING You chose the ingress account because it’s your game of choice. I care about all of the games. I’ve got friends that play the other games. I’d just rather spend my time playing Pogo. I started off playing ingress honestly. I just feel like Niantic has the funds to make things better for all of us, & they should & others instead of disliking comments to hurt someone’s rating should agree with those comments to try to help get Niantic to fix the issues instead of letting them lie dormant like they will. I’ve heard some people go as far as saying Niantic should remove ingress permanently & go strictly with Pogo. I’d never go that far. It is a great game. We are here to work together. If we hide in the corner they won’t fix the issues though. But if the issues don’t get fixed who knows what could happen next
@Hosette-ING ill clarify better. Pogo can see the least amount of those portals.
Also: There has been a completely mixed reaction it’s not just others against me alone. It’s a mixed reaction completely. Strictly Pogo players more so likely agree with me, strictly ingress players do not & then there’s some in the middle. Everybody has their own opinion regardless. A forum is for discussing like we are. I don’t know where else we could raise awareness like this
Maybe eventually the issue will be addressed and something will come of it. Let’s leave it at that shall we
Wrong. I don't play Ingress.
Try again.
So. Long thread, no progress. Here's my general take.
Niantic's one and only "money maker" is their single proprietary database, of a collection of points of interest (now collectively known as "wayspots"). These wayspots are NOT "portals" nor "stops" nor "inns" nor whatever Catan will be calling them -- they are gps-located maps of "interesting" things, FSVO "interesting".
They license this database to other IP holders. Ingress is a special case, in that Niantic itself holds all those IP rights themselves, and can do with it as they will. And they leveraged their Ingress stewardship into growing that database, demonstrating that people wanted and liked to play (relatively) mindless and simplistic games out in the real world, interacting with their peers. AND they use Ingress in order to prototype new technologies, like all the upcoming things with their "portal scanning".
But NOTHING in that database is ever going to be Ingress-exclusive or Pokemon-exclusive. Shredding it into little bits and pieces where nothing in one game ever has even a minor impact on the others? Ain't gonna happen. That dilutes their moneymaker, and makes it more expensive to maintain.
Of their games, I personally spend the most time playing Pokemon Go. Not because I prefer it over the others (I don't), but ... because there's more for me to do in it than the others. Yet I'm also the highest-level player in HPWU in my city, a well-respected member of all the xfac communities in my region, and a fairly frequent commenter in these Wayfarer forums.
I never learned to drive, just a personal choice, didn't care to exacerbate all the bonus weird life issues when your job entails sitting at a desk 8-12 hours a day most days a week. Yet I've created 300+ wayspots in my area (and beyond!), more on the way.
There are Pogo-only locations in my city, such as one that must be from the relatively recent "support local businesses" sponsorship initiative. Am I mad or jealous? Meh. (Although I did ping @NianticCasey-ING at the utter ugliness of the chosen photo which not only included PII -- a license plate! -- but was, of all things, sideways. It'll get fixed or not.)
There are Ingress-only locations in my city, such as in the "sensitive locations" area, a historic cemetery. The city complained, and now everything in there is Ingress-only, no more mad storms of Pogo raiders bothering funerals. Am I mad or jealous? Meh. It's really the city's business (ie. the legal property managers) how they want their land to be used, not mine.
AND there are HPWU-only locations in my city! Due to the weird mechanics of wayspots, a playground was deemed "too close" to the previously existing Ingress portal of the park it was in. And when HPWU was initially seeded, the automated system picked the hidden wayspot, at the expense of using the Ingress/Pogo-visible one instead. So now nobody playing either game can effect any changes, including (should it ever be required) renaming it, removing it, adding updated pictures, etc. Am I mad or jealous? Meh. At worst I know how to contact people who can make those changes for me, via these forums and/or messaging poor overworked Casey.
But Niantic has a few fairly strict rules about placement and movement of wayspots, perhaps not explicitly documented, but certainly it's still "findable" information if you're willing to do deepdives of these forums, or (like some of us including @Hosette-ING), we've been paying attention to these forums (and their OPR predecessors) for quite a few years now. These include:
At its heart, even with its immense-to-us "profits", Niantic itself is still a small development company.
@WheelTrekker-ING I said people were in between. I should have explained that better. There has to be a reason for the ingress account choice though especially if Pogo is your go to
@0X00FF00-ING I agree with what you have to say & I understand. Possibly what I’m thinking is Niantic’s responsibility possibly may not be then. Who knows? I just wish for all of us they could just fix the minor hiccups. Whomever is in control. This will blow your mind but I’ve too have been in and out of these forums as well. I’ve seen some where some of you have commented years ago where I was commenting. I’ve helped submit probably close to 1,000 locations. Around 500 myself. I’ve submitted almost everywhere around me in a 20 mile radius. I just sometimes find it too much & feel like we should all receive the benefits of those POI. Maybe someday we will be able to. I will just have hope
I apologize @Hosette-ING @WheelTrekker-ING & anyone else who is offended. I technically just want to raise awareness, for all of us. Thank you for your comments regardless whether I agree with you or not.
It's important to remove focus from just PoGo and acknowledge that each of the four Ninatic games each have their own rules from the database.
The location might be correct, but not showing in one or two games for example, but it doesn't mean it won't appear in the other games. Making changes with a focus on just PoGo will affect the other games, either benefit them or be an adverse change. Therefore, there is no right or wrong.
Ultimately, the Wayspots were accepted into whatever position they are now because the community/Niantic agreed that is the correct location (not counting the seed Wayspots). Wanting to move them now for the benefit of one game will either mean the location will become inaccurate (unless elected by the community) or will have changes in other games.
Niantic have their reasons why each game has different spacing rules and it's important to respect that. Now if the location is totally off, go ahead and correct it, if it appears in a game, then great, if not, then it might appear in a different one. Many different games, many different rules, many different players.
And for the record, I play all four games, so I have no game-bias, just a bias towards ensuring things are correct.
First person I’ve seen say that. Thank you for your comment @oscarc1-ING. There are only two I want to move & im positive they will get accepted through the form. They’re that messed up
@TheZodiac007-PGO Thank you. I was not offended, just slightly frustrated that it didn't seem like you were interested in hearing the other side.
I well and truly understand being frustrated that Niantic has designed a system sub-optimally. I've been playing Niantic's games very heavily since December 2013, including PoGo since it was in beta, and I've invested quite a lot of time and energy in running events and working with Niantic on ways to make the games better. One of the advantages of living in the San Francisco bay area is that I know several people who work or worked at Niantic, and I've had quite a few conversations with the CEO... and we have a long-standing friendly Ingress rivalry. I've had quite a few chats with Niantic over the years about problem areas and how to improve them.
One of the things that I've learned from this is perspective. If I was primarily or exclusively a PoGo player (currently L41 but I don't find the game that interesting) I would probably be a little bit annoyed that I couldn't fix things that weren't live in PoGo. However, on a scale of 1-10 on the issues that I would prioritize for the game I'd make that about a 2. For Wayfarer I'd rank it well behind local cabals making their own rules and multi-accounters putting their thumbs on the review scales. Both of those things cause things to be reviewed unfairly and can have serious impact on local areas. Well, on the rules as a whole, as it turns out. If it wasn't for local cabals cheating the system we would still be able to move things more than ten meters.
Here's a funny photo as a peace offering... it's my team from Operation Clear Field in Oakland California, August 2017. That's me taking the photo with John Hanke's green bandanna hiding my pink hair, and that's John in the back wearing my blue Resistance scarf and looking exuberant after just having bought ice cream for all of us. The joke is that John's on the green team and I'm on the blue one, and rivalries in Ingress can be strong. I jokingly put the scarf around his neck when he joined the team and he said "I'm not wearing that!" then rummaged around in his backpack for the bandanna and added, "unless you'll wear this." I called is bluff and we spent the night flying the other team's colors while cleaning up the area and making donations to a food bank. It was great good fun. There has never been anyone more enthusiastic about cleaning up a park than John... he was running ahead of the team picking up all of the trash before any of us could get to it.
@Hosette-ING Also, you’re welcome. Thank you as well for being so cool