November 17, 2012 at 05:25A small overview of Ingress or how to privatize attractions
Introduction
When I woke up this morning I saw on my phone an invitation to participate in the exclusive beta testing of Ingress. By filling out the letter and the name of the sender of “Niantic Project Operations”, I immediately remembered about this post and thought that I invited everyone. First of all, I copied the invitation code and went to the market for the application. At the first start, he offers to choose an account from existing ones on the phone. I was not asked the code anywhere, which cast doubt on the limitations of this event. After this, training begins, but nowhere is this said, which instantly confused me. At this point, it seemed to me that the whole point of the game in the missions was "go there, do this." When it dawned on me that this was a “training” mode, I was already starting to open this post, comments to which prompted me to write this review.
Technical side of the application
Let's start with the bad
It should be noted right away that these problems are possible exclusively on my device (HTC One X, custom firmware).
My first discovery was the launch of the application when the Internet signal was lost. Without notifications, the application instantly crashes, offering to send a report to the developers. Perhaps this is due to something else, because this was only a few times, later wrote "No Data Connection". If you start when there is no connection, then there will be either a black screen or the message “Secure connection could not be established! Please try againg ”with the“ Try ”button, when clicked, the application closes in any case, is there Internet or not.
The next disappointment was the problem with taking screenshots. Periodically, after the next screenshot, the map disappears. There is an interface and sound, but there is no card, only restarting helps. Also, after each screenshot, the gps signal disappears, which causes some problems.
Inability to simultaneously listen to music and use the application. Even if you turn off all sounds in Ingress, there is constantly intergalactic interference, possibly a feature.
Huge battery consumption. Three hours more was spent per hour of use than when watching a movie (~ 90 minutes). Perhaps the cold affected, I can not guarantee.
I like!
Card design. It is wonderful. Simple, beautiful, elegant. When the gps signal is lost, interference starts across the screen. In a suit, you can pass for Bond, if others do not know about this game.
Chat You can choose at what distance messages will be received. The choice is made between 20/200 kilometers and the whole world. There is still the opportunity to write both in a general chat, and only for your faction.
The ability to complete any training mission whenever you want. If you missed or forgot something - do not be discouraged, you can always fill these gaps.
The fun is just beginning
So, after the first launch, training begins, as I mentioned.
On the left is the download, on the right is the start of the first mission.
In the first mission, training on collecting XM (Exotic Matter) occurs. This is local mana. For it, hacking objects, installing resonators and attacking other people's objects. It is collected by itself, if it is included in your permissible radius (approximately 30-35 meters). At the first level, the maximum margin is 3000XM.
Given that the training is not interesting, and hardly anyone reads my words, we will immediately proceed to the fighting. We put on a
At the time of the choice, it seemed to me that the Enlightened Ones were the dark side, striving to take over the planet, according to popular belief, they always have cookies. Without hesitation, he came to them, always wanted to try himself in the role of a villain.
First of all, I decided to check the chat and saw such a funny picture.
Almost everyone who launched the application within a radius of 200 km did not understand what they were talking about and how they got here, which caused me surprise.
Let's move on to capturing points. My first point with the possibility of capture was the metro station.
In general, everything is simple. We select the portal on the map, press the "Hack" button and wait. If everything went well, then a list of items received for this hack is displayed. If not, 300 seconds to reload this object until the next hack is possible. After a successful attempt, we climb with interest to check the inventory. I got one resonator of the first level, XMP Burster (used to attack enemy portals) and the Portal Key on this object. From the second time, 5 resonators of 2 levels, 3 of the first and the mystical Pandora thing got. I will talk about it at the end of the article.
The game has 8 levels of things. The higher the level, the better the item. Resonators have more energy, XMP Burster increases the range of impact and there may be damage, this must be checked. The player has no right to use items whose level is higher than the level of the character.
On the next tab, you can check the status of the fractions at the moment. Until now, with a huge margin, the "Enlightened" lead. At the time of writing this proposal, the “Rebels” have 7.8 thousand of the controlled population, while the “Enlightened” have as many as 20 thousand.
After placing at least one resonator, you are recorded as the owner, and the portal goes to the faction’s possessions. After a while I ran to nearby places and began an active capture. Having decided that the closest place to me for a more detailed study would be either Arbat or the Ploshchad Revolyutsii metro, I went to the second address, grabbing a friend. It was cold enough outside, so we survived only an hour of
Upon leaving the metro, we looked around and went towards the Kremlin, since there was a huge cluster of portals. At first everything suited me, but a little later I noticed a catch. In the vicinity of 10 meters there were approximately 5-7 monuments to Zhukov, which undoubtedly upsets. The entire portal capture scheme follows the same scenario: Hack -> Deploy Resonator -> Hack -> Hack, and so on until the hacking fails. In most cases, I threw only one resonator per object, collecting for further investigation.
After 50 minutes of routine actions, the battery began to refuse me and the center of Moscow acquired the following form:
Monuments to Zhukov are not unique, repetitions are present in many cases, however this does not prevent them from being privatized. Around the middle of the trip, he got the second level. When going through all these places, I liked three objects with beautiful photographs and adequate names. So with them I decided to practice.
We fill the "Red Square" on all 8 resonators and improve some of them. I would improve everything, but the second-level resonators abruptly ended.
We are also improving the Kazan Cathedral and the Historical Museum, connecting them with the Red Square, and then with each other. We got a whole field inside this triangle. Why is this necessary and what are the benefits so far known to one developer and a group of furious fans. This is where my acquaintance ended. I was not able to try to recapture the ownership of another’s faction, as Godless wanted , because there are few activists in Moscow and I haven’t found other people's portals.
Easter eggs
In the middle of the article, I mentioned Pandora. After hacking objects, there is a chance that additional materials will fall out. I got about 8 pieces, unique of which only three: Pandora , Replicated and Enlightenment .
Conclusion
In my opinion, the project is very interesting, it makes you move your legs, but it requires a lot of time for players. Thanks for attention!
UPD Overweight has changed in one morning. The rebels are leading with the number of 63 thousand controlled population against 27.5. This morning they began to destroy my resonators at Bauman, a couple of resonators fell under this onslaught, but the portals themselves survived. A letter was sent to every mailbox that was destroyed. Thanks to caezar for the explanation .