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Joining Ingress has been a bit of a pain. You need an invitation and the game has been in beta for almost a year now. It’s about time we start seeing the augmented reality app taking it’s next steps and that is exactly what is going on. Google is taking Ingress out of beta!
Everyone can join Ingress!
Ingress exits beta on December 14, 2013, but that is not the most exciting piece of nows. Starting today, everyone can actually join the fun! There is no longer an invite requirement in order to play Ingress. Simply go to the Google Play Store, download the app and play away!
Contests and prizes
Niantic Labs took advantage of this eventful announcement to also give us some details on their upcoming contests and challenges. First, there is the ‘Founder Medal’, in which all of those who reach level 5 by Dec. 14 will get an exclusive medal. Pretty cool badge to carry around!
There is also the Ingress Elite V challenge, in which all Ingress agents will be able to vote for the best 5 Ingress users in the world. Those who win this will get a trip to California for what they are calling “top secret Ingress briefings”, as well as an interview with Ingress’ Susanna Moyer.
And there is also the larger event, 13 Magnus. The idea is that Enlightened agent want to resurrect their leader, Roland Jarvis. To do this, they must find the 13 Jarvis Shards, but Resistance Agents will do everything they can to destroy them. These shards will be all over the world. (You can read more about dates and locations at Ingress’ post).
Start playing!
As mentioned above, you can now download Ingress from the Google Play Store and play with no invitation! If you are still loving Ingress, you can check it out and try to participate in these cool events. As for me, I am not as excited about the game anymore. Do you guys still play?
[Ingress]
Too bad for Ingress, but my interest’s in digress.
This is not the way digress is used in context. Unless your in a debate a wavering from a topic digress shouldn’t be used. Most common way is, “Hey look at that squirrel over there, and I digress.” Meaning, you strayed off topic and now you’re returning to the main topic, or you can say, “Let me digress for a moment…”
I had hoped they’d find a way to actually make it fun before leaving beta. Stupid game with no point. I jump on maybe once every 3 or 4 weeks just to see if people still play. Where I live there used to be around a hundred. Seems like there’s maybe 5 now.
I saw my last “Hacking Acquired No Items” on Oct 29th. I’m done. Good luck to all the new players though. best part about it is being social, SO BE SOCIAL!
Downloaded it. :)
This game requires you to move around too much. LoL!! I was playing in the beta and I was like “goodness!!”
I never road my bike so much in my life before. I need to start back up again.
I didn’t think it was that hard to get an invite. I got mine months ago, played a bit, but I had to travel too much since I live in the burbs. I may try it again now that it’s off beta.
I play Ingress occasionally, but I’ve never found solutions to my two fears:
1) Walking around a city & staring at a phone seems like a great way to get mugged.
2) Ingress is possibly the quickest way to kill a battery (as it uses the screen + GPS constantly).
You need a portable charger. Mine is 13000mah and is less than $50 on Amazon.
Yeah, I bought a charger, then I got a new phone with bigger battery. Walked a ton, seen places I’d never noticed in the city. It was a good beginning of the summer. But once you hit L8 there’s really no point in the game. Simply no fun any more. Even with events. Even with team play. It’s just sad seeing a big crowd of dorks staring at their phones and wandering around. Or even more sad, the dorks that monitor their portals for months, hoping to get some actions. No more, thank you. Until Google changes the balance and re-purpose the fields, there’s really nothing to do in the grid.
Sure there’s a point. Keeping your area fielded and under your control, visiting as many portals as you can, finding new portals to submit, keep playing to achieve as high of badge level as possible. If you really think once you hit L8 there’s nothing to do then you don’t understand the point of the game.
I live and work in the area where fields and portals change hands several times a day. Until having the area fielded starts to have a continuous negative effect of counter faction (decreases loot chances, slows down XM collection, you name it), there is no point in running around to keep them up.
I have an HTC One :-/
Either get an extended battery for your phone or get an external battery pack that you plug into your phone with a wire. The game certainly chews through the battery no doubt about that.
When I play I constantly look up and around over my shoulder to see who’s standing near me. If someone shifty is near me I just stop playing for the time being and stare them down. Also carrying a big knife can help alleviate some fears if you’re not a big guy.
Typo in second paragraph. Nows = news.
Wtf am I going to discover in a town of 1200 people?
The truth that 1200 people are out to kill you.
reality sucks…id rather stare at it through a phone???