We’re kicking off a new article series on the Hub, dubbed “Ingress for Pokemon GO players”, intended on bringing simple and easy to understand information about Niantic’s other game – Ingress. Our regular readers are probably wondering why would they be interested in reading about Ingress on Pokemon GO Hub, and we’ll answer that in a second.
The general idea of this article series is to educate you about Ingress and give our readers an alternative to Pokemon GO on days when you just don’t feel like doing anything that requires constant eye contact with your mobile device. Despite being developed by the same company, Ingress is a completely different game than Pokemon GO. Keep that in mind while reading this article.
Why should a Pokemon GO player consider playing Ingress?
Reasons for a Pokemon GO player to consider playing Ingress:
#1 You can request new Pokestops and Gyms by playing Ingress
Currently, the only way to obtain new Pokestops and Gyms is to reach a high-enough level in Ingress and submit new Portals (Ingress equivalents of Gyms and Stops) using the Ingress Portal submission mechanism. Although this should not be your primary objective, the harsh reality is that majority of regular GO players will pick up Ingress for this reason alone.
In order to unlock the Portal submission mechanism, you need to reach Level 10 in Ingress, which can take anywhere from two weeks to a month, depending on your game play pace.
Further more, to review Portal submissions via the Operation Portal Recon system, you need to get to Level 12 and pass a test (NIA is not joking around), which can take a fair bit longer.
#2 Ingress gets you moving and there are no real in-app purchases in Ingress
True, Pokemon GO was always about moving, but it isn’t the only game that will get you moving. Ingress is designed in such a way that the game essentially sends you on missions and circular routes, which leads to a lot of walking – depending on how far and how complex you want to make your control fields.
Additionally, there are no real in-app purchases in Ingress, and you can play the game literary for free forever. Majority of in-app purchases are event oriented gimmicks and Portal Freckers, which increase the number of items you get from hacking portals (Ingress’ mechanism for obtaining items). The author of this article doesn’t understand why would anyone buy those, and truth be told, no one from my play group understands either.
So, if you’re a free to play Pokemon GO player, Ingress is perfect for you.
#3 Ingress is a perfect companion for GO players
Unlike GO, Ingress revolves around controlling your local territory. A typical Ingress player doesn’t need to look at his device more than a couple of times a day, as there is very little to do between play sessions: there are no random encounters, and there are not many game play mechanisms that require you to interact with the app actively.
Often, to plan your Ingress play sessions (let’s call them missions), you don’t need even need to use your smartphone: Intel Map does the job perfectly fine. Combine that with the relatively slow pace of Ingress’ world, and you have a game that can fit into any schedule, despite being an Augmented Reality game.
This is somewhat hard to describe in words, but if you actively look at your smartphone for 2-3 hours a day playing Pokemon GO, you will certainly appreciate Ingress’ methodical approach to eye sore.
#4 There is no cheating in Ingress
The Ingress community is very strict about ToS breaking in general and multi-accounting, GPS spoofing, win-win trading and other cheating mechanisms are essentially non existent. The community actively reports cheaters, they are super easy to figure out and detect, and Niantic’s staff is actively engaged in the investigation and control processes.
Spoofers are virtually non-existent in Ingress, and with recent actions against map scrappers (Niantic puts a stop to Ingress scraping network: The Brokers Guild downfall) and the removal of the coveted Guardian Medal, other forms of ToS abuse have been heavily reduced.
What is Ingress Prime?
Ingress Prime is an upcoming Ingress update that brings better graphics, a new game client built on the Pokémon GO’s technical client infrastructure (protocol buffers, Unity as engine, Niantic’s fused GPS provider, etc). It’s expected to provide the following:
- Better UI and UX on all existing features
- Better visuals and a complete graphics revamp
Beginners guide to Ingress
If you’re interested in trying Ingress, you should definitely watch this video by Collin Williams:
You can download the game here:
