Farmer e- and the nine course meal

This post was mostly written on May 3 after an evening of Ingress and socialization with the local Resistance but between my phone and the blog, it got garbled as a draft and lost.

Thankfully, I had a list of folks in-game names from Google Keep and it did its job and kept them for me so I can recreate this entry!

On April 29, I met up with a handful of Ingress agents to build a small Level 8 farm in the Children's Area at Golden Gate Park.  We met at the carousel and since we didn't have enough Level 8 agents, we built a Level 7 farm and distributed Hint water redemption passcodes across a network connection.

After the event ended, I took a nice continued walk with gundamxx123 who I have a lot in common with.  We both work in similar fields and "talk the same talk" and we both are really responding to the social aspects of Ingress.

As Level 8 agents, the game is no longer an attempt to grab action points.  It becomes more about mentoring lower level agents and building farms.  To build high level farms, you need a group of high level players.  Even a Level 8 agent is limited to deploying one level 8 resonator on a portal.  That means to build a level 8 portal, you need 8 Level 8 agents.

While walking with gundamxx123, we decided that for the next Ingress meetup, we wanted to do something a bit different.  We wanted to organize an event where we all sat down and had a nice dinner and the farming and hacking and battling was a secondary event that occurred in addition to a nice meal where we could sit and socialize.

It didn't surprise me that I got an event invitation the next day for a dinner event at New Sun Hong Kong Restaurant along the border of Chinatown and North Beach, which also has the important attributes of a) being an active Ingress portal, b) being surrounded in close proximity by several other portals and c) able to host a big party of people at nice round tables.

When we initially talked about the event, gundamxx123 and I expected a handful of folks to respond and maybe a few would even show up.  Even if it was just the two of us, we'd still have had a small dinner and farmed a bit.

We ended up with eleven people, two agents celebrating birthdays and a nine course meal!

Level 7 agents, Allissasaurus and Aleckazam, I had met before while building a farm at Colma Cemetaries.  They brought along a friend to help celebrate Aleckazam's birthday but he was sadly an iPhone user.  thecatspaws was also a Level 7 agent, reaching Level 8 a short time later and participating in a all-female Level 8 portal farming project on May 5.

The rest of the table was filled with seven Level 8 agents, one shy of being able to build a Level 8 farm.  In addition to gundamxx123, we were joined by cynja, dikexin, zakuma, SwerveMMF and AndreRiskManager, a semi-retired agent who was also celebrating his birthday.

By the time the entire party had arrived, at least Andre and I were pretty hungry.  Andre lead the ordering and we ended up with roast peking duck, hunan style shredded pork, Mongolian beef, Moo Goo Gai Pan, Black Mushroom with Green Vegetables, Chow Mein, baked clams in black bean sauce, sizzling rice soup, stir fried filet of rock cod, many pots of tea and water.

During our dinner, in addition to Ingress we talked about movies, with me sharing a registration link to a Star Trek screening for IT professionals, sports, other video games, smartphone deals, places to park in the city for cheap, two agents' upcoming wedding, Google I/O and several other topics.  It was like having dinner with old friends except I'd only met three people at the table before and really only had a full conversation with one.

It was a great meal.  We did a significant volume of item exchanges at the table and zakuma gave out 5GB Dropbox codes.  That came in handy.

After around four hours of eating and socializing, the party wrapped up.  I thought it was a great success.  We dubbed the event "Operation Peking Duck" and joked that the next one should be "Operation Pad Thai".  Eventually, we decided on Mission Bowling Club for our next dinner and a farm event and I would be planning that one.

That particular meetup is scheduled for May 21.

Once the party wrapped up, gundamxx123 drove us over to the Haight and we "said hello" to a small Level 8 portal farm that the Enlightened built while they too were having a bit of a meet up at Murio's bar.  I was a bit startled when they came out and said hello right back to us, face to face.  I met SFHandyman and was reacquainted with IPv6Berry, while others didn't introduce themselves but waved as well.

The very next day, I was hacking the high level Enlightened train car portal next to where I work when another agent noticed me and asked my agent name, I said eminus and he said, "Hi, I'm neo" and walked away.

A few minutes after departing I realized that neo was Niantic Labs' Product Manager, Brandon Badger.

The only other non-hacking Ingress activity I've had lately came on Monday, May 6, when I took BART from Millbrae and captured and linked up some portals on the BART platform.

My wife and I did have a Google+ Hangout with Resistance agent mistyayn on Tuesday, May 7 about a non-Ingress related project.  It is cool how Ingress is bringing us into a whole new community of people and places we may have never come into contact with otherwise.

Level 8!

Mission Briefing:

After five months of duty serving in the reserve forces of the Resistance, Agent eminus received an Intel package containing directions to his most important mission yet.  Highly classified Intel indicated a strong Enlightened presence near the area designated as "Smurf Village" near the Civic Center of San Francisco.  To reach Level 8 clearance, RA7 eminus would need to attack a specific portal held under Shaper influence and claim it for the humanist population.

The primary target for this operation was a Zipcar parking space portal on Mission Street between 7th and 8th.  Secondary targets nearby would assist Agent eminus in reaching his goal if primary goal failed.  If successful in destroying the Enlightened resonators and deploying to fully occupy the portal named "Zipcar - 1160 Mission Street" RA7 eminus' clearance would be upgraded to Level 8.

Chatter in the COMM channel, declassified here for the first time:

10:33AM
[secure] Otarin: Dear god, would you look at Smurf Village. Gross.
10:51AM
[secure] ChromePanda: dropped a couple bombs on it as I went by on the bus
10:57AM
[secure] Otarin: @ChromePanda Thanks, just saw that. Slightly less slimy now :)
10:57AM
[secure] ChromePanda: just on 8th street, wish I could have done more, hopefully someone will get a bunch of AP out of re-capturing it
10:59AM
[secure] Otarin: @ChromePanda Hoping the same. I'd hate to see it like this when I get home; I'll clean it up, but it'd be better if it goes to someone who needs the AP.
11:07AM
[secure] eminus: i think after the conference call that i am on i may need to be L8 for my next meeting and dispose of at least one green portal at smurf village

Shortly before 1200hrs, RA7 eminus reached the target portal, beginning his attack:

11:51AM

eminus destroyed an L3 Resonator on Zipcar-1160 Mission Street (1160 Mission St San Francisco, CA)

11:51AM

eminus destroyed an L3 Resonator on Zipcar-1160 Mission Street (1160 Mission St San Francisco, CA)

11:51AM

eminus destroyed an L4 Resonator on Zipcar-1160 Mission Street (1160 Mission St San Francisco, CA)

11:51AM

eminus destroyed an L4 Resonator on Zipcar-1160 Mission Street (1160 Mission St San Francisco, CA)

Problems with the scanner app delayed the attack further at this point.  A forced reboot acted almost like a normal portal hacking cooldown period.  Tears began to form in RA7 eminus' eyes.  The moment was almost at hand.

11:56AM

eminus destroyed an L5 Resonator on Zipcar-1160 Mission Street (1160 Mission St San Francisco, CA)

11:57AM

eminus destroyed the Link that's California (1099 Folsom Street, San Francisco, CA) to Zipcar-1160 Mission Street (1160 Mission St San Francisco, CA)

11:57AM

eminus destroyed a Control Field @Zipcar-1160 Mission Street (1160 Mission St San Francisco, CA) -13 MUs

11:57AM

eminus destroyed the Link Friend Ears (1137 Howard Street, San Francisco, CA) to Zipcar-1160 Mission Street (1160 Mission St San Francisco, CA)

11:57AM

eminus destroyed the Link A Place to Dream Mural (98 Julia Street, San Francisco, CA) to Zipcar-1160 Mission Street (1160 Mission St San Francisco, CA)

11:57AM

eminus destroyed an L4 Resonator on Zipcar-1160 Mission Street (1160 Mission St San Francisco, CA)

11:57AM

eminus destroyed a Control Field @Colorful Lamp Post (1 Rausch Street, San Francisco, CA) -166 MUs

11:57AM

eminus destroyed a Control Field @Colorful Lamp Post (1 Rausch Street, San Francisco, CA) -72 MUs

11:57AM

eminus destroyed the Link Colorful Lamp Post (1 Rausch Street, San Francisco, CA) to Zipcar-1160 Mission Street (1160 Mission St San Francisco, CA)

11:57AM

eminus destroyed a Control Field @Zipcar-1160 Mission Street (1160 Mission St San Francisco, CA) -147 MUs

11:57AM

eminus destroyed the Link Colored Lamp Post (1074-1098 San Francisco Bicycle Route 30, San Francisco, CA) to Zipcar-1160 Mission Street (1160 Mission St San Francisco, CA)

11:57AM

eminus destroyed a Control Field @Zipcar-1160 Mission Street (1160 Mission St San Francisco, CA) -451 MUs

11:57AM

eminus destroyed the Link that's California (1099 Folsom Street, San Francisco, CA) to Zipcar-1160 Mission Street (1160 Mission St San Francisco, CA)

11:57AM

eminus destroyed the Link Take Flight (1185-1199 Howard Street, San Francisco, CA) to Zipcar-1160 Mission Street (1160 Mission St San Francisco, CA)

11:57AM

eminus destroyed an L4 Resonator on Zipcar-1160 Mission Street (1160 Mission St San Francisco, CA)

11:58AM

eminus destroyed an L5 Resonator on Zipcar-1160 Mission Street (1160 Mission St San Francisco, CA)

11:58AM

eminus deployed an L1 Resonator on Zipcar-1160 Mission Street (1160 Mission St San Francisco, CA)

11:58AM

eminus captured Zipcar-1160 Mission Street (1160 Mission St San Francisco, CA)

GPS drift in the scanner app forced RA7 eminus to give up on fully deploying on primary target, resulting in deployment of low level resonators on secondary target "Lenahan Mural".

12:05PM

eminus deployed an L1 Resonator on Lenehan Mural (1148 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA)

12:05PM

eminus deployed an L1 Resonator on Lenehan Mural (1148 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA)

12:05PM

eminus deployed an L1 Resonator on Lenehan Mural (1148 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA)

12:06PM

eminus deployed an L2 Resonator on Lenehan Mural (1148 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA)

12:06PM

eminus deployed an L3 Resonator on Lenehan Mural (1148 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA)

12:06PM

eminus deployed an L3 Resonator on Lenehan Mural (1148 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA)

12:07PM

Level Up!  You are now Level 8.

And with that, eminus' security clearance was upgraded and he was officially RA8, the highest ranking Agent Level currently available.

Celebratory Chatter in the COMM channel, declassified here for the first time:

12:13PM

[secure] eminus: what a productive meeting I had at the Lenahan mural and zipcar portal. Ding!

12:19PM

[secure] Peregrinator: @eminus yay! you should write off your expenses for making LEVEL 8!!

12:48PM

[secure] Blackfoot: @eminus congrats!

1:13PM

[secure] Otarin: Thanks for helping on the Village @cynja!

1:29PM

[secure] gundamxx123: @eminus congrats l8

1:29PM

[secure] gundamxx123: @eminus congrats l8

1:30PM

[secure] cynja: @Otarin Wish I could have done more. Crazy winds & server lag sent me running for cover.

2:04PM

[secure] eminus: That server lag was crazy!

2:13PM

[secure] cynja: @eminus But the lag didn't stop you from reaching L8! Congrats!

Agent Post-Op Report:

Planning a strategic attack for minimal walking and maximum AP using an extremely limited amount of bursters and resonators worked out well for me in my final push to reach Level 8 in Ingress.  Yesterday, I scouted the Jamba Juice portal in Westlake Shopping Center in the afternoon and earned over 8000AP by just destroying the fields and links emanating from that portal and then deploying resonators to fill it.  Today, I worked my way through the remaining AP needed to reach Level 8, again by destroying fields and links and capturing a single portal.  I used public transportation for both events to minimize the walking on the still recovering knee and got to the highest available level currently in the game.

I had committed to Brian Rose of Niantic Labs that I would let him know when I hit Level 8 when I met him at the USC event a few weeks back.  I'm there now!

Thanks to my wife for bearing with me while I play this crazy game and the many folks playing for their support in helping me reach Level 8 over the five months that I've participated in Ingress thus far.  I've walked over 300 miles as tracked by my FitBit and Pebble devices and have had many grand adventures.

I recovered the Verum Inveniri storyboard drop back in February that lead to my likeness being added to the Niantic Project as well here: http://goo.gl/DqKEc

Niantic Labs have helped take me to places I'd have never gone before and the story is just beginning to be told.

To those of you in Southern California tonight for the Misty Hannah performance, BE SAFE!  I can't wait to see where this rabbit hole continues to go.

Agent Report to Local Resistance "Resist SF":

Couldn't stay long but breaking a bunch of fields from the Zipcar portal and dropping some resonators on the Lenahan mural made for a very productive meeting near Smurf Village for me. 

Thank you to each and every one of the Resist SF agents that supported me with transport, Intel, gear drops, social interaction and just plain old encouragement to keep going!

Additional addendum to Resist SF faction:

I just wish I'd had some actual time to spend over there.  It was basically race up Mission Street, attack the portal.  App crashed, phone crashed, reboot everything, attack the portal.  Acquire AP, deploy, GPS drift, give up trying to find the Zipcar portal and deploy on the mural then take BART back to FiDi to get back before my next actual meeting.

RA8 eminus has indicated he will now attempt to maintain a low profile, having taken a telephone maintenance grate to the knee and will assist in building and maintaining high level farms rather than attacking Enlightened targets.

The Home Stretch

Yesterday afternoon, I left work 30 minutes early to play Ingress.  I cut my lunch in half to balance things out so I wasn't actually skipping out on any responsibility.

There was to be a meetup, Level 7 pop up farm build and item exchange at Yerba Buena Gardens, just a few blocks from where I work.

I got there around 4:30 and met up with RA8 Balshor.  We waited a few minutes and RA8s rukh and Whiz arrived.  We waited just a few minutes longer and started at the Martin Luther King Memorial fountain and worked our way around the garden.  I was about to claim a portal when SAO, a newer RA claimed and deployed on it.  We tried to locate him but he was elusive.  Oh well.  I still needed a good 155000AP to reach Level 8.  I wasn't getting that far deploying on one portal.  

As we were passing by the MOMA, RA8 gundamxx123 arrived.  He was distraught over the news that fellow agent Andre was "retiring" from the game.  When he found out I was Level 7, he got excited.  After we farmed the Yerba Buena portals, gundamxx123 asked how many points I needed to hit Level 8 and he and Whiz offered to help get me there last night.

We started by farming enemy portals in Golden Gate Park, getting a bunch of low level items that I would then be deploying at the Legion of Honor.  At the Legion of Honor, gundamxx123 and Whiz dropped a bunch of supplies to me and I destroyed and delinked the entire cluster of Enlightened portals, then deployed resonators to fill all of the portals and then linked all of the portals as much as possible.

After spinning a web of links, we headed to the Haight, where I "said hello" to Engine Company 30, the actual home portal of Commie|Banker, DblTapered, SisterWife and ieatlint, four high level Enlightened agents.  I destroyed a bunch of links in the Haight and then we drove back toward Daly City, where gundamxx123 dropped me and Whiz off at the BART station and my night ended.

I played for around five hours, using a borrowed Anker external battery pack for a portion of that time that gundamxx123 lended to me to get me as close to Level 8 as possible.   I accumulated 130000AP throughout the night, the highest total I ever achieved in a given day playing Ingress and I did so mostly in the passenger seat of a car, which left my still healing knee to rest comfortably for the majority of the adventure.

I still needed around 25000AP to reach Level 8 and gave myself the following mission after scouting the Ingress Intel map at work this afternoon.

Operation Surgical Strike:

At 1820hrs, RA7 codename eminus arrived at target location Alpha, a known "Juice Club" gathering place with a large amount of XM energy emanating from a single portal.

Upon Intel investigation and report, Agent eminus discovered a significant presence of portal links and small mind unit fields attached to the Enlightened controlled portal.

The operation involved the deployment of XMP bursters in controlled detonation sequence to destroy the Enlightened resonators, severing the links, destroying the fields and liberating the Shaper controlled mind units within.

As a reward for his success in completing this mission, Agent eminus was awarded 8259AP.

After dinner, my wife drove me to a couple of other locations in the area and I created a field that earned me some more AP.  My overall exploits for the evening are pretty much all captured in the below screenprint.

The one bad thing was when I got greedy and tried to take down the Daly City Post Office on Sullivan.  dalycitysteven was there to deploy as I destroyed so I was unable to take down the links, leaving me just 99% of the way to Level 8, with a little over 7000AP to go to reach my goal.

I've reached the home stretch.  There's no stopping me now.  I just need to find some low level portals in the city tomorrow, farm, destroy and deploy and suddenly I will have reached the upper echelon of Ingress players.

Caesar's Palace and Las Vegas Ingress

Yesterday was our last real day of vacation in Las Vegas.

We visited Caesar's Palace on the strip.  One of the reasons I was there was to play some Ingress. I got around 20000AP throughout our day and would have earned more had there not been a giant blue triangle covering the city.

Several of the portals were indoors so I hacked those while we headed for our next destination, Serendipity3, a restaurant famous for their Frrrozen Hot Chocolate. I got more portals outside while we waited for my wife to get a text message that our table was ready.

After a tasty dessert, we headed south to have dinner in Henderson and stopped off at the Welcome to Las Vegas sign and took a quick photo. I hacked the portal three times and didn't yet get a portal key. I figured I would try again on the way back.

On the way back, I got the Welcome to Las Vegas sign portal key. I have found portal keys to be very cool souvenirs from places we travel. My favorites from this trip were Randy's Donuts in Los Angeles, The Historic Fox Theater in Pomona, Real Alien Jerky in Baker and the MGM Grand Lion from Las Vegas. I have USC and UNLV keys from campuses we visited and Pea Soup Andersen's windmill from last week, a bunch of Hollywood and Universal keys from previous trips and the London Eye from a trade.

This morning we headed home.  I hacked and captured a couple of portals in the baggage claim area after we got back to SFO.  

Breaking an Ingress Treaty at UNLV

I started with 953044AP when we left for the UNLV Paradise Campus. I had noticed that it was all green, low level and heavily linked. I saw rumblings in the Comm channel that some guys were thinking of tearing it down and I decided to beat them to it.

My wife was my war driver. By car, I quickly gained 20000AP taking out the links on one side of campus. 

We circled to the other side of campus and I couldn't reach the majority of the links while parked. I decided to hobble a bit and kill the links on foot.

While walking across campus a couple yelled "Happy Ingressing" and I yelled back "Thanks" and kept going. I was on a mission. I got 30000AP more and over 1000000 total points cumulative from taking out the rest of the links.

On the way back the guy from the couple stopped me.

"So is the treaty done, is this it?"

To which I responded "What treaty?"

"This is supposed to be a low level farm area and I noticed you deployed some Level 4 and 5 resonators. That violates the treaty."

"Oh. I'm sorry, I'm from San Francisco."

"I thought you must be from out of town. Welcome to Las Vegas. I'm Chris (in game name morannon). My wife and I are maintaining the farm and a couple of the students keep throwing high level stuff on it."

His wife came over, her name was Yvette (in game name Harmy). They explained that both sides used the farm for leveling and for low level gear. 

They didn't mind me knocking it down and were happy because it would get them to Level 6 tonight. They just didn't want my incident to bring out local drama.

I apologized and explained that I only deployed one resonator so they cold quickly take each portal back but I really need the AP to get to Level 8.

They smiled and suggested I farm the Strip and come back tomorrow and knock it down again.

It felt like when I met Moschops at Jack London Square again, so welcoming. But these were supposed to be my nemesis in the game.

I checked the farm, most of my stuff was taken down and I hope they hit Level 6.

My wife took me up and down the majority of the strip and I hacked which portals I could before we stopped off at the Luxor and I captured the Sphinx/Luxor portal.

We got an awesome photo with it and I ended my Ingress day with 1008000AP.

Through the high desert to Paradise

Along the drive to Las Vegas was Baker, California, home of the world's largest thermometer. There was also a place called Mad Greek that sold gyros and falafels 24 hours a day.

Mad Greek had two Level 8 Enlightened portals. I felt it was my duty to take them down. They were also linked to the thermometer and somewhere else in the distance. It turns out that somewhere else was the Huntington Beach post office. Significantly far away.

When I took over the Level 8 Thermometer portal, I broke a link to the Los Angeles Arboretum. The LA Resistance were very grateful for the service I provided them today.

I was just about to take over the Alien Jerky portal when a local Enlightened agent (NeoDaNeenjah) said hello on Comm. I decided to leave him the one unlinked Level 8 portal and left. I was pleasantly surprised by the thanks I got for destroying the links by chance helping out some of the folks that I met at USC last week.

We got to Vegas and checked in to our hotel for the night. We took a brief nap and had dinner.

We stopped off so that I could capture the freshly linked green portal at the Pinball Hall of Fame. I was happy to see that they had an operable Attack From Mars, my favorite machine. I plucked in 75 cents and saved France and Germany from Martian invasion racking up a 1.5 billion point score, then taking the Ingress portal.

I destroyed the Enlightened resonators on the MGM Grand Lion and got some supplies while hacking along the ride up the strip to our hotel. Sadly most of the portals were on the opposite side of the strip or we were moving too fast to really take advantage but we have two more days here if we get adventurous.

I used to be a kickass Ingress agent until I took a telephone maintenance grate to the knee...

On Monday morning, after a full weekend in Los Angeles with an injured knee, I tried to go to the doctor's office.

My wife took me to his office to find that there were no morning appointments available until Tuesday. I opted to take the Tuesday morning appointment and head into work via Muni train.

I got to work okay with no real issue except for morons on the train that kept bumping into my leg even though I had chosen a corner seat seemingly away from everyone.

The work day was pretty difficult. Even having my leg propped up on a short cabinet didn't really help. By the time I took BART and the bus home, I was in a great deal of pain.

I wasn't looking forward to Tuesday's appointment with the doctor at all.

I slept a lot on Monday and we got to the doctor's office and he poked and prodded my knee a bit and said that he was surprised but my kneecap appeared to be intact. The damage was just a lot of blood clots above and below the left side of my knee. He sent me for an X Ray just to be safe.

I was glad to hear that there was likely no permanent damage and it would just take another week or two to heal.

I got my X Rays done at California Pacific Medical Center. The registration lady was extra nice when I told her who my employer was. I got a series of X Rays and was home before noon. My wife headed to work and I spent pretty much the whole day writhing in pain as my knee slowly heals.

The good news is that the X Rays confirmed that there is no fracture and I am slowly on the road to recovery.

On Wednesday morning, we departed once more for Los Angeles for a concert in Pomona and then a drive to Las Vegas on Thursday.  I captured some Ingress portals in the terminal at SFO and took advantage of preboarding due to the knee injury. 

We got from LAX to Pomona pretty quickly, only stopping so that I could capture the Randy's Donuts portal, using the carpool lanes the whole way.  I captured the Historic Fox Theater portal while in Pomona.

After the concert, I tried to play Ingress and farm the Level 7 portals in the area from the passenger seat but there were cops everywhere so we gave up and came home, lest be questioned by them for playing a game.

Ingress in Los Angeles (USC Campus Event vs Niantic Labs' Brian Rose)

I was pretty disappointed when my knee was so swollen that I couldn't go out and play Ingress while the Los Angeles Resistance captured around 30 portals, defended them and made them into a Level 8 farm throughout the night.

My health is far more important than spending the night at the Great Wall of Los Angeles.

When we got up this morning, outside of significant bruising, my knee looked mostly like a knee and not a balloon. I took a lot of comfort in that and decided we should go grab breakfast and maybe swing by the Great Wall or connect with my wife's cousin, a local Level 8 Resistance agent to give her some swag I picked up at the Ingress GDC mixer.

We ate a pretty good and very big portioned breakfast at Eat here in North Hollywood.

After breakfast we stopped by Fry's in Burbank and I finally captured the portal there. That Fry's location is all decked out in an Alien Invasion style with props like an old 50s diner, the Mars Attacks aliens, the alien from The Day The Earth Stood Still and more. Very impressive.

We bought a needed SD card and then headed to downtown Los Angeles' Little Tokyo to meet up with our cousin.

On the way there, Niantic Labs developer Brian Rose posted on Google+ about an Ingress campus event at USC that he'd be attending at 2PM. It was only a little bit further past Little Tokyo so I indicated I would attend the event on Google+ and we made plans to go after giving our cousin the pack of Resistance stickers I got for her at the GDC mixer.

We parked in front of the Little Tokyo library and I captured the portal there. We walked over to a really cool Space Shuttle Challenger memorial and met up with our cousin and two other players. I offered them Hint water complete with in game item codes but they all refused. Our cousin gave me fifty Level 7 XMP and we headed to USC while they headed to lunch.

After having a difficult time navigating to find parking, we parked at the Exposition Park near the Natural History Museum and walked over to the campus from there.

I registered at the "Ingress USC Campus anomaly" table and was told that I was only the second person to register for the event. The event started at 2 and it was already 1:40.

Shortly before 2, Brian Rose arrived and I said hello and introduced myself. I was excited to meet him. A few minutes later the campus agents gave me a confidential packet of materials and sent me off on my mission.

Points were scored if one faction took over another's portals and five points were given if the home base portals, Tommy Trojan statue for the Resistance and The California Science Center for the Enlightened at specific times of the anomaly once every 30 minutes.

I walked the campus, farming low level supplies and capturing one green portal before heading back just in time to help defend the Tommy Trojan statue. I met two agents from the Resistance and took a photo with Brian Rose after the first battle was won by our team, seemingly only fighting Brian on the Enlightened side.

I left with the agents but we noticed Brian attempt to attack again so I hung back and guarded the statue while they went off to capture the Enlightened base.

Several more agents swung by and left their extra gear with me while I sat comfortably resting my knee in my Resistance tee shirt in the shade. My wife joined me shortly before the next defensive opportunity. I thought Brian had a second agent with him and got nervous but I singlehandedly defended Tommy Trojan from Brian Rose's attacks. I technically beat the developer in one on one combat.

That was pretty cool!

Brian was a very cool guy. I am very glad to have had the chance to meet and play the game he is developing with him. 

The Resistance agents fell back to upgrade the statue to Level 7 and we stood and chatted with Brian about Power Cubes and magician Misty Hannah preparing for our final skirmish at 4pm. Well, we were preparing to fight until Brian's phone battery died.

We all shook hands and congratulated each other on a fun time and headed back to the student union for debriefing.

As winners, the Resistance got very awesome pass codes that gave us 16 resonators and 16 XMP bursters for whatever level we were. Brian had Level 8 patches and stickers with him and even though I wasn't yet Level 8, I said I was close and should be there next week and he gave me the patch a little bit early.

We took some group photos and even though the Great Wall battle and farm were truly an epic event, in the end I am really glad I rested and did the USC event instead.

Injury: A Mild Setback

At approximately 7:00AM on Friday morning, I was crossing Hamilton Street in Redwood City. My wife had asked me to bring her jacket to her while she waited in line for an appointment. I slipped on a metal grate and landed on my left knee.

I got up slowly and didn't notice much outside of the feeling that it was scraped. I hadn't scraped my knee in probably twenty years.

I got the jacket to my wife and crossed the 900000AP threshold in Ingress walking around downtown Redwood City. It wasn't until I stopped for breakfast at La Boulanger that I noticed the bloodstain on the front of my jeans and went into the bathroom to see the scrape and the swelling. It was like my left knee had a double size cap above it.

I got a cup of ice and went back to the car to rest and apply the ice to my knee. I got some naproxen at CVS and a Jamba Juice and rested for a bit.

I got some band aids so I could cover the scrape and debated getting a knee brace. They were thirty bucks. I decided against it.

We got to LA and I walked straight up Caheunga and bought a knee brace at CVS for $12. I was in a great deal of pain.

I still managed to get another 11000AP in Ingress in a one block radius of portals and planned to go back out after the show. Yes, I am stupid.

We saw a show at Hotel Cafe and I had gotten a message of a big Ingress portal farm being built over at the Great Wall of Los Angeles.

Before going back out to play Ingress I thought it would be best to check in at the hotel and check my knee. It is much more swollen so I am just going to keep it elevated and rest instead of trying to get lots of points in Ingress.

The Alignment and Farming Legion of Honor

I eased out of Ingress withdrawal this week.  On Tuesday, I bought and read The Alignment: Ingress novella and participated in a trivia contest/Q&A with author Thomas Greanias, where I won a single use passcode and an invite code.  I finally used another one of those invite codes today, getting another coworker into the game.  The Q&A was fun, as in game characters came in throughout the session and the author was really into the fandom.  It was weird though because it was just a comment stream on Google+.

Wednesday evening, I carpooled with another Resistance agent and was one of the last folks to farm the Level 7 portal farm at the Legion of Honor.  Then I captured the Seabiscuit and Tanforan Assembly Center portals at Tanforan Mall and the YouTube HQ and YouTube Slide portals on the YouTube campus in San Bruno.

I'm less than 350000AP away from reaching Level 8 in the game, the pinnacle right now.  If I can get 50,000 points, it'll only leave the distance that it took to get from Level 6 to Level 7 left to go. 


Level 1 - 2012 November 20
Level 2 - 2012 December 7 (Doggy Diner Head)
Level 3 - 2012 December 10 (Doggy Diner Head)
Level 4 - 2012 December 13 (Union Square)
Level 5 - 2013 January 16 (Daly City Post Office)
Level 6 - 2013 January 29 (Zipcar Portal Minna/2nd)
Level 7 - 2013 March 1 (Fat Lady Jack London Square)
Level 8 - Soon?

Back to Ingress

After some time away from the game, I finally had a chance to go back and play Ingress this past week or so.  I am still around 428000 action points away from the mythical Level 8 in the game.  I would love to get there before they add a Level 9 and during the time that Brian Rose is giving out Level 8 patches.

Ingress has been a ton of fun over the past four months.  I have learned a lot of useless historical facts about places that I passed by everyday and I have explored a lot of places on foot on paths I would have never taken without the game.

Niantic Labs have done a great job building an application that takes a game like Valve's Team Fortress, one of the most popular free-to-play MMO games and puts its capture the flag mechanics to work in the real world.

Last night, I had the opportunity to go to the Niantic Labs Ingress GDC Mixer event at The Alchemist in San Francisco.  In attendance were several members of the team that make Ingress as well as cross-factional representation from the Enlightened and Resistance.

I got there first.  Literally.  I got there at 4:50pm as the bar owner arrived.  Some folks from Ubisoft got there a moment later as I noticed a "Birthplace of Jack London" historical marker on the building next door.

The Ubisoft folks worked on the Assassin's Creed 3 game I recently played but said most of the work was done at other Ubisoft studios.  The studio they came from was on the same block as the bar and they were just going for happy hour not for the Ingress mixer.  They all also seemed to have iPhones.

A little after five, they let us in and checked IDs before sending us upstairs to the bar.  I met INFINITDARKNESS first, a fellow Resistance agent named Paul.  He had been hanging around outside waiting to go in as well.  A guy named Eric, in game named Sidereal was the next to arrive and started a trend of many Enlightened folks showing up.

A small contingent of Niantic employees arrived together, many with white Niantic tee shirts with the ship being hoisted up by a big balloon emblazoned in.black on the front.  One of the guys was talking about Field Trip and I showed the app on my screen like a dork.

I talked with Sidereal and another Enlightened player IPv6berry for a bit and we were later joined by AltAlt, real name Al, who had destroyed some of my links at 24th and Mission that I had made the night before last.

The Enlightened folks did some item trading and I promised not to steal from them.

I liked that the Enlightened folks were friendly.  Eric and I started introducing ourselves as "we're Eri(c/k)" as others joined the conversation.  Another Resistance member, Rook from the East Bay, chatted with us for a little bit and the general gist of the conversation was that practically no one was following the Niantic Project ARG.  That makes me sad.  A lot of us only played for an hour or two at a time and a good percentage played on foot or by bicycle.

I don't particularly care for those that play the game by car, especially when driving, but I have experienced it and even hacked a few portals by bus or as a passenger.  That sentiment of frowning upon portal hacks while driving was shared amongst those I talked with at the event.

Eventually, I was introduced to Bouncinglime, a female Enlightened member and Daminator, a male Resistance agent.  I didn't get to say much because I was interrupted by a guy in a black jacket who asked Eric and I about how we got into the game. 

I explained my origin story from family members, friends and a coworker sharing their interest and me entering an IRC channel, answering a trivia question correctly and beginning my Resistance adventure with no choice of Resistance vs Enlightened. 

Eric shared his origin story and the guy in the black jacket asked if we played in the city and what we did for a living.  We both responded and asked him the same question.

He said he worked locally at the Google campus and was a UI designer for Niantic Labs.

This unassuming guy had just mined data from me and was the guy that designed the whole interface I had been playing on since late November.

He couldn't share much but said that has high level players there is a lot of cool content in the works to help balance both factions.

Eric misheard and thought he said they were adding factions.  I explained that wasn't what he had said.

The UI guy gave me a couple of packs of stickers, one Ingress/Niantic Labs pack of five and one three pack Resistance specific.  He asked where I got my blue trimmed New Balance jacket and revealed that he too is Resistance.

I mentioned I wanted to get faction patches for my jacket but that they were always on backorder.

He said they didn't even have them and the merchandise was selling way more than expected.

I asked if the thumbnail for my Freight and Salvage portal could be changed and he explained that every object in the game had to be coded individually to deter hacking.  It would be virtually impossible to change without deleting the portal, readding and using a different picture.

He said we should see power cubes come into play in the next few weeks and recommended that I swing by and destroy the green resonators at the Google SF campus on my way back to BART because no Enlightened agents would be there to stop me.

I met a marketing guy as well who mentioned the response to the game was far greater than they expected.  They thought 40-50 portals in major cities would satisfy early demand and people would only play for a few minutes at a time and maybe just alter their commute a bit to visit a few portals on their way to and from other places.  He was extremely happy with the player participation and that so many showed up to the mixer.

I briefly chatted with the other UI guy who also liked my jacket/Resistance shirt combo.  He was Enlightened and had a Cafepress unofficial shirt thatched the Enlightened symbol with the word Evolve below it on the front.

He mentioned that he had created the symbols used in the game but that the developers loved seeing what the fans had been creating.  They even had fan artwork being projected on the wall of the bar throughout the night.

I eventually ended up chatting again with Eric, who had gotten some Enlightened stickers of his own.  We were approached by a very British man asking if we had any stickers that weren't "nasty green".

Resistance agent TinyClanger is a high level member of the London Resistance who formed actual cells to patrol and protect their city from the Enlightened Shaper influence.

As a day job, TinyClanger works for Square Enix in London and brought along a more local Redwood City Square Enix studio friend who hadn't heard of the game until the walk over to the bar from GDC.  I talked to his friend a bit while TinyClanger headed to the bar.  He talked about how he had applied all over Silicon Valley and had been offered a job at Electronic Arts.  He hesitated because at the time EA was really only big for sports games and that wasn't the type of game he had enjoyed playing.

Soon thereafter, he got a call to interview with Square Enix and while walking down the hallway and even in the interview room he was surrounded by artwork and promotional signage and statues for games and characters he loved.  He figured the distraction from being a fanboy would have ruined his chances at the job, but he's been there for four years.  He has an iPhone but armed with an invite from the Niantic marketing guy, he pledged to borrow an Android device from work to try out the game.

TinyClanger returned with his overpriced beer and we traded portal keys.  He gave me the London Eye and I gave him the Apollo 18 prop capsule from Universal Studios.  He talked about how he got into developing games.  He wrote for the Fighting Fantasy gamebook Deathtrap Dungeon and eventually ended up moving from books and tabletop games to video games.

His first video game was Tomb Raider.  The original.  His latest was the most recent 2013 Tomb Raider.

Eventually, TinyClanger went to catch up with his friends and while I was standing alone, one of the guys in a white Niantic shirt walked up to me:  "Are you eminus?" He asked.  I said I was.  He said his name was Chris and he recognized me because he had put me in the game.  He was the guy that put my photo with the Redwood City dead drop that I had recovered onto the Niantic Project website.  He too loved my shirt/jacket combo and gave me another few packs of Resistance stickers.

I had an unbelievably good time in what to me was a very awkward social situation.  It was like a PAX party, but alone, sharing only the common bond of Ingress.

The experience was much like when I played Munchkin Apocalypse with Andrew Hackard last year, but in many ways even cooler.

I captured the Jack London birthplace portal on the way out, waving goodbye to TinyClanger. 

Bouncinglime came up the street and yelled "Hey! You stole my portal.". I offered it back but she just smiled and said it would take too long for the app to load on her phone.

I took some other area portals and even destroyed and deployed at Google SF.

I got 22000 points for that.  Not bad.