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As always, the actual Niantic Labs actual Ingress Global Community Manager provided carefully worded answers to the most pressing questions on agents’ minds. Fortunately, as the Not Ingress Global Community Manager for Not Niantic Labs, I have considerably more flexibility. So channeling Luther the Anger Translator, I am here to say what Agent RedSoloCup can’t.
On Prime’s Readiness:
Andrew says: Every version brings needed changes and bug fixes. … There have been lots of discussions and plans on what to implement when the time is right to focus on those tasks though. … The near future is all about improving stability and upgrading the servers. … We’d love to hear your ideas though so feel free to post them in the forums at http://community.ingress.com.
Luther says: I don’t know how many developers you think you can hire for the cost of a few frackers and toast beacons, but the P0 features and bugfixes are just barely scheduled to be completed in time for the retirement of redacted and you want to know when we will get to your P3 nice-to-have feature? Sure, go ahead and write that out and we’ll get to it. Eventually.
On a Redacted Skin:
Andrew says: A Redacted skin is not a high priority to create. Nor would it be an easy task. It’s not as simple as just creating or porting over the old graphics.
Luther says: Just use Prime for a few days and get over it.
On Inventory Caps:
Luther says: Stop trying to justify your cheating. And don’t give me that “everyone else is doing it crap.” If you think that’s true, you hang out with cheaters.
On Some Gripe About a Broken/Missing Feature in Prime:
Andrew says: I just tested this, I’m not sure if it is new with 2.29, although I feel like it has been there for a while.
Luther says: If you haven’t used Prime in 6 months, stop complaining. Sheesh!
On Why People Who Claim to Be Innocent Were Banned:
Andrew says: NIA OPS false positive rate is extremely low. The communication sent to players about why they are banned could be improved to be more specific. This potential ambiguity allows bad actors to hide behind plausible deniability. People by nature generally prioritize self-preservation above most things. So while sometimes, good people get swept up in bans, those are almost always overturned on appeal. But what people who buy gear and have their child’s account store it aren’t telling you is that they bought gear. In some cases, people have been warned previously and still continued to do it. It’s hard to claim innocence when we can see a clear chain of custody of illicit items originating from third party sellers and transferred to these accounts via bots.
Luther says: Your friend who said they were totally innocent really wasn’t.
On Why People Who You Think Are Guilty Weren’t Banned:
Andrew says: GPS spoofing is not tolerated. Falsifying your location is explicitly called out as a violation of the Niantic Terms of Service. But I think there is a misunderstanding in how complex this issue is. There are an infinite number of transportation options that a person can take to get from point A to point B. Niantic does NOT have the local knowledge of all of the possible paths and ways to get between two Portals using land, sea, and sky. That’s why the reporting system exists. People have legitimately used boats, planes, helicopters, cars, trucks, motorcycles, scooters, roller skates, and climbed mountains to capture Portals. A common complaint I hear is, “Why can’t NIA OPS just look at Google Maps to see traveling the distance is impossible.” The answer is, besides extreme cases, it is very possible to travel very fast. I’ve had people approach me asking for help because an Account traveled between Portals three minutes faster than what Google Maps traffic said was possible. That is likely a request I’m not going to help with because it is in the realm of plausibility.
Luther says: Your opponent who said they were totally innocent actually was.
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