In the immediate aftermath of #IngressObsidian , reports started pouring in that XM around the Portals was...
In the immediate aftermath of #IngressObsidian , reports started pouring in that XM around the Portals was vanishing. From what I’ve seen today, it’s true: we are facing a massive, worldwide XM drought. What’s going on?
#InvestigateIngress
http://investigate.ingress.com/2016/04/03/pacs-weekly-wrap-up-april-3-2016/
#InvestigateIngress
http://investigate.ingress.com/2016/04/03/pacs-weekly-wrap-up-april-3-2016/
Wow. So do we think the shield is blocking the XM? Or does the shield possibly consume XM? There's a great post by Mike Wissinger in operation Essex discussing theories about this https://plus.google.com/+MikeWissinger/posts/ivzHtSxxxR7 . What do you think, H. Richard Loeb?
ReplyDeleteHave your sources in the XM corps shared any hard data or predictions?
ReplyDeleteI believe we need to resurect the Operation #SaveThePortals. Pm me if you want to join the operation if you're not already in.We need to get prepared, we have been faceing this before and we had succeded.We can do this again to show that we are stronger than ever.
ReplyDelete#getusedtoit
ReplyDeleteThis is so typical niantic Nonsens. What do you think that New players will do if they can't Hack no more because of having no XM to collect? Will they keep on playing or quit this game? Niantic this is Bullshit stop crapping the game.
ReplyDeleteWe warned Jahan and the Resistance to step back from tampering with the shield: But they didn't listen, so if there are consequences, I am in no way surprised.
ReplyDeleteThere is a grasping, terrifying acquisitiveness to Jahan -- she was willing to murder families to pursue a treasure trove of knowledge she was not ready for, and here she was willing to tamper with an XM artifact she did not understand; all to further her single-minded ambitions.
*
That said, as always, the Enlightened will be here to help. We brought Roland Jarvis back from the dead. We saved Hank Johnson's soul from being the plaything of a murderous AI: And we will be here to ensure humanity is allowed to enjoy the benefits of XM unalloyed by the plans of the N'zeer.
Manfred Koppensteiner But can't they use power cubes? Shouldn't new players be helped by those of us that have been playing for a while? So the game changes. So we as players must change our strategies.
ReplyDeleteLet's take this point by point. First, neither had a choice, the Acolyte - Jarvis has sent a message to find the circle of Obsidius. Jahan wanted the shield to block Shaper access. Both had to follow their choices.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, regardless of which side the shield ended up, it would be activated. Jahan was going to use the expertise of Lightman and the power of Obsidian to activate it - if she won the anomaly. Ditto for the Acolyte.
Thirdly, there would be consequences of all actions. This has been seen from the previous anomalies. This is the XM drought.
Now, coming to whether this was a trick or not, we have to find out and reverse the effect. The shortage of XM means our scanners won't work + power cubes are not that easy to come by, having hacked and gotten none.
Well they would have both launched the shield. Didn't matter who win. But honestly: Is this not exactly what the resistance wants? A world where XM is gone and humans can think properly.
ReplyDeleteNote that XM has been leaking into our world for millennia at least; human civilization has co-evolved with XM.
ReplyDeleteThat was the position of the classical Resistance, who have now modified their position to be that humans can only think properly in the presence of XM modified by an artificial intelligence.
XM is not gone completely as there is still plenty of natural XM around, just not around the portals, and besides isn't it the faction control fields that influence Human thinking the most?
ReplyDeleteTo try to spell this out in layman's terms for those that have little to no understanding of history, the activation of the shield that is draining xm from the portals would have occurred no matter which faction won as part of the story arc.
ReplyDeleteThis was done to set up the story line for the coming anomaly series over May and June for us to either fix the drain or add to the issues to lead to this fall/winter anomaly series.
As for the backstory on this, I'm only going to give a quick recent event rundown as everything for the full story can be found pretty easily. Starting in December we started finding clues to information about Obsidius and the artifact. Truth Seekers working without regard to factional beliefs such as H. Richard Loeb and members of Operation Essex have shared findings and thoughts to lead us to more information.
For those that understand the term, the results of the xm drain are the current Calvinball and expect more to come this year. Either a rule change during a series or some other action that forces a major strategy shift. Pay extremely close attention to media hacked and information passed from contacts or anonymous sources.
Brandon Downey the Enlightened have won the day and secured their power. This result is the fruit of their labor. You can not blame this on the Resistance, except in ignorance of your own action. Your kind has always dabbled fearlessly with the unknown, not unlike a child with a fork in a power outlet. If you choose to accept zero responsibility that is your prerogative, but the resistance have never done so in the past.
ReplyDeleteThe Resistance has always paved its own way, absent the path ahead. You claim to have saved Roland Jarvis. Who's savant is now responsible for the current famine. You claim to have saved Hank. Who was once a student of the Resistance, only to die once he'd been torn from the path by the siren song of the enlightened.
The human race is not so full of blind and ignorant sheep as you'd hope, that we can not see events unfolding. We will not relent.
For the past 2 years the Resistance has fought and bled for humanity, and the world has known peace for that time.
Yesterday was the beginning of all of our undoing. If unchecked, the Enlightened in their childish and carefree selfish actions will destroy the world.
Eeny Meany I'm not so sure. There is no doubt that 13MAGNUS held us back from achieving a higher level of understanding of our universe and how to create in it. The Enlightened had dominated throughout history as a result. The Resistance finally began to nullify that dominance and now we've managed to get A Detection Algorithm to an amazing state, only for the Enlightened to bring it to an early halt, but we learned a lot as a result - She may be looking out for us, but she is still also a potentially dangerous entity.
ReplyDeleteI'm becoming more and more certain there is something darker going on though - that neither the Shapers nor the N'zeer are the source of the so-called "mind virus" from forever ago.
"Clear all. Open all. Pursue self war. Pursue self destruction. Begin."
Given recent events, and the fact that the NIA had prior knowledge of XM, I'm beginning to think that... someone had actually planted that glyph sequence in the portals. Possibly Ezekiel Calvin, perhaps even Oliver Lynton-Wolfe, maybe someone else, I'm not so sure.
Either way, going through the events of the past few years again and checking it against what we know now, I'm starting to believe less and less that message was of Shaper origin.
What we do know, both Resistance and Enlightened, is this.
"Portal die, civilization die."
Eeny Meany It's like this:
ReplyDeletePerson A: "I am about to start my car."
Person B (RES): "I don't want you to succeed, so I'm going to put sugar in the gas tank."
The car doesn't start, and the engine is destroyed. But whose fault was it?
Both Enl and Res have supported fanatics. Both seem to desire human liberties. One calls it for the right to create and explore unhindered; the other sees it from the angle of living unshackled. How similar. Yet we pursue different avenues to achieve ultimately the same ends. Liberty to be human. Yet Shapers, N'Zeer, simulacrum-state, A.I., corporations, and all other manipulators in this game have played us all against each other. What are we being blinded to? Or is the energy of our rivalry itself a fuel for someone or something to thrive on? Because we've accomplished that last end too well.
ReplyDeleteEeny Meany both sides have accomplished interesting things, but neither is so purely ignorant or free as you described. Both have also brought harms. I'd take an xm drought over what happened in the previous series' final results, however, where people were not permitted to return to their human selves, but made into simulacrum. But then again, I'd rather not see either side race breakneck toward the ends designed by fanatics.
Hank Johnson for Ingress president.
Despite being Enlightened, Hank Johnson seems the most levelheaded guy caught up in this mess. There's not much of anResistance equivalent right now...
ReplyDeleteFunny thing is ENL managed what was RES original aim: ban XM
ReplyDeleteA couple of things: decimate is to reduce by a tenth. Compete misuse and misunderstanding of the word.
ReplyDeleteOCD and nit picking aside, we have had nothing like this before. The high drain just meant portals were harder to recharge, the game could still be played. Now not only is there no XM from portals, Power Cube drop rate is also down so now we have to struggle for fuel just to play normally. This will drive people out. Some of us just want to play without all this bullcrap, it's like removing ammo from CoD or, as I've suggested elsewhere, running F1 with limited fuel. The only sense it seems to make is that they are running the game down to prioritise Pokemon Go.
As for working together to fix it... #NoMoreHoops
Sod the back story, let's get back to what we enjoy.
Francesco Cecchi It doesn't matter who won, they had this planned either way.
ReplyDeleteFrancesco Cecchi
ReplyDeleteENL is the real RES: RES is trying to invite the N'zeers to replace the Shapers
branco di deficienti, perderete il 30% dei giocatori se vi va bene.
ReplyDeleteSo, the portal XM has gone, the natural XM (from the mind of people) is still there. It would have happen anyway for both the Acolyte and Jahan chose the way to activate the shield.
ReplyDeleteWhile we are fighting for our factions we (the agents) are still pawns in a game where we do not know the rules.
By now we all played for the Vesuvian Magnus ... and he won.
So, you want THE CURE? The cure is Enl and Res working together to make big fields to create billions MU to reset the portal XM regeneration. Just like that.
ReplyDeleteThomas Chandra That would be an awesome task. "Bring balance to the (XM) force!"
ReplyDeleteWhat if I told you...
ReplyDeleteIts NIAs way to reduce server load, weaving it into the storyline
I believe this was supposed to happen anyway... So not ENL fault here.
ReplyDeleteNo matter the reason this drought is a blessing. I believe that the shapers warned us with the message: " breathe inside XM loose self".
ReplyDeleteMorpheus ... then this is a clever move. Kudos! :-)
ReplyDeleteMorpheus Martin Zehetmayer I've already suggested this... to prioritise Pokemon Go.
ReplyDeleteNeed to pull up more, but could this be linked to Hank's Nomad theory? Maybe the shield was not causing the drought in the past, but Hank was studying how XM abundance might be linked to civilization flow
ReplyDeleteSimply put portals are well and the sheild is rather fulling it in or like all Wells it is simply the low season
ReplyDeleteThat's right JoJo Stratton -- a drought of XM has been associated with the decline of civilizations in the past.
ReplyDeleteWe should act with alacrity:
The XM must flow.
This is going to hit urban newbies the hardest. Rural players already have to drive around as a fact of life, so they can gather dirt XM between widespread portals. High level players can hold gobs of XM. Walking with lots of opportunities to interact with nearby portals but no XM to do so will be a drag.
ReplyDeleteWay to kill Trekker and promote Car-gress, Niantic
A Hank Johnson and XM/Civilization link to perhaps look at - are there more out there about the Nomad theory and XM link
ReplyDeletehttps://plus.google.com/u/0/+NianticProject/posts/N9BuTE1jvGb
Steven Callahan no, Pokemon Go approaches, which is far worse
ReplyDeleteYik Sheng Lee that is what i was implying when the box was opened and why we should have gave the artifacts to somebody else.
ReplyDeleteI believe the Obsidian shield is powered by XM but rather than using naturally occurring XM it's actually pulling power directly from the portal network. This will in all likelihood create a host of different issues from the loss of XM around the portals to actual changes in the portal network (increased or decreased gear drops, scanner glitches, and most likely, increased portal decay)
ReplyDeleteExplaining server issues with background story is lame... Enlightenment that fights for XM wins for the first time so no XM is coming? Makes perfect sense... m(
ReplyDeleteSo the story line that perhaps 2% of players care about is affecting 100% of players? Cool story, bro. Just fix this shit.
ReplyDeleteXF is for pussies so I am all for the drought
ReplyDeleteMaybe the "98%" who aren't following the storyline are not playing as effectively as the "2%"? It doesn't take much time to read a few posts.
ReplyDeleteHmmm... Playing for a year and pushing level 16. I guess I suck as a player.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Niantic is trying to fix server problems, maybe they just want to create adversity to follow the natural flow of events, as everything that goes up must come down... or maybe they are trying to teach us a lesson as human beings. History is filled with conflicts, of 2 sides at opposition to each other. Mindlessly battling each other until they are both drained and exhausted. Generating nothing but hate, destruction and misery. We, as human beings, need to rise above this and acknowledge that we are all people and need to work together to thrive. Enlightenment and Resistance are just like any other belief system, just because we have different ideas and processes doesn't mean that we can't coexist and work together towards a common goal. Adversity builds character. You can survive this and be the better for it. Persevere and we will make it through. Work together, and we will grow!
ReplyDeleteLuqman Mahmud could be true. Or it could be that Jahan is draining portals of their XM trying to combat the obsidian shield. Either way, I think we need to drop her like Devra.
ReplyDeleteI care as much about the background story of ingress, as I care about the background story of chess... Zero, 0, nada.
ReplyDeleteThe continous change in game play just sucks. And "Anomalies" are so common, so please call them "Commies!"
So this meme will be for the senior players then:
ReplyDeletehttps://imgflip.com/i/11xmab
Estimados compañeros de facción y enemigos, se sabe, que en las horas siguientes de la anomalía, se llevó a cabo la activación del escudo de obsidian, pero, con las intenciones erróneas, ahora estamos pagando por esto todos, soy iluminado, y luche con mi facción en la anomalía, más desconocía los alcances de dicha activación, ahora, tenemos que buscar la solución juntos, ahora debemos de deshacer la activación, les invito a unirse a operaciones internacionales con el fin de poder deshacer esto, es una tarea difícil que requerirá algo que es imposible: que todos olvidemos las diferencias personales y nos unamos, hemos vivido una ves esta situación, y logramos superarla, ahora, lo volveremos a hacer, ahora, no guiemos a los demás a la senda de la verdad, ahora hagamos la verdad, por que, el acólito, sabía de los efectos pero lo omitió, ahora, todo lo que conocemos puede ser destruido.
ReplyDeleteiniciaremos la verdadera operación de investigación, Inteligencia, análisis y operaciones en campo.
les invito a unirse ahora, todos nos necesitamos a todos, el futuro es ahora y no deberíamos perderlo.
Si deseas unirte, sólo envía un correo a "duck2669@gmail.com" con tu nombre de agente, nivel, país y tú idea de como puedes apoyar y como podemos solucionar esto.
Los necesitamos.
(atentamente: @PIUduck)
Dear fellow fraction and enemies, it is known that within hours of the failure, took place activation coat of obsidian, but with the wrong intentions, we are now paying for it all, I'm lit, and fight with my faction in the anomaly, most unaware of the scope of this activation, now we have to find the solution together, we must now undo the activation, I invite you to join international operations in order to be able to undo this is a difficult task it will require something that is impossible: we all forget personal differences and unite, we have had a you see this situation and we overcome it, now do it again, now, do not we lead others to the path of truth, now do the truth, that the acolyte, knew of the effects but failed, now, all we know can be destroyed. We begin the real operation of research, intelligence, analysis and field operations. I invite you to join now, all we need everyone, the future is now and we should not lose it. If you want to join, just send an email to "duck2669@gmail.com" with your agent name, level, country and your idea of how you can support and how we can solve this. We need them. (Carefully: @PIUduck) (traducido del español)
#DeactivationOperationShield
It is very likely to have been a warning, Gordon Gower, but it was not clear enough ... or knew that warning and still continued.
ReplyDeleteGordon Phillips "N'zeer knowledge nourish human civilization complex." It's possible "complex" was intended to be the first glyph in the sequence.
ReplyDeleteBrandon Downey if person A was truly enlightened, why is he driving a car powered by crude fossil fuels? I thought you guys went green.
ReplyDeleteSteven Callahan then we've discovered the first true infinite power source!!! Think of the applications!
ReplyDeleteAlso you tagged the wrong person. Probably not a big deal.
This whole thing feels like a choose your own adventure book where every choice you make eventually tells you to go back to page 1. And the moral of the story is you didn't break enough omelette eating records for two birds in the hand to hit with one trebuchet while shaking a stick at a burning bush to make a noise in the woods if Niantic isn't watching.
BTW, the XM is now used to power Pikachu's electric blasts from his cheeks.
ReplyDeleteCase closed.
We've already had to jump through hoops twice for Devra's virus and it took them a long time to restore the decay rate then.
ReplyDeleteNow I'm all for a challenge - I was one of those that organised my region's operations against Devra BUT I'm pretty fed up of the "take something away and make them work to get it back" attitude that Niantic has. If they challenged us to get something new and good then sure that would be great.
Eeny Meany If it helps, you can substitute "Person A is starting their Tesla", and "Person B is trying to tap the lithium batteries resulting in an explosion". :)
ReplyDeleteFor all of you whining about the lack of XM pooling around your portals, it is time to put on your big-boy (or girl) pants and see this for what it is....nothing. I didn't even realize what had happened until I saw a post about it. I just though it was one of those days when someone was sweeping up the xm before I got there. Today is the first day I've really gotten out to do some serious ingress since the anomaly and here are my results for the day:
ReplyDeleteStarted with a full tank, 80 L8 cubes, and 15 Lawson Cubes. Hacked ~200 portals, killed and captured ~75 portals, fully deployed and moded ~15 that were in areas I wanted to field, fought a recharge battle (lost when they showed up in person and started deploying new AXA's before I could finish it off) and recharged more than 30 portals that I have keys to and may have potential for anchoring a BAF later.
End of the day 87 L8 cubes and 17 Lawson's...Hardly a XM drought.
True
ReplyDeleteBut then you had a bunch of cubes hehe
David McClanahan sure. if you have large numbers of portals, most of which you don't need to recharge because you have sufficient players to hust havk them for cubes met them decay and rebuild to high level it's no big deal.
ReplyDeleteBut, in smaller towns or the countryside it's not like that. There are less portals to farm for cubes and less olayers to rebuild, meaning recharging farms is important.
QuantumIngressEffectIngress QuantumEffect more transient yes.
ReplyDeleteThat is not good for rural areas. when you have rely on visiting players or virus to build L8 portals decay and rebuild is not an option.
And rural players are proportionatly more important than city players since they are the ones who give coverage of large areas. There are also fewer of them, loose a few city center players and nothing changes, loose a few key rural players with big keyrings and whole regions can flip.
Steven Callahan lost likely not for the benefit of the story line. That's just the excuse. Niantic wanted to do it for some other reason.
ReplyDeleteI admit I don't really understand why - for the Devra virus it was to "make room" for the influx of iPhone players. This time I don't really see why.
Some think they are deliberately trying to kill Ingress to concentrate on Pokemon Go but I don't veleive that myself.
I don't see this as a bad thing at all. If anything it will help new players by making it harder for the lvl16 power players to control hundreds of portals at a time and keeping them all charged. As I noted above: If you spend a little time hacking each day, you get more cubes than you use anyway, unless you are recharging more than just 20-30 guardian portals.
ReplyDelete<>
ReplyDeleteOkay so I have a theory as to what's going on here from a developer perspective, since many say this doesn't make sense and keep asking why it would ever make sense from a dev perspective. I had a bit of an epiphany about it earlier when I noticed a cluster of XM directly on top of an urgent care in my town. According to leaks about Pokemon Go, there's a set of biomes in the data. If those leaks are to be believed, this "Hospital" and the "college" I attend, currently generating a decent amount of XM, are in fact biomes. How does this relate to Ingress and the current drought? I believe Niantic may be currently fine-tuning the boundaries of these biomes for Pokemon Go using Ingress servers. Clusters of XM around portals would interfere in how these biomes could be easily read, altered, and checked in real time while maintaining a heavy server load from an active playerbase. I believe this test will last until the next anomaly series, and that Pokemon Go will release after either May 28 or June 25 depending on how much fine tuning needs to be done. But then, that's if you believe in leaks and junk.
Tldr just keep playing it'll all be over soon
David McClanahan you mentionned hacking 200 portals. Most towns don't have anything like that number. We actually do but it would take most of the day to hack them all. Last time we went on a P8 building spree we did 100 and it took 5h...
ReplyDeleteCome and play in small towns or the countrysidebefore saying its a good thing
Martin Fuzzey If you live in a town with only a few portals then you don't need that much XM to hack/maintain them. You speak of going on a binge and building 100 level 8 portals, but you could never have done that without expending a lot of cubes even before the drought. Who builds 100 level 8 portals and why?
ReplyDeleteYesterday was more of a normal day for me, not like the 200 hack day before when I was running missions. Just a few captures and hacks while running errands and I still ended the day with more cubes than I started with.
The point is that the lack of XM pooling around portals just isn't that big of a deal.
David McClanahan
ReplyDeletethe building 100 portals was a one off occurence, part of a global "lets make lots of P8s all over the world event. We didn't try to maintain them.
I only mentionned it regarding the time it took, to say that if you have to hack 200 portals a day it's going to take a long time (except in VERY portal dense areas).
In my recollection it didn't require many cubes (since we were 8+ players all together at the same time each deploying a single resonator and recharging with the ground XM around each portal and the occasional hacked cube). But even if it had it didn't matter as it was a one off.
A P8 is 48k XM, with a 7 day lifetime that means you need 6.8k XM (roughly a L7 PC) per portal per day to keep it recharged.
So if you get a PC every 4 or 5 hacks you now need to hack 4 or 5 times the number of portals you maintain. And that's just to stand still without actually playing (capturing, etc).
Before the drought I only used cubes for defence, recharging distant anchors or emergency maintenance if I'd been away for a few days. Normal recharge was done completely from ground XM.
Now I'm not saying it's impossible to maintain stuff with the drought. My stock of power cubes is depleting but relatively slowly. However I now have to spend far more time than before doing the boring parts of the game (which either means less time spent on the interesting parts or less time outside the game). I've also had let some portals decay that I would have kept before.