Ingress - Google's RL MMO

[Sin Stalker]

So I don't see any posts for this yet, so I thought I'd share.

www.ingress.com

http://www.nianticproject.com/


Its currently in beta but its very easy to get in. RL friends, my wife and myself all got in within a month of applying via email on the main site.

The game is for android phones. It uses Google maps to create the largest video game world ever, the same size of our actual world. A sort of augmented reality MMO.
The basic story concept is that after the discovery of the Higgs Boson (or what we think is "probably" the Boson), exotic energy and portals (all just out of the visual wavelength) started popping up around the world. An alien/extradimensional beings want to advance the human race or "enlighten" us. They are called the Shapers and they currently can only communicate with our dimension/planet and so have convinced humans to help them secretly take over these portals and energy fields they create. These fields effect human minds (mind units) and advance the Shaper's goals. This group of humans is called the Enlightened.
There is a resistance to this ingression. Called the Resistance, they struggle to take over these portals and fields themselves to prevent the influence of the Enightened on normal people (mind units).

Enlightened are green.
Resistance is blue.

I've been playing this for about a month and I love it. I'm on the resistance side and known as SinStalker on there. I also think this is possibly the first/birth of the a new game type that has so much potential and room for growth.

[Tenzhi]

The game is for android phones.

Ya lost me.

[Tenzhi]

Incidentally, I can imagine some potentially interesting things that will probably never be done with this game in conjunction with the Google Glasses they're blithering about in the news right now.

[MindBlender]

Yeeesh a game on my phone... 4 inch screen that my 41 y/o eyes have enough trouble seeing.  I also have to charge the battery on my phone from using as, well a phone.  Have to say as interesting as the idea is, without a large tablet I would not even consider it and option.

[Mistress Urd]

and yet much to the dismay of VV and many others, the future.

Multi device, multi platform MMOs will come. Many people like the social aspect of same games and just being able to chat in game on a smart phone while away from home might be a difference maker.

[Lily Barclay]

I've been in the beta for this for a few months, but I never have time to play it since you have to drive all over town to play.

[TimtheEnchanter]

I've been in the beta for this for a few months, but I never have time to play it since you have to drive all over town to play.

Heh... so once you factor in all the costs of extra-curricular activities necessary to play...

... most expensive MMO to play ever?

Incidentally, I can imagine some potentially interesting things that will probably never be done with this game in conjunction with the Google Glasses they're blithering about in the news right now.

Personally I'm waiting for augmented reality 'laser tag'. I've seen apps for smart phones that can add a 3D object to the image that the camera sends to your viewscreen. One that can move, and rotates accordingly as you walk around it. Imagine putting on a pair of glasses that can be taught to recognize all the walls and objects in your house, and then can create the image of a projectile being fired from a handheld input device. Humans could blast away at each other, or the game could even fill your house with monsters to battle with.

[Tenzhi]

Personally I'm waiting for augmented reality 'laser tag'.

I'm waiting for someone to make a virus for those aforementioned Google Glasses that causes everything to be in black & white and randomly replaces some people's faces with weird skinless alien faces.

[General Idiot]

I'm waiting for them to become cheap enough that I can actually afford a pair, and popular enough that I won't get weird looks for using them in public.

[TimtheEnchanter]

I'm waiting for someone to make a virus for those aforementioned Google Glasses that causes everything to be in black & white and randomly replaces some people's faces with weird skinless alien faces.

Lulz, that'd be pretty fun actually.

But no no no, it's going to be like a high tech version of a cartoon gag. Remember how the Coyote would paint fake tunnels on solid walls in hopes that the road runner would crash into it?