Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Ingress + Articles update

This month I submitted reviews/articles on Endless Legend, Divinity: Original Sin, Ingress, and Ascent: The Space game (which hasn't been published yet). Endless, Divinity, and Ingress were all superb games. I'm still playing Divinity and Ingress (especially Ingress), and the only reason I'm not playing Endless or Ascent right now is that they're not complete. I would recommend you check out all of the games, though.


Speaking of Ingress, this past week or two have been pretty fun. The "virus" released by Dr. Bogdanovich, that has greatly reduced the life-span of portals that don't receive regular XM recharges, has resulted in a lot of portal changes. This is perfect for the new influx of players thanks to the #NewAgentInitiative program and iOS release. Plus it makes playing in a town by myself a lot easier and interesting.

This week, my town has been visited by Resistance agents three times. I'm not sure if this is because they have plans that require portals in my town, or if they're just coming because they noticed my small town becoming an Enlightened-controlled haven. Either way, it's been fun having challengers. I'm able to take out their portals fairly easy, as they seem to only put up to level 6 reso's on the portals. Not sure if they're being considerate of me, or if they're just no higher than level 6. 



If things continue as they have been, I should reach level 5 either today or Thursday. 


That's all I have for today. My posts will probably center around Ingress and ArcheAge for the next few weeks. Thanks for reading.

Thursday, July 10, 2014

Ingress and Summoners War + Article updates

So, I've continued to play Ingress and have continued to have a blast with it. Honestly, the game has been so enjoyable that I've decided to upgrade my phone to a device that can better play it (an LG G2). A few days ago I created my first link between two portals in my small town. A couple of days after that, I created my first field. It wasn't any fancy, just a simply field that covers less than a quarter of my small town that gave the Enlightened nine Mind Units. I have actually started coming up with a road-trip plan for a portal I want to span a huge area of open space between my town plus two medium sized towns. The entire trip should take about three hours and I honestly have no idea when I'll make it - I'm thinking once I hit level 4.

My first field.

I've made a few trips into nearby towns for key collection so that I can help with future links/fields and so I can recharge portals from afar. Also, you might see a fully resonated portal in the top left corner of the above screenshot. Apparently someone passed by and turned it into a level 4 portal. Not sure if that'll be a problem for me. It has two shields, and I'm honestly not sure if I want to make the effort to cap it. I think it might provide some nice items since it's the highest portal in town - so it may be a boon.

Other than Ingress, I've still been playing Summoners War. I recently discovered that I can set it to auto-play in combat, so I've been spending a lot of time leveling up my creatures while doing other things like reading or playing games on the computer. It's still quite fun, and I enjoy how the game isn't really pay-to-win. Well, I suppose you DO need the cash shop currency to get some of the best stuff, but I've gotten about 500 of the cash shop currency since I started playing, from my daily wishes, missions, my crystal farms, etc... So it hasn't been an issue - especially since the game is mostly PVE driven and the PVP arena is fairly balanced.

My current line-up. I love my Nine-Tailed fox.

Other than that, I've been working on a few games for OnRPG. I recently completely my launch review of Divinity: Original Sin. Just click the link to see it if you like. I'm still working on Ascent: The Space Game - it seems like more projects with higher priorities keep popping up. It shouldn't take long to finish, I just want to get a bit further in the game and then need to collect all my screenshots. I also got the OK from Dizzy to do a review on Ingress, which shouldn't take long at all. And I recently got a key for Endless Legend to do a review. So my plate is pretty full for this month. 

Other than that, the only other bit of news I have right now is that Dizzy has a project for me on September 19th, which he says should keep me plenty busy. So that's something to look forward to.

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Ingress Update


Still playing. Walked about 7 miles so far playing the game. My town is small, unfortunately, so the leveling is slow - just now reaching halfway to level 3. Like I said, my town is in the middle of most of the major towns in the state, so it seems like a lot of people have keys to my area - well, at least in the nearby Resistance-nest that is Hutchinson. They've got that area down tight thanks to four or five high level agents, while we only have two or three mid-to-high level Enlightened in the town.

That's good for me, though. The Resistance in Hutch have been keeping the portals in my town recharged. So I know they wont go neutral by themselves due to neglect. I am working on capturing some of the portals on the main street so I can do some links and a small field. I'm kind of hesitant, however, as if I do that, that's three less Resistance portals for hacking and I don't know if/when any Res will come through town to switch them. Of course, there would still be six or so portals afterwards.

I got one resonator down, and have plans to kill two more that are right next to each other (From two different portals) either later tonight or tomorrow morning, depending on how many XMP bursters I get from my night circuit here in a bit.


I went into another town yesterday. It was a small town, though, so only three portals. I plan to go into Hutch tomorrow, which has a decent number, though.


Oh yeah, I finally figured out that holding the fire-button when doing XMP bursts can give you up to 20% extra damage. Also, holding the hack button down initiates the glyph mini-game that gives bonus items. The glyphs remind me a lot of what I've seen from Shadow Cities gameplay videos, so I'm wondering if Niantic will someday introduce a feature that uses them similar to how Shadow Cities did.


I also noticed (along with a shitton of other people, apparently) a couple of codes in this picture, from a recent announcement of... an upcoming announcement >.>








One of them seems fairly obvious (After doing a quick course in Ingress code breaking). The other is to advanced for me to figure out right now. Especially considering that I somehow got the supposedly easy code wrong... unless I need to reverse it or something.

That's it for now.