A few hours ago the Wayfarer team published an update on their AMA forum post for June 2023 in which they reflect back on what both the community and the Niantic team was able to achieve in the first half of the year. In this update we found a passage which, we think, will be of interest to the whole community.

Regarding anti-abuse efforts it has been reported that, in the first part of the year, the Ambassadors, the Wayfarer team and many other Niantic teams have partnered to tackle the abuse present in Wayfarer. This has led to the development of new approaches to identify, administer and prevent abuse and administer consequences not only in Wayfarer, but across ALL Niantic games and products (such as strikes or bans).
These newly created policies will start to be enforced in the next couple of days and it will address new abusers as well as current ones retroactively up to a year.

Additionally, it has been announced that over the next couple of months, a lot of resources in Niantic will be devoted to building new automated tools for detecting abusive behaviours.

We are curious to know what you think about this. Let us know in the comments!

Source: https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/comment/215770/#Comment_215770

Many thanks to @PkmnTrainerJ for reporting!

@IUENG

In anticipation of the upcoming Ctrl Anomaly Weekend, Niantic has added these two item bundles on the in-app store!

Ctrl Action Bundle - 20.000 CMU (Nearest CMU pack €19.99)
🔸225x L8 XMPs
🔸50x L8 Ultra Strikes
🔸75x L8 Resonators
🔸25x L7 Resonators
🔸10x L6 Resonators
🔸15x Hypercubes
🔸50x Very Rare Portal Shields

Ctrl Support Bundle 15.000 CMU (Nearest CMU pack €11.99)
🔸1x ADA Refactors
🔸1x JARVIS Virus
🔸150x L8 Resonators
🔸50x Hypercubes
🔸120x L8 Power Cubes
🔸20x Aegis Shields
🔸150x VR Portal Shields

The Action Bundle can be redeemed twice per Agent, the Support Bundle can be redeemed only once per Agent.

@IUENG

Niantic has revealed the new Character Medal designs for Ctrl. Each medal will cost 30 800 CMU (about 23€) and will come with a loadout of items, most likely 10 Rare Kinetic Capsules.

The characters are, starting from the top left:

Round 1 (Now for the next two weeks):
- Stein Lightman 2023

Round 2 (August 19th for two weeks):
- Martin Schubert 2023

Round 3 (September 16th for two weeks):
- Yuri Nagassa 2023
- Akira Tsukasa 2023

In addition, Round 1 and 2 will feature a rerun of the Stein Lightman 2019 and Martin Schubert 2019 medals respectively for the same price.

The medals for Round 1 are already online and can be bought!

Source: https://ingress.com/news/ctrl-rules/

@IUENG

It's Anomaly day!

After the victory in the Echo Series, the Enlightened are looking to succeed in this new chapter of Events, but the Resistance is more determined than ever to not let that happen.

The #Ctrl Anomaly in Bandung, Indonesia is starting now. The first wave of Battle Beacons and the Shard Target Portals have spawned this moment, marking the official beginning of the #Ctrl Anomaly Series!

Agents, it's time to move!

Intel link

@IUENG

#Ctrl Anomaly - Bandung, Indonesia

Beacon Battle
Raw Score
ENL 396 - 249 RES
Final Score
ENL 61 - 39 RES

Shard Battle
Raw Score
ENL 24 - 19 RES
Final Score
ENL 48 - 38 RES

Total Score
ENL 109 - 77 RES

🟢 The Enlightened capture the Ctrl Anomaly in Bandung!

Source: https://ingress.com/news/ctrl-rules/

@IUENG

It's on! The #Ctrl Anomaly in Rotenburg An Der Fulda has now begun!
For the next four hours, Agents from both factions will battle for a very important victory in this German city!

Good luck Agents!

@IUENG

#Ctrl Anomaly - Rotenburg a.d. Fulda, Germany

Beacon Battle
Raw Score
ENL 646 - 971 RES
Final Score
ENL 40 - 60 RES

Shard Battle
Raw Score
ENL 15 - 33 RES
Final Score
ENL 26 - 64 RES

Total Score
ENL 66 - 124 RES

🔵 The Resistance captures the Ctrl Anomaly in Rotenburg!

Source: https://ingress.com/news/ctrl-rules/

@IUENG

It is time for the first primary site of the Series!

Santa Cruz de la Sierra, the largest city in Bolivia is hosting this event, which will decide which Faction is taking the first Anomaly Weekend in the #Ctrl Series!

The fun begins now, ladies and gentlemen! Make your Faction proud!

@IUENG

#Ctrl Anomaly - Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia

Beacon Battle
Raw Score
ENL 160.8 - 124 RES
Final Score
ENL 169 - 131 RES

Shard Battle
Raw Score
ENL 11 - 9 RES
Final Score
ENL 165 - 135 RES

Total Score
ENL 334 - 266 RES

🟢 The Enlightened capture the Ctrl Anomaly in Santa Cruz, and are ahead at the end of the first #Ctrl Anomaly weekend with the score of:

ENL 509 - 467 RES

Source: https://ingress.com/news/ctrl-rules/

@IUENG

Swag kits from the NL-1331 Tour in Australia and New Zealand have landed on the Niantic Supply store!

Each kit costs 30$ plus shipping and contains the following:

🔸Bio Card with In-App Medal
🔸NZL/AUS Enamel Pin
🔸NZL/AUS Embroidered Patch
🔸NZL/AUS Sticker
🔸NL Fleet Medal Card
🔸VR Load out Card
🔸Battle Beacon Card
🔸NZL/AUS Collectors Envelope

NL-1331X Australia Kit
NL-1331X New Zealand Kit

Hurry! A little more than a hundred packs for each kit are available!

@IUENG

Niantic published the release notes for a new update to Ingress, v2.120.1!

In this version, the team updated the Overclock UI and fixed some of the issues regarding the placement of the Tesseract in AR. They also reworked the order of modules in the New Agent Training.

Additionally, a dismissable ad for C.O.R.E. was added to the inventory screen. This will be visible to non-subscribers who are getting close to the 2000 item limit.

Source: https://ingress.com/news/2-120-1-release-notes/

@IUENG

After the newest 2.120.1 updated arrived on the phones of Agents, a few additional changes have been observed.

- You can now buy 10 Power Cubes for 1000 CMU directly from the Power Cube menu that can be accessed via the button under your XM tank.

- If you have subscribed to C.O.R.E., the banner advertising it in the store is now hidden.

@IUENG

Niantic has announced that, starting on August 28th, the price of C.O.R.E. will be raised to $7.99 (or local currency equivalent).

To compensate for the increase, the CMU grant will be raised from 2,500 CMU to 10,000 CMU. The new price would be perfectly aligned with a pack of 10000 CMU, given the current price of a 15000 CMU pack, which means that the effective value of C.O.R.E. increases.

The company states that the decision to move forward with this change was influenced by global inflation, economic changes and their LA Studio’s recent restructuring. (Increases in price from app stores are out of Niantic's control)

The new C.O.R.E. benefits will include:

🔸Subscriber Medal
🔸Codename flair
🔸+500 inventory capacity

The monthly item kit:
🔸10,000 CMU (up from 2,500 CMU)
🔸2 Rare Kinetic Capsules
🔸2 Apex
🔸10 Hypercubes
🔸20 XMPs
🔸20 Resonators
🔸1 ITO EN (+)
🔸1 ITO EN (-)
🔸1 SoftBank Ultra Link
🔸1 Very Rare Battle Beacon (if recursed)

Source: https://ingress.com/news/core-subscription-price-change/
Forum thread: https://community.ingress.com/en/discussion/21732/c-o-r-e-subscription-price-change-discussion#latest

@IUENG

IUENG has received a list of 100+ employees that were affected by the recent layoffs at Niantic and who are looking for new work.

With a heavy heart we announce that, in addition to Ethan, the NL-1331 van driver, the Senior Software Engineer Ofer was also laid off.

Ofer joined the team in 2018 and was known as ofer2 on the Ingress Community Forums. He often gave a unique look behind the scenes regarding new features as well as some of the issues that Agents had questions about.

We want to wish him the very best in his future endeavors.

@IUENG

8thWall and Ingress are collaborating on a "Shared AR for Web Challenge"!

Starting on August 1st and running until September 4th, 8thWall will require the help of Agents to merge the physical and digital worlds at Niantic.

More details will be revealed at a later date, so stay tuned!

Source: https://twitter.com/the8thwall/status/1682431945849077760

Discuss on the forums here: https://community.ingress.com/en/discussion/21739/discussion-shared-ar-for-web-challenge/

@IUENG

Quint Arrow

The Quint Arrow is a bar located in Chuo City in Tokyo. Within it, you can see a small model of a Portal and a big screen which are both connected to and show the live status of the Portal in the bar! After last year's Epiphany Dawn anomaly in Yokohama, the NIA has installed a special module called a Tecthulhu into the bar to allow interfacing with the XM network.

The module was first seen during the Camp Navarro event in 2017 during which Agents got access to such a module. Since then, it has appeared at a few other events and at places outside of events as well, such as in the Quint Arrow.

Our outside correspondent visited the Quint Arrow bar a few days ago and documented this strange XM technology and how it reacts to changes in the XM network. You can see their report here:

https://telegra.ph/IUENG-Investigation---Quint-Arrow-07-21

The GIF above shows what happens when the Portal the module is attached to is attacked.

@IUENG

Exciting news for Ingress Agents!

Kawashima Masashi is being promoted to Product Manager after 10 years in Niantic, having previously worked Ingress as a designer in 2013, focusing on the early story and game design and moving on to be the Asia-Pacific director of a little known game called Pokemon GO, essentially being responsible for it's creation. Together with director Brian Rose and a new team, they're ready to take on new challenges, while aiming at making Ingress a Forever Game.

Kawashima credits the supportive agents and the special allure of Ingress for keeping him passionate about the game.

Judging by this article, it's also likely that one of the former employees who worked on the lore of the game will also re-join the project. This means that new game lore might be on the way!

Mark your calendars for September 16th, as both Brian Rose and Kawashima Masashi will fly in from the US to attend the Ctrl Kobe Anomaly.

Source: https://twitter.com/irk_osaka/status/1682903517420474368, @tabineco

@IUENG

We are receiving reports that Mission Day POCs are being contacted in regards to their Q3 Mission Day applications. While Niantic hasn't posted their official schedule yet, POCs of accepted Mission Days are already allowed to advertise their events.

We assume that the official Q3 Mission Day announcement will be posted soon™

@IUENG

8th Wall, via their Twitter, have announced a Challenge Info Session scheduled for August 1st @ 19:00 UTC, in which the details of the upcoming "Shared AR for Web Challenge" will be disclosed.

Ria Bhatia, Product Manager at Niantic, and Brian Rose, Director at Ingress are expected to take the stage to illustrate the event.

RSVP at this link

N.B. The challenge is for developers of the 8thwall platform. Ingress players will not be involved.

Source: https://twitter.com/the8thwall/status/1683961156917145601

@IUENG

Niantic has just announced the following Mission Days for the remainder of Q3 2023:

11-Aug-2023 (Fri) - Kashihara, Japan 🇯🇵 (moved to Q4)
20-Aug-2023 (Sun) - Songpa, Seoul, South Korea [Anomaly MD] 🇰🇷
20-Aug-2023 (Sun) - Oslo, Norway [Anomaly MD] 🇳🇴
20-Aug-2023 (Sun) - Charleston, WV, United States [Anomaly MD] 🇺🇸
26-Aug-2023 (Sat) - Ipoh, Malaysia 🇲🇾
27-Aug-2023 (Sun) - Oulu, Finland 🇫🇮
2-Sep-2023 (Sat) - Keszthely, Hungary 🇭🇺
3-Sep-2023 (Sun) - Otaru, Japan 🇯🇵
9-Sep-2023 (Sat) - Gdynia, Poland 🇵🇱
9-Sep-2023 (Sat) - Metepec, Mexico 🇲🇽
17-Sep-2023 (Sun) - Kobe, Japan [Anomaly MD] 🇯🇵
17-Sep-2023 (Sun) - Reims, France [Anomaly MD] 🇫🇷
17-Sep-2023 (Sun) - Tacoma, WA, United States [Anomaly MD] 🇺🇸
23-Sep-2023 (Sat) - Faro, Portugal 🇵🇹
24-Sep-2023 (Sun) - Naperville, IL, United States 🇺🇸
30-Sep-2023 (Sat) - Potsdam, Germany 🇩🇪

Source: https://ingress.com/news/2023-q3-md

@IUENG