More Cheerfully -- I have questions -- but don't laugh!

[lydy]

So, I downloaded Pokemon GO. Also Ingress, because, seriously, why not? They are both pretty damn opaque to me.

So, first off, Ingress, which doesn't crash nearly as often. Which is a plus. On the down side, what the fuck? Seriously, what am I doing and why am I doing it? I did the training missions, but I am finding myself with a severe lack of motivation to do anything. Why am I hacking portals? Why am I linking portals? Why am I attacking portals? Why should I hack versus attack versus... I suppose if I'd paid more attention to the "briefings" I'd have a better idea, but honestly, WTF? I do not have any emotional resonance with the idea of being an "agent." The sides are opaque, so I chose blue because it's a prettier color than green. And I'm a bit baffled by the game mechanics. I'm not sure I understand the controls, or anything else, really. But over all, I am desperately looking for a reason to care. I know some of you play this, and at least one person (hello, Patricia) is passionate about it. Could you please explain both the raison d'être, and also the game mechanics, please?

Onto Pokemon GO. The very beginning is considerably more accessible, I'll give you that. I've never played any previous iteration of Pokemon, so I have no idea what's going on or why, but there are cute little animals, and if I throw balls at them, I get to add them to my Pokedex, so that's kind of cool. It crashes all the fucking time, which is irritating. I had to ask a very nice stranger how to get Pokeballs out of the Pokestops (never occurred to me to spin the fuckers), and I am currently a level 4 for no apparent reason. There are gyms, and I guess I battle my Pokemons? (Insert look of quizzical disbelief, here.) There's something about powering them up, which I suppose has to do with the gym battles, and evolving, and I have no idea what that is, and there's a bar under my game name which I guess has to do with...power? Not even sure. And I have a back pack, so I can carry things? Are my pokeballs in the backpack? So very confused. And why do I want to battle my Pokemons? Wouldn't I rather just be friends with them? They're cute, even the stinging bug ones. Again, can someone explain both the back story and the game mechanics to me? I mean, I tried googling "how do I get pokeballs" and the articles very kindly told me to go to the Pokestops, but didn't tell me I had to spin them, so I visited a bunch of Pokestops before the nice young woman explained things to me. How do I get coins? What is a Pokestop module? Why would I want one? Arghhhh.

I've also had my first Pokeinjury, I tripped over a curb and went sprawling. My left pinky finger is a little sore, and my phone is fine, so I guess that's ok. And I walked about a kilometer, so that's a good thing. The very little information I've found suggests that you can just hold the phone, not look at it, while you're walking, but I find that mine shuts itself off, and when it does that, Pokemon Go doesn't wake it up to tell me about Pokemons, so that doesn't work. Possible I need to adjust a phone setting? So very confused.

Of the two, Pokemon Go is so far more fun, and offers more reasons to stop, which is nice for a very out of shape 54 year old like me. My, but I'm easily winded. I have no idea if I'm going to play this obsessively, or not. And it's possible that Pokemon is more fun initially, but Ingress more fun over time. No idea.

So many questions.

Comments

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Not actually playing Pokemon Go yet, but the things I know about it from a metamour who is heavily into it: the premise is that you go around catching the Pokemon and putting them in your Pokeballs. They live in their balls, which are organized in your Pokedex, and they become friends with you. At the gyms, you deploy your Pokemon, which you are friends with, to fight other people's Pokemon. Fighting makes Pokemon stronger-- whether they win or lose, they get stronger, but winning makes them stronger faster. When you signed up for the game, there should have been an option to pick, like, I think it's a color, or between a set of names? Anyway, whichever one of those you picked is your team. If your Pokemon beat an opponent's Pokemon while fighting at the gym, the gym is controlled by your team. The longer the gym is controlled by your team, the more bonuses everyone on that team in the general area gets, basically just by walking around nearby. The player who is actively defending the gym gets more bonuses still, and I think cool stuff, so it can be worth it to fight over a gym even if its current defender is on your team. There are maybe three teams?

Pokemon do not die if they are defeated in battle; they faint and go back into their spheres. They cannot actually be killed.

Your Pokemon have something called CP, that shows in a bar underneath them. You can increase their CP by giving them candy. If you give them enough candy, they will evolve, and change forms into completely new and different Pokemon. The evolved forms are always cooler than the initial ones, so it's worth working for. Many Pokemon can evolve more than once, and the seriously evolved forms are literally the gods of the Pokemon universe and really, really gorgeous. You can get candy by trading in duplicate Pokemon that you catch, although I'm not sure exactly how you do it. But you're going to wind up with lots and lots of the very common kinds of Pokemon, so that's how they turn out to be useful.

Aaaaaand that's pretty much what I know so far.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

That's actually very helpful, and I am weirdly reassured that the Pokemon do not die, and that they are my friends. So, the battles in the gym are like martial arts sparring, maybe?

[ckd]

Pretty much, yeah.

You don't get to do gym battles until you reach level 5, which is when you choose your team (red/yellow/blue but they also have names, I play yellow).

[lydy.livejournal.com]

I have just reached level five. Near as I can tell the first two or three levels are basically "Yay! You went outside! Here, level up! You've actually gone outside! I'm so proud of you."

Will probably stop by a gym tomorrow after killing my cat. Or, stay indoors and cry for hours. Have not yet decided.

[quility.livejournal.com]

Many hugs.

[ckd]

*hugs*

[quility.livejournal.com]

I have stopped playing ingress and i am So glad to have broken the addiction. It is a f-ing confrontational game. I think the thing that addicted me - that pushed my buttons - was the owning territory thing. Mine mine mine. And when the other team took things back it spurred me to head back out to take MY things back. i no longer recommend it and can't wait until my husband and his girlfriend stop playing. It had a required daily component that helped encourage the addiction. *sigh* I'm sure i would have had a very different reaction if you'd asked me a month or 2 ago.
How do you play? At low levels you can't really control much and as a blue player in your area you are probably having a hard time finding green portals to attack. but hacking allows you to get some experience and resources that you will to attack and build once you are high enough level. I liked that it got me out and about which it sounds like Pokemon Go does better without the confrontation. I did also like the glyph subgame. When you hack a portal - instead of just tapping the hack button - hold it down and the glyphs appear that you have to repeat. And you get more reward when you glyph hack. I would love to take a walk with you and give you ingress tips or watch you poke go things. walking is good :)

I am avoiding pokemon go since i do not want a new addiction and i don't think my old phone can handle it.

Despite the battles it sounds like pogo is not confrontational and fighting actually helps the monsters advance. So that is a Huge improvement.

And as a side note - i just learned the term metamour this week and here it is being used in my poly world. Woot!

[lydy.livejournal.com]

Interesting that it's confrontational. I did a thing with a portal down at the end of my street last night, and woke up to a notification that somebody had turned it Green. It felt weirdly real and urgent, what with it being in my email and all. So I went to the portal and tried to hack it, or something, but rapidly got bored, and switched over to Pokemon GO. Which got me to walk a couple of kilometers again today.

The thing about Ingress is that it feels very militaristic and Cold War, to me. The graphics are actually pretty, but I can see how it processes as confrontational. It feels...stressful. Urgent. Pokemon GO feels like a pleasure walk with cute critters. The other thing is that as far as I can tell with Ingress, it really encourages you to walk from point to point, and there's very little reason to stop in between portals. Whereas with Pokemon GO, there are little critters fairly frequently, and you stop to throw Pokeballs at them, and that breaks up the walk. Which, as I said in the top post, is darn useful for an out of shape old woman like myself.

[quility.livejournal.com]

Pleasure walk with cute critters is a great slogan. Makes me want to play. Must resist! :)

[hobbitbabe]

I started playing Ingress last summer while waiting for Pokemon Go to be available legally. So by the time I got Pokemon Go, I liked Ingress a lot. I agree with you that Pokemon Go makes it more rewarding to stop and play. Also, I think Pokemon Go is probably more fun for someone who mostly sticks in the same neighbourhoods (like kids).

I mostly play Ingress by myself, because I find it satisfying to go around my neighbourhood making everything green (no idea why I picked green, and sometimes doing missions to make mission banners on my score page. But I also like the social aspect of it. Here, when a new player starts being territorial, teammates tend to counsel not taking things personally and enjoying the chance to get more points recapturing. People share gear based on different people's playing styles. We meet up for events or days out or just bubble tea. And of course, once I started meeting some of them in person, it turned out that one of them was a Ravelry knitting friend, some of them were WoW guild-mates with my other local group of friends, someone knew Peter Watts and thought I was amazing for knowing Jo Walton, etc etc. Geek worlds overlap. (and I don't know why I never read your LJ before but we've certainly shared various friends' comment sections and at least one USENET group.)