Things have been rough for us frogs lately. The local Res, and our group of about 35 just play differently. Neither of us are better or worse or right or wrong, we just have different philosophies on the game.
The Res are super serious. They have weekend sign up sheets as to who is "on call" to defend their farms. They have dozens and dozens of keys to their standing fields. They have a Rapid Response Team.
While we commend their organization, we don't play like that. We don't want Ingress to feel like a job. So it is what it is, we could get more organized if we really wanted to, and it does get frustrating sometimes, but we also realize that if there's any "blame" it's on us. So it sort of cuts both ways. Our want to enjoy the game for fun, sometimes leads to it not being so much fun.
Anyway. When I first joined the group and started playing more seriously, I'd look at the huge fields my team mates were throwing and be in awe. Like, how do you even do that? I'd work my home neighborhood weekend nights, clear blockers, and usually get 3-4 connected 1-4k fields up. They'd never hold, of course, but I still get the AP and Illuminator credit.
Well, since I'm leaving the area, moving to a new state, last night, I decided to give them something to remember me by. I headed out and threw a 6 km north to south link down the street I live on. I already had a key or two for each, so I farmed a few more. I had 5 keys for one anchor and 4 for the other. Then I headed east. I sent a screen shot of my plan to the group. My original plan was 2 layers.
I get to the eastern anchor and.... I'm blocked. I was going to anchor just south of where I eventually did, which had been all green before I left my house. That blue to the west of it? That was a small field and 3 links anchored to a campground and an equestrian center in a nature preserve that was closed. And gated.
Dammit.
I go in our group room and lament. "Can you hit it from the north?" someone asks? "That's what I'm trying to see", I reply. Someone else chimes in and says "I've been out there. You can't. All that is, is the other end of the preserve. You'd need a helicopter to get to it at this hour."
Well, damn.
And then another guy, who's had some personal problems lately and hasn't been playing much, hops on Intel and says "If you take the library and ADA the fire station, you can get 2 layers out of that".
But it's getting near checkpoint. And my data connection is garbage out in BFE. So he feeds me step by step instructions. "ADA this, recapture it. Take that, that's your first field. Then go here, and that's your second. Take the park and throw your third. ADA first, work fast, there's one of their rapid response guys that lives out there."
10-4.
So I ADA, and then get a message "Hold up. Your link back in Oakdale just went down". Dammit. They saw what I was up to. And then "Throw your links, sit by that anchor, and give me 20 minutes. I'll go re-throw it." later "All right, you're good to go."
So the first field was technically his since he threw the link that closed it. 3 minutes later, I had fields 2 and 3 up. ~8k each.
Drove home under a nice thick green sky.
It was a great team effort, tons of fun, and got somebody who would have otherwise just sat around his house moping and depressed out and thinking about something else. Even when things aren't going great for us, nights like last night remind me what I love about this game and this community.