Why cooperation is important - thoughts from Battle in Seattle

I'm the leader of the Seattle Resistance Community and I've been playing +Ingress for a little over a month.  In that time we've had 4 Resistance meetups and as you can see from the screenshots below a little bit of organization makes a world of difference (left taken 11/30 right taken today).

All 4 of the meetups have been fairly short (2-3 hours) and only covered a small area.  The main priority at the meetups is sharing information and helping the low level players understand game mechanics so we can all be better players. 

The thing I've come to realize however is that at this point in the evolution of the game cooperation within your own faction isn't the only thing that is needed.  With the low drop rate of portal keys the only way to make real progress is when you have turnover and you can't have really effective turnover if one side crushes the other.  Here in Seattle members of the Resistance and Enlightened have been talking in order to figure out ways to help everyone have fun, just because one side got organized doesn't mean they can't help the other.

This is a brand new type of game and although I'm sure +Niantic Project has a plan of where the game is going, I'm guessing that plan is evolving rapidly as they see how it's used.  To that end I am vested in making sure that everyone both Enlightened and Resistance enjoys their experience because I want to see where this goes. I can't wait to see what Ingress looks like when it goes live because I have a feeling it will be significantly different than what we see now.

In the end it is a game and it's intended for fun.  Nothing in life is perfect (not even Google) so report bugs, report cheating, be patient, be social gasp and most of all have fun.  

Mistyayn

P.S. Anyone in Seattle from either faction feel free to contact me and I'll try and help you if I can.

The one on the top was take 11-30-2012 the one on the bottom was taken 12-27-2012