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How do you get started?


JohnE5

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How does your process start?

 

Do you just jump right in and start adding data? Or do you write down how you want the game to play out and try to figure out how to make the software follow your idea?

 

Lets see how everyone comes up with these great ideas!

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My process is

to come up with an adventure,

try to put it to Wherigo,

have the Builder tell me that one simple mistake trashes the whole program,

have Garmin tell me that the device won't do what I want it to do,

spend months writing up a work-around (ZoneListLimiter),

rewrite the stuff I started with (now that I know better),

find another geocache,

brainstorm some more to get more ideas,

whine and complain,

 

then wish I started out simpler because I still don't have my first one published yet.

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Same here: I don't even touch Wherigo until I know what I'm going to create.

 

I can either choose a place I want a cartridge or come up with an idea and look for somewhere. For the former, I take a look at what's there and try to figure out if I could make a nice cartridge for the area. As for the latter, I have to find an area that would fit the cartridge. Except for Whack-A-Lackey, I've always found a place and made a cartridge for it.

 

Once I know where I'm going to put a cartridge, I come up with where I want the geocache. In my area, I'm usually worried someone will come along and put a cache within proximity before I'm done with the cartridge. If it seems likely, I go ahead and place the physical cache and submit a blank cache to my reviewer so he can reserve the spot for me. Usually, I'll have an idea of what I'm going to do when I visit the area to place the cache. If not, I'll have to come back for this next step.

 

After placing the cache, I walk around the area and get coordinates and pictures. I usually take a lot more pictures than I need and make waypoints of everything of interest I could possibly want in the cartridge. If I'm even remotely considering it for the cartridge, I'll waymark and photograph it.

 

Somewhere in this process, I'm already thinking about the cartridge. The first step here, once you have the place, is to create an overall idea. What is the story about? What do you want to show the player? After that, I envision a complete playthrough in my mind. Once I can see what the player will experience, I can create the cartridge.

 

The problem, for me, is coming up with anything extremely creative. I don't want to just throw something together and put it out.

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...The problem, for me, is coming up with anything extremely creative. I don't want to just throw something together and put it out.

 

I have the opposite problem. Developing the concept, writing descriptions and character dialogue, working on graphics.. that's the easy part for me. When it comes to the technical side, I can hold my own, but it's not my favorite part of creating a cartridge. I should probably hang out a shingle that says "ghost writer for Wherigo." :P:D:)

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I am working on my first one. It will kind of follow the tutorial since no one in my area has done one.

 

I want them to head to zone 1 and get a quick introduction and make them open the inventory and power up their GPS before zone 2 becomes visable.

 

They head to zone 2 answer a simple question and zone 3 becomes visable.

 

While walking to zone 3 they enter a hidden zone which will trigger a countdown timer and show messages saying that the "signal was lost on the GPS" they would be intructed to walk around.

 

It wouldn't matter where they went until the timer is done. When it is the "signal would return and zone 3 would be visable again.

 

At zone 3, they would answer a text based question which would show zone 4, the final where the cache is located.

 

I have finished the programming just need to head to the park and get the actual coords, take some photos, figure out what my questions will be and place the cache.

 

Once all thats done I will update the programming. Run another emulator, publish it for myself test it in the park, pubish it on the site.

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I am working on my first one. It will kind of follow the tutorial since no one in my area has done one.

 

I want them to head to zone 1 and get a quick introduction and make them open the inventory and power up their GPS before zone 2 becomes visable.

 

They head to zone 2 answer a simple question and zone 3 becomes visable.

 

While walking to zone 3 they enter a hidden zone which will trigger a countdown timer and show messages saying that the "signal was lost on the GPS" they would be intructed to walk around.

 

It wouldn't matter where they went until the timer is done. When it is the "signal would return and zone 3 would be visable again.

 

At zone 3, they would answer a text based question which would show zone 4, the final where the cache is located.

 

I have finished the programming just need to head to the park and get the actual coords, take some photos, figure out what my questions will be and place the cache.

 

Once all thats done I will update the programming. Run another emulator, publish it for myself test it in the park, pubish it on the site.

 

A word of caution: zone events (at least on the Garmin Colorado) don't execute until you hit the "zero point" in the the zone. In other words, players have to wander around getting closer and closer to zero, until the magic word "(Here)" appears. Just wandering into the zone won't do anything. This bugs me to no end. Essentially, the Wherigo functionality is a bit compromised since you need to hit zero for zone events to start working.

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A word of caution: zone events (at least on the Garmin Colorado) don't execute until you hit the "zero point" in the the zone. In other words, players have to wander around getting closer and closer to zero, until the magic word "(Here)" appears. Just wandering into the zone won't do anything. This bugs me to no end. Essentially, the Wherigo functionality is a bit compromised since you need to hit zero for zone events to start working.

 

this is false. FALSE. false , false, faalalalalaaalaalseeeeee!

(that means that it's not true.)

 

i have here a log from a Garmin Colorado that says that a zone was entered somewhere else than it's zero point - actually, it was outside the defined zone shape (by about half a metre), so in fact the Colorado allows even more tolerance.

 

but obviously you have to come as close as "here". otherwise (i would think) it shows distance to the nearest zone border.

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I don't use a center point for any of my zones. I use the map feature to mark my zones. Unless Wherigo creates a center point on its own I don't think I'll have that problem.

 

Would any one here be interested in testing my cart? I could send the build file and you could change the zones to fit the area you are in. Should only take about 10 minutes from start to finish. I can't test using a GPS unit, I've been using a Blue Tooth GPS with a PDA.

Edited by JohnE5
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A word of caution: zone events (at least on the Garmin Colorado) don't execute until you hit the "zero point" in the the zone. In other words, players have to wander around getting closer and closer to zero, until the magic word "(Here)" appears. Just wandering into the zone won't do anything. This bugs me to no end. Essentially, the Wherigo functionality is a bit compromised since you need to hit zero for zone events to start working.

 

this is false. FALSE. false , false, faalalalalaaalaalseeeeee!

(that means that it's not true.)

 

i have here a log from a Garmin Colorado that says that a zone was entered somewhere else than it's zero point - actually, it was outside the defined zone shape (by about half a metre), so in fact the Colorado allows even more tolerance.

 

but obviously you have to come as close as "here". otherwise (i would think) it shows distance to the nearest zone border.

Perhaps the problem is with too small of a zone. What has been reported with a small zone is that users may have to move about to get the distance to the zone down to zero in order for the OnEnter event to fire. Make the zones large enough and they player should have no trouble getting inside the zone and having the event fire. You might also trying using OnProximity which fires when the player is within the proximity distance.

 

As you move toward a zone the following events should fire

OnDistant - you move into the distance range of the zone. If the zone is visible, the zone will be displayed. A distance of -1 is infinite and OnDistant fires at cartridge start up.

OnProximity - you move into the proximity range of the zone.

OnEnter - you move into the zone itself

 

On the way out the following events should fire

OnExit and On Proximity - you move from the zone into the proximity range

OnDistant - you move beyond the proximity range into the distance range

OnNotInRange - you move beyond the distance range. The zone is no longer displayed. (not sure if this fires on the Colorado/Oregon)

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A word of caution: zone events (at least on the Garmin Colorado) don't execute until you hit the "zero point" in the the zone. In other words, players have to wander around getting closer and closer to zero, until the magic word "(Here)" appears. Just wandering into the zone won't do anything. This bugs me to no end. Essentially, the Wherigo functionality is a bit compromised since you need to hit zero for zone events to start working.

 

this is false. FALSE. false , false, faalalalalaaalaalseeeeee!

(that means that it's not true.)

 

i have here a log from a Garmin Colorado that says that a zone was entered somewhere else than it's zero point - actually, it was outside the defined zone shape (by about half a metre), so in fact the Colorado allows even more tolerance.

 

but obviously you have to come as close as "here". otherwise (i would think) it shows distance to the nearest zone border.

Perhaps the problem is with too small of a zone. What has been reported with a small zone is that users may have to move about to get the distance to the zone down to zero in order for the OnEnter event to fire. Make the zones large enough and they player should have no trouble getting inside the zone and having the event fire. You might also trying using OnProximity which fires when the player is within the proximity distance.

 

As you move toward a zone the following events should fire

OnDistant - you move into the distance range of the zone. If the zone is visible, the zone will be displayed. A distance of -1 is infinite and OnDistant fires at cartridge start up.

OnProximity - you move into the proximity range of the zone.

OnEnter - you move into the zone itself

 

On the way out the following events should fire

OnExit and On Proximity - you move from the zone into the proximity range

OnDistant - you move beyond the proximity range into the distance range

OnNotInRange - you move beyond the distance range. The zone is no longer displayed. (not sure if this fires on the Colorado/Oregon)

 

Just out of curiousity to those folks doubting my previous post, a couple of questions:

 

1. Do you own a Garmin Colorado?

2. How many carts have you authored/played?

 

In my case, 1) I do own a Garmin Colorado. I've had it about a year now. And 2) I've authored 5 cartridges and completed 2 others. Several friends also have a Colorado unit and report the same thing.

 

The zone concept is pretty simple, at least in theory. You create a box and when the player walks in the box stuff happens. In reality, I have *YET* to see that happen. Search this board, and you'll find other folks saying the same thing. But don't go by logs or what other people say. The best way to confirm/repudiate this is to try it "in the field." Simply put, OnEnter doesn't work as it should. I tried OnProximity and that had less-than-ideal results. So for now, I'll live with OnEnter requiring the player to hit the zero point.

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Would any one here be interested in testing my cart?

 

I'd be more than happy to give it a crack. I have a CO and an older iQue that I could test it on.

 

1. Do you own a Garmin Colorado?

2. How many carts have you authored/played?

 

The first question I guess I already answered, and the second one.....well I'm not going there :D:)

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Just out of curiousity to those folks doubting my previous post, a couple of questions:

 

1. Do you own a Garmin Colorado?

2. How many carts have you authored/played?

 

1. no, i don't own a Colorado, but i know some people who do. i played two cartridges together with them. both of those have defined zones as shapes, both of them rely on OnEnter and on neither of them any of the coloradists had problems with entering the zones.

 

2. i've played something like ten cartridges and published none, so far, but i made some testing cartridges on a Wherigo event. again, no problems with colorados.

 

plus. as far as i know, to date, all czech cartridges (cca 25) have defined zone shapes and i have yet to hear a complaint from any colorado owner who tried any of those. on the contrary, FTF is usually made with a colorado.

again, all of the cartridges have defined zone shapes, those i know of use only OnEnter.

 

plus, as i said before, i gathered evidence ;e) let me just set up some software

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there.

 

this map shows layout of zones of cartridge Pes Baskervillský. the plotted points are places where proximity, enter and exit events were logged.

as you can see, they're all over the zone shapes (in one or two cases actually outside), and definitely not clustered around some "zero point".

 

the map sources were generated from a Lua source of the cartridge and a gwl log from a Colorado device, so i can easily generate other maps from other logs.

JJG10101, why don't you post some gwl file from your colorado so that i can make a map from it?

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there.

 

this map shows layout of zones of cartridge Pes Baskervillský. the plotted points are places where proximity, enter and exit events were logged.

as you can see, they're all over the zone shapes (in one or two cases actually outside), and definitely not clustered around some "zero point".

 

the map sources were generated from a Lua source of the cartridge and a gwl log from a Colorado device, so i can easily generate other maps from other logs.

JJG10101, why don't you post some gwl file from your colorado so that i can make a map from it?

 

Sounds good, I just might take you up on that offer. Two more thoughts:

 

* I'd hate to think this was a North America issue. Granted, I doubt Garmin sells the 400t I bought to European customers; the U.S. topographic maps, to name one feature, wouldn't have much value for you folks across the pond.

 

* Again, I'm not the only one saying this stuff. Take a look at this post from Ranger Fox, in the "Proximity Problems" thread:

 

"...The Garmin Players do not seem to recognize zones beyond a single point. This has been a bug since day one and it has not been fixed. The same goes for OnProximity and OnEnter on the Garmin Players: OnEnter only fires when the player zeroes out and OnProximity fires when the player crosses the proximity radius of a zone."

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* I'd hate to think this was a North America issue. Granted, I doubt Garmin sells the 400t I bought to European customers; the U.S. topographic maps, to name one feature, wouldn't have much value for you folks across the pond.
i don't think that's it - after all, the firmware download is the same.

also, i thought that it might be caused by old firmware version, but some people here reported this problem even with latest firmware (at least i think...)

but there is a thing i was missing previously: there are more types of Colorado. i don't know which ones my friends have. let me find out.

 

* Again, I'm not the only one saying this stuff. Take a look at this post from Ranger Fox, in the "Proximity Problems" thread:

"...The Garmin Players do not seem to recognize zones beyond a single point. This has been a bug since day one and it has not been fixed. The same goes for OnProximity and OnEnter on the Garmin Players: OnEnter only fires when the player zeroes out and OnProximity fires when the player crosses the proximity radius of a zone."

i know! that's why i'm fighting against this "misconception" so hard :) so let's see whether it's really a misconception or some deeper problem
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anytime, if you're paying for the tickets :)

 

anyway, here's another map (cartridge Zámecký park v Čechách pod Košířem), this time from two Colorado 300 logs.

here it's even more visible - in some zones it's apparent that the players were walking on a path through the zone.

there are also other interesting points, like this one, clearly outside the zone shape. perhaps there is some tolerance built in, or the shape recognition is not precise

 

...aaand, i'm creating a new thread for this, as we're clearly off topic

Edited by matejcik
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I don't use a center point for any of my zones. I use the map feature to mark my zones. Unless Wherigo creates a center point on its own I don't think I'll have that problem.

 

Would any one here be interested in testing my cart? I could send the build file and you could change the zones to fit the area you are in. Should only take about 10 minutes from start to finish. I can't test using a GPS unit, I've been using a Blue Tooth GPS with a PDA.

 

I'd be willing to test it for you.

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