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Is Wherigo dead?


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As far as I'm concerned: I simply do love Wherigo. Not the version where you put some multi-cache Q&A that you normally would answer on a sheet of paper, calculate offline and be done with it, into a cartridge and call it a Wherigo. What I love are those that tell a story, and adventure, dragons maybe, or evily witches. Those that have actual task in it, like colleting water from a nearby fountain without getting you hands wet. Those that reminds me of the times, when we all played "Kings Quest" and "Galaxy Quest" and "Larry Laffer." Look right, get item, use item. Woohoo!

 

Keep it alive, make it better, investigate into usability. And everyone will be plaing it.

 

Just my 2 cents.

 

//Carsti

 

This was exactly how I approached my first WiG cartridge. I wanted something that wasn't just a tour or walk through, but something that had a taste of those exact elements. I ended up combing The X-Files and LOST to create an adventure where someone had to solve a mystery around one of our local lakes. Takes almost 2 hours to complete the whole thing but man was it satisfying to make. I really wish more of those kinds of WiG's were out there.

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GOOD NEWS from Bryan ( Groundspeak) on the FADs Event in Sweden 2011 nov 5th.

We had a information meeting and could put questions to him and his colleague Jeremy

I put the question about the future of Wherigo and an update of the official builder and he informed us that they just the other day had a board meeting and made an action plan with 50 items and sayed that a new Wherigo editor are due in 2012 (he said that I should contact him if they did´nt!)...

 

...Jeremy gave a talk at the recent Annual UK Mega Event, and he said Wherigo is back on his radar with something coming before the end of the year.

I think he said Groundspeak want to make the whole process of creating and playing much more staightforward, with a greater emphasis on playing on Smartphones, as they've realised Wherigo has lost ground to other smartphone GPS games (or words to those affect).

 

I've been patiently waiting for more than a year now, and 2012 is rapidly drawing to a close; so I thought I should probably go ahead and download Groundspeak's new Wherigo builder that was on their "to do" list for this year. Does anybody have a link to it? My search thus far has been unsuccessful.

Thanks. <_<

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There isn't a "like" button on this forum, is there?

 

Well... I don't have any news to report to the community, either. I'm still waiting for April's bug fix, at the very least. I've provided Groundspeak with information when they asked for it during my conversations with them. While I do hear things from them, but I'm not going to announce what I hear to the community for precisely the point you've made, worldtraveler.

 

Please feel free to contact Groundspeak and urge them to continue Wherigo development. It would be funny if a hoard of us showed up at their office one day to ask in person. They'll probably say, "We know, we know! We're trying to get to it."

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So, I'm just getting started at building a simple cartridge. While visiting the Wherigo site, I find this forum thread and hope it's wrong! I sent a note to contact@Wherigo.com and this is their reply: "Thank you for contacting us and for your interest in Wherigo. In order to support the rapid community growth of Geocaching.com in the past couple of years, it has been necessary to shift previously dedicated resources from Wherigo to Geocaching. Unfortunately, at this time we are only able to provide limited technical support. Please try posting your question in the Wherigo forums. These forums are monitored and can usually provide you with the best support.

Sorry that we can't be of more help at this time."

 

So, not dead, but not actively supported by anyone other than us!

I'll post my question to the group as a new topic.

Thanks all

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Wherigo has been predominantly community-supported for almost five years now. I'll know more in mid-December whether this will continue in 2013 or if we can expect something.

I certainly hope Groundspeak revisits developing this platform, perhaps they will now that they finally saw that "Challenges" was not a good idea.

Unfortunately Wherigo has been predominantly community-supported for almost five years now. I've Been frustrated using what tools they supplied in 2008.

 

A lot has happened in the last 5 years. In 2008 I did not have a smartphone, going into 2013 I'll have at my disposal a smartphone and a tablet. Millions of gps enabled smartphones and tablets are now out there. But to use them to Wherigo we will need some support from Groundspeak.

 

1. Natively supported players for Ipad/Iphone and Android devices. Is Anyone using Pocked PC's now???

2. I would use a pocket query loaded into my GPSr to get me to parking for a Wherigo. We need something like a "Pocket Query" but named differently that does what a PQ does (gets Whereigos within a radius or along a route) but has the cartridges bundled within. So all one needs to do is download it to the computer and then drag it to the Tablet/Smartphone.

Do that and I can live with the windows authoring softwhere as is.

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Wherigo has been predominantly community-supported for almost five years now. I'll know more in mid-December whether this will continue in 2013 or if we can expect something.

 

The good thing, at least, is that the community has its own tools and the forum here is an excellent place to hang out.

 

I love Wherigo's - definitely one of my favorite cache ever in 18 countries and 13 US states of caching is a Wherigo. I have made two of my own ("made" to be expanded later) and they have garned more favorite votes than almost any of my non-Wherigo caches (325 non-Wherigos created and hidden). I use my iPhone and it works perfect.

 

Now, for each of the two I made, I needed to reach out for assistance. I used Earwigo which was the most user friendly. But still, I needed help from others. I don't think I am that stupid (don't ask my wife for opinions though) and I just got lost. If the powers that be could make it easier to build, then I think a lot more Wherigos would be created.

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Wherigo has been predominantly community-supported for almost five years now. I'll know more in mid-December whether this will continue in 2013 or if we can expect something.

I certainly hope Groundspeak revisits developing this platform, perhaps they will now that they finally saw that "Challenges" was not a good idea.

Unfortunately Wherigo has been predominantly community-supported for almost five years now. I've Been frustrated using what tools they supplied in 2008.

 

A lot has happened in the last 5 years. In 2008 I did not have a smartphone, going into 2013 I'll have at my disposal a smartphone and a tablet. Millions of gps enabled smartphones and tablets are now out there. But to use them to Wherigo we will need some support from Groundspeak.

 

1. Natively supported players for Ipad/Iphone and Android devices. Is Anyone using Pocked PC's now???

2. I would use a pocket query loaded into my GPSr to get me to parking for a Wherigo. We need something like a "Pocket Query" but named differently that does what a PQ does (gets Whereigos within a radius or along a route) but has the cartridges bundled within. So all one needs to do is download it to the computer and then drag it to the Tablet/Smartphone.

Do that and I can live with the windows authoring softwhere as is.

 

Isn't that how Wherigos work on an iPhone? I use my iPhone now. I download the cartridge and pull and drop it into my iPhone. Works perfect.

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Isn't that how Wherigos work on an iPhone? I use my iPhone now. I download the cartridge and pull and drop it into my iPhone. Works perfect.

Not quite. The iPhone is set up with an internal Safari browser with a hook that monitors for all GWC files coming from the Wherigo.com domain (which means you can't host a GWC on your own site and expect the phone to download it--I've tried numerous times). And this isn't how the other devices are set up. My idea of "native support" is through a Wherigo API.

 

Let me put this in perspective. Let's say geocaching was set up like Wherigo is now. You have an iPhone app. It lists all the individual caches you've downloaded (just like cartridges). There isn't anything to tell you if there are any caches nearby. In addition, to download a cache you do know about, you have to browse to the right cache page on your phone and click the button to download a GPX file. The browser intercepts it and adds it to your list of caches and takes you back to that list. If you wanted to download the next closest, you had better have copied the URL. If not, you'll have to browse through the geocaching site from the homepage again. And you can't even post a field not or a log from the app, either. From my perspective on geocaching, it's such a huge pain I don't want to bother with that. I want to run a PQ and stick everything in the app at once so I don't have to bother with it. And though I don't hang out on the geocaching side of the forum, I have to admit I may have found one too many caches in my time. (I even passed a milestone: 10K finds in this calendar year alone! Hooray, me!) Ahem. Uh...

 

As for the future, I want the Wherigo Player to be able to use an API (talk to the site directly through code). This way, the Player can send your current location and the site can provide the Player with a list of nearby cartridges, including if you have or have not played the cartridge, or if the cartridge on the Wherigo site has been updated since you last downloaded it. As for a pocket query for Wherigo, I could agree that it might be a good thing to download all cartridges within a fifty mile / eighty kilometer radius. However, I question the amount of data you're looking at downloading. On the light side, you might only be downloading a megabyte or two. Later, when there are more cartridges and they include more media and even audio, the average pocket query might hover around 30MB. So I'm a little concerned about a PQ service being offered.

 

Anyway, that's all the time I have to write tonight.

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Isn't that how Wherigos work on an iPhone? I use my iPhone now. I download the cartridge and pull and drop it into my iPhone. Works perfect.

Not quite. The iPhone is set up with an internal Safari browser with a hook that monitors for all GWC files coming from the Wherigo.com domain (which means you can't host a GWC on your own site and expect the phone to download it--I've tried numerous times). And this isn't how the other devices are set up. My idea of "native support" is through a Wherigo API.

 

Let me put this in perspective. Let's say geocaching was set up like Wherigo is now. You have an iPhone app. It lists all the individual caches you've downloaded (just like cartridges). There isn't anything to tell you if there are any caches nearby. In addition, to download a cache you do know about, you have to browse to the right cache page on your phone and click the button to download a GPX file. The browser intercepts it and adds it to your list of caches and takes you back to that list. If you wanted to download the next closest, you had better have copied the URL. If not, you'll have to browse through the geocaching site from the homepage again. And you can't even post a field not or a log from the app, either. From my perspective on geocaching, it's such a huge pain I don't want to bother with that. I want to run a PQ and stick everything in the app at once so I don't have to bother with it. And though I don't hang out on the geocaching side of the forum, I have to admit I may have found one too many caches in my time. (I even passed a milestone: 10K finds in this calendar year alone! Hooray, me!) Ahem. Uh...

 

As for the future, I want the Wherigo Player to be able to use an API (talk to the site directly through code). This way, the Player can send your current location and the site can provide the Player with a list of nearby cartridges, including if you have or have not played the cartridge, or if the cartridge on the Wherigo site has been updated since you last downloaded it. As for a pocket query for Wherigo, I could agree that it might be a good thing to download all cartridges within a fifty mile / eighty kilometer radius. However, I question the amount of data you're looking at downloading. On the light side, you might only be downloading a megabyte or two. Later, when there are more cartridges and they include more media and even audio, the average pocket query might hover around 30MB. So I'm a little concerned about a PQ service being offered.

 

Anyway, that's all the time I have to write tonight.

 

Got it - thanks. Sounds like a great improvement and one I certainly would welcome.

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Hi. I've been caching for just over a year and so far have just ignored this whole Wherigo thing since I was under the impression that you needed a high-end Garmin GPSr to play the game. And then a few weeks ago while looking at another cachers profile I discovered that there are Android player. Great, now I can play too (Nexus 7). And then just last week I picked up a Garmin Colorado 400T, so know I'm in business with this Wherigo game. But then I do a search on GC.com and find that in my typical PQ zone (almost 3000 active caches) there are only 2 Wherigo caches! This is as depressing as having a glance at some of those alternative geocaching websites, barely anything around me to be found (unless you want to fill the tank and pack a lunch and make a day trip out of it! That says a lot given that I'm smack in the middle of the golden horseshoe region.

And this thread was started in 2009? When I noticed that there were players for android and iphone I was sure this game would be happening, but I can't even find a pulse. Am I missing something? Why are so few playing this game. Is the problem with creating cartridges? If we build them will they get played?

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Honestly, it's a combination of many factors. The importance and magnitude of each of these varies by region. For instance, your area (and mine) might be slow, but places in Michigan and Europe are much more active.

 

Number-Based Geocaching - There's a big focus on numbers these days. Wherigo cartridges take even longer than many multis to complete. Less people from out of town might do a cartridge in a cache rich area.

 

Exclusive Devices - You seemed to touch on this in your log. You need some sort of special device to play a Wherigo cartridge. When Wherigo was released, it was either the new Garmin Colorado or a certain type of PDA. Not many people had a PDA (I admit I did because I was using it to store and view pocket queries while in the field; acquiring the Colorado retired my PDA). Later, not many people had a smartphone. People have been transitioning to smartphones over the years, so at least that has gotten better. But I guess there's still that thought you need something high end. And there still isn't a Wherigo player for each device. I don't know if there ever will be.

 

Learning Curve to Play and Create - To create cartridges, the learning curve is steep--very steep. You already hid a pill bottle or Lock'N'Lock somewhere. Why not just publish it as a traditional cache? It takes less time and effort. As for playing a cartridge, the experience is different for each one. It takes a few tries to figure out the player. None of the players' user interfaces are similar, either. To learn to use the player, you have to have cartridges. Usually, people have to play a cartridge or two before they think about creating one. With steep learning curves each way, this only compounds the problem.

 

Time Involved To Create - You'd even get more find logs just publishing that pill bottle or ammo can without a cartridge. Or you could slap a puzzle on top of it and have more feedback. No matter the person, it takes hours to create a Wherigo cartridge. I certainly know what I'm doing and it takes hours to create one. I have to choose a site, take a bunch of coordinates and pictures, spend time thinking about what I'm going to create, find other artwork online that I can use in the cartridge, and test once or twice when I'm in the field. For me, at least, the actual coding part doesn't take long, but that's because I have five years of experience doing this stuff. The thing that always slows me down and the two reasons why I'm not a prolific cartridge creator are that I'm busy with other things (including helping others with their cartridges) and I can't think of unique experiences to put out.

 

Player Quality - The quality of all Wherigo players available today is low, bar none. The best are mediocre. Garmin's Oregon has the worst of them all, notoriously unstable. At times, It'll crash for no apparent reason. Even for the players that are rock solid, the user interface is horrible. Wherigo's main screen (locations, you see, inventory, and tasks) is antiquated. It works well on a Garmin due to its small screen real estate, lack of resources, and disconnected (from online) nature. The UI was created before smartphones were available. Nowadays, you can play games on your cell phones which could have run on a PlayStation of Xbox. The graphical potential is astronomically higher than when the Wherigo UI was conceived. I recently (a few days ago) drew out what I want some of the Wherigo player's screens to look like. However, I am a web developer and not a app developer or graphic designer, so while I can manage a project to re-imagine the Wherigo player, I cannot personally create one--I'm not a video game developer.

 

Lack Of Convenience - It's not convenient to search for and load a cartridge onto a player. Let's compare this to the geocaching app on a phone. The geocaching app shows you what's around, gives you a map, and even includes a compass to get you there. If the geocaching app was like the most convenient Wherigo app (the one for the iPhone), what would it be like? Well, you'd bring the app up and have to go to the gc.com site in its own browser within that tiny screen. You'd have to search for all geocaches in Canada and look through the list to find out what's closest to you. You couldn't even tell which ones you found in that list, so you'd better have a good memory. You can't even see the cartridges on a map. After you find something of interest, you can click to download just that one--no bulk download for you. After that, that one cache is finally loaded into your app and you can go find it. We're lacking an API on the site, so no Wherigo player developer is able to improve on this.

 

Lack Of Incentive - What do you get for completing a Wherigo cartridge? Usually, it's a geocache find credit. Let me repeat that: a geocache reward for Wherigo. Granted, this is one of the two reasons why Wherigo is still alive today (the other is the third-party developers; I'm quite aware I have an affect on the community, but I couldn't keep this going without the tools being available). Geocaching has several gimmicks, the greatest of which is currently the find count. There isn't any reason to log a cartridge play-through on the Wherigo site. The author isn't notified. You can't watch cartridges. The log page is outdated compared with the geocaching site. You don't get a cartridge completion credit. The completions don't even show up on your profile. Heck, there isn't even a way to filter out from a search cartridges you've already completed. Aside from the logs being shown publicly, there isn't anything on the Wherigo site to foster a community or even competition.

 

Groundspeak - Groundspeak introduced Wherigo in January 2008. There was a flurry of marketing during that time. It was odd that there wasn't even a Wherigo cache type. My reaction to them was, "Really? You have to be kidding. People can't be expected to put this under the mystery cache type." There weren't any site updates after January (except for critical issues I managed to convince them to fix) and the last release of any Wherigo software from them was in May of that year. Since then, Groundspeak hasn't shown much support for Wherigo. I know they want to--that's their intent--but intent and action are two different things. Since last April, I've been trying to get them to fix a bug regarding the cartridge completion code. I can confirm Groundspeak does not have any of Wherigo's original developers on staff, nor do they have the budget to do anything about it. This is also very dangerous for them because there might come a day when the individual third party developers might band together and take complete control over Groundspeak's product. It could happen, but how would Groundspeak react? Would such an occurrence lead to friction which could destroy Wherigo? I try to remain optimistic or at least not negative/jaded because not being positive does more harm than good. Now, had Groundspeak had the foresight to develop Waymarking into foursquare, I would have a better case for kicking them into action.

 

============================

 

There's a lot against Wherigo at the moment. The fact it's still surviving is a testament to both its potential and the community itself.

 

Every other year, Geowoodstock has had Wherigo sessions. I've lead all three. The last session they had, there were perhaps fifty or seventy people in the room (I was preoccupied with speaking and didn't get a good count). The point is, that was the smallest attendance and interest of the three. Last year was the off year. However, I haven't been contacted to give a session this year, so you can draw a conclusion as to the trend. Until something happens in the world of Wherigo, I think Wherigo will remain a sideshow of curiosities at Geowoodstock. But, anyway, since I have a travel caching trip planned that weekend, I'll have to find some other mega event in the US or Canada to attend this year. I'd like to drop in on one with a Wherigo session because, by then, I think I'll have something to say.

 

And I'll leave you with one final point. I seriously doubt Wherigo will ever enjoy the popularity seen by geocaching as there will always be a higher cost to Wherigo: time, equipment, and knowledge. However, with a lot of hard work, Wherigo can be improved and some barriers to entry lowered.

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And I'll leave you with one final point. I seriously doubt Wherigo will ever enjoy the popularity seen by geocaching as there will always be a higher cost to Wherigo: time, equipment, and knowledge. However, with a lot of hard work, Wherigo can be improved and some barriers to entry lowered.

 

Thank you for your insight. Wherigos are one of the few cache types that I will go out of my way to do, in part do their rarity. If they did not have their own cache icon, I would probably lose them in the mix. However, I rarely log them on the Wherigo site since I do not like filling out long completion codes (that I hope to have copied right). On the Colorado (before it bit the dust) or using my pocket pc, it was fairly easy to upload the completed cartridge but this seems more problematic on my iphone, unless I am missing something.

 

There is one person in my region that has been active in making wherigos. I have made two, which I consider to be among the best caches I have placed. I want to try the //kit to make one or two more, since that looks like a very good tool, but time, lack of artistic skills, and the need to further develop the storyline have proven to be obstacles.

 

As you wrote about, there are also a number of things that have limited Wherigo.

 

Lack of support from Groundspeak -- I liked the original builder over some of the alternatives but it seems to be broken for mapping out zones. Until I discovered the //kit, I thought that I was done.

 

Garmin dropping Wherigo -- the implementation on the Oregon was very unstable, but not having it in the Montana and newer models further separates it from other types of caches. If Groundspeak really made a push to revive wherigos and convince other manufacturers that it will not be a problematic orphan, it would go a long way.

 

Wherigo cartridge design -- this is outside anyone's control other than the cartridge creator, but I have been frustrated after hiking a few miles to complete various stages of a cartridge only to find that a zone is so small that normal gps drift makes it difficult to complete. Or I spend 20 minutes walking around circles in an urban "canyon," seeing the object I need to find to answer a particular stage, but not being able to stay in the zone long enough to get it done. These things are perhaps due in part to hardware, but some creators seem to be more concerned with keeping people from emulating a cartridge at home than they are about making sure it can be played under a variety of conditions in the field.

 

Hardware. I have had complaints about people not being able to complete one of cartridges on the Oregon (even though I tested it on a colorado, pocket pc, and iphone.) The old iphones (3gs) also drifted enough to make it hard to enter a zone. Things work much better with my new iphone or the pocket pc, but I am sure that early frustration left its mark on the caching community.

 

I know that there are some stand-alone cartridges that are unrelated to caching. I keep meaning to play them, but I have not been looking for another location-based game. It is the same reason why I did not do other Groundspeak endeavors, such as challenges, Waymarking, or the Egg Hunt game. So I rarely go to the Wherigo site unless there is a cache connected to it, and rarely visit the site after the cache itself has been logged.

 

Still, with your work on the //kit and development of players on the smartphone, I continue to think that this aspect of the game offers tremendous potential.

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Thanks Ranger Fox for your informative reply, and thanks also geodarts. I checked out the //kit as well and even started to build a cartridge, seems easy enough to do. I'll put some time into and see how it goes. I didn't realize this feature existed. My kids like to write stories (most kids do right?) and I've put the challenge to them to come up with some scripts and we'll build something around that.

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When I released Wherigo\\kit, I thought it funny to just put it in my forum signature line and not say anything about it. And to this day, I still don't push it. Why? Well, it's not a full-featured builder and I wanted to have four or five kits loaded into it before I began pushing it. When other things started demanding time and it looked unlikely I'd be able to get back to Kit any time soon, I decided to release it with one kit. Besides, Kit's original purpose was a proof of concept to Groundspeak, showing it is possible to create a builder with a very low learning curve. I decided to release and support it after that since it wouldn't have been right to keep it private.

 

(Remember: to edit zone names, click on the name. You'll need to make sure each zone name is unique or Bad Things will happen. I'll update Kit later to guarantee unique names.)

 

Another Wherigo project has been taking a large chunk of my free time since mid-December. I'm guessing I might be done with it enough by August or September that I might be able to devote some time to Kit again. Anyway, you'll hear of it in due time. That's why I'm interested in finding a mega event with a Wherigo session during the summer.

Edited by Ranger Fox
I added the why
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Other than a potential fix for the builder, no, I'm not aware of any major changes on Groundspeak's part. I would be flabbergasted to see anything but small changes to the site without being informed in advance.

 

If the outage lasts until the end of my workday, I'll call and inquire. (Alternatively, you could send an email to Groundspeak before then.)

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Inspired by this, I just made a short Wherigo using the //kit and Google maps alone. We went out to test it and it works a treat! Good accuracy for GPS etc. I will be making a proper one soon using this same process. Well done and thanks to the developer. Wherigo is far from dead ...

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Inspired by this, I just made a short Wherigo using the //kit and Google maps alone. We went out to test it and it works a treat! Good accuracy for GPS etc. I will be making a proper one soon using this same process. Well done and thanks to the developer. Wherigo is far from dead ...

Two years ago on the FAD(2011) event in Sweden I had a discussion with Bryan Roth from Groundspeak, who explained that the Wherigo editor update were on their actionlist and since then I have sent him mails reminding him and got some replies which summerized pustponed the update planned for summer 2012 to 2013 and the last mail I got in april read

"""Hi Jan,

 

Unfortunately, I have no update to share. We are still focused primarily on geocaching. Although we are working a bit on Wherigo, I am not able to discuss the details just yet. Please let's check again in 2 months and I hope to have more info to share at that time.

 

Until then, I wish you very happy geocaching!

 

-Bryan """

 

I sent him some mails in june and july but havn´t got any answere yet. I will inform you if he reacts.

The interest for Wherigo in Sweden is big and I have 10 Wherigo cartridges (with a lot of Favorite votes) that I own here in the Gothenburg region and helped to create additional 10 in Sweden and Norway. There are a lot of problems with the editor and it is as you say "a hard days night" to create one with the editor. Earlier it was possible to use the wizzard but (on winXP) but now I use a basic cartride with 10 zoones which I stored when things worked, hooping that Groundspeak should wake up and give us an update. Now with the iphone/adroid it is fun to play the games and as I now have a Montana I make them only for smartphones with somewhat bigger zoones. Has anyone some inside contact in Groundspeak please use it to push for the Wherigo!!

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I think I have as much inside contact with Groundspeak as you can get. Unfortunately, I gave up getting something out of Groundspeak because I have a better plan.

 

All I can say right now is things are about to get very interesting for the community--and for Groundspeak. After a milestone within Project Foundation (the project's code name) is reached, I intend to make a public announcement on the forum. I want this to be in late August, but I will push the announcement back based on progress to this milestone. But do not misunderstand: this will not immediately solve all your problems.

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Inspired by this, I just made a short Wherigo using the //kit and Google maps alone. We went out to test it and it works a treat! Good accuracy for GPS etc. I will be making a proper one soon using this same process. Well done and thanks to the developer. Wherigo is far from dead ...

I made a small one as well using the http://Wherigo.rangerfox.com/rangerfox/Wherigo/kit/Builder/default.aspx?id=0a37c75e-d75d-4be8-aebd-bcbd0ce5371f and saved it but I do not know were the saved Lua file is stored and how to create a .gws to load into my iphone via itunes. Do I have to load it into the Groundspeak editor and create it the normal way?

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Inspired by this, I just made a short Wherigo using the //kit and Google maps alone. We went out to test it and it works a treat! Good accuracy for GPS etc. I will be making a proper one soon using this same process. Well done and thanks to the developer. Wherigo is far from dead ...

Two years ago on the FAD(2011) event in Sweden I had a discussion with Bryan Roth from Groundspeak, who explained that the Wherigo editor update were on their actionlist and since then I have sent him mails reminding him and got some replies which summerized pustponed the update planned for summer 2012 to 2013 and the last mail I got in april read

"""Hi Jan,

 

Unfortunately, I have no update to share. We are still focused primarily on geocaching. Although we are working a bit on Wherigo, I am not able to discuss the details just yet. Please let's check again in 2 months and I hope to have more info to share at that time.

 

Until then, I wish you very happy geocaching!

 

-Bryan """

 

I sent him some mails in june and july but havn´t got any answere yet. I will inform you if he reacts.

The interest for Wherigo in Sweden is big and I have 10 Wherigo cartridges (with a lot of Favorite votes) that I own here in the Gothenburg region and helped to create additional 10 in Sweden and Norway. There are a lot of problems with the editor and it is as you say "a hard days night" to create one with the editor. Earlier it was possible to use the wizzard but (on winXP) but now I use a basic cartride with 10 zoones which I stored when things worked, hooping that Groundspeak should wake up and give us an update. Now with the iphone/adroid it is fun to play the games and as I now have a Montana I make them only for smartphones with somewhat bigger zoones. Has anyone some inside contact in Groundspeak please use it to push for the Wherigo!!

 

Just got a negative replay

""

Hi Jan,

 

I have no current update to share at this time. I am sorry for this.

 

Sincerely,

 

Bryan""" But he is not saying that it is dead!!!

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I made a small one as well using the http://Wherigo.rangerfox.com/rangerfox/Wherigo/kit/Builder/default.aspx?id=0a37c75e-d75d-4be8-aebd-bcbd0ce5371f and saved it but I do not know were the saved Lua file is stored and how to create a .gws to load into my iphone via itunes. Do I have to load it into the Groundspeak editor and create it the normal way?

The lua file (GWZ) is created dynamically, on demand. This is what you'd load into an editor. To load onto your iPhone, you'd have to create a GWC. This is done from the page that lists your cartridges. Click on the cartridge and then click the option to compile/build your cartridge.

 

Just got a negative replay

""

Hi Jan,

 

I have no current update to share at this time. I am sorry for this.

 

Sincerely,

 

Bryan""" But he is not saying that it is dead!!!

While Groundspeak holds the patents and intellectual property, it's the community that's keeping Wherigo alive. If Groundspeak waits too long, the community may eventually develop all the tools. If this happens, Groundspeak will have a very difficult time controlling Wherigo and deciding its future.

 

 

*like*
Why is there someone from my home state on this forum? I thought Wherigo was dead there.
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I made a small one as well using the http://Wherigo.rangerfox.com/rangerfox/Wherigo/kit/Builder/default.aspx?id=0a37c75e-d75d-4be8-aebd-bcbd0ce5371f and saved it but I do not know were the saved Lua file is stored and how to create a .gws to load into my iphone via itunes. Do I have to load it into the Groundspeak editor and create it the normal way?

The lua file (GWZ) is created dynamically, on demand. This is what you'd load into an editor. To load onto your iPhone, you'd have to create a GWC. This is done from the page that lists your cartridges. Click on the cartridge and then click the option to compile/build your cartridge.

 

Just got a negative replay

""

Hi Jan,

 

I have no current update to share at this time. I am sorry for this.

 

Sincerely,

 

Bryan""" But he is not saying that it is dead!!!

While Groundspeak holds the patents and intellectual property, it's the community that's keeping Wherigo alive. If Groundspeak waits too long, the community may eventually develop all the tools. If this happens, Groundspeak will have a very difficult time controlling Wherigo and deciding its future.

 

 

*like*
Why is there someone from my home state on this forum? I thought Wherigo was dead there.

I made a a small "dogwalk from my door with some zoones and it worked nicely. The zoones must be an open place as they are so small but it was very easy to make and edit the details.It fits a step by step walk to collect numbers to the cache location coordinates or questions(hints). It even worked with our special letters. Good work Ranger Fox. I will inform the Wherigo people in Sweden about it

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The zones must be an open place as they are so small but it was very easy to make and edit the details.

A later update will allow you to control the zones' sizes. It's not that difficult for me to enable because I already keep track of that information (I just don't let you edit it). However, my focus since Christmas has been on this other project. Speaking of that, if you're willing to translate what I'm working on into Sweedish, I'd appreciate it. Feel free to contact me outside the forum after I make the announcement; there's no sense in translating an incomplete project--and it'll still take me until this Christmas to get to a state where it can be released.

 

I think I'll switch over to Kit while the community is evaluating this other project, so you can expect the zone size feature to be included in Kit before October.

Edited by Ranger Fox
Added second paragraph.
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Inspired by this, I just made a short Wherigo using the //kit and Google maps alone. We went out to test it and it works a treat! Good accuracy for GPS etc. I will be making a proper one soon using this same process. Well done and thanks to the developer. Wherigo is far from dead ...

I made a small one as well using the http://Wherigo.rangerfox.com/rangerfox/Wherigo/kit/Builder/default.aspx?id=0a37c75e-d75d-4be8-aebd-bcbd0ce5371f and saved it but I do not know were the saved Lua file is stored and how to create a .gws to load into my iphone via itunes. Do I have to load it into the Groundspeak editor and create it the normal way?

I made a new cartridge in 60 minutes, I just copied the text and pictures from one of my old that I earlier produced in Groundspeaks editor.I compiled itto a.gwc file and put it in my iphone with the help of Ituned. The web interface is very simple to work with as we now can work with the map (that did just work in Us earlier) and with copy and past I made 4-5 zones and went out and tried it out. I used swedish letters and that workt well, in the Groundspeak version it always crasched. There are of course just simple funktions(no selections or pick up things or talk to creatures) and you have to walk to the first zone to get the next one to appear but the editor is very simple to work with and for many applications were you should walk to different point to get information for the final cache locations this base plattform is enough. We look forward with high spirits for a new future with Wherigo and hope that Ranger Fox adds facilities to the platform and informs us Wherigo nerds in this forum and in the News on the http://Wherigo.rangerfox.com/rangerfox/Wherigo/kit/News/

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Playing around with this. Was out in the rain yesterday looking for zones for an idea to a WIG.

 

A quick feature request - can we have a confirmation popup on leaving the "edit cartridge" page?

 

My browser have several times navigated away from the edit cartridge page when I for example mark the title of a new zone and hit backspace.

 

Thanks!

 

/Fredrik

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Around my home location there are three or four Wherigo Caches, owned by people who like to try out new technologies.

 

The Wherigo concept offers a large scale of possibilities to create nice adventures. But due to the fact, that the last version of the Wherigo builder is an alpha from 2008 - I think it is definitely dead. A great pity.

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Please, Please kill it off, it really sucks.

 

In the last month I played eight or nine Wherigos - more than the number of traditionals that interested me. Some of the Wherigos I have played rank in the top of my caching experience, and one my Wherigos is among my favorites of the caches I have created. Groundspeak may have abandoned it, but it is far from dead.

Edited by geodarts
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I've run across people with the same opinion as JustJackMN. One big supporter of Wherigo's demise lives in my home area and has been giving me grief even before Wherigo started. He has had a lot of trouble, too. Wherigo seems to have been abandoned by Groundspeak, some offerings are unstable, the UI is extremely dated, the main site hasn't been updated since 2008, there are periodic issues with maps, it's difficult for people without a programming background to do cool things, and loading a cartridge can be a chore. We all understand that and some of us are putting in tons of our free time to fix all this. Groundspeak is slowly discussing things with us, so there's light at the end of the tunnel.

 

As the forum's moderator, I would like to remind you to avoid words that would make a nun blush. I don't mind having guests express their frustration about playing or creating Wherigo cartridges. It's great to blow off some steam in a place where people share your pain. But perhaps one of the problems you're experiencing is something the community has already solved?

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There is what I thought would be a neat Wherigo in a national cementery about an hour from here. i followed directions but when I tried to open, no dice, not on ie, not on firefox,chrome, nothing but non support messages. I have one cartridge loaded, but it just has one walking around for no reason.

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So you were on the geocache listing and clicked on the Wherigo icon. This took you to Wherigo.com. You logged in to Wherigo.com and clicked on the download link on the cartridge description page. This took you to a page that asked for which device you'd like to download the cartridge. You selected a device from the list and the download occurred, saving the cartridge file to your computer. I assume this is correct, right? After that, what did you use to open the cartridge file?

 

Just a note to myself: This is the cartridge.

 

Yes, this is now off topic to this thread. I'm going to keep discussion here until the issue is resolved, then I will split the whole discussion out to a separate thread. I don't want people to wonder where their posts went when someone is helping them with a problem.

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So, what's the status of Wherigo now? I'm looking into making one, but found the Wherigo Builder from GC not even finding the address in the Netherlands where I'd like to start the cache from. Is it worth it to put time in this? The builders are filled with viruses (Urwigo), filled with bugs (Wherigo Builder) or nowhere to be found (just some posts in topics on this forum).

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Groundspeak's Wherigo builder only works with coordinates these days. Unless I can get a hold of the source code, there won't be a fix for that.

 

Urwigo's "virus" is the lua compiler. I use Comodo Internet Security. I had to tell Comodo the lua compiler was okay and not to isolate it.

 

The current builders are:

-- Groundspeak's - It needs two patches installed and the in-builder maps and geolocation lookups don't work.

-- Urwigo - What most people use. It's full-featured.

-- Earwigo - Online, but you need to register for an account first. (Perhaps later it can authenticate to the Wherigo Foundation.)

-- Wherigo\\kit - Online, but it only allows for very basic cartridges to be created.

 

Once the Wherigo Foundation begins running Wherigo for Groundspeak, the official builders will be Urwigo and Earwigo. Kit will still be there. I'll continue to use Groundspeak's because what I do with builders is not at all normal, nor would anyone want it to be so (because I tend to produce odd things, like Tetris).

 

Things will speed up after the Wherigo Foundation partnership goes through, but that in itself is a slow process. There are five steps involved. We've finally cleared the first step.

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Thanks for your reply, you're sure about the virus being the lua-compiler and not something else? I hate to download a bunch of viruses (who doesn't?) I do like to produce something that's odd, like a Wherigo, since I think it has a lot of potential. Too bad it hasn't grown as big as it should since it was introduced.

I'll have another look at the Urwigo Builder.

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