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Travel bug football


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I originally suggested the nearest 25 rule simply because it is easy to check and easy for the "player" to determine what is a legal move. However, as you say it does have advantages if you assume that densely packed areas have dense geocachers... err I mean have lots of geocachers in them. Thus, although any one cacher cannot move the TB far, there are lots of cachers around to keep the pace up.

 

Under the 25 rule, the furthest cache from my house is only 15 miles away.

 

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jeremyp

The second ten million caches were the worst too.

http://www.jeremyp.net/geocaching

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...up here, where there are relatively few cachers, my max distance would be 41 miles. Assuming the ratio of local cachers to local cachers remains relatively constant, the rule works. The higher the cacher concentration, the more movers there are, but the more moves it takes to get anywhere.

 

The only trouble is if there is an area that's high on cachers but low on players. Are we pre-allocating teams, or is it that anyone can play? In other words, if the action comes near me, can I join up with whichever team I fit into (techie, born on an odd-numbered day, odd number of letters in my nick, whatever)? Or do I have to join from the start, potentially diluting the pool of useable teammates if the game never gets near Edinburgh?

 

evilrooster

-the email of the species is deadlier than the mail-

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quote:
Originally posted by evilrooster:

Are we pre-allocating teams, or is it that anyone can play?


I think it's important that anyone can join in. That's one of the reasons I suggested that teams be determined by some pre-existing criterion. The other reason is that if someone breaks the rules, it has to be easy to see what team they're in so you know who to penalise. That's why I think it needs to be something which is part of our member profiles, not something we have to add for the purpose of the game.

 

Also, the rules don't say anything about defining the pitch. I think it should say you have to stick to the mainland, and if anyone takes it oversea it's a free kick for the other team from its last legal position. Otherwise, someone who isn't playing the game might take it halfway round the world (ignoring the instructions which will presumably be attached to the bug).

 

Other than that I think the rules are fine.

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that's an interesting point!

 

Do you have to join a team before play or even during? If the selection criteria are known you can just be a dormant player.

 

How many players are there in the area north of the border? If we find there are not enough players to give a reasonably balanced lot we could try and shift the goal down a bit nearer the border.

 

Prehapse somebody might like to setup a poll to get some idea of who would like to join a team.

 

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Don't mention the mushrooms

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Rather than more polls on teams etc why don't we just start and see how it pans out. Everyone with and odd number of letters in their geocaching name is in team A, everyone else is in team B.

 

Lets go!!

 

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el10t

mobilis in mobili

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Shall we say London to Edinburgh then?

 

Assuming we use the even vs. the odd birthday, shall we say that 'evens' home goal is in Edinburgh, and 'odds' is in London. My reason for suggesting birthday is it is not something you are going to change, and is totally random, whereas there are probably patterns in the username.

 

I don't know the local caches in either place but Path To Arthurs Seat 2 (GC54AD) and Webster Prime (GC7550) as the Edinburgh and London goals respectively sound good as both places are interesting locations.

 

Anywhere between York and Manchester would be roughly halfway.

 

Is there anybody with a spare travel bug who is willing to nominate a cache in that area and drop it off there? Ideally you will not be a player to keep it above board. I don't have any travel bugs to hand, and my GPS is dead otherwise I'd do it tomorrow. Once we have this bit sorted we are ready to go!

 

As it's a first game I would say lets play until the first goal is scored as we have no idea how long this will take. If it works out a rematch is always possible!

 

I think it would be better if I didn't play in this match so I can observe from the sidelines and help iron out any glitches in the rules.

 

*******************************************************

Don't mention the mushrooms

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quote:
My reason for suggesting birthday is it is not something you are going to change, and is totally random, whereas there are probably patterns in the username.

A hypothetical situation: fredsmith (a fictional user) logs taking the bug. 24 hours pass (or whatever the hoarding limit) and he does nothing. Which team incurs a penalty? His user profile doesn't tell us his birthday, so we don't know. But we know his user name.

 

You could argue that this shouldn't result in a penalty, because fredsmith might not be playing, but then anyone could break the rules and claim not to be taking part. I suppose it would be possible for a player on one team to invent a sock puppet on the other, then use it to break the rules, getting their own team a penalty. I think we need to trust people not to do this: the alternative would be to rule that you can only play if you've logged at least one find before kick-off, but as others have said, we should keep it simple.

 

quote:
I don't know the local caches in either place but Path To Arthurs Seat 2 (GC54AD) and Webster Prime (GC7550) as the Edinburgh and London goals respectively sound good as both places are interesting locations.

Sounds good.

 

quote:
Anywhere between York and Manchester would be roughly halfway.

I vote for Bronte Waterfalls

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.asp?ID=22225

But I guess it's up to the person dropping off the bug what they can get to.

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The rules state that teams must be formed 'up front'. I will clarify that point.

 

I guess team captains are responsible for allowing people join or depart from the game, and answerable to the ref if there is any funny business.

 

This is only a friendly game, but I have learned the hard way it's usually better to have rules and avoid bad feelings latter. You never know this might take off in a big way!

 

*******************************************************

Don't mention the mushrooms

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We will probably have to replace the bug/ball/buggerball at least once, either because it travels out of bounds or because it is hoarded. How will we do that? Appeal for someone nearby with a bug that can replace it, presumably. But there are two problems with this:

 

1) If no one's forthcoming, the game could be delayed indefinitely.

 

2) The buggerball's number will change, confusing everyone who's tracking it online.

 

What would be nice is if the replacement bug didn't have an official dog tag, but the number of the original bug attached to it instead. Its progress throughout the game could then be logged on a single page. The trouble would be that the original might still be in circulation. My feeling is that this wouldn't be a problem, as long as we wrote at the top of the bug's page something like: THIS BUG IS NOW A SMURF (or whatever). IF YOU HAVE PICKED UP ANYTHING ELSE WITH THIS BUG'S NUMBER, PLEASE TAKE IT OUT OF CIRCULATION.

 

What are people's thought on this? Or am I just looking for problems that aren't really there?

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1. Obtain a t bug, with number and all that

2. Copy the number down onto a card, along with info about Travel Bug Football. Get the card laminated and attach it to a football keychain or some such.

3. Keep the tag at home.

 

Then if it vanishes, there's no t bug tag floating about. You still have the number so if the bug goes walkies you can put another laminated card into circulation.

 

evilrooster

-the email of the species is deadlier than the mail-

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Well, I certainly haven't seen this page before. And aside from the odd adjustment to the rules the biggest difference is in the team selection and the no new cache rule. Either they based it on what I have written, or like many things they are invented by several people at the same time (the car, the lighbulb and powered flight being famous examples). The idea I had was based around me suddenly mentally linking capture the flag and geocaching. After some thought I decided a football like concept might work better.

 

Prehaps we should talk to these people and see if we can come up with standard set of rules which have been play tested.

 

*******************************************************

Don't mention the mushrooms

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quote:
Originally posted by dylanhayes:

Well, I certainly haven't seen this page before.


 

My apologies Dylan - I certainly wasn't accusing anyone of plagiarism. Parallel invention occurs more often than people think - it must be something to do with being driven by necessity.

 

Looks like the pitch in the referenced page is quite a bit smaller than ours too. It would certainly be worth making contact to share experiences.

 

Rich

mobilis in mobili

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