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Spreading manure: There's an app for that
In the 5-plus years since the App Store launched, it seems like there's been an app for almost everything. Today we get one step closer to removing that "almost" qualifier with the release of an app that allows dairy farmers to calculate how much manure they need to spread. No, that's not a joke. The folks at DairyNZ Limited have released an app called FDE Calculator ("FDE" stands for Farm Dairy Effluent Spreading") that helps a farmer work out the nutrient loads in the manure he is spreading on his land. And though it's relatively easy to poke fun at an app that helps you spread $#!t (kind of like Twitter), the FDE Calculator is actually a very valuable tool to farmers since it can help them save a lot of money. As DairyNZ marketing manager Andrew Fraser explained told the New Zealand Herald, "Potassium, for example, is one of the nutrients that's in effluent so if you aren't spreading it thinly and widely, then you end up having to buy more potassium from your fertiliser supplier than you actually need." The FDE Calculator is a free download. Get spreading. A TUAW hat tip to Chris S. for sending us the New Zealand Herald link.
Blend in with the Tillers with your own farmer outfit
For as long as I've played World of Warcraft, players have been making farmer outfits. Who knows why? Maybe it's because Blizzard made it so easy, or maybe it's because every gamer subconsciously yearns to live an agrarian lifestyle -- Eh, on second thought, I'm going to go with it's because Blizzard made it so easy. I mean, look at the types of items we can get. There are overalls, a pitchfork, and lets not forget all those ugly brimmed hats. Wrath of the Lich King even gave us the chance to wear plaid flannel shirts. Flannel shirts! What fantasy world application truly requires the abomination that is flannel!? Well, whatever it is, Mists of Pandaria has finally given us a place to live out our agrarian dreams, and thus a good reason to make a farmer outfit.
Alt-week 7.14.2012: Bleeping sheep and ATLAS art
Alt-week peels back the covers on some of the more curious sci-tech stories from the last seven days. While there might not quite have been the epic science news that we had last week, that doesn't mean that there isn't plenty going on in the world of Alt. In this installment we get to see how CERN tricks out its offices, how one farmer tries to keep his flock, and learn about how the military will be high-tailing around the planet in just a few years. This is alt-week.
LotRO dev blog talks Rise of Isengard crafting changes
Hey look, crafting news! Yep, there is more to MMOs than combat, and Turbine has long fought the good fight in regard to giving tradeskill fans something to chew on. The latest Lord of the Rings Online dev update shines the spotlight on crafting in the Westfold, which Turbine describes as an "all-new crafting tier [...] filled with valuable natural resources, sought-after ancient artifacts, rare recipes, and powerful crafted items." Unlocking the new content happens by way of mastering your particular profession's supreme proficiency tier. The expansion also gives you more options in the form of a new reputation rank for the game's various crafting guilds. Furthermore, Turbine has eliminated component recipes in the new tier to "reduce the amount of time spent crafting intermediate ingredients." Finally, there are also a couple of changes to resource gathering, including yield tweaks and the ability for Farmers to produce crops individually or in bulk. That's not all, but you'll have to head to the official LotRO website for all the details.
Prospero the robotic farmer robotically plants seeds, makes humans even more lazy (video)
Let's face it -- humans are lazy, yet incredibly industrious. We've seen everything from a self-making bed, to a channel-changer to even a touchless keyboard. And now, we're blessed with a robot that plants seeds for us. That's right, the image you see above is of a five-legged machine that has the ability to complete all of the necessary steps to grow a plant. Thanks to a Parallax Propeller chip that's mounted on a Schmart Board, Prospero is able to autonomously navigate in any direction and avoid obstructing objects. There's a sensor that lies under its body that senses where seeds have been deployed. If the robot detects that the ground is in need of a seed, it'll dig a hole, drop the seed, move the soil back over the hole and then spray paint the ground white to note that the process was successful. The belly of the bot is also equipped with fertilizers and herbicides, and Prospero can 'talk' (via infrared) to other robots in order to maintain crop-creating efficiency. You can check out a 48-second clip of the planting process after the break. Or, if you're a harvest-enthusiast, hit the more coverage link for 5 minutes of glorious green thumb action.
Turbine revamps LotRO crafting window, simplifies Farmer recipes
Fancy yourself a Lord of the Rings Online crafter, or perhaps a purveyor of pipe-weed? Well, put down that Longbottom leaf and take a look at the latest LotRO dev diary, as it contains quite a bit of information on the forthcoming tweaks to the game's tradeskill system. For starters, you'll be greeted with a revamped crafting window that's leaner, meaner, and considerably larger, allowing for a bigger recipe list on the left and more recipe information on the right. In addition to layout changes, you can now click the "Increase Craft XP" button and go directly to the LotRO store, where you'll find new crafting acceleration scrolls available for purchase. These scrolls will boost your output by 25 to 50 percent depending on which you select, and you can also pick up new ingredient packs to replace your normal crafting consumables. Finally, the Farmer profession has undergone a few changes, chief among them a simplification of seed ingredients (for example, the recipes for Cauliflower Field and Green Onion Field now call for the Expert Crop Seed sub-component rather than separate ingredients). Turbine has also tweaked Field Recipes, first by reducing the number of seeds for all recipes from five to one, and second by changing the output of all recipes to only produce good crops. For a full list of the changes and additions, visit the official site.
Gold Capped: Where have all the farmers gone?
Want to get Gold Capped? Every week, Basil "Euripides" Berntsen takes a short break from building a raiding guild on Drenden (US-A) (we're recruiting!) to write up a guide that will help you make gold. Check out the Call to Auction podcast, and feel free to email Basil any comments, questions or hate mail. Basil is also soliciting questions for an upcoming Gold Capped series, "Ask an auctioneer" via email. This post is best read while imagining me singing the title to the tune of "Where have all the cowboys gone" by Paula Cole. There -- good luck getting that out of your head! Auctioneers rely on farmers for raw materials for various businesses. In fact, we rely very heavily on them, and there are quite a few markets that are only more profitable than farming in terms of gold per hour if we can do them on a very large scale ... much more than any one person can farm. I've been flying circles around Sholazar Basin and boy, are my arms tired! The interesting thing about the markets we work on is that it's almost no more actual work to make, for example, 150 Titansteel Bars than it is to make 20. The only difference is in how annoying it is to find mats, and the number of Dr. Who episodes you get to watch while AFK crafting. The difficulty of finding lots of cheap mats is really the only barrier we worry about. And any experienced auctioneer will tell you that, historically in Wrath of the Lich King, it's been no trouble at all. For some reason, the majority of mornings I'd log in to do my buying, I'd see absolutely dumbfounding amounts of raw mats available for ridiculous prices. Cobalt Ore for under 20g a stack, Saronite Ore for as low as 7g a stack, Adder's Tongue for under 5g a stack and Eternal Shadow for as low as 15g a stack. I have access to unlimited storage and basically unlimited money, so I did what any opportunist with a basement full of toilet paper would do: I bought every last scrap every single time, reasoning that I'd eventually find time to use it.
Be crafty with ease in Lord of the Rings Online Volume III
Crafting, for many people, has a bit of a love-hate relationship going on. Nobody can complain about the bonuses it offers in the long run, but actually getting to high levels is an exercise in tedium and worthlessness for many. Which is why it's always a good thing when crafting gets a boost, as is happening in the upcoming Oath of the Rangers update for Lord of the Rings Online. The game has been putting out several developer diaries outlining the changes coming for the next installment, and the most recent diary deals with updates to the Jeweller, Cooks, Farmers, Woodworkers, and Weaponsmiths. Jewellery gets a fair all-around boost, with improved stats on crafted items, new icons, and the option to queue up multiple items for production. Cooks get their ingredients rebalanced and bigger buffs offered from their food, while new Trail Food recipies help provide a new set of desirable buffs. Farmers can also enjoy new recipes to provide ingredients for Cooks, and Woodworkers and Weaponsmiths alike get new class-specific items. The details of the changes can be found in the full diary, something most Lord of the Rings Online players might not consider especially crafty but still clever.
Mining mechanics changed, one hit per node
The updated 3.0.8 patch notes released today have an interesting, yet significant, change to mining.Miners will now only hit the node once to get all the ore and associated loot.This change might seem mundane but it actually carries some significant weight. Farmers regularly fly or run around zones, stopping at every node they see. Under the current system most nodes required between two and four hits to extract all the ore, sometimes even more for the rich nodes. An ore farmer would spend a portion of his time ensuring the mobs were cleared around the node enough so that he would be able to hit it multiple times, and then actually spend the minute sitting on the node farming it.With the one hit method that is now being implemented in 3.0.8, the process becomes significantly easier. Point, click, wait a second, fly off to the other destination, profit. There's no "???" in there, just a pure and easy way to make money.
CoX: The right to farm?
City of Heroes Issue 9, Breakthrough, might also have been titled the Agricultural Revolution. Sure, we'd had power leveling before, and plenty of it. But until the Invention System came along we didn't really have full-on farming as such. Some players reared healthy stocks of Hatched Krakens down in the sewers or tilled the soil for Freaks on the Dreck map, but back then we knew little of the ways of the farmer.Then came Issue 9 with its Rare Drops and later Issue 11 with its Even Rarer ZomgPurple Drops. The more level 50 enemies you defeat, the more likely you are to grab one of the purples; and that's on top of the guaranteed XP, Prestige or Inf that rolls in. Now, of course, farming is ubiquitous.
Public service announcement from WoW Europe discourages gold buying
Timmy is sick and tired of lagging behind his friends and guild-mates, all because of his inferior flying mount. He decides to purchase some gold with real money and buy his epic mount. Timmy thinks to himself, "It doesn't really hurt anyone, does it?" The answer to that question is, "Yes Timmy, it does". The European World of Warcraft site has listed a gold-selling FAQ that aims to educate players like Timmy on some of the consequences of purchasing products and services from a gold-selling company.The site lists the obvious stuff, like spammers and bots, which both annoy people and take up Blizzard resources that could be put to better use, but the article also brings up some things that aren't always mentioned. Much of the gold that these companies trade in comes from hacked accounts, and many accounts are hacked after the owner enlists the aid of a power-leveling service. When the companies have access to the account, the unfortunate victim may also find their personal details being used for identity theft and credit card fraud. The bottom line is, without people using these services, the companies could not continue to operate. We here at Massively are also vehemently opposed to gold-selling, and agree wholeheartedly with Blizzard's message. Just say no, Timmy.
Wearable farming robot suit takes the load off
Hard to believe we're seeing yet another wearable robot suit emerge from Japan, eh? All sarcasm aside, there actually is a newcomer to the curiously growing market courtesy of Shigeki Toyama and colleagues from the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology. The aptly dubbed farming robot suit is a strap-on contraption that makes lifting objects much easier than nature intended, reportedly reducing the wear and tear (read: force) placed on one's joints, knees and back by around 50-percent. Additionally, the suit will be programmable depending on the type of work being done, but we've no idea if any third-party attachments (you know, rubber band launchers, integrated HMDs, etc.) are in the works. On the real, you'll be looking at around ¥500,000 ($4,559) to ¥1,000,000 ($9,117) to ease your load, but that could dip as low as ¥200,000 ($1,823) per suit if mass production becomes viable.[Via The Register]
HortiBot: the autonomous, GPS-enabled weed eradicator
HortiBot won't go down as the first robot with weed extermination as its sole mission in life, but this particular robot ups the ante in a serious way. Conjured up by a team of Danish agricultural scientists, the three-foot by three-foot autonomous machine is "equipped with a computer and GPS to find the exact location of weeds," and being that it's also reportedly self-propelled, you hardly have to keep an eye on it. Moreover, the device can be flanked by an array of weed-removing attachments depending on a farmer's specific needs, and promises to curb "herbicide usage by 75-percent." Currently, the cost of one Hortibot would run around $71,000, but the crew hopes to land a manufacturing partner and reduce those charges when it (hopefully) goes commercial.[Via Slashdot, image courtesy of HortiBot]
Denmark's GylleSMS, a new kind of early warning system
I expect you will all agree that nothing can dampen a morning jaunt or coffee on the terrace like the smell of freshly spread manure. We aren't talking about the mild pong from a few cows in a field, but rather a full-on liquified spray fest. Well the Danish have a new SMS service to allow farmers the ability to alert their neighbors before they get to work on the fields. Called GylleSMS -- that's "ManureSMS" for the English speakers out there -- the SMS contains all the gooey details about when and where there would be spreading near you. Also under consideration by the farmers is a voting system whereby people near a farm can just say, "No! No! The wind may blow!" [Via Textually.org]
Breakfast Topic: Dealing with Bots
Last week we saw a couple of entertaining ways to deal with bots. However, the entertaining is not always the practical - and if you don't play a priest on a PvP server, the methodology contained in those videos isn't going to help you much. For my part, if I encounter an obvious bot I'll tend to look for somewhere else to grind - it's not always easy to beat the speed of an automated hunterbot, and trying to tends to just be frustrating. But how do you deal with bots? And do you, perhaps, have advice for the rest of us?
MMOs and the Secondary Market
The Escapist has a good article discussing the secondary market of various MMOs. It doesn't focus on World of Warcraft, but gives an interesting broader picture on the practice of buying and selling currency in virtual worlds. The question of whether players can remain competitive at this point without the aid of additional financial is a curious one. In Azeroth, additional gold, BOE items, or power-leveling can certainly be of help, but are they necessary to keep up with the rest of the players? For PvP, I'm tempted to answer "yes" - as the bar to reach the upper ranks of the honor system is so high as to make it neigh impossible for many players to reach - unless they do nothing but take short breaks for sleeping and eating between play sessions for weeks on end.
WoW Moviewatch: More fun things to do with bots
This Bluwolfe person is quickly becoming my favorite priest with these amusing mind control videos. Here's another video of him tormenting a poor bot that doesn't know well enough to fight back - watch and learn!
On the topic of farmers...
My priest has been, for some time now, looking for a pattern for the Truefaith Vestments - the epic crafted priest robes. While I would occasionally see a Robe of the Archmage or a Robe of the Void pattern, I've not seen any of my own. However, over the past couple of weeks, I've seen more and more Robe of the Archmage patterns - as seen above. The cost has dropped dramatically, as well - what once sold for a hundred gold and up is now, as you see, more often selling for 30 to 40, when they sell at all.This has started to puzzle me, as the pattern drops off of Pyromancers in lower Blackrock Spire, of which there are few, and difficult to get to. I've gone with a number of groups that refuses to attempt the pull with the Pyromancers, simply because it's large and difficult. So where then, do these patterns come from? Several commenters on Thottbot claim that you can solo your way to the right area with the use of stealth or invisibility potions, and one poster goes into some detail about two rogues taking the group down with timely use of sap, vanish, and evasion. But even if the pattern can be acquired with the efforts of one or two players, this doesn't explain the sudden appearance of so many in the marketplace. It's possible that the drop rate has been increased, but it seems unlikely that the drop rate of one of the epic robe patterns would go up while the other two remain the same. In my past experience with the game, a sudden flood of rare items on the market has been an indication of a new farming technique or hack, allowing farmers to now easily acquire something that was usually difficult. (For an example of similar circumstances in the past, see this old Dire Maul hack.) However, at present, there's no evidence one way or the other - so this remains simply an oddity...
Breakfast Topic: Fewer Farmers?
I wrote a while back about an odd lack of farmers on my own realm at the time. And, with yesterday's additional account closures, I wonder if other realms are starting to see similar relief. Will Blizzard's continued efforts against the gold selling community really have a long term impact on the game's economy? Or will the farmers simply continue finding new methods to avoid Blizzard's watchful eye? I personally think it will be a constant battle on Blizzard's part - but if they stick to this sort of approach, they can make farming sufficiently difficult that it may become a less lucrative business. But that's a long-term view - the important thing for current players is how are conditions today? Does your realm seem to be lacking in farmers since all of these account closures?
Chinese gold farmers documented
This six-minute video is a teaser for an upcoming documentary that examines the practice of hiring low-cost Chinese labor to farm virtual goods for sale in richer nations. It's the new new sweatshop. More affluent nations have always outsourced their drudgery, and games that are full of such menial labor are susceptible to the same outsourcing movement that's swept through other industries. It makes sense that well-to-do gamers will outsource repetitive, mindless work. A professional who makes the equivalent of $50 per hour (about $100,000 per year) would be foolish not to spend $10 per hour to skip the boring parts of World of Warcraft. He's got better things to do with his time. The trouble is, outsourcing tends to result in the online replication of the real-world divide between rich and poor. Is it fair that rich people are allowed to skip the low-level gruntwork while poor gamers must suffer through it? Whatever happened to the egalitarian ideal that makes places like World of Warcraft so appealing? Whatever the case, don't blame the customers, and don't blame the Chinese. Blame Blizzard. And Canada. [Thanks, Probot and WoWInsider]
