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Soapbox: In defense of achievements
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. I've heard all the arguments before, trust me. Achievements are a waste of space. They're frivolous, meaningless numbers -- a Skinner Box within a Skinner Box for the weak-willed. They can be far too spammy. And then there's that hoary chestnut: They take precious development time that could be used for better purposes from something you personally want. Achievements are a blight upon our games, binding us to the most base of gamer crowds, the yokels on Xbox Live. We should cast off the chains of achievement oppression and live as free men, women, and Elves once more! OK, enough with the histrionics. Many of these points come down to personal preference, and that's impossible to refute. You like what you like, and I like what I like. Still, I'd disagree that the overall notion of achievements is useless. In fact, I fully embrace them in my gameplay and hope that they stick around for a good long while.
The Game Archaeologist: Richard Garriott's haunted cache
Whenever you get really into a new hobby, it's natural to want to blab about it to anyone who drifts into your gravitational field. That's why we all talk about MMOs, right? It's also why any friends, family members, and coworkers have had to put up with excited rambling about my discovered love for Geocaching. Some of you probably know Geocaching, as it's been around for over a decade now. For those of you who haven't, it's a worldwide treasure hunt that involves over a million and a half "caches" of various sizes that are hidden and then marked with GPS coordinates. Players head to the official site or one of the open-source projects to get the coordinates and go hunting for them. There's a useful two-minute introduction to this hobby on YouTube if you're curious. I noted on our Massively Speaking podcast that Geocaching has a lot in common with MMOs: Both encourage questing and exploration, both have treasure to be found, and both plug you into a community of adventurers. Listener Terrence heard this and send in an email with an interesting revelation that ties these two hobbies even closer together, as a game developer brought his online world to a real-world location. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you Richard Garriott's haunted cache.
Garmin announces redesigned line of eTrex GPS handhelds with enhanced geocaching
Lost hikers and outdoorsmen will soon have yet another arrow to add to their navigational quivers, now that Garmin has decided to upgrade its eTrex line of GPS handhelds. The refresh, announced this morning, will bring three new models to the eTrex family during the third quarter of this year. First up is the eTrex 10 -- a basic, $120 little guy that carries a global database of locations, as well as a monochrome display that can be read under the sun. The $200 eTrex 20, on the other hand, displays images in 65k color on a 2.2-inch screen and can support topographic, roadway and marine maps. At the high end of the spectrum is the eTrex 30 ($300), which offers all the features you'll find on the eTrex 20, plus a tilt-compensated electronic compass, barometric altimeter and wireless data transfer capabilities. All three models allow users to download geocached information directly to their devices and boast a lengthy 25-hour battery life -- giving you plenty of time to find your bearings before calling in the rescue squad. Full PR after the break.
Nixie tube reverse geocache box makes us long for the 80s, our very own spy card
This reverse geocache box reminds us of something out of Mission: Impossible -- the second-run of the TV series, not that dreadful Tom Cruise franchise -- only it won't self-destruct in five minutes. It will, however, unlock when it reaches a pre-programmed location. Like the Deluxe Reverse Geocache, this box gives its holder a mission should they choose to accept: use the display to find the box's final resting spot. Unlike its predecessor, this one uses three nixie tubes, not an LCD screen, to track the box's distance from its destination. A built-in Arduino GPS sensor does all the tracking, and a servo motor pops the top when triggered. The refashioned French army medical box operates off of three D-cells, and can do about 600 GPS fixes before powering down. We're definitely fond of this throw-back treasure chest, we just wish it had a built-in audio player for bumping the MI theme. Yeah, we said it.
Deluxe Reverse Geocache is reusable, really awesome
You're familiar with geocaching, right? One person hides a "cache" somewhere in the world and hands out the coordinates; the first person to locate it via GPS wins. How about the "reverse geocache"? This one is a little more difficult to get together: you have to design a box of some sort that contains the necessary hardware to enable it to be opened only at a certain GPS coordinate. You hand the dude your box, and they traipse around the woods until they get to the right spot and the box opens. Well, the operator of the imakeprojects.com website has developed a little something called the "Deluxe Reverse Geocache," a locked, electronically enhanced Pelican case that unlike other reverse geocaches, is designed to be reprogrammed and reused after completing its journey. But that's not all! It also gives the user hints regarding the desired location, along with a limited number of attempts to solve the puzzle -- after which the player is downgraded to one attempt per hour. Want to play? Hit the source link for all the details. Happy hunting!
DeLorme PN-60w with Spot connectivity gets official, can track your friends, too
As it turns out yesterday's news from Delorme about the PN-60w wasn't exactly from DeLorme. Now the official news from the source has dropped, and it includes a few tidbits not revealed yesterday. We'll start with the bad news first: the social networking functionality here is outgoing only, meaning you can brag to your friends about making it to the top of Half Dome without plummeting to your death, but you won't be able to receive their jealous responses. For the good news, you will not only be able to send tweets and the like but can also log geocache locations directly from wherever you find them, and interestingly the device can create a sort of local area network, able to display the location of everyone within range and even easily exchange waypoints. That should make not losing your friends in the woods a little easier -- but sometimes that's half the fun of hiking.
Geocacher causes Auckland bomb scare, Bostonians find soul-mates
In a world gone mad with fear, another global city has ground to a halt in the wake of harmless fun. Like Boston's visceral aversion to Mooninites, Auckland New Zealand has demonstrated an armed distaste for Geocaching. Geochaching is a GPS treasure-hunting game where participants find hidden containers placed around this big blue planet. Unfortunately, security caught the gamer on CCTV strapping a package to a rail near Aotea Center; they then called in the bomb squad. Tip to geocachers: don't wear a bearded, ninja-suit when placing your cache in busy urban areas.Update: Tip 2: don't use a cache that looks like a bomb! Pics of the device after the break.
