wilderness
Latest
ConnectedAfield: A worthwhile hunting and fishing companion
When you're planning your next hunting or fishing trip and putting together a list of all the items you need to take with you, consider downloading ConnectedAfield. This free universal app requires iOS 7.1 or later and will provide you with some helpful tools for your time in the wilderness. ConnectedAfield offers some features you would expect. Users can get the latest weather information based on their GPS location. The weather information includes the current data, hourly and daily forecasts and the latest radar image for your location. You will also have access to updated solunar tables listing sunrise, sunset, and moonrise times plus the most likely feeding times for your prey. I found the Mapping feature to be especially useful. The app provides interactive maps based on your GPS location. Or you can enter a location so you can use the map before your trip. Once you call up a map you can save it for future use. ConnectedAfield allows users to put marks on the map to identify important spots. Users get a number of symbols to choose from to use as markers so you can indicate spots where you killed a specific animal such as a deer or bear, a good place to camp, where you placed a trail camera, a feeding area, where a tree stand is located, yours or someone else's, a rock pile off shore in a lake where fish congregate and many more. Almost no limit to the number and kinds of spots you can mark for future reference. Another feature in mapping is the use of a ruler to measure the distance between two points. Just place the crosshairs from the app on the two points and the distance appears at the bottom of the screen. This will be useful if you are marking the distance from camp or off a road, or how long the hike is to an area you want to hunt. Lots of uses for this tool. ConnectedAfield has a social media section too so you can check out pictures and information from other outdoorsmen or post your trip info and photos of your kills or catches. This area is broken into more specific segments for general information, predators, or almost every type of prey you can hunt or catch: bear, deer, elk, waterfowl, small game, fresh water fish, salt water fish, and many more. Three other sections worth noting. The app provides an area for you to compile a journal so you make notes on each trip. ConnectedAfield also saves the weather and solunar information with each entry. The second area is a classified section so you can buy and sell all kinds of hunting and fishing gear or services. And finally users will find links to each state's hunting and fishing regulations so you can double check season dates and catch and size limitations. Overall I believe ConnectedAfield will prove to be a valuable app to keep with you the next time you venture out hunting or fishing. You will still need the knowledge and skills to be successful but it provides some important assists.
City of Steam going public with wilderness areas
If you were just thinking to yourself that the one thing City of Steam needed (besides being released already so you can play!) was an open, public hunting area, you're in luck! In the latest dev blog, Mechanist Games announced the addition of wilderness areas -- zones where many players can congregate, kill respawning mobs, and do quests. The wilderness areas give players a travel route that offers XP and loot along the way. Wilderness areas will also host public events and have an occasional rare spawn. Even more things are in store for these public areas. The dev blog hints at PvP, as also mentioned in Massively's recent interview.
RuneScape: Sixth anniversary retrospective
When it first launched back in 2001, RuneScape was a primitive beast. Its blocky three-dimensional world was littered with hand-drawn two-dimensional sprites, and most of its sound effects could have been created by whacking random objects with a hammer. Only a handful of quests and skills existed, and there wasn't much land to explore. After over a decade of development, the RuneScape we have today bears little semblance to its primitive ancestor. The map is an order of magnitude larger, the list of quests has grown immensely, and there are countless things to do in the world. With several million actively playing free accounts and over a million paid subscribers, RuneScape has risen from its humble beginnings to be one of the world's most popular free-to-play MMOs. It's been a long road, with a few important milestones along the way. Today marks the sixth anniversary of the date that the RuneScape 2 beta was officially completed and the game's first major overhaul was launched live to players. Anyone who played back then will remember the beta fondly as the rebirth of a game they loved. Since then, regular game updates have added a huge amount of depth and content every year. In this retrospective article, I look back at RuneScape's past to see how it got to where it is today and what's new to the game over this past year.
Smithsonian captures 201,000 wild photos with automated cameras
We have this big, fang-filled, claw-sharpened big cat all up in our grill thanks to the researchers at the Smithsonian, who have created a new database filled with over 201,000 pictures of elusive animals in their natural habitats. These candid shots were made possible with motion-activated automated cameras scattered around the world, and feature over 200 species of birds and mammals, and here's most impressive part -- these photos are au naturel. That's right... there's no editing here, these are untouched raw shots straight from the rain forests of places like Peru and China -- which allow us to see these magnificent creatures as scientists do. If you want more info or desire to check out these wild photos, hop over to the source link or check out the gallery below. %Gallery-118866%
Massively's guide to RuneScape's wilderness and free trade
Back when the open-world PvP of Ultima Online was more than just a memory for most people, it just seemed natural for a game to let players beat each other to death. Having open-world PvP in an MMO checked off another item in the list of things that attracted people to the genre. RuneScape's wilderness area was Jagex's compromise between letting players smash each other's heads in and not alienating players who don't want their heads smashed in. While most of the game remained PvP-free, the wilderness to the north was an open PvP bloodbath complete with corpse-looting and rude language. PvP was removed from this area several years ago as part of a major effort to beat the RMT business. At the same time as wilderness PvP was removed, limitations were placed on the amount of gold a player could gain or lose in player-to-player trades every 15 minutes. Trading was migrated largely to a new Grand Exchange system with built-in price limits. This all but killed the game's emergent trading professions, severely limiting the scale of shops and making life harder for the wheelers and dealers out there. Both the trade and PvP restrictions were lifted just over a month ago, and players are quickly learning to take advantage of all that's been brought back to the game. Skip past the cut for Massively's look at how you can take advantage of free trade and wilderness PvP and how RuneScape's community has reacted to the revival of these long-lost features.
The bloody aftermath: RuneScape's Valentine's Day Massacre in numbers
Unless you had a really bad date that ended with fire and regret, "Valentine's Day" and "massacre" are typically not paired together. Of course this doesn't apply to RuneScape, which loves to break the rules and keep us guessing. RuneScape recently hosted a Valentine's Day Massacre as a tongue-in-cheek way to celebrate both the holiday and a PvP zone called the Wilderness returning to the game, and by all accounts, it was a huge success. Jagex reports that 625,347 players met their untimely end during the event, which spanned 48 blood-soaked hours. Before the massacre began, the company ran a contest to see who could predict the kill count, and one player carried away the top prize with a guess of 623,500. For anyone else who participated in the slaughter, Jagex is selling a limited edition t-shirt commemorating the event. Available in red, white, or black in the Jagex store, the tee says "I brought the Wilderness back" and can be purchased for $13.00.
RuneScape's wilderness PvP and free trade have returned
At the end of December, developer Jagex put the fate of its browser MMO RuneScape in the hands of its players. Several years ago, in an effort to combat the game's growing RMT problem, Jagex placed severe restrictions on PvP and the trading of items. To make transferring gold harder, Jagex made changes to deny trades in which one party gained a significantly higher value of items and gold than the other. Limits were also placed on the stakes players could fight over in one-on-one duels. The biggest changes came to the wilderness, RuneScape's open PvP area. Wilderness PvP was completely removed in order to remove the possible use of PvP looting mechanics to trade large quantities of gold. Jagex opened a public referendum and vote to ask players if they wanted wilderness PvP and free trade to return, and over a million players answered with a resounding "YES!" Just over a week ago, we interviewed RuneScape's lead designer Mark Ogilvie on the details of the changes and how they'll affect players. In an announcement today, Mark confirmed that those changes are now in effect, along with some tweaks to the gravestone and drop party systems. If you're a fan of RuneScape, stay tuned to Massively's RuneScape coverage for our upcoming guide on making use of the new free trade and wilderness PvP options.
Massively's exclusive interview with RuneScape's lead designer Mark Ogilvie
Last month, Jagex did the unexpected when it opened up a major game-changing decision on its popular MMO RuneScape to a public vote. As part of RuneScape's 10th anniversary this year, Jagex gave players the chance to vote on whether they want PvP in the wilderness and free trade between players to be restored. These are two key features that were removed from the game around three years ago as part of an anti-RMT campaign. Over 1.2 million votes were cast in the public referendum, with over 90% of them asking for the revival of wilderness PvP and free trade. The much-loved game mechanics should be returning to RuneScape in early February. At Massively, we took the opportunity to interview RuneScape's lead designer Mark Ogilvie on the upcoming changes and what the future has in store for this popular browser MMO. Massively: When you initially put out a vote on the restoration of wilderness PvP and free trade, did you expect the response to be as overwhelming as it turned out to be? Mark Ogilvie: We really weren't sure. I spend a lot of time talking to my players, but you often find that PKers are a vocal minority. We wanted to run a referendum to see what the truth was, but we really weren't sure what was going to happen. We had a bit of a friendly sportsman's bet to see where the percentages would be, and I'm quite proud to say my guess was pretty spot on. I was really pleased when my bosses said, "let's ask the players and see what they think." Taking the risks to do something like that, putting a decision that big in our players' hands -- that's quite brave. Skip past the cut to read the rest of our exclusive interview with RuneScape's lead designer Mark Ogilvie.
The Daily Grind: Would you roll back a portion of your favorite MMO?
Jagex is making headlines lately with its trailblazing Wilderness vote. Whether you're a fan of the long-running Runescape MMO or not, you have to admit that it's pretty cool that developers would leave an enormous and game-altering decision up to the players. Aside from that novelty, the potential rollback got us to thinking about sweeping changes to our favorite MMOs, and whether or not we'd reverse them given a Jagex-style choice. Whether it's earthquakes like Ultima Online's Trammel or Star Wars Galaxies' NGE, or subtler and more recent tweaks like Age of Conan's removal of Tortage PvP, the MMO landscape is littered with changes both large and small. Are there any features of your favorite MMO that you'd revert or roll back if you could? Which ones and why? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Voting underway to restore RuneScape's wilderness PvP and free trade
Last week, we reported that RuneScape developer Jagex had taken the unusual stance of giving players a say in some major game design decisions -- namely, the restoration of the wilderness as an open-PvP area and the revival of free trade. Over 1.2 million names signed the petition in just 24 hours, proving without a doubt that players want the opportunity to vote on the decision. Jagex has now moved onto phase 2 of the referendum, opening a vote to any player with a RuneScape account. If you have an account and want to vote on this important issue, head over to the wilderness referendum page to have your say. Over half a million players have already voted, with about 90% voting yes for the restoration of the wilderness and free trade. For those old enough to remember the old days of RuneScape before the wilderness and trade restrictions came in, there's a lot to look forward to if this motion passes. Back when RuneScape was young, the wilderness was an open PvP area full of dangerous challenges and worthwhile rewards. The further a player got into the wilderness, the higher the level difference could be between him and another player for PvP to still be possible. It was a place for gang warfare, battling the game's toughest creatures and ad-hoc survival challenges. Several years ago, Jagex took some serious steps to curb the growing RMT and botting problems. Direct trading was heavily restricted, with a block on trades where one player puts up a significantly different value of items or gold than the other player. The auctioneer-style "Grand Exchange" became the only reliable way to trade, but even it has limits on item value. To avoid RMT salesmen bypassing the trade system to deliver gold, limits were placed on the stakes in item duels and PvP was completely removed from the wilderness. The PvP provided by the wilderness was replaced with Bounty Hunter servers and PvP minigames. If this vote passes, all of that will be reversed and players will be free to experience a part of RuneScape's history that has been lost for years.
Jagex offering fans a chance to shape the future of RuneScape
Outspoken fans of RuneScape (and more specifically, the game's former Wilderness implementation) are being given a unique opportunity to shape the future of the title. Jagex has just announced a public vote to determine whether the old mechanics will be restored. "We have released a host of new content which provides a comparable PvP experience to the old Wilderness, and mechanics to allow increased trade limits with long term friends but we are still regularly told by players that they want more. We want to find out whether the passionate voices we hear on this topic are truly representative of entire community or just a vocal minority. If the vast majority of our players support the campaign then we will restore these features to the game as quickly as possible," says Jagex CEO Mark Gerhard in a press released dated yesterday. So, whether you want to score one for virtual worlds with consequences or you'd prefer your online games (or at least RuneScape) be safe havens and relatively free of risk, Jagex is offering you the chance to shape an MMO that is quite rare, if not unprecedented.
Idiots in the wilderness with technology are still idiots in the wilderness, posits NY Times
The New York Times published a rather entertaining piece a few days ago on folks who wander into national parks woefully unprepared and expect their fancy gadgets and gizmos to save them. Some of the anecdotes are great, like the group of men who hiked the Grand Canyon and tapped the emergency signal on their SPOT device three separate times, causing full-on helicopter responses to such travails as water which "tasted salty." What's unsettling about the article, however, is that it seems to blame the abundance, availability, and advanced capabilities of technology (much of it with life saving potential in real emergencies) for these problems, as seen in the headline: "Technology Leads More Park Visitors Into Trouble." Even more troubling are the anecdotes of camera use (getting too close to a buffalo, getting gored by a buffalo, stepping off a cliff), as if cameras were some sort of newfangled scourge upon an unsuspecting parkgoing populace. Luckily, two-way satellite emergency signals are entering the mainstream, which should cut down on some of the false alarms in the future, but we're not going to expect idiots to soon forget how to misapply technology, annoy park rangers, and get themselves hurt in the beautiful wilds.
All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Hunter
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the twenty-fifth in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class well, without embarrassing yourself. The Hunter is probably the oldest class in World of Warcraft. Before anyone in Azeroth took up an axe or sword, or learned anything of how to cast spells -- even before they learned to write -- they had to hunt for food. If they were like early Earth societies, the people of many nomadic groups would have relied on their hunters to bring in the meat they needed, as well as to protect the community from enemies. Back then, there would have been no such thing as fancy armor or complicated magical weapons. The relationship of a fighter to nature was just as important as the weapons he carried, if not more so.Modern hunters in World of Warcraft come from the ancient tradition of those who learned to keep themselves and their families alive by living in harmony with nature. They learned the essential mysteries of survival in the wilderness, killing animals with stealth and primitive weapons, trapping them, and eventually turning predators and prey alike into friends and servants. As time went by, those fighters who took up the path of the druid would learn to become nature itself; shamans would learn to call upon it; warriors and rogues would make battle their art, each in their own way. But hunters remained at that pivotal point between sentient races and the natural world -- they are connected to nature, but not manifestations of it; they work together with nature, but they do not worship it or call upon its spirits; they fight their enemies with the utmost passion, but they do it with the tools that hearken back to the dawn of civilization.
