Turf Blog 11-04-21

Turf zone – WatchTheMud

Sometime, when I’m out turfing, particularly when cycling between zones, I like to try and think up ideas that would improve or expand the Turf game. Looking for ways and means that add to the experience of turfing for everyone. The most obvious one that comes to mind is additional medals and new types of zone.

The first one I came up with an idea for a new Zone called a Blue Zone. Blue Zones are random zones in that they appear “out of the blue” and essentially “take over” any existing Zones, changing the zone icon colour to blue. They are also transient, appearing for only a set duration before vanishing again. If a turfer takes a Blue Zone, it’s theirs until their block time expires and the zone reverts to its previous state. Blue Zones would also offer higher points, perhaps as high as four times the norm, than any other zone, to entice turfers to seek them out and compete for them. No pph would be associated with a Blue Zone as it does not hang around for very long.

Another idea that comes to mind with Blue Zones would be to give them a whopping big points score, say 1000 points, and have them hang around for 60 minutes. Then after the first turfer takes them, they would not have any block time and could then be taken by other turfers, also for the 1000 points each. This would allow many turfers to seek them out and gain valuable points.

So, imagine you are out Turfing. You see a Blue Zone on your mobile and want those points, but don’t know how long it will be there for. You make a mad dash for it, hoping it will not vanish before your very eyes. Of course, you see other Turfers all doing the same, rushing towards the Blue Zone. All good fun! Perhaps a Blue Zone medal as well?

Another new medal suggestion is the Trainspotter medal, for taking 10 railway station zones in 24 hours. Railway stations are well spaced here in Scotland, hence the longer time frame. Also a companion medal, Station Master, for taking 20 railway station zones in 24 hours. Other ideas for medals are Bridgineer, taking 10 bridge zones in 12 hours and Bridge Master for taking 20 bridge zones in 12 hours. Bridge zones are more common, hence the relatively short time frame from the latter medal.

Some further medal ideas I’ve been thinking about.

  • Grail Knight – take 5 holy zones within a set time period, say 1 hour.
  • Grail Master – take 10 holy zones within a set time period, say 12 hours.
  • Holy Grail – take 20 holy zones within a set time period, say 24 hours.
  • Ghost Hunter – complete 5 Ghost Minutes at 5 different holy zones.
  • Exorcist – complete 10 Ghost Minutes at 10 different holy zones.
  • Night Owl – taking 100 zones between midnight and 4:00 am.
  • Blue Zone – awarded to those lucky turfers who captured a Blue Zone.

One thought comes to mind if creating medals based on zones with an assigned type e.g. holy zones. This might require looking at the geographical spread of these and perhaps adding a few more type designations to existing zones to allow more turfers the opportunity to go for them in their own regions. I’m keen on the idea of medals that take you away from the basic zone taking that is Turf. Rather than just going round simply taking zones, it would be great to see medals that require a little bit more effort than usual, have to completed with set time periods and at certain time of the day or night.

This next suggestion concerns the Turf app. It would be great to see a feature that displays your medal progress and what your status is for the next medal in the series. For example, you already have the Take-50 medal from previous outings, your take count is now at 55 and the medal progress feature would show “Take-75, 20 takes required.”  This would be the same for the Unique and Greed medals, and any similar others. The feature would automatically show you just where you are with regards the next medal. Might look something like this.

  • Greed-75, 20 takes required.
  • Trainer – 11 takes required.
  • Darkest Ninja – only 3 zones required.
  • Insomnia – 13 hours done, 11 to go.
  • Staminatrix – 145 zones required.

The final suggestion for today also concerns the Turf app and the little yellow or red icon that appears above the countdown bar when there’s poor network connectivity or a loss of network connectivity. It looks like the robot Maximilian, in the 1979 movie, The Black Hole. Flashing red indicates no signal and flashing yellow indicates a poor signal. Personally, I find it very difficult to see, even with a relatively large mobile phone screen and even more so in bright sunlight. Other turfers I’ve met have also commented on this. It would be great if the symbol was larger, perhaps just a blinking solid block of colour, same size as the countdown bar segments. This would be far easier to see, particularly for those getting on in age and those with vision problems.

Most of these ideas have already been posted on the Turf forum but I hope any of the Turf Wizards reading this page might take up some of these suggestions and bring them into reality. Keep on turfing.

Copyright ©2021 Gary Buckham. All rights reserved.

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