fetcheveryone

I cancelled mine on the same day, it was quite straightforward.

I try to buy locally when I can, but am increasingly disappointed with the lack of availability and, quite often, the staff. Very disappointing experience in Waterstones yesterday which is another non-Amazon outlet permanently off my list. Shame

I like Waterstones, but I have several times now been in there buying books, and had to use Amazon to help me find the book I’m looking for (eg who is the author), which is a weird kind of inversion people often have with offline v online shopping where people look at the physical product and then buy it online.

And of course the book is usually cheaper on Amazon. So it’s a bit perverse than I am buying anything from Waterstones

Signed up for it just yesterday! Although I prefer my literature on screen, rather than in ear...

I just waited for the end of the month because it's easier for me to remember when to cancel things. I just have the book to choose now.

I'm sorry Ian but I forgot about this. Didn't really want audible tbh. Will bung an extra five your way when I get home from my current holiday instead. And plan to review my monthly direct debit later in the year.

Also, have I missed any info about how to contribute to swittle's memorial? Don't recall seeing it.

It was actually a really simple way to donate £5

@Ness - I am waiting to hear more from my contact. Fingers crossed I will hear something soon.

Ah. Great thanks. I was worried that I'd somehow missed it.

Thanks for the reminder. Signed up, downloaded 2 books, cancelled. Hope it works your end!

Gotta love free money. Signed up and will cancel later. What Fleecy said ^

Signed up, then cancelled an hour later. Not bothering to even download anything!

thanks for the reminder - signed up, and a book I need for book club in June is there - book downloaded!

I don’t listen to audiobooks at all, so I signed up and cancelled 10 minutes later. Hope that was enough for it to work

I downloaded two and cancelled the other day. Thanks fetch

Thanks for arranging this 😀

The run sounds nice

Thanks Fetch- as a late night visitor, when the site usually feels quite quiet I was surprised to encounter what felt like a too busy server. Ta for sorting out those Bad Bots!

Manners maketh the bot.

Weasels! Lovely

If seen weeskes or stoats on the bit of 51 just before the houses and road crossing at Blunham- never stay in view long enough to work out which though

Ah true, they could have been stoats

Good to know what happened, thanks. Weasels will play happily for hours and they're not bothered by humans, Welsh or otherwise, because they're not scared of them.

Good lord! Ask Jeeves is still going!

Lumme ! Yes, it's still there - wow !

I apologise wholeheartedly for my relatives

Google would have been your friend with the wildlife spotting - weasels are weaselly identified... stoats are stoatly different

I did think it was a little slow, but how rude of the boys but fabulous you got to witness the rough and tumbles of the wee weasels or stoats.

You need eyes all round your head
How lovely to see baby weasels, though. We see the occasional adult one around here.

Stoat has a longer tail with a black tip, so probably weasels. We get both here, they're v cute. Nice running. Hope you get a bit more space for free. Per TB prices should be lowering all the time. Esp the slower stuff. G

I thought it was the Canadian 5G

Weasels sound cool

The hosting company should also be protecting against what is a borderline DDoS attack. It’s a bugger when these things happen in unsocial hours too.

Dealing with nasty bots - it brings back many memories

Weasels are really tiny. Baby weasels are even smaller.

I would estimate that their bodies were about 3-4 inches long.

Yay to weasels - boo to rude spiders!

Adult weasel body length is 6 or 7 inches, so that sounds about right for older young uns. And weasels are much browner than stoats... so I'm another vote for weasel not stoat.

lol at OTOS

I once saw extremely close up what I am certain was a stoat, less than one metre away, as it was dragging a squealing rabbit back underground.

Awesome indeed!

Yeah to weasels. Boo to bots!

It is interesting as cant see the benefit of a bot acting like that unless its malicious. Bytedance is surrounded by bit of controversy especially in USA. However seems odd and am sure very annoying for Mr Fetch

Nasty bitey spiders. I'd love to see a baby weasel

Bad bots 😡 I did notice some downtime but thought it was earlier than that and it got me wondering if there are alarm bells that I'm immediately go off at Fetch HQ or should users send a panic email 🤔

Most of the time it triggers something that I see. But there’s no harm in reporting something that doesn’t look right.

I did wonder why I couldn't get pages to load last night. Thanks for the explanation and the fixes.

What a treat to spot playful weaslies on a run!
I’m grateful that you’re there to sort the other stuff out.

I saw the site degrade, but assumed it was my ISP (they've been a bit up and down) so turned the lights off and went to sleep! Thanks though.

For those confused by the difference between a weasel and a stoat, one’s weasely spotted and the other’s stoately different.😂

Those bots are annoying. Is the site not cloud-based? (although that could be very expensive if the bots have a field day!)

Instead of blocking the malicious IP address can you discard, so that it doesn't know you are onto them?

The bots sounds like something out of the Matrix!
Funny, I was thinking about the server. I had a mental image of it being in your spare room, full of cat pictures and training splits and other nonsense. I wondered how much space there was.

I can never remember the difference between stoats and weasels, so put them all in the stoaty weaselly category. Bit like all little brown birds are spadgers, which really annoys my twitching friend.

Yesssssssss I like that!

Great work Fetch

I have this feeling that the ability to narrow things down, means less and less is read, but if people like it that's fine.

Our window cleaner chucked his prices up by 33%, but he didn't do a 33% better job, or anything like that. He needs to watch out.

Ah, but I've also increased the number of blogs on the page from two days worth to seven days worth - so it should all balance out. Unlike for your window cleaner.

nice

I like it! Thank you.

PS... Is the "On This Day" tab still working? It might be me being a dimwit but it doesn't seem to be.

Sorted now, ta

That sounds good and the new badge even better 😁

Nice😁

"waving his long wet brush at her back windows" - now there's a euphemism...

This is great - thanks, Ian. It’s really good to have this option to filter down to race-related blogs only.

Ta

Nice one!

Great feature, thanks!

Nice additions

Brilliant!

Thanks Mr Fetch

I’ve just added a new photo the gallery and the location bit works really well. Now what would be really useful is a link from there to the conquercise zone that the location is in 👍

Great idea, one question, for the badges, is it 10 pics for 10 different zones or just 10 pics and obv all the numbers beyond that.

So long as you've associated ten pics with a zone or zones, that'll do.

This sounds good.

A couple of things, please:

I've successfully tested attaching some existing photos to conquercise zones but when I try to "add location" to the zones, the map refreshes and takes me back to my home zone. I then have to scroll through the map back to the relevant zone (which may be a long way from my home) to mark the photo's location.

I've got loads of photos I could add from years ago, long before I joined Fetch, and the zones they belong to have never been visited by any current Fetchies. I guess that these photos will have to wait until someone logs a visit there.

@Flatlander - I've amended the 'Add Location' button. It still takes you to the main page for your photo, but it sends the coordinates of the zone that you were just looking at. So you shouldn't have too far to scroll now.

As for your old photos - you can add locations to them, and they will still be handy if I roll out my plan of incorporating a photo layer into our route maps. But until *you* log a visit to the relevant zone in Conquercise, you won't be able to attach them to a zone.

I just tried it. I clicked on the zone at the end of the Erne estuary. I found one of the sunset pictures I had taken down there and added it. Then I noticed that below the picture was a comment from Swittle. Every now and then things like that pop up, to absolutely floor you, don't they?

When does the badgehamster do his thing?

HowFar?, I had that happen to me when I just added a photo. It shows just how widespread swittle's influence and presence on Fetcheveryone is.

@Pothunter - when you next log a run/ride etc.

I’ve done 10 but no badge yet - is that post next activity?

Yep, should be triggered next time you log training.

This is splendid - thank you!

I was just coming to ask the question if I could add photos to zones I visited more than a year ago and there's the answer in the comments. If I understand correctly, I can only add them to the game if I visited a zone in the last year but I can add a location nonetheless. I have tons of pictures from my time in the UK but that was all before 2017.

It would make finding the right image to add to the cz if we could had by its [imagenumber] from the gallery...
Loving this new feature - it has the potential to 'waste' hours!

(had = add obvs)

I have been adding some Lanza pics.

It's great, but the add process is very clunky, if like me, you have 100s of pics.
If I want to go back more than 2 weeks to some NF ones (or years to SWCP ones), I seem to need to
1) find the pic in my photos, even if I know the image id,
2) then multiply pages by 20 and add the position, eg so I get 'my photo' sequence 537,
3) then switch to the conquersize zone, click through the 'more photos' 527/16 times (32 times) plus 1
4) to find the small icons and choose the 5th one to get the photo I want

I'm not complaining, I've got it down to a fine art now, but if I know the image id, is there way to get straight to the load without needing those mental gymnastics?

What is the intention on this one? The Centurion North Downs Way 50 requires a headtorch as the cutoff is 930pm which is after dark but only a few would need it. The Centurion South Downs Way 100 has the elites finishing before sunset but the vast majority would spend an entire night outside with only the first 25% finishing before sunrise

To highlight races that, in the normal course of events, would have a dark element. So maybe not necessary for events where it's an exception rather than the rule.

Did you search all the listings for races with 'Night' or 'Dark' in the title? I mean, I could do that, but I'm guessing you might have some batch way of amending all of those? *goes off to do the one that she knows of*

nice

That's a good shout Linds - I've just done a bulk update.

Great stuff this.

Fun!

This is great, but as I have a spread of over 50 gradients ( - to + ), I can't actually see the paces for each, just the first number. Could it show on a hover over?

This is really fascinating. I suspect that age also has something to do with slowing down when descending sharply. I used to hurtle down hills, now I find I have to work hard not to jam on the brakes. I'm also struggling to work out what "fix the intercept at 100" means, so that'll keep me occupied for a while. It sounds like something out of a Star Wars movie.

Great bit of work

7% gradient hilly?? that's still flat in Yorkshire mate!
Good number juggling. Will have a look at my own graph/s in a mo...

Anecdotes for you - definitely a sweet spot for running downhill gradient wise. Gentle downhill faster than steep.
I am, relatively speaking, faster uphill than I am on the flat. As in, I will breeze past people uphill, only for them to overtake me again on the flat bit.

I guess the steeper gradients are more likely to be off road therefore trickier to negotiate so slower downhill. And yes, I’m definitely someone who will put the brakes on over a certain downhill gradient even if the surface is good.

Was about to say the same as FDNB. It's rare to find the steeper gradients on road, whereas they are quite common in fell races, so I suspect terrain (and the risk of breaking your neck) comes into it far more at that point. Uphill terrain is likely to have less impact (I'm probably faster uphill off-road than on). There's another possible skew in that those classed as fast overall are the same one who'd be fast off-road, so maybe not blue apples and blue apples.

You should removed Slowboy's data from any combined gradient analysis... his watch is certifiably insane with respect to altitude.

That's interesting. But as someone who's definition of a hill locally is the flyover bridge (York) I'm probably not anywhere in your dataset!

I expect they have a shedload of analytics and metrics, so it may only work once.
Unless a reasonable number decide to stay on, or forget to cancel.

Once would be great

Send me a reminder to cancel.pkease

Done

I already had a free trial and they won’t let me have another 😂

That's mean of them

Done ✔️

I already have a membership

Done and a reminder would be appreciated, thanks.

i only get an offer of 3 months for .99 but it then goes on to say "here's what you get for your 30 day free trial"

Kerrching !! There's another £5 to keep the hamsters running

You don't need to wait a month to cancel, you can cancel immediately and the free trial continues for a month.

Yes please to a reminder to cancel

Reminder please

Ooh, just read your footnote, I will cancel now

Won’t let me have it as I’ve had it before 😢

I have audible already so presume it won't let me again

Duly cancelled 🙂

I have it already, love listening to books whilst I'm driving.

I might have to report you

Only after you've signed up Cath!
(best not use your work email)

Remind me to cancel please

You can cancel it straight away Lip Gloss. You will still get the 30 days.

Done and cancelled.

Thanks Fetch and it even works for people who have previously been audible subscribers. Most of their offers don't allow that.

I've signed up. Please remind me to cancel!

Signed up! Hopefully £5 on its way to you. I’ve put reminder in my calendar to cancel 👍🏻

Done!

I have a 99p for 3 months trial already. My top tip for Audible is that if you have Spotify Premium, check they don't have the book first before buying the Audible one.

I’m in the middle of a special offer already. They are really good in giving you a new offer about once per year, which suits my listening rate perfectly

I do really like audible though, everyone should do the trial for the 🤑 but hopefully you also get something out of it personally too!

Done

I already subscribe I love audible

done

Done

Done

I’ve signed up. I’ve had it before and still let me. Now to see what to download for my long runs.

It willnae allow me to do it: "the Audible free trial offer is only available to new members" and then redirects me to a 99p offer which I don't think will give you the £5

I’ve signed up. Looks pretty good. I might even stick with it for a while.

I signed up and went to cancel and they gave me another free credit to stay. I’ll still cancel it though

Done and cancelled. I never listen to audiobooks.

I think I've managed to do this now.

Jandy Hownsend?

That'll be it

Jools Holland?

Joanna Hummley

They're my sisters initials. But I doubt she'd be sending you money, or running.*
(unless there was a glass of something fizzy ahead and she needed to elbow past the rest of the queue)

*or walking or swimming or anything else people use this for

Jimi Hendrix

Jabba Hutt

John Hurt?

Jeremy Hunt, from the treasury?

Serious one Jhuff? Denizen of the Pose/Mers threads?

Jive Hunny.

Jandra Hullock?

Jemima Huddleduck?

I'm a good friend of Jandra Hullock. I can put in a good word for you if you like?

I noticed this yesterday - a road of this name appeared to be running through the middle of the river Mersey.

From an open street map forum (not sure how reliable this is, though!): "If the underlaying data is fixed (I believe it’s all been reverted), they’ll re-render soon, once someone has viewed the tile."

Adding to or correcting OSM is a joy! Even if it take an age to mark a bridge as connecting 2 footpaths, and then 7-10 days to populate all the servers.
(except when your bot does it 100s of times)

The Fetch/OSM maps do seem slow recently. Is that the server and possible filtering out Andy? Or increase use in The Challenge ?

I was concerned this might have been another obituary, this is much more fun.

Having never heard of the man, I'm just relieved that your blog wasn't another announcement of the demise of a Fetchie.

I was also worried this was another obituary, so pleased to hear it is some relative frivolity.

(I've put a smiley in the title, to offset any concerns)

Lol! I mean Grrr at sabotage, but lol at the nature of it! And thanks for heads up. G

It has been fixed: community.openstreetmap.org

It wasn't just the UK.

they are still there but disappear when you zoom in. Shame cos I wanted to know what the insults were

I’d have been very surprised if it was only the UK. It looks like a randomly generated thing, and doesn’t take a genius to work out the upper and lower limits of latitude and longitude.

@bigleggy some were just childish name calling like ‘sh*tface’ etc, but others were darker if I remember right.

Fascinating.... People are such fun, sometimes!

Furthest afield I have noticed is Italy. That's further away than Norwich!

The original one I found a week ago has gone. I did read somewhere the offending account has been deleted.

I saw something about this a couple of days ago; someone had plotted the route of a pro cycle race in the Netherlands and then took it down when they found it full of profane street names.

I'm glad you explained who this Andy bloke is because I had no clue

Poor Andy Townsend (whoever he is). Decades ago, in my IT days, I had the opportunity to get involved in either facial recognition or to put digital mapping into police vehicles. The answers to my question, "In short words, how does this work?" blew my mind and I chose to work on something else instead with people who weren't trying to bamboozle me. Thank you for explaining it so clearly - I think I finally 'get it'.

I'm always surprised this doesn't happen much more often, as I've never noticed any form of proper validation when adding updates to OSM. With more and more events relying on GPS-based nav, it would take nothing, and be virtually undetectable, to add in a non-existent path that looks an ideal route solution for my next race and see how many places it would gain me. Hypothetically, of course.

It doesn't happen too often. I'm a (very) part-time OSM mapper and subscribed to various of the mailing lists where vandalism like this is discussed. Generally they jump on things like this very quickly to revert the offending changesets. It's then a matter of time and demand for the tile servers to regenerate the tiles that people see.

The ones near me have gone now, thankfully.

Very nice

Isn't 'recce' a shortened version of reconnoitre or reconnaissance? Maybe use those instead?

Well done on the trail run - it's the future!

It is, but I will stick with patrol 😎

Nice patrol! I thought the sticky up things might be a rack of fire beaters? Couldn’t tell from the photo whether they lifted out. Otherwise deer scratching posts as you suggested might save them destroying tender vegetation but I’ve never seen such an item. (But Scottish deer wouldn’t be seen using them on principle!!!)

That species of tree is mastico phono mobilía - honest.......

Definitely fire beaters for those hot, dry summers (remember those?). And the tree, the fairly rare English FourGee Signal tree 😉😂😂

Thank you for the picture of you, it reminded me I need to put my earpods case on charge.

Oh, I had one of those trees on my bike ride last weekend. Bear with, I think it's in the gallery

Indeedly. It's top right here.

Love all of this. But especially Spiritual Home.

Very nice!

You should take Steven. Paw Patrol.

Edit. Stephen.

What a great blog. Crifps

Just realised I didn't include the picture of the plaque - I've stuck it in

Very good patrol. And yes, fire whackers.

.

A few years ago I’d have said it was an Orange tree.

Nice going!

Love those sorts of adventuring runs. Well done. Bluebells a month away here! G

Looks like a lovely patrol

Excellent patrolling

nice exploreventuring
I think recon sounds better than recce, I think use of the latter might have drifted across the atlantic?

fire beaters and bigleggy is correct about the tree species

Love this and some great miles covered.

...and I have the opening scene (the one with the 2 cops 'dancing' in the patrol car) embedded in my head. Thanks for the '80s memory

Would there still be bugs? A bug could be inaccessible with no way to mark it as such.

I like a lot of this I admit I lost off doing fetch point, I miss GOREilla collections even if it didn’t come with a prize. Maybe I just need to play again

Sounds good, although, I'm not sure it's still Fetchpoint with all those changes.

Combating the “inaccessible” element will be a big positive for me. Is The Ring still being transported towards Mordor, or did that fizzle out?

Does it mean that we'd have to pick a "quiet" time of day when fewer (less?) fetchies are out and about so a better chance to actually collect something?

Grast_girl has a good point.

It sounds good but does sound like a different game from Fetchpoint. I think I'd probably want to try doing both!

It sounds like an entirely different game rather than a few tweaks . I will be very sad to lose Fetchpoint.

Interesting! Sounds like a very different game, and I'm sure it will do me good to try to get my head around how it works.

I like the idea of always starting at the centre of the grid regardless of actual location as that solves my problem of running from at least 3 different locations each week (a reason I gave up playing WSW). Also it levels the playing field for those who are 'solo' players and those with lots of competitors.
Also like the idea of certain icons giving protection. Will the protection icons have a use or time limit? E.g. will I lose the shoe when I go through a puddle or will it only give protection for x days? Personally, I'd go for the use limit.

I like the sound of this

it does sound good - but not the same as Fetchpoint. I don't suppose there's server-space for both?

I like the sound of this

As per previous blog, happy to keep the original FP going.

I assume Wands, Protective Amour, Light Sabres, Water Pistols, Bows and Arrows, A book of Spells, an Invisibility Cloak, Potions. Also sounds like a separate game, but the idea of one grid makes sense as I get the feeling the fetchpoint experience wholly depends on where and who you are up against. Maybe, just Maybe you have divisions on how seriously you play?

actually, keeping Fetchpoint with the enhancements CumbriAndy suggested vv would work for me

This does sound like a totally new game, rather than a change to Fetchpoint. Is it worth keeping the current one running for a while

*sorry*
I see fetch has already answered that above

Struggling to imagine our dog being pacified with toast

You can please some of the people all of the time, but not all of the people all of the time. The current version could be Fetchpoint Map, and the new version could be Fetchpoint Grid.

I prefer gradual changes, especially given that (I think) Fetchpoint works and is reasonably popular.

Rather than give more points to slower activity types (walking, commando crawl, snail racing), there could be more points for objects harvested within your circle.

I dislike paying to go through traffic lights on the way to work. I can see that it is the game, but if we are changing the game...
Could we change from a charge per time going through the light per activity, to a charge per week? So, you would pay once a week, rather than go to some effort to avoid them.
Also, in real life, traffic lights don't charge travellers. The way they work, they do not work a lot like traffic lights. Could we change the icon and the name? For example to toll point, or troll? The toll point or toll could change colour, moving along the visible spectrum from red to violet, as the charge goes up.

Could we have frequented points where we often go, so that flowers don't reveal the fact? Similar to a home circle but smaller. Also, relays could not land there, for the same reason. The same relay block could also apply in home circles.

I think your new ideas sound really exciting and (as others have said) like a cool new game though I’m also instinctively change-averse so like the idea of keeping a version of the current game going for those who like it (assuming the hamsters can cope) In the fullness of time people will vote with their feet and it will become clear if what’s sustainable

Please keep both! (I’ve only seen traffic lights and infected bugs about three times in ten years, so the option of playing on a busy grid sounds good!)

I like the sound of this.

I stopped playing because I was on my own which .ade it kinda boring. The one grid will eradicate this making it a lit more fun.

I agree with Vrap ^

I think it all sounds a bit too complicated. I like the old game (will comment later below for that). And I suspect that as a relatively low mileage runner this new one might not suit me. Will the scores still be a rolling 30 day (or similar)? Also can’t quite figure out how I would plan what to target if my home point snaps to the start of my run.

“ Please note that if I go ahead and release a new version, there's no reason I can't keep the old one available somewhere for those among you for whom Change Is Not Good.”

From the original blog post. So this was always likely an option!

I like the ideas here. Shared grid makes a lot of sense. I do like the idea of inventory items too. Gives it an RPG sort of aspect.

You mentioned collection challenges such as the eggs. A Pokemon-like aspect where there were several different types of things to collect, perhaps each month, could be fun.

I never understood the game, but this version sounds playable. Thanks.

Sounds interesting but if we’re all starting from the same point does that favour people who run earlier in the day / live in an easterly time zone?

Would be good to have separate leagues for cyclists and those on foot.

If the feed of icons only happened once per day then it might. But as per the blog, I am planning to replenish the grid multiple times throughout the day - maybe even hourly. So it'll even out.

As has been said - this sounds like a completely different game to me. It also sounds way more complicated than the fair and simple original - but then many things turn out to be simpler in real life than the written description makes them sound so I'm happy to see what it looks like and give it a go.

I hope the map/grid will have a 'select starting position' facility for route planning purposes before we press go on our devices? I imagine there will be many of us wanting to plot routes starting from 'Point A' using devices that are, at the time of planning, physically located somewhere else entirely. In my case, for example, that could easily mean using my lunch break at work to decide where I want to run from home in the evening when I get there.

I like the sound of it. A lot.

Potentially,I stopped playing fetchpoint as I used to get out a few times a week and it seemed to favour the very active 'daily' people

Sounds like a great concept and well thought out. Like the 'fog of war' exploration idea. In order to plan and get an idea of scale and where icons are, I'm guessing our individual real map can be displayed under the grid and moved at will?

Fetchpoint 2: The Seek-Well

Sounds like a great prospect that addresses many of the issues with the original. The multiple distinct challenge aspects should interest users with all sorts of activity patterns, and might encourage me to mix up stale routines - great! The tricky part will be in balancing the points weighting between these components: for instance, I find the present points system to be so dominated by the bug clearing reward that no other aspect of gameplay really pays off.

Sounds very interesting

I've moved away from 'home' games as they were starting to limit my adventuring. Left WSW (as I kept forgetting to take a break). I'm in FP but there's no competition over here so don't actively play. Anything new sounds promising and a shared grid even more so.

Fetchpoint might favour cyclists, doesn’t matter, it’s just a game that adds bit of fun to my day. This sounds like a new game, am up for that too

Centring the grid on the start of a run is a great idea that solves many issues. I wonder how much of a role you see the geographical location of the grid serving in gameplay. For instance, will a "shortest route from A to B" challenge encourage finding (driving to?) a starting point that positions A and B on a nearby straight road?

Obviously, the more time you spend on the game, the higher your score is likely to be, which is fair enough, really. However, it would be interesting to have, as well as the points leaderboard, a points per mile leaderboard. Or, rather a board with at least two points columns. Clicking on the top of the column would order the board according to that column.
This way, there could be a use for straightforward traffic lights. In life, traffic lights slow you down, at least some of the time. In this game, traffic lights could add a time penalty, in the game.

New badges? I'm in. Missed the Easter egg memo but thankfully picked up a couple

You could change the initial state of new traffic lights. Tolls too, if you go with that change.
Currently, the initial state of the traffic light is 'unclaimed'. This state favours early, frequent players.
Instead, the initial state could be 'assigned', to a player active in the area in the last 30 days. The more active that player had been, the more likely an assignment would be. That player would have the normal week to refresh ownership. The initial assignment would not earn points because the player did not go through the token. This state would give people who don't play every day more of a chance to have traffic lights (or tolls). Also, those of us who travel through busy areas in their normal business would have a chance of their normal routes being tolled less and there would be less of a deterrent to taking the otherwise sensible route.

This proposal is an alternative to previous suggestions of declared routes or starts and destinations of routes, routes that are routine and that we more or less have to do, whether actively or nonactively. For example: work, shopping, school, college.

Have the One Ring roll itself one mile a day towards its destination, in case of abandonment.

scifi.stackexchange.com

Make traffic lights/tolls stop charging once they reach their limit, like flowers stop yielding watering points once they reach their limit, 20 points. So, the last charge would be 80 points, then the traffic light/toll would switch to amber, and not charge or pay anyone.

I like it but it gets a bit obsessive and you need a bike to get the best scores IMO. Because of the terrain around here in the winter you will get very muddy playing as well which puts me off. It is also hard to mix with WSW and I generally prefer that. Not sure what you can do about any of that, but that’s my feedback!

Like: it used to get me out to different areas and inspire different routes, as well as get me out for bike rides as well as runs and walks. No inspiration for improvements. I don't play at the moment because I live too near a large body of water which makes it too tricky to find a "home" square which makes any sense. My main gripe was always jealousy of people who were able to plant and harvest flowers, as they were few and far between where I lived (too many other players nearby).

Played a *lot* in its early days, but then got bored as it felt never-ending and seemed to lack a real purpose (and I needed up wasting a lot of time moving inaccessible items). Conquercise & WSW took over as they felt better formed.

I stopped playing due to there being way too many inaccessible places for me. Surrounded by farmers fields, motorway etc.

Loved the game as it made me walk different places with the dog

4 Traffic lights!
I hate traffic lights proportionally more than I should do. I guess I just hate losing points, even just 4.

My suggestion for improvement(s) would be a more user-friendly way of defining inaccessible areas (e.g. drawing round them), rather than waiting for something to pop up there and marking it as bad. While we're at it, I thought inaccessible marker spots were supposed to be automatically reenabled if someone successfully passes through them, but I don't think I've ever seen this happen

I played the game briefly a few years ago but stopped because they're were too many inaccessible places (quarry, private land and/or farmers fields). I did return to it it to collect Easter Eggs but not sure if I'll continue to play it.

Played years ago, then found the ratio of bugs and traffic lights went up and felt like I could never make progress so stopped

Never played it and not sure I would. It seems like it might drive addictive behaviour…

I've played a few times - it did make me explore a few new streets, I do have a chunk of inaccessible areas, but the main reason I gave up was the obsession with squishing bugs every day - which whilst working, I simply can't do. - and I was always getting caught out by not having quite got out of the circle...

I stopped for same reason as Ness, too many inaccessible places in my home circle.

I used to play but gave up after the pandemic. My main reason for leaving the game is that only two or three activities a week were from home or where I could choose the route. I therefore built up lots of bug penalties as I couldn't clear them every day. I returned for the Easter eggs and haven't left yet but I'm not sure how long that will last.

I play Fetchpoint more out of habit than anything else now. "Shall we go out and get our bugs?" is regularly uttered in our household. I'd like the game to be GPS-only, and I'd like to see some sort of weighting to recognise that it's much easier to play on a bike than on foot.

I played from probably the start when looking for gore-illas. I stopped playing as it got harder to stay in positive numbers due to me living in a place where cyclists come and infect my bugs on the roads without pavements! Rejoined to collect some eggs but not sure I’ll carry on for long

Inaccessible places - I live near Ness. Also you've got to be doing outdoor running regularly to stop your points getting eaten by bugs and I like to mix things up a bit more with gym visits and more rest days than I used to. Having come back to it to collect eggs, I'm not entirely sure what all the rules are with your stuff and other people's stuff and different coloured bugs and what you can move and what you can't. I used to like that it made me vary my routes a bit more than usual. I think fewer penalties and some way of making sure things were close to roads and footpaths would make me more likely to stick with it.

I played for a while, but there are mainly two reasons I didn't continue.
1) I live in a rural area with few streets and it's not always easily accessible to visit some areas of the map (eg. steep hillsides, private land, no footpaths), so often have to limit my access to/from home with a few spokes of a wheel, not 360 degrees.
2) I prefer to go out for a run based on what and where I feel like, without first thinking I'm obliged to look up a map for points.

(Pressed enter before finishing!) I can see that it motivates some people, and that's always a good thing, but it's not a game for me.

3) rural area with lots of inaccessible places, and no one else playing locally

I liked it but it became addictive and too time consuming. Just had Beat the Street in Chelmsford. A much inferior version of Fetchpoint based on tapping in to boxes attached to lamposts, mostly at schools and intended to encourage healthy travel. Specific designs of Fetchpoint could probably be sold to councils for a similar purpose but with a much higher fun content and lower infrastructure cost. You'll be minted!

My only positive suggestion for improvement is to run it in time bound cycles so it's easier to participate for a short period and then take a break.

Just restarted for the Easter eggs. Lost heart after accumulating a big negative score first time round, never seems possible to recover without a reset. I liked having to explore. I think my overall problem is I often train indoors or away from the home circle, or only have time for dog walks of a mile or two. I'd like infected bugs to lose you fewer points - maybe also if you pick bugs up you can move them closer to the edge of the circle even if you don't carry them out?

I like the idea of special features - finding the one true ring (where is it?!) and the higgs boson (I did find it once!) and the Easter eggs - so maybe more of that sort of thing?

Not sure the randoms and relays are adding much.

BTW I think I'm gaining fetchpoint score from Zwifting in London... Should I?

Play out of habit, but not obsessively.
I have marked most of the inaccessible places as such now, so it's easier to collect trinkets as they fall on the roads/paths more often. I still haven't managed the 30-day bug collecting badge though nor 10,000 points so I still have targets, but currently not sufficiently motivated to aim for them.

Played a bit during the pandemic. Really did it to collect badges. Enjoyed it but once I’d got the ones I could get, I stopped.

And then I came back for the eggs! Because there were more badges

I’ve never really got into it was a game though. Conquercise and WSW I get and have often really enjoyed.

Why?

I agree about the bike comments. Also the ones about the persistence required; to me personally it feels like to do well in it would require a never ending grind.

I do love Fetch games in general though and could be up for a new version!

Never played because it feels really, really complicated.

It's still my favourite Fetch game. I like that it allows me to stay quite local and run from my front door. I like the control of being able to mark areas inaccessible, so it matters less that I'm surrounded by fields. I'd like to separate wheeled activities from walking and running. The addition I would make is to have a monthly ( or weekly) aspect. From the first of the month a "pet" would appear as a marker on the map. It would move each day until.you caught it, and then remain your pet for the rest of the month ( or week) and enhance the value of some of the markers ( gems might become pet food) when you caught them. ( Yes I've been thinking about this for years ) .

I gave up after a couple of weeks... seemed too complicated to get my head around when running!

I used to play but there are lots of inaccessible areas here. Having to leave the circle to kill the bugs makes it harder as I have the circle placed to optimise collecting the items but getting to the edges of the circle is difficult (we are a village with no footpaths connecting to the neighbouring villages and a main road that has got a lot busier in recent years).

It's my favourite game but I try to be less obsessive about clearing up my bugs each day. I use it mainly as a tool to give me somewhere to aim for an activity most days.

Loved the game initially - probably played it too hard at the start and made some enemies! Peaking at collecting a bunch of bugs in the corner of Kensington Palace Gardens - and then doing a very long run to move them out to the edge of the M25 and racking up a big score!

Even now bug squashing is a big motivation for getting out regularly- it really helps me to be active without driving ever increasingly long runs like WSW can sometimes do. I find it a healthy balance.

No changes from me thank you.

I love playing fetchpoint. As a newcomer to fetch (late 2022) I started playing not long after I joined and at first had no idea what I was doing! Had a big negative score but then worked it out and generally hover around the 5,000 - 6,000 level.

I like trying to squash my bug each day although occasionally don’t and now can cope with not having done it. I did get the 30 day bug free badge which I liked.

I find I can quite easily position the circle that I can both get the bug and leave the circle in multiple ways from the house which helps.

I can find it hard to combine WSW and fetchpoint (enjoy them both) but it is currently helping me to go for a lunchtime walk too.

Used to play when living in Cirencester, only 2 or 3 other regulars, plus the odd cyclist. Easy enough to clean up, not many places I couldn't get too. Now on the edge of Stockport, numerous runners and cyclists dump all sorts, plus passers through, plus lots of places I can't get too, eaning it is difficult to keep on top, got bored of flagging inaccessible. Gave up long ago. Can't see why I would play again short of moving house.

Tried to play a couple of times but never really got to grips with it. Rural area so massive amount of inaccessible space plus I think it needs interaction with other players and no one else is nearby.

wow. read all these comments. agree with most of them. for me once i hit a goid score and got a badge i struggled to see point of continuing.

I enjoy fetchpoint but find it very frustrating! I’d like to be able to take a week off when I’m not well or injured without accumulating so many bugs

Living in a suburb so almost everything was accessible, I found the good challenge was to work out and then remember the ideal route. It probably slowed my running down because I for one did not try to run at my best speed up and down short cul-de-sacs. Eventually I stopped because it was going nowhere. I think I got the 10,000 badge but I would have had to be a serious cyclist to get the next badge.

I really like Fetchpoint, sometimes I very actively play it and go out and squish the bugs (the badges were a good motivation for this) but other times I just leave it in the background and you can just randomly get points when you head out. The Easter egg hunt was fab because it encouraged me out of my usual fetchpoint circle and I had plotted a couple of other routes to bag a pile of eggs but didn't get a chance to go out and get them before they disappeared - so something longer term outside the main circle would be welcome.

Similar reasons to others on previously playing, giving up and restarting due to Easter eggs. Lots of inaccessible areas due to farmland, water and a busy A road. It also makes it next to impossible to clear bugs from the home circle. When I'm cycling it's usually straight out of the circle that doesn't help much.

In the early days it got me out and about in the area but now I run less I left because the bugs drove me crazy LOL. Came back for the easter eggs but left again after that.

My home area does not have enough roads/paths so most of the area is inaccessible and I could never be bothered to complete marking the inaccessible areas in order to be able to enjoy playing.

Been thinking about this a bit more - as I work from home and don’t go away much, it’s generally easy for me to squash bugs daily whereas for others it’s less so. The Easter eggs were popular with lots of people including some who hadn’t played for a while. So something like that where you can get something outside your circle, and there’s lots of them is a good idea. Maybe they could get points too? And change with the seasons?

I play more or less daily as where the bug is chooses which direction I run in. I have a massive amount of inaccessible areas but that's down to where I live and not the fault of the game. I have no other players for miles so no traffic lights for me.

I enjoyed playing it to get the 30-day bug badge and a points badge, but it doesn’t work long term in a rural setting. That’s fine, I’m not asking for or expecting changes for rural locations, I should think it’s great in a city.

I have so few route opportunities from home that I only run in my home location a couple of days a week at most. (I know I could change the grid location, but I am not in any other location often enough to make that worth it as I wouldn’t build up flowers etc.).

So, in conclusion, it’s a brilliant concept. When we move to a more urban/suburban setting, which may happen, I’ll happily engage with it again.

Like many I'm surrounded by farmers fields, bog and pathless woodland, but not Fetchies. I don't like to mark something in a field inaccessible as I may get there when it's fallow, and the bogs sometimes dry out.

I did enjoy compulsive bug squishing and the Easter eggs were fun, but only really played the game to get badges or when my training happened to fit (repeated running and biking routes to collect flowers). Unlike other games it didn't inspire varied activity.

More novelty items would be good, but the ring is always vast distances away and I have no idea how you track the Higgs Boson.

Been playing since the start and enjoy it. One of my first 'tasks' on starting Fetch in the morning is to find out where my bug is so I can start to plan where to run and/or walk later - means I naturally vary where I go and the range of surfaces I run on. I have lots of inaccessible space, no active (Fetchpoint) neighbours and don't own a working bike - I've learned to accept these as lifestyle choices with the potential to limit my overall score so sitting around 10-12,000 simply through time on feet is fine with me. I guess I'm lucky that I can (and do have the motivation to) get out more or less every day; also that I'm not particularly bothered by unlit lanes without pavements or muddy trails/footpaths.

For me, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the game but a few thoughts as to potential tweaks/enhancements:

- it would be nice to be able to see the underlying grid and mark spots as inaccessible without waiting for markers to appear
- it's clear that the option of daily breaks would be valuable for some - no 'new' markers and no points gained from our own activities on such days but no bug penalty/bonus that day either
- might be nice to revisit the original option of disabling traffic light rent collection at the weekend so as to avoid 'penalising' folk for running popular races
- can we do something a bit more 'exciting' with Randoms? Not the deeply unpopular large penalty that was tried once but maybe some bigger bonuses or score multipliers or bug expulsions?
- have the ring self transport itself to the middle of the nearest players' circle after a defined period (maybe 10 days?) of being 'stuck'. Just to keep it moving and maybe engage more people with the journey (not that I expect it ever to appear anywhere near me)

Weirdos! *runs away*

I did find it motivational initially but also stopped because, being out in the sticks, I ended up with far too many inaccessible bugs.

1) I do enjoy gamification to encourage me to go for a run
2) Having to get bugs every day didn't really suit me as I only ever ran every other day and the walks I had to do to get outside my circle were just a bit too long to easily fit with my schedule, so I would suggest the ability to make the circle smaller, especially if you're walking mostly, or larger if you're cycling mostly (and therefore having different leagues for different activities).
3) I've mostly stopped running, so again the smaller circle would help me. Also, I'd like to be able to log yesterday's walk and it affect yesterday's map (to remove bug penalties), which I suspect would be incredibly hard to code.

Played it for a while but struggled being in a rural location and if I moved my midpoint to town it meant I had to drive to every run where I wanted to play. Also wanted to mix run locations so couldn't get to bugs everyday. For a while there was one other person locally playing but when they moved that reduced point scoring options and as I don't cycle that limited points also. Did enjoy playing though.

I used to be an active player but I'm running and cycling less. Hopefully that will change. The game favours cyclists, who can collect more items, but that is fine by me. It is ok to have a game like that.

Minor issue, I can never find where the ring is.

A bit more explanation on bugs - is there a maximum number you get in your circle? I was interested to see just how infested I could get.

Since I'm the only fetchie around here for many miles, inevitable fate of an international, it doesn't make much sense to play the game, as scoring opportunities are low. I looked into it but didn't find it appealing or rewarding in my particular situation. I'm happy with Rundle, Conquercise, and Hide&Seek, they provide enough entertainment for me.

I loved it but like so many things in my life I got completely addicted by it and had to go cold turkey!!

Seemed rather complicated and couldn't see the attraction, but gamification has never really attracted me. Exception being Conquercise that can just keep going in the background and I occasionally look at to see where I have been.

I’m a participant in all the fetch games, but don’t really play many of them actively. Fetchpoint is the one I play most though - I even bought a bike to make scoring easier. (I had a few ideas about how to even it up a bit for cyclists and runners). I play on my own and a lot of my circle is inaccessible, but I’ve marked them all up nicely. I like the 30 day rolling, so if you don’t play for a while it doesn’t take too long to get competitive again. There have been a number of times when I’ve only gone running because of bugs.

You could (maybe) reduce the number of things to be generated by giving people a deadline (a month, say) to actively opt into the game and if not opted in then quietly stop generating bugs flower jewels etc for them.

I used to play it when I ran most of my runs on my own so could choose where I went. Now I'm running with my club or other people a lot more so I don’t decide the route, which doesn’t really work with this game.

Same as Linds. I never could get my head around it.

Walker: can't cover the ground needed; lots of inaccessible round mw; no other fetchies near by

That path would not be fun to run on

The note looks very useful. I do hope the path flattens as well as dries. I have never worn anything with bottles at the front, they look like they would get in the way!

Good mileage, and practicing of `essential ultra skills'. If the Salomon is the same as my old one, that shiny pocket is to put a bladder in.

Where is The Tree of Strength?

The Tree of Strength is in the seventh kilometre, which I have only gazed upon

Hmmmm.

Agree with flanker, there’s probably a small hole to push the drinking tube through and a loop on one of the front straps to stow it. I found the water got too warm and tasted weird from a bladder. Soft flasks ok - used to freeze them ahead of runs in hot weather.

I wouldn't bet on it getting any dryer. I walked a bit of it last summer with Her Outdoors and nearly lost a shoe.

The other thing about removing the air from the soft flasks / bladder is it significantly reduces the sloshing

Great stuff 👍🏻

When you're done with the roller can I borrow it for the

garden, please!

I love that you're becoming an ultra runner

I'm enjoying following your journey (from my armchair!). I'd love to do the Greensand ultra - it goes straight past my primary school (in Northill).

The more the merrier!

that path looks relatively dry
I have been avoiding that route until the weather clears up a bit - ditto the down and up around warden tunnel area.

Do you know they've changed the route this year Rosehip?

oh! just checked your link and that's a different route from when I last did it in 2022

cross post! that looks flatter

And it's backwards!

It's very different. I do hope it dries out a bit, there are some potentially very soggy bits

I think less sticky would be helpful

See that path? The muddy squlechy stuff? Straight through the middle. It's the only way.

You don't want it too dry 'cos it will stay the same shape but be rock hard instead of soft.

Loving this. Seems like it's going well.

Nice vest. Shame they don’t do them in "Clydesdale".

I know exactly where you mean by the Lego blocks -

And St Leonard's church is well worth an explore inside if you pass again.

My first Salomon vest really bruised my ribs. I think it was a piece of plastic stiffening that was pressing down. I ended up changing it under warranty (for a different reason) and asked for a smaller size, which fixed the problem.

Enjoy the race - it's (mostly) a beautiful route.

Well done! Sitting around at Box End sounds like a good way to spend time too

I love my Salomon Adv Skin 12. The foil bag is to keep your water bladder a bit cooler. It slides into the long pocket (non zipped) in the bag, then the hose goes from the middle bottom through little holes either left or right through the compartments and comes up through the pocket under the bottle - with a small elastic loop just above the bottle pocket to hold the top of the hose in place.
You should be able to drink the bottles completely empty without taking them out of the pockets. If you do need to put an empty or part empty soft flask back into the pocket, blow it up like a balloon first - it makes it easier.