Turf insider May 2021

Round winners

Congratulations to the winners of round 130: Welshman from Lounais-Suomi biked home his second Gold, féarglas from Scotland celebrated Scotland's Region Battle win in March with another Silver medal and Király from Skåne took his fifth Bronze medal. Well done mates!

Voting for Turf Awards 2020 has now ended

In total, we received 966 votes divided on the four categories, Thanks to all 286 turfers who took part in the vote. The result will be announced at the Bonanza in Örebro on September 4. Registration for the Bonanza will open on the 20th of June, more information about how and where to register will follow!

Open Canoe Turf Event in Kalmar - August 14th

Kalmar Turf Association has organized popular canoe Turf events in 2015 and 2017. Now it´s time again. On August 14, an open event will be organized with requirment for registration in advance. We compete in pairs with one phone. Canoes and life jackets are available for rent for a low price. Invitation with registration form is available at [www.kalmarturf.se www.kalmarturf.se] Welcome!

What about those Minnesota turfers?

Some Swedish turfers have recently noticed increased activity in the big country to the west, and zones have also been added to the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St Paul. Here's a short input from woody:

"Turf play was kick started here in late December with the appearance of the BBC article about féarglas . Through the cold, winter months the game slowly grew in both the number of players and zones. Now spring has arrived and we have completed four rounds with four different region winners: danmarstp, hotbike, woody, and magikmama. Other players in contention each round include MtkaHek, fluteswedie and kelih, and it is no surprise that they are also at the top of the region this round. At the beginning of the round magikmama told me her goal was to score 250,000 points. She surpassed that and finished near the top 100 in the world rankings. It has been fun to watch the number of zones grow, learn game play and explore new areas. In the coming months we will work to attract more new Turfers. I also hope to see our first Turf event."

I am sure we will hear and see more of these crazy American turfers in the future!

The first zone maker?

Zone makers have been around Turf almost as long as the game app itself. Doh, since what would Turf be without the zones? Yeah, I know...however, in the beginning the developers themselves made the zones, and because they were the developers I don't want to call them zone makers as well. Then along came StarDust, possibly the oldest (in Turf years) still active zone maker in Turf Crew today. I thought it would be fun to hear from him, so I mailed him some questions and here are his answers:

So StarDust, you are one of the very first zone makers in Turf. Do you remember the first zone you made? Where is it located?

I don't remember the town, but it was part of a test to see that I understood the ZCT (Zone Creation Tool). Looking at urbangeeks map tool and narrowing down the timeline, I think it might have been Sollefteå. (ed. the ZCT has evolved into the ZE, Zone Editor, today, but both abbreviations are being used).

How did it happen, you becoming a zone maker? Did you know Drassen or Sim, the developers of Turf?

Back in 2011 when I became a zone maker there weren't many official zone makers. As far as I can remember it was only Drassen and jossan that were making zones back then. I was just an avid turfer and was invited to a Google Talk chat (Google Talk became Hangouts later) where some other active players were chatting about everything. Back then Drassen was quite active in the chat so I just asked him if I could be a zone maker since I saw that there was a big lack of zones pretty much everywhere in Sweden except for Stockholm and perhaps Gothenburg (and interestingly enough also Västerås).

Fun fact, that chat still exists but now in Hangouts with some of the original turfers from the old chat.

Today we have a 'zone maker education' with a test, how were you introduced to zone making? Did the zone making tool look and work the same as today? Has the zone making tool undergone any changes, for better or worse?

When I started I got to build five zones or so that were inspected by Drassen, that was pretty much it. The ZCT was a lot more basic back then, the radius around the zones I remember was my idea, that made it a whole lot easier to make sure the distance between the zones were correct. Back then you put the tp and pph in manually and there was little or no automation in the points changing after each round. The zone maker had to decide how much the zone was worth according to the position. I really can't see that anything has actually gotten worse with the ZCT, SunYour did a great job evolving it into what it is today.

How has zone making changed over the years? I remember from our trip to Denmark a few years ago that the zones often was placed next to a bike path, not on it as we are used to today. When did this shift happen?

Interesting question! I think it was in 2012, Västerås was quite a ghost town until then but afterwards it exploded with turfers. People from there started complaining about lawns getting muddy, tire tracks from bikes where destroying the grass. I was reluctant to change this at first since we had a policy that the zones should blend into the surrounding, they were literally supposed to be placed on lawns and avoid streets and paths. Eventually I came to the conclusion that this was probably for the best and me and blabert had quite the work to be done, rebuilding zones. I think that for the "turf historian" there is a lot to read about that in the forum.

What has been the most rewarding part over the years with being a zone maker?

I love that I had the chance to contribute to the game, especially at such an early stage. I had the chance to build important and central zones, unlike today where zones already exist in such places. It has become much more difficult to build zones in established countries such as Sweden. It has also been a blast to see the game evolve from competing with two or three people in Uppsala to the hundreds that are active daily. There is so much happening around Turf with (pre-corona) meetups in restaurants and pubs, competitions and also activity in schools.

What is the most important aspect of making a good zone to you?

There are two types of zones, interesting ones and then there are filler zones. The latter is necessary but sometimes it's difficult to find a reason to build a zone in a particular place other than activity. I think striving to always make a zone interesting by just giving it some extra time looking at the map, street view and other things is the most important aspect.

What would you wish for that would make zone making easier?

I would love to see a way for turfers to write a short comment about their zone suggestion (ed. In the Turf app). I would also have loved to see a way to vote on suggestions and perhaps also comment on other turfers' suggestions.

Thank you StarDust for answering my questions and sharing some of the history of zone making with Turf insider!

Turf music by RikerBiker

A few weeks ago the turfer RikerBiker shared his latest Turf-song, ”My Turf and Territory (zone taken)” on Facebook in the group "Turf - Outdoor addiction". RikerBiker has been producing music since the late 1990s and has been a turfer since 2017. In his own words:

”Turf is a concept in Hip Hop and Gangsta Rap culture for the area that various groups in mainly the black residential areas in American suburbs rule over. Since the basic concept in Turf is to take over and own as many zones as possible, this was the reason I chose to do a Hip Hop song this time. In 2019, I did an RnB song called "Knew we were meant to be" which is really about me and the love for Turf as such and the longing you feel before taking that zone that right now feels unattainable. I have also made the completely hilarious LusseTurf Anthem which is based on existing Christmas music which I put a new music loop on top of and created a completely new dubstep inspired song. This song is partly completely "crazy" but so is also the Lusseturf event so I thought it fit well.”

You can find his Turf songs HERE. New Turf music is being produced as I write this, so I hope you will enjoy the tunes, old and new!

Announcement

Ollals have officially joined Turf Crew to support and promote Turf within the Scout community. In 2022 a Turf Scout event with over 1000 participants is planned in Sweden.

Pimp your Zone

Lately, at least two zones in Uppsala have been 'pimped' by turfers with flowers to brighten up the experience for other turfers. Mumsige and allinug have planted daffodils in BurgarDoft, located on a tiny strip of land between two industrial plots in the northern part of Uppsala. MrXzon has dedicated time, daffodil bulbs, seeds and water to brighten up his 'home zone' ”Tralala” in the southern parts of Uppsala. Here's hoping we'll see more of this around!

Turfa lugnt!/Safe turfing!

//Munin

...if you want to contribute to future Turf Insiders, send your story to insider@turfgame.com :)