Challenges

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Challenges


I have now found out more information about the new virtual, these are, as I mentioned before, going to be called Challenges.

Still in the early stages but being released very soon,  I have copied what Jeremy Irish had to say on the official GC blog.


"To me, the core geocaching experience is the “eureka moment” when finding a cache.







The word, Eureka, comes from the ancient Greek εὕρηκα heúrēka, meaning “I have found it.” I love this word. It represents that elated feeling of discovery when you move a few leaves to discover that container in the woods, or reaching under a park bench to extract a magnetic key holder. It is a sense of accomplishment and marks the end of a successful journey.






Finding a geocache is fun and rewarding, but I’ve always been frustrated of the limitations of a geocache. As a physical object, some places are inappropriate for placing a cache. They can’t be hidden close to each other to reduce confusion, many locations have to be regulated by land managers, and some locations just can’t support a hidden container. But there are lots of cool and interesting eureka moments in the world. So how can we get people there without a cache?






We tried this before. Our early attempt was to support virtual caches, which weren’t geocaches at all but unique locations on the world for people to discover. The best of those virtuals still exist today as grandfathered listings, but there was a time when virtuals were hard to qualify. The biggest reason was that we were applying the guidelines of geocaches to virtuals, which required a reviewer to publish them. No one could determine what the subjective threshold for what was a virtual was and wasn’t, so the constant angst resulted in the retiring of virtuals. For years we have focused on the core game of geocaching, but have always wanted to find a way to bring virtuals back.



Spring forward to 2010 when we added the feedback section of our web site. It became quickly apparent that the community wanted virtuals back as much as we did. However, knowing the history of virtuals, we couldn’t just flip a switch and have the same process again. So we sat in a room and tried to distill the idea of virtuals into one sentence. The result was “go somewhere and do something.” This evolved into Geocaching Challenges.






Find a location of interest and challenge someone to take a photo or complete some kind of task unique to that location. Make it fun! Take a picture of yourself holding up the Tower of Pisa. Pull statue Lenin’s finger in Fremont (Seattle). We’re looking for the community to define the best challenges in the world.






We also know in the early days that there won’t be many Challenges, so we’ll be issuing Worldwide challenges daily. For those old timers, these challenges will be like the old Locationless caches. For example, we’ll challenge you to take a picture of yourself on a boat, kissing a frog, or dressed like a pirate. We’ll be using our feedback site as a way for the community to suggest Worldwide Challenges.






What are the guidelines for issuing a challenge? Unlike caches, there aren’t any official guidelines. Instead, you can rate challenges with thumbs up or thumbs down, and there are reporting tools available in the case that a challenge is inappropriate or unavailable. We’ll be tweaking these tools and introducing new ones as the activity grows, to ensure that the community can collectively decide what is appropriate, and what isn’t. For example, there is no 520’ guideline and Challenges won’t be blocked from being issued at Disney World, or even a pub.






There will be some restrictions at the start. To reduce the growth during the early days, only Premium Members can submit challenges. Premium Members will be limited to creating a Challenge once every 24 hours. Our hope is that we’ll be able to open this up further once we tweak our system to address the feedback we get from the community.






We’re also releasing a whole new set of mobile applications for Challenges, on the iPhone, Android and Windows Phone 7. We expect that this new activity will be primarily accessed through these free applications, though we’ll continue to support GPS devices.






I’m very excited about Challenges, and look forward to seeing what the community can do with the new concept. I also look forward to constructive feedback on how to improve the activity and make it a part of the core geocaching experience."

This all looks exciting stuff and I for one can't wait to set my first challenge. Hopefully the smilies will eventually be allowed to join your main cache finds rather than being separate.

It will be interesting to see how this all develops.

Anglesey

As you may have gathered from the fact that I am posting on the blog, Anglesey fell through for one reason and another. So, caching has been at a low ebb again this week with just a few finds.

This weekend we are, come hell or high water getting out there and finding some more. I have a load of TB's and geocoins that I picked up at the North West Mega launch to drop off in some caches.

Next week I am going to do more of a feature on the North West Mega. There will also be some exciting news about the 2013 Mega.

Have a good week and happy caching.

More Soon and Virtuals

More Soon


I am sorry everyone for the lack of an update this week. We have done a little bit of caching including 3 FTF's.

None of the caches have really been anything special to tell you about though, so rather than bore you with a none blog will leave you with the knowledge that the next edition will be in a couple of weeks time. We are off camping on Anglesey for a couple of weeks and there are some great caches to find up there. I am sure that there will be plenty to tell you about then.

Virtuals

Some good news though, it looks like a form of virtual caches are going to be back with us in the very near future. They are going to be called Challenges, there isn't a lot of information about them yet, but this is a quote from Jeremy Irish's own forum posts.

They (challenges) are location-based and for everyone to do.

When you complete a Challenge (the new virtual) it will now be included in your overall "find" count. That's the only change to my original comment. I was resisting but was worn down by my fellow lackeys.

To clarify, it isn't going to be a cache listing at all, so posting a new cache listing as a placeholder for a virtual would have no point to it.

Just who will be allowed to list virtual listings on this site? Lacky's? PM's? Any member?

Premium Members during the initial release will have the ability to post them, and even then they only post one every 24 hours (max). This will open up later, based on how the system is holding up.

Still no real news on this, but it looks like caching is going to have something new and exciting happening.

All for now, have a good couple of weeks.

My holiday starts tonight, with a visit to the launch event of the North West Mega, from this evening the actual event will be published and you can log your intent to visit next year.

I also pick up my first two event coins, photos will follow when I next blog.

Blog TB

A quick update on the Blog TB that I set off on 17th June at a cache in the West Midlands. So far it has travelled 264.7 miles and was last picked up in the Lake District. It is currently in the hands of HO4 who live in the North East.

Finally for those of you who are interested in the Nottingham to Nottingham TB race that starts on September 10th, I now have in my posession 29 racers for the UK with some more promised and Balrgn has so far received  20 trackables, again with more promised.

For those of you who haven't entered but still want to, details can be found here http://www.usuktbrace.blogspot.com/

The hotel container is now in place so that it can weather in over the next month. There are a couple of launch events planned over here, this one http://coord.info/GC2Z53W and then this one the morning after which isn't too far from where the hotel is placed http://coord.info/GC30VN4 There is also a launch event in America http://coord.info/GC2Z51J

I am really pleased with the way the race is shaping up. There will be a mention of it also on the next broadcast of the ukgc podcast. If you have never listened to a podcast, have a look at http://www.ukgcpodcast.com/

Happy caching.