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What does this say about the game?


joespaz

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I've noticed a recent "rash" of hides here in D/FW that were placed by noobies with less than 30 finds each. Surpisingly, most have been decent hides. Coords may have been bad....one 0.3 tenths of a mile off but we still found it.

 

I expect an influx of new cachers with all of the hoopla going on this year and then a gradual return to "normalcy".

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Anybody have an opinion about what this kind of growth does for the quality of the game?

 

What do you think this kind of growth does for the quality of the game?

 

Have you noticed all the I-phones with the GC app on it and the built-in GPSr? Not to mention the instant email notification of new publishings. I think growth is one of those things that you have to adapt to. I have gone to events and met some of the I-Phone cachers and you know what, they are just like the old timers except they are more hi-tech. Some of them have even started become COs too! Many buy a handheld GPSr though for the accuracy element (after people complained about placement using the I-Phone GPSr).

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I don't think you can draw any substantial conclusion from this particular statistic other than there will be more geocacher tomorrow than there are today.

I wouldn't go that far. I'd say that two figures show that more users registered for an account on 4/3/10 than on 9/1/03.

 

(edit : *sigh* coffee...)

Edited by Chrysalides
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I've noticed a recent "rash" of hides here in D/FW that were placed by noobies with less than 30 finds each. Surpisingly, most have been decent hides. Coords may have been bad....one 0.3 tenths of a mile off but we still found it.

 

I expect an influx of new cachers with all of the hoopla going on this year and then a gradual return to "normalcy".

 

Say I have almost 200 finds and my cords are spot on :)

 

I have noticed the same.... Here in D/FW. I will say that none of mine are LPC's. LOL

 

As far as it returning to "Normalcy" it might but then you have a large number of poorly placed caches that have no avtive CO. Come to think of it there are a few of these around here now.

Edited by sdrawkcab
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Anybody have an opinion about what this kind of growth does for the quality of the game?

 

How do you define "quality"?

 

Before you ask back: For me it is location, location, location. And that doesn't change with the number of accounts or players. Of course, if there are not enough players, many of the great locations will be without a cache - as you can see in countries like India, where Geocaching didn't catch on yet.

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Giving this a serious answer...

 

There are different types of people in the world. Some will love geocaching, some will hate it and some will try it and get bored with it.

 

As geocaching becomes more well known, more people will try it, more people will love it, and more people will know they are going to hate it and not try it. (and some will laugh at cachers because we are geeks).

 

Now, since not everyone knows about geocaching yet, there will be a continued increase in those who are going to find out and the subsequent tend to try it. As this happens the number of people will increase.

Active cachers, however, will increase at a slower rate though probably in relation to a certain unknown ratio.

As the trend continues, there will be saturation of knowledge and the new accounts will begin to taper off, though the number of cacher accounts will continue to grow, the pace will slow. It's a natural phenomenon.

 

Someday there will be complete saturation and the number of new accounts will be connected, loosly, to the number of people who age into geocaching. At that time there will, likely be a correlative number of geocachers who, sadly, will be departing this stage of existance.

 

So, the numbers presented are merely a reflection of people learning of geocaching. It's not any indication of the sky's imminent fall.

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Giving this a serious answer...

 

...

 

Now, since not everyone knows about geocaching yet, there will be a continued increase in those who are going to find out and the subsequent tend to try it. As this happens the number of people will increase.

Active cachers, however, will increase at a slower rate though probably in relation to a certain unknown ratio.

As the trend continues, there will be saturation of knowledge and the new accounts will begin to taper off, though the number of cacher accounts will continue to grow, the pace will slow. It's a natural phenomenon.

You haven't looked at my thread about this, have you? We've been tracking this for years.

 

BTW, it means that I am in the first 1.5% of cachers. Amazing. At the time I registered, my ID number (45488) seemed so high! Now, with over 3.1 million accounts registered, it seems positively ancient.

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In my local area I see my cache's logged by new people that get 15 finds and quit caching within a month. I do not think we have much to worry about! ;)

The way I see it most beginners will go after those micro's in the city before hiking anywhere, so the odds of the micros getting muggled go up and I like those odds!!!! :D

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Anybody have an opinion about what this kind of growth does for the quality of the game?

 

What do you think this kind of growth does for the quality of the game?

 

Have you noticed all the I-phones with the GC app on it and the built-in GPSr? Not to mention the instant email notification of new publishings. I think growth is one of those things that you have to adapt to. I have gone to events and met some of the I-Phone cachers and you know what, they are just like the old timers except they are more hi-tech. Some of them have even started become COs too! Many buy a handheld GPSr though for the accuracy element (after people complained about placement using the I-Phone GPSr).

 

This could be true. I have some friends (brothers) that created a "team" just for this purpose. The cache as ygo2fast and ygo2slow but are the founders of "team lowtech". They've gotten some of their friends around Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas to join in and place caches as "your geoname"- TEAM LOWTECH. I think he said they have some in California too. Anyhow, there main basis is to cache using IPhones or car GPS's.

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I don't think the quality of the game will change for me. I will continue to mostly find caches that are in the woods or nice parks and continue to avoid shopping malls unless I need to buy something. if there happens to be an LPC near the Home Depot that I am at, I might look for it or might not. I will continue to at least glance at every cache page for an area I am going to and put ones I like on a bookmark list. I will continue to NEVER do a blind PQ of an area.

So maybe I'll have a few more cache pages to read, which I don't mind, and maybe a few more good caches among the tons of bad ones.

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Anybody have an opinion about what this kind of growth does for the quality of the game?

 

How do you define "quality"?

 

definition: character with respect to fineness, or grade of excellence

 

"Grade of Excellence"... I like that.. Growth, in my opinion, lowers the grade of excellence. Can you remember sneaking out of the house when you were a teenage? (well, maybe some of you can't).. At 35, I wouldn't get quite the same thrill as I did when I was a teenager. There was a feeling of secrecy and a fear of getting caught. Geocaching use to have that same thrill. Now that everyone and their brother are doing it, it's lost that thrill.

 

The Geocaching honeymoon is over. Unfortunately, there's a lot of money involved now and I don't see anything changing anytime soon.

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Giving this a serious answer...

 

...

 

Now, since not everyone knows about geocaching yet, there will be a continued increase in those who are going to find out and the subsequent tend to try it. As this happens the number of people will increase.

Active cachers, however, will increase at a slower rate though probably in relation to a certain unknown ratio.

As the trend continues, there will be saturation of knowledge and the new accounts will begin to taper off, though the number of cacher accounts will continue to grow, the pace will slow. It's a natural phenomenon.

You haven't looked at my thread about this, have you? We've been tracking this for years.

 

BTW, it means that I am in the first 1.5% of cachers. Amazing. At the time I registered, my ID number (45488) seemed so high! Now, with over 3.1 million accounts registered, it seems positively ancient.

 

Woohoo!! I (152,123) am in the top 5%!!

 

I agree with Fizzy, I can't see that this is going to taper off. But it can't grow at an near expoential rate forever, can it?

 

I don't think it has anything to do with "quality". Heck, people started hiding micros in store parking lots in my area in early 2005, when we were still at 300,000. :D

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... Now that everyone and their brother are doing it, it's lost that thrill.

 

The Geocaching honeymoon is over. Unfortunately, there's a lot of money involved now and I don't see anything changing anytime soon.

Really? Pick a city, any city, and go stand on a busy street corner asking "Who has heard of geocaching?".

 

Aside from weird looks you will get very few if any 'I have' responses.

 

"Everybody and their brother" are hardly geocaching!

 

And what's money got to do with it? With a few enhancements geocaching.com is delivering the same service they delivered when I signed on in 2003.

Edited by TheAlabamaRambler
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Giving this a serious answer...

 

...

 

Now, since not everyone knows about geocaching yet, there will be a continued increase in those who are going to find out and the subsequent tend to try it. As this happens the number of people will increase.

Active cachers, however, will increase at a slower rate though probably in relation to a certain unknown ratio.

As the trend continues, there will be saturation of knowledge and the new accounts will begin to taper off, though the number of cacher accounts will continue to grow, the pace will slow. It's a natural phenomenon.

You haven't looked at my thread about this, have you? We've been tracking this for years.

 

BTW, it means that I am in the first 1.5% of cachers. Amazing. At the time I registered, my ID number (45488) seemed so high! Now, with over 3.1 million accounts registered, it seems positively ancient.

 

At 50947, I am not far behind you Fizzy. I must admit, I don't cache like I used to, but I do get out now and again. It certainly is a different game from what it was in the early days. I recall when I joined, there where fewer than 100 caches in my entire state. Now there are likely that many withing five miles of where I am sitting.

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