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Done any challenges recently?


drsolly

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No.

 

Not because we won't, or don't want to. It's because we're not out geocaching that often and when we do plan on being somewhere we (I!) forget to look and see what Challenges are in the area. If they appeared on the PQ, along with all the caches then we would choose to do any that looked interesting - the same as we choose which caches to do.

 

MrsB

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No.

 

Not because we won't, or don't want to. It's because we're not out geocaching that often and when we do plan on being somewhere we (I!) forget to look and see what Challenges are in the area. If they appeared on the PQ, along with all the caches then we would choose to do any that looked interesting - the same as we choose which caches to do.

 

MrsB

Plus when we are out I've usually got such a poor signal/data connection on my phone you can't check for any nearby anyway!

 

Chris

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I will do one at somepoint to try them out, but they are just not my cup of tea really.

 

They don't quite work as a virtual cache replacement.

 

Whilst I would do and enjoy a virtual cache (but not enjoy it as much as a traditional cache) they feel like a completely different game and I think that is the problem.

 

Philip

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Opps, yes. But only because Heff made me as we were passing your Amersham series of silliness.

 

Will I do anymore - I hope not. While they are supposed to be the gap for virtual replacement but aren't virtuals, they also do not seem anywhere near as good as the virtuals that have survived. I wasn't around when publication of virtuals stopped but I can perhaps see what a farse they may have become and therefore appreciate the ones we have.

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I wouldn't mind doing the 'worldwide challenges' or what ever they are called, meaning I could do them anywhere, like kissing a frog, climbing a tree, holding your boots up in your fav location, but I would only consider them if i was intending to climb a tree, I'm not going to go out of my way or make plans to do a challenge unless it's conviniently near to where I am going/ what i'm doing. It's a shame, I like the concept but it just hasn't kicked off.

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Done 7 so far, 1 up Snaefell then a few local ones when I was in the vicinity of them and had time to spare, one was 20 metres from a cache I was visiting so I got that one.

 

I do not see the point of the worldwide challenges, ie take a picture of you on a hike or write your caching name out of stones etc.

 

I have looked at the local ones to me and done some the local ones I will do I have added to GSAK and my Tomtom so will grabbed them if I am in the vicinity to one.

 

Some of them are very good and give lots of info on the place so I like them, but others are near an item and say nothing, I will not do the latter ones.

 

We are off to Florida next year so will probably grab some of them in the theme parks as we have done the virtuals in the parks already I did do some of the waymarks when last there, but got fed up with them.

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I enjoy them, generally. I'm up to 22 now and a few published, a few more on the way.

Problem is, a lot of what's out there now isn't generally "people's cup of tea". They're irrelevant, and sometime just plain not fun.

 

I look at them as opportunities to have fun, to learn, to experiment, and just to pass some time. Like others, if I'm in the area and I check for a challenge, I might do it. With most being "go here and take a picture", it's not really fun, per se.

 

I think they'll get 'better' as the cream rises to the top and the rest fade away. Hopefully the quality is honed in time. But they're just too loose and open and unchecked to really be something that people will actually seek out and complete. I think the only reason they're nearly as active as they are now is because of the visible challenge count by some users' names. Otherwise they'd be essentially invisible to joe geocacher.

 

Get them as options in PQ's. Provide them on a map. Do something, or they'll just have their own little community of people and never really grow. They have potential. Groundspeak just needs to fix it up. A lot.

 

Right now they're something fun to do. Sometimes. =P

Edited by thebruce0
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I've done 5, but find they've not been presented very appealingly which I suspect fails to encourage various people. What I mean is that I can't click on others' profiles to see what challenges they've done, in the way you can for found caches. Also, I believe you have to specifically list an area you're visiting to see what might be around, so it's very much a hit and miss operation. If Groundspeak addressed these issues, the latter by way of a map showing what's where like they do with caches, then perhaps there would be more of an appeal.

 

I write this as someone who's not actively cached for a month, so perhaps there have been updates which I've not seen, but you get my drift...

 

:blink:

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I've now completed 11 and created 5. I'm not sure if it will hold a long term interest for me. Just like Waymarking I gave it a try when it first came out but just didn't hit the spot.

 

It doesn't help that once you have created a challenge you no longer have control over it and don't even get update emails when someone logs it. That is despite Groundspeak saying they would introduce the email feature in the last update.

 

Basically they were supposed to replace virtuals, just like Waymarking was, but they aren't any different to Waymarking, so I think it may fail.

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Basically they were supposed to replace virtuals, just like Waymarking was, but they aren't any different to Waymarking, so I think it may fail.

 

Sooner the better! :P

 

However, the only time I am aware of them is when I see the challenge.png under people's names on logs

All other evidence of them has been removed with GM scripts and ABP filters B)

 

Mark

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0ccd70ad-3610-4217-84ff-ba5b3eff5774.jpg
Eek. Is that your new Halloween blood orange or something?

 

I did a challenge today ... but it was my own one :anibad: Needed something to keep the kids occupied, and an hour and a half chasing coloured signposts did the trick very nicely. Not going to log it as accepted/completed, though, so apart from that it's just the one challenge completed (when they first came out) in my case.

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0ccd70ad-3610-4217-84ff-ba5b3eff5774.jpg
Eek. Is that your new Halloween blood orange or something?

 

I did a challenge today ... but it was my own one :anibad: Needed something to keep the kids occupied, and an hour and a half chasing coloured signposts did the trick very nicely. Not going to log it as accepted/completed, though, so apart from that it's just the one challenge completed (when they first came out) in my case.

 

Going back 2 or 3 years, it was fairly common for people to change their forum avatars for Hallowe'en and/or Christmas. Hence MrB created our Bloody Blorenge.

 

I'm sure you could make your cat spooky for a few days.

 

halloween-cat-with-fangs.jpg

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0ccd70ad-3610-4217-84ff-ba5b3eff5774.jpg
Eek. Is that your new Halloween blood orange or something?

 

I did a challenge today ... but it was my own one :anibad: Needed something to keep the kids occupied, and an hour and a half chasing coloured signposts did the trick very nicely. Not going to log it as accepted/completed, though, so apart from that it's just the one challenge completed (when they first came out) in my case.

 

Going back 2 or 3 years, it was fairly common for people to change their forum avatars for Hallowe'en and/or Christmas. Hence MrB created our Bloody Blorenge.

 

I'm sure you could make your cat spooky for a few days.

 

halloween-cat-with-fangs.jpg

 

Challenges? I've resisted so far, taking a photo of me standing beside "insert object here" is hardly a challenge. Except for the camera :)

Edited by Shanghai Joe
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Yes, have done a couple recently. I do not often get the chance to travel far, so having mostly cleaned up the few miles circumference of Geocaches around my home location, challenges provide something else I can look to do.

 

There do look to be a few excellent ones out there. I have accepted this one, and am longing to do, but it will be some while before I can get there:

 

http://coord.info/CX1494

 

I would love for a few more similar to that one to pop up a bit closer to me.

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There do look to be a few excellent ones out there. I have accepted this one, and am longing to do, but it will be some while before I can get there:

 

http://coord.info/CX1494

 

I would love for a few more similar to that one to pop up a bit closer to me.

 

For me, therein lies the problem. The Challenge you linked to looks excellent, and I might be interested in doing challenges like this, but there are so many rubbish "take a picture of yourself outside McDonalds/Starbucks/KFC" type challenges that it's too much effort to sort out the wheat from the chaff.

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I've done some of the worldwide challenges and some local to a place I was visiting a few weeks ago, (11 in all so far). Some are better than others.

 

Having completed the worldwide challenges - together with all the (sometimes complicated) attendant criteria, I was disappointed to read other "completion" records for the same challenge, which often didn't include all the required information. It seems that there is no arbiter of quality for saying "I've done it" on the worldwide ones and it seems that you can pretty much post anything and claim to have completed it.

 

I realise that the sheer numbers combined with the volunteer status of geocaching reviewers make auditing these completion records impossible, so perhaps the privately owned ones are better.

 

I've not done any local private ones yet - as at a few weeks ago, there were only 2 local to me. There are now about 15, so I'll have a look at them, but wouldn't go out of my way to complete them. I would complete them if I was geocaching in the area anyway and fancied a diversion.

 

It's a different game to geocaching and traditional cachers may not find them interesting, but some seem to.

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I realise that the sheer numbers combined with the volunteer status of geocaching reviewers make auditing these completion records impossible, so perhaps the privately owned ones are better.

Privately owned ones are no better. As I said here you lose all control over your own created challenges. There is one specific post on one of mine that the person couldn't be bothered attempting the challenge so they said they had a better one and posted something completely different. I would love to be able to delete the post but I can't. The best I could do was comment on it that it wasn't what was requested.

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I did one that was very good when they first came out, although it has since been archived as it didn't meet the Challenge criteria- which to be fair it didn't, as it involved finding where the Superlambanana statues had moved to in Liverpool and so wasn't located at one specific place. Looking at the ones that are allowed, I don't find them of interest and some are plain stupid and attract high negative scores without being archived. I am an intrigued to know whether high negative scores will get a Challenge archived which I thought was implied when they were launched. I actually suspect that they all will continue to sit there in perpetuity whatever the score if they meet the listing rules.

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There do look to be a few excellent ones out there. I have accepted this one, and am longing to do, but it will be some while before I can get there:

 

http://coord.info/CX1494

 

I would love for a few more similar to that one to pop up a bit closer to me.

 

For me, therein lies the problem. The Challenge you linked to looks excellent, and I might be interested in doing challenges like this, but there are so many rubbish "take a picture of yourself outside McDonalds/Starbucks/KFC" type challenges that it's too much effort to sort out the wheat from the chaff.

My problem with them is this; Sandford Levvy. Compare with the the link above!

The site already had the facility to add these "challenges", and all Groundspeak needed was to spend a few dollars on a few tweaks.

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I'll just say don't throw the baby out with the bath-water. Most so far really aren't that fun or challenging or noteworthy. But there are good ones out there; they could informational, educational, fun, challenging, entertaining... throwing out Challenges as a whole because some people aren't putting effort into them is sort of like (puts of flame suit) abandoning geocaching because of LPC's ;) (ymmv). The system needs a LOT of work, but if people start putting out worthwhile challenges, even though it's a free-play system right now, perhaps that will help boost the quality a bit. At least until GS starts improving that system itself.

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