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The biggest jewel heist in history!


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1 hour ago, HiddenGnome said:

 

Hi @arminus - geocaches that were created earlier this week and published today are not currently receiving a Clue which includes the geocache that you mentioned. We are currently working to update the system to make sure that Clues are correctly distributed going forward. Geocaches that were recently published have had a Clue added retroactively. Now that the geocache includes a clue you will need to re-log the geocache in order to receive your Clue.

Awwww, and I saved my two new caches just for this promotion! Fiddlesticks.

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32 minutes ago, HiddenGnome said:

I mentioned earlier that I would provide additional background into the issue people reported about not collecting their Clues. This issue was initially difficult to troubleshoot because it was not the result of an error per se - in fact, as far as the system was concerned it was behaving correctly.

 

Some quick background - in order to complete the Mystery at the Museum you need to collect a variety of Clues. Each Clue has unique attributes associated with it, i.e. number of finds required, level required to unlock, and activation date. Every Clue has an activation date of today at 12 (noon) UTC.

 

When a geocache is logged the system compares the date of the log with the activation date of the Clue to make sure it falls within the allowable window. However, because of an issue with how dates are formatted from the website when they are converted to UTC there were a number of instances where the log date was interpreted as being before noon UTC. According to the system those logs did not fall within the allowable window and so were ignored. Logging from the app did not have this issue because the dates were not experiencing the same formatting issue.

 

Once we realized this was happening we made a couple of small modifications that would resolve the issue and deployed them to our servers. Once deployed I saw (so I thought) the data that we were expecting and announced that the issues was resolved. What I did not realize was that although the issue had been correctly identified and a fix applied the servers did not get properly reset and so did not pick up the necessary changes. That was my mistake, both on not properly resetting the servers and for relaying that the issue had been fixed prematurely. When we realized that the servers had not picked up the changes it was a simple fix at that point to force the update and triple check the data was returning correctly.

Oh dear oh dear oh dear, now there are all sorts of server errors here in the UK when trying to look at things like trackables, souvenirs etc etc......... will check again in the morning........ what a mess this has turned out to be.

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3 minutes ago, The A-Team said:

It isn't enough to simply have a mobile phone, you also need to log from the field or you won't be able to search for the currently-hidden clues.

Well yes, as the rest of my comment states.

Or to be more clear I suppose, for those who have a smartphone/mobile device that has data which they wish to use while mobile accepting whatever costs are associated therein at the time of day they're willing to travel and... etc. Thought that was all implied by my explanation :P

 

4 minutes ago, The A-Team said:

As someone who doesn't cache this way, I'm going to have to change my processes quite a bit in order to participate in this promotion.

Correct.

If you don't have a smartphone or tab, don't have a mobile data plan, or are not willing to use data in the field at all, then this isn't going to be a convenient promo for you. But, as I said in my comment, these days I would say that is a very very small portion of today's geocaching community, if not HQ's primary target demographic. And even then, everything can still be done alternate ways, just not with the super-convenience of the mobile app. And many people fall at different places along that scale of convenience. (which app? how much data? how many devices? primary device? data reception? etc etc)

 

7 minutes ago, The A-Team said:

Does anyone happen to know whether logging caches via API and website can still result in cache finds being ordered incorrectly?

 

As far as my knowledge, logs posted are saved incrementally with a unique ID, and when sorted chronologically, by date first, then ID. I can't remember if some display contexts order by timestamp as well for logs that have a timestamp and whether before or after logs without a timestamp.  But all logs without a timestamp (pre-API or via website) are ordered by date then ID.

 

In practice, for GSAK I wrote a simple script to create an alphanumeric string from the log date and logID so I can sort and see all the finds in the same order as on the website, ignoring any timestamp (without needing to do a double column sort), as I have many logs with and without a timestamp (logged from the app and logged from the website).

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13 minutes ago, The A-Team said:

I'm not thrilled about how this has been designed to specifically-target smartphone users to the detriment of "traditional" cachers

 

I know many traditional cachers who have smartphones and have no qualms about using them if necessary.  So you mean "traditional" cachers who don't have or do not care to use a smartphone in the field.  That's cutting the affected group pretty small.

 

15 minutes ago, The A-Team said:

nor how this has been executed (especially the confusing/lack of information in the lead-up and lack of sufficient testing, both of which seem to be recurring issues that never get fixed).

 

I wouldn't say lack of information, but more lack of clear explanation (I gathered how it was all going to work from the information provided - but many didn't) - but lack of sufficient testing I'll certainly give you that! :)

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4 minutes ago, barefootguru said:

Logs saved as drafts to geocaching.com through Cachly (so API) also lose the time part of the timestamp.

You sure? I only do field notes Drafts via Cachly, or live logs via website or Cachly.  Any log I composed via field notes Drafts, that I recall, had a timestamp associated... If I wanted to post from a Draft without the timestamp I'd go to the listing to manually create a new log rather than composing the draft. Now I'm curious...

 

*checks* huh. Yes the Cachly-posted-draft-composed-to-log has no timestamp (only the default 1900Z). I wonder if that changed...  or maybe I'm getting confused because of the Geosphere 'fix' for the old timestamp problem that hq fixed long ago that was never reverted in the app.  In Geosphere, posting live via API worked, but creating the field note the app adjusted the timezone so the actual field note date in draft form was consistent. Since that was fixed, if I uploaded a field note, I'd have to remember to create a new log instead of compose if the note was created after I think it was 9pm eastern. Anyway. Yeah, it seems drafts via Cachly API don't include the timestamp.

Any live-posted-via-API logs will include a timestamp. And I'd guess that's every API app.

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39 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:
52 minutes ago, The A-Team said:

It isn't enough to simply have a mobile phone, you also need to log from the field or you won't be able to search for the currently-hidden clues.

Well yes, as the rest of my comment states.

Or to be more clear I suppose, for those who have a smartphone/mobile device that has data which they wish to use while mobile accepting whatever costs are associated therein at the time of day they're willing to travel and... etc. Thought that was all implied by my explanation :P

 

You also need to be caching in an area that has mobile data coverage. Once outside the major cities here, that's pretty much just the larger towns and along the motorways. The township of Patonga, just 5km down the road from where I live, only has coverage from one of the three major operators (and of course I'm on one of the other two). As soon as you get into the hinterland, forget about logging from your phone.

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39 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

If you don't have a smartphone or tab, don't have a mobile data plan, or are not willing to use data in the field at all, then this isn't going to be a convenient promo for you. But, as I said in my comment, these days I would say that is a very very small portion of today's geocaching community, if not HQ's primary target demographic. And even then, everything can still be done alternate ways, just not with the super-convenience of the mobile app. And many people fall at different places along that scale of convenience. (which app? how much data? how many devices? primary device? data reception? etc etc)

 

Yeah, I get that no promotion can ever be a good fit for everyone. I just hope that HQ considered how their targeting would impact their other users. I know it's a marketing thing meant to bring in new app users and therefore new Premiums, but the other users also need to be considered. If this was done, then so be it. I'll survive.

 

I wonder about the smartphone vs. other methods demographics, though. In my area, we have a lot of retiree cachers that still use GPSrs. If you look at the "active" cachers (defined as finding caches consistently throughout the year, not just a handful of finds), I'd venture to say that GPSr cachers vastly outnumber smartphone cachers in my area. Plus, of the smartphone cachers, the iPhone users almost exclusively use Cachly and a number of the Android users use the-app-that-shall-not-be-named. App users may be more common in some areas, but it doesn't seem to be the case around these parts.

 

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4 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

You also need to be caching in an area that has mobile data coverage. Once outside the major cities here, that's pretty much just the larger towns and along the motorways. The township of Patonga, just 5km down the road from where I live, only has coverage from one of the three major operators (and of course I'm on one of the other two). As soon as you get into the hinterland, forget about logging from your phone.

 

Good point. And field notes drafts won't do you any good either, because you won't know where the other clues are until you can actually submit your log.

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47 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

As far as my knowledge, logs posted are saved incrementally with a unique ID, and when sorted chronologically, by date first, then ID. I can't remember if some display contexts order by timestamp as well for logs that have a timestamp and whether before or after logs without a timestamp.  But all logs without a timestamp (pre-API or via website) are ordered by date then ID.

 

It was so long ago that I can't remember exactly where the symptoms appeared, but I do remember that some of my logs were out of order somewhere on the site. I vaguely remember that it was on my public profile page, where my list of finds wasn't in the order I found them. I take pride in logging everything in order, so I wasn't happy about this and have avoided logging this way like the plague every since. I'm not keen to run into this again, so what I might do is submit the necessary logs via the app so I can see the next level of clues while in the field, but later delete those logs and resubmit via the website where I can get everything logged consistently and in the right order.

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The geographic distribution of detective-clue caches seems to heavily favour the big cities. These are the unfound enabled ones within 50km of home (just south of Woy Woy on the map) so I guess I'll be doing a lot of trips down to Sydney and back, particularly later in the promotion when you have to find multiple caches with a clue type.

 

image.png.8a342129a7151141d4a935c507273a24.png

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1 hour ago, thebruce0 said:

...but lack of sufficient testing I'll certainly give you that! :)

 

This is something that really gets to me as someone who works for a company that builds software. Especially given the major technical issues that seem to arise for every one of these promotions, you'd think there would be extensive testing in the lead-up. What I'm envisioning is a full-scale test, where the system is set up on the test servers and the start date is adjusted to an earlier date. Staff (and maybe designated beta testers) poke and prod every part of the system, logging caches in various different ways, clicking links, doing searches, etc. It seems like most, if not all, of the current issues could have been discovered in advance and fixed. The fact that there are easy-to-find issues like the souvenir link being broken indicates that there was a significant lack of testing.

 

It just seems like there's something missing in the dev -> test -> UAT -> prod migration. Most likely in the UAT/staging part, where sufficient testing by real users isn't occurring.

 

Edit to add: Of course, it's always possible that HQ is doing lots of testing and has just gotten unlucky in missing these issues. The fact that it keeps happening, though, indicates a more fundamental issue. Maybe more beta testers are needed? HQ, would that help?

Edited by The A-Team
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1 hour ago, thebruce0 said:

I know many traditional cachers who have smartphones and have no qualms about using them if necessary.  So you mean "traditional" cachers who don't have or do not care to use a smartphone in the field.  That's cutting the affected group pretty small.

 

Ah.  So, discriminating against the minority is perfectly OK?

Edited by Harry Dolphin
tipoo
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1 minute ago, nwc_voyageur said:

Once you earn the Detective level in your home area, does that allow you to see clues in caches in other states? We will be traveling and there is no way we can earn these awards if restricted to our home area.

You can find all clues everywhere. You are not restricted to your Home area for any of them. I'm 99% sure that's a very good guess on my part.

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10 minutes ago, Harry Dolphin said:

 

Ah.  So, discriminating against the minority is perfectly OK?

 

Yes, if the minority uses a GPSr/computer combination instead of a phone app.  TPTB seem to be focusing all development toward phones, to the detriment of the website users.

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10 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

You also need to be caching in an area that has mobile data coverage.

Yes. Again - thought that would be understood as a corollary to "that has data which they wish to use while mobile accepting whatever costs are associated therein at the time of day they're willing to travel and... etc"

That said, it's extremely rare that I've ever been caching somewhere populated with many caches that had zero coverage, let alone within a short drive of coverage, especially in a dead zone that I wouldn't be expecting given geocaching with a smartphone. I say 'populated with many caches' because if the nearest cache is 20km away I have that far to get to a cache anyway so not having data to post a log is irrelevant.

Basically, yes you concoct a number of scenarios where "it doesn't work" but none of these scenarios apply to the vast majority of today's geocaching community (I would wager) which presumably is HQ's target demographic. And again, all these functions can be done in other, though less convenient, ways.

 

14 minutes ago, The A-Team said:

but the other users also need to be considered.

Do they? NEED to be considered? They have been considered - everyone is able to play the game, just at varying levels of convenience (no one has a right to play the game optimally), and I'd guess the majority of users have very little inconvenience (save for bugs and kinks to work out) with the game mechanics (not counting for clue distribution and density for some cachers in sparse geocaching areas).

 

15 minutes ago, The A-Team said:

I'd venture to say that GPSr cachers vastly outnumber smartphone cachers in my area.

But, GPSr cachers that 1. do not have smartphones, or 2. do not have a data plan, or 3. do not like using their mobile data, or 4. do not plan for bad-reception areas, or 5. do not ...etc?  The affected group is dramatically reduced.  And as the affected group shrinks, the feasible tradeoff for inconvenience in light of the greater group goes up.

 

18 minutes ago, The A-Team said:

iPhone users almost exclusively use Cachly and a number of the Android users use the-app-that-shall-not-be-named.

Yep, so I'd say HQ is right on point if their intent is to get them (like me) using the official app more. Even so, actions can still be done entirely outside the official app. I'm a geosphere/cachly user with the official app only really used for messaging. I'm compelled to use the official app more now too, for its convenience in the promo. I ain't complaining. The goal is working.

 

19 minutes ago, The A-Team said:

App users may be more common in some areas, but it doesn't seem to be the case around these parts.

Looks like they're trying to increase that count then.

 

 

15 minutes ago, The A-Team said:

It was so long ago that I can't remember exactly where the symptoms appeared, but I do remember that some of my logs were out of order somewhere on the site.

...what I might do is submit the necessary logs via the app so I can see the next level of clues while in the field, but later delete those logs and resubmit via the website where I can get everything logged consistently and in the right order.

Likewise, I may do that if necessary. I did that with Geosphere drafts during the aforemention period just to strip off the timestamp.

 

 

11 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

The geographic distribution of detective-clue caches seems to heavily favour the big cities.

Yeah it doesn't look like they did any localized density checking when distributing the clues, which does not favour the sparsely populated areas.

 

 

9 minutes ago, The A-Team said:

This is something that really gets to me as someone who works for a company that builds software. Especially given the major technical issues that seem to arise for every one of these promotions, you'd think there would be extensive testing in the lead-up.

Yep. To a degree I can understand because you can't fully test a worldwide rollout at the same scale, but almost every technical release like this has bugs that could/should have been easily caught in a pre-release QA.  That is, bugs we come across tend not to be related to stress/load-testing so much as minor tweaks and usability adjustments.

 

10 minutes ago, The A-Team said:

where sufficient testing by real users isn't occurring.

Or echo-chamber type testing where everyone's of a same or similar mindset so other use cases aren't demonstrated let alone considered.  If it's not about quantity of test cases, it's about variety of test cases, and I think the latter is more relevant in many of these rollouts.

 

 

All that said, this is probably one of the most complex promo campaigns developed so far for the website and app, and considering that, it could have gone MUCH much worse :P

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16 minutes ago, Harry Dolphin said:

So, discriminating against the minority is perfectly OK? 

Umm... wow is this a political debate?  Because I'm only talking about target demographic for a private business trying new things to remain relevant and as relevant to as many people as possible and successful, in a very technology-heavy industry.  So I'm not going to answer that question as vaguely worded as it is as if my opinion on this specific matter in this specific context means I believe "discriminating against the minority is perfectly OK".  Rephrase your question to be relevant to this context specifically and I might answer.

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1 hour ago, Max and 99 said:
1 hour ago, nwc_voyageur said:

Once you earn the Detective level in your home area, does that allow you to see clues in caches in other states? We will be traveling and there is no way we can earn these awards if restricted to our home area.

You can find all clues everywhere. You are not restricted to your Home area for any of them. I'm 99% sure that's a very good guess on my part.

Yes, a very good guess.  I am on the border of two states, and can look for clue caches in each of them.

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1 hour ago, The A-Team said:

This is something that really gets to me as someone who works for a company that builds software. Especially given the major technical issues that seem to arise for every one of these promotions, you'd think there would be extensive testing in the lead-up. What I'm envisioning is a full-scale test, where the system is set up on the test servers and the start date is adjusted to an earlier date. Staff (and maybe designated beta testers) poke and prod every part of the system, logging caches in various different ways, clicking links, doing searches, etc. It seems like most, if not all, of the current issues could have been discovered in advance and fixed. The fact that there are easy-to-find issues like the souvenir link being broken indicates that there was a significant lack of testing.

You make it sound like a hundred people were allocated to this project. My guess is that it was closer to one. And, personally, I can't really question their judgement. It's a little embarrassing to have customers find problems for you, but it sure cuts down on development costs. It's not as if anyone's going to die if they run into a bug that keeps them from getting the first clue for a couple days while the engineer figures out what went wrong.

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2 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

The geographic distribution of detective-clue caches seems to heavily favour the big cities.

 

After taking a look at an expanded search area, that seems to be true in my area, too; however, I was very pleased to see that I did have some options available that wouldn't require a 2-hour roundtrip.  In fact, I had a few within 30 miles, and I appreciate it.

 

I must have been in the glitch zone/time that others posted about earlier.  It's lovely out here, but cell service sucks.  Ah, well, I still have 30 days to attempt to apprehend the thieves.

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1 hour ago, thebruce0 said:

Yes. Again - thought that would be understood as a corollary to "that has data which they wish to use while mobile accepting whatever costs are associated therein at the time of day they're willing to travel and... etc"

That said, it's extremely rare that I've ever been caching somewhere populated with many caches that had zero coverage, let alone within a short drive of coverage, especially in a dead zone that I wouldn't be expecting given geocaching with a smartphone. I say 'populated with many caches' because if the nearest cache is 20km away I have that far to get to a cache anyway so not having data to post a log is irrelevant.

Basically, yes you concoct a number of scenarios where "it doesn't work" but none of these scenarios apply to the vast majority of today's geocaching community (I would wager) which presumably is HQ's target demographic. And again, all these functions can be done in other, though less convenient, ways.

<snip>

 

I live in the most densely populated of the United States (New Jersey) There is a cache dense part of this state that is an International Biosphere Reserve called the Pine Barrens. There is little or no cell service there. I ride my mountain bike to cache there. I use a GPSr as do 75% of the people I cache with (in fact, I shut off my smartphone to avoid battery drain caused by a continual fruitless search for "service") I have cached by bicycle in many other parts of the USA where there is also minimal to no cell service. I live about 15 miles from center city Philadelphia and I can't get cell service at my own house( I use one of the biggest carriers.) This is not nearly as "rare" as your experience would suggest.

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2 hours ago, thebruce0 said:
2 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

You also need to be caching in an area that has mobile data coverage.

Yes. Again - thought that would be understood as a corollary to "that has data which they wish to use while mobile accepting whatever costs are associated therein at the time of day they're willing to travel and... etc"

That said, it's extremely rare that I've ever been caching somewhere populated with many caches that had zero coverage, let alone within a short drive of coverage, especially in a dead zone that I wouldn't be expecting given geocaching with a smartphone. I say 'populated with many caches' because if the nearest cache is 20km away I have that far to get to a cache anyway so not having data to post a log is irrelevant.

Basically, yes you concoct a number of scenarios where "it doesn't work" but none of these scenarios apply to the vast majority of today's geocaching community (I would wager) which presumably is HQ's target demographic. And again, all these functions can be done in other, though less convenient, ways.

 

I guess since this is promotion is really only going to be achievable by those in or near cities, it's probably a moot point. There are regions in the hinterland here, though, where there are lots of caches (the geoart ones in the Watagan Mountains from last year's mega or the 131-cache series along forest trails on the mid north coast come to mind) where phone coverage is likely to be pretty marginal.

Edited by barefootjeff
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8 minutes ago, Michaelcycle said:

I live in the most densely populated of the United States (New Jersey) There is a cache dense part of this state that is an International Biosphere Reserve called the Pine Barrens. There is little or no cell service there. I ride my mountain bike to cache there. I use a GPSr as do 75% of the people I cache with (in fact, I shut off my smartphone to avoid battery drain caused by a continual fruitless search for "service") I have cached by bicycle in many other parts of the USA where there is also minimal to no cell service. I live about 15 miles from center city Philadelphia and I can't get cell service at my own house( I use one of the biggest carriers.) This is not nearly as "rare" as your experience would suggest.

 

So maybe GPSr users aren’t being discriminated against?  It’s bad for everyone!

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11 minutes ago, Michaelcycle said:

This is not nearly as "rare" as your experience would suggest.

Umm... 1 in how many people in the worldwide geocaching community? I didn't say you didn't exist. Your defense is not evidence that the majority of the geocaching community are inconvenienced by the setup of this promotional entertainment period created by a private company to help promote their own products while also keeping the hobby free and accessible for anyone to play worldwide.

 

6 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

I guess since this is promotion is really only going to be achievable by those in or near cities, it's probably a moot point.

Guaranteed there will be plenty of people not in or near cities who will complete and enjoy this promotional period.

 

8 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

There are regions in the hinterland here, though, where there are lots of caches (the geoart ones in the Watagan Mountains from last year's mega or the 131-cache series along forest trails on the mid north coast come to mind) where phone coverage is likely to be pretty marginal.

Once again, I never said they don't exist. So, no news here.

 

Once again the forum demonstrates overwhelming negativity from the usual crowd. Don't know why I'm trying to encourage positivity about this promo here... It may just be a futile effort. *sigh* And no that doesn't mean I think it's perfect, or that criticisms shouldn't be aired, or opinions held. I said as much already.

 

I don't really want to argue demographics anyway because we don't have that data. I can only be realistic in considering the communities I've been exposed to, and the context of the worldwide community - not just my own little local world which some people seem to think is all that exists for them.  Ok, gotta get back to something more enjoyable now :P

 

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31 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

Once again the forum demonstrates overwhelming negativity from the usual crowd. Don't know why I'm trying to encourage positivity about this promo here... It may just be a futile effort. *sigh* And no that doesn't mean I think it's perfect, or that criticisms shouldn't be aired, or opinions held. I said as much already.

 

I would love to be positive about it - I liked the concept and was keen to get into it to see how it all unfolded. But the distribution of clue caches is going to make that hard and expensive in fuel. Of the 80,878 active caches in Australia, only 3,738 have the detective clue and most of those appear to be in the big cities. My nearest one, a T3 traditional, is an hour's drive to the northern fringes of Sydney, then probably an hour of rugged hiking to get to the cache and back, followed by the drive back home to then see what's available at the next level. Second on the list is on Sydney's northern beaches, about two or three hours driving on some of Sydney's busiest roads, and also a T3. Third is another T3, a micro in a distinctive stump that was last found over a year ago and which has since been DNFed by an experienced cacher who found the stump but no sign of the cache. Fourth on the list is a T2 in a similar region to number one only on the other side of the Berowra Creek gorge so it's a good two hours of driving to get to. And fifth on the list is an event in Sydney set down for the 17th of August, which will be a tad difficult without a tardis.

 

This is just for the entry-level souvenir. I presume the later ones will be tougher to achieve, either fewer in number or just from having to find multiple clue caches to satisfy them. For someone living in a big city it'll no doubt be a doddle, but for anyone else even just a bit on the fringes it's going to take a lot of effort and travelling. A third of Australia's population live outside the big cities, and I presume the ratio would be similar for cachers, so it's not just some tiny minority who are going to find this tough, more so if the much-needed clue cache at the end of a long drive turns out to be a micro gone missing. Even pre-loading a list of candidate caches won't be of much help if the next candidate is way off in another direction.

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44 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

Of the 80,878 active caches in Australia, only 3,738 have the detective clue and most of those appear to be in the big cities.

The detective clue unlocks Footprint, Shadow, and Fingerprint — each of which you need to find 2 of.  Once you've collected all those, Sapphire, Ruby, Diamond, Emerald, and Topaz are unlocked — you need 3 of each to complete the level.  There's some kind of bonus level after that.  So purely on numbers there's only so many caches you can put detective on.  Plus any events during the promotion are conferred Detective.

 

Luckily I live in a city, and there's still pickings within 10 km ?  It was a bit of a faff logging Detective from the field and using the online map to find the next caches/clues (I use Cachly rather than the offical app), but overall I'm enjoying this more than the straight numbers game promotions of the past.

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21 minutes ago, barefootguru said:

Luckily I live in a city, and there's still pickings within 10 km ?  It was a bit of a faff logging Detective from the field and using the online map to find the next caches/clues (I use Cachly rather than the offical app), but overall I'm enjoying this more than the straight numbers game promotions of the past.

 

Yes, the storyline and clues aspect looked a lot more appealing to me than some of the more recent straight numbers promotions - I'd actually hoped the "clues" might be things you had to solve rather than just collect - but even if the later stages use a similar cache density (less than one in twenty caches containing something from each level), getting those 21 additional caches is going to be exceedingly tough from this neck of the woods. I expect by the end of the promotion I'll probably have the detective and some of the footprint/shadow/fingerprint ones, but that will be about it.

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Alas, the closest Clue 1 cache to me is 50km away. The next closest is about 60km in the opposite direction. Regrettably I won't be able to collect clue 1 to start the game as they are not within any reasonable distance from me and while I appreciate a drive, 100km round trip isn't appealing when petrol of $1.50 / litre (about $6.00 / gallon). Love the idea,. Don't like the implementation.

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10 hours ago, HiddenGnome said:

 

Geocaches that were recently published have had a Clue added retroactively.

 

A new (virtual) cache that was published today at 2019-07-12 0000 UTC doesn't have the Detective clue. With your use of tense here, does that mean it won't get the clue? (GC89178)

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I went out this evening and found a cache with the detective clue. I logged the cache on the website and received the souvenir (yay!). However, when I went to see what nearby caches might have the next clues, I found that the filters for Search and Search Map don't recognize that I found the detective clue. Also, the Mystery at the Museum link from my dashboard says I'm 0/1 for detective clues. If I view the individual cache pages, I can see whether a cache has footprint, fingerprint, shadow, or still hidden clues, but using that method to plan my next caching trips is going to get old pretty quickly.

 

I'm kind of excited about finding more clues and hope this problem is fixed soon!

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11 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

All addressed earlier in the thread.

 

Which does not mean "addressed satisfactorily."  The whole thing is a giant mess; the disabled caches all being given a clue is a perverse incentive for throwdowns, and the evident pervasive lack of quality control is quite apparent.

 

Which leads me to a source of great puzzlement in this thread: why are you so intent to defending this trainwreck?  I mean, in previous promotions the concepts made sense, even if some people complained, but this one seems poorly conceived.  I still don't entirely understand what I am supposed to do, and all the implementation bugs just make it worse.  I'd say this is the biggest mistake since Waymarks.

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8 hours ago, The A-Team said:

Most likely in the UAT/staging part, where sufficient testing by real users isn't occurring.

I completely agree, and it happens time and again with new features, it seems like the customers ARE the testers.

 

I wonder if there's scope for a new breed of community volunteer, we already have reviewers & translators, perhaps they could recruit volunteer testers and test this stuff out on the staging site. I think there enough people in the community with various levels of software/design/infrastructure experience who would be prepared to poke & prod new releases for them.

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It's just occurred to me that the easiest way to do this promotion would be on a good-sized power trail. With a hundred caches or more in close proximity, there ought to be enough detective clues to get started then, after logging that, the fingerprint/footprint/shadow clues along the trail are revealed (if the system works) so find and log the required mix of those then the jewels are in the rest of the trail. Easy peasy. Just what we need, a promotion to encourage power trails!

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4 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

It's just occurred to me that the easiest way to do this promotion would be on a good-sized power trail. With a hundred caches or more in close proximity, there ought to be enough detective clues to get started then, after logging that, the fingerprint/footprint/shadow clues along the trail are revealed (if the system works) so find and log the required mix of those then the jewels are in the rest of the trail. Easy peasy. Just what we need, a promotion to encourage power trails!

Thanks Jeff for the help with search for caches with clues in the other thread. I'd look at that filter switch thingy  a half dozen times without realising what it was. As for the trail suggestion, I have just had a quick look at the geoart up near Paterson. Of 215 caches in that series and could only count 8 detectives caches. There are a few others scattered about there as well. There's bugger all closer to home that aren't mine or that I haven't found, or a few puzzles I haven't been able to solve.

I may try this after all but its going to mean a fair amount of driving.

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3 minutes ago, colleda said:

Thanks Jeff for the help with search for caches with clues in the other thread. I'd look at that filter switch thingy  a half dozen times without realising what it was. As for the trail suggestion, I have just had a quick look at the geoart up near Paterson. Of 215 caches in that series and could only count 8 detectives caches. There are a few others scattered about there as well. There's bugger all closer to home that aren't mine or that I haven't found, or a few puzzles I haven't been able to solve.

I may try this after all but its going to mean a fair amount of driving.

 

Yeah, there's nothing even remotely resembling a power trail down this end of the coast. The geoart puzzles in the Watagans might come close if I could solve a few more of them, but I gather from what others have said that there's some pretty rough driving and hiking to get to them and unlikely to be much mobile data on the western side where most of the ones I've solved are. There was a disabled cache at Terrigal that was re-enabled a few hours ago so that ought to at least get me the detective clue (unless I DNF it), then I'll see what the distribution of the fingerprints/shadows/footprints is like around here. I really think I'd rather forego the souvenirs than get them from a power trail.

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6 hours ago, fizzymagic said:

I'd say this is the biggest mistake since Waymarks.

mhmm...  :rolleyes::mmraspberry:

 

 

So anyway.

As expected, people have completed the entire series in one day. We now know that the 4th level, the final souvenir - "unlocking the vault" - is merely finding an additional 35 caches, any 35 caches.  Honestly by the way it was being described pre-launch I thought there would be some other type of requirement or activity to complete, decrypting the code.  This seems kind of anti-climactic. =/  I suppose it fits with prior promo goals of finding geocaches, but in this one changing up how the 'tiers' are excuted, level 1-3 made thematic sense, but the instructions and goal of that last level don't seem to 'flow' with the plot. What's special about "35 caches"?

On the bright side, it's not a filter of reduced caches to find - the map opens up again so you can find any 35 caches. :P

 

Well we'll see how far I get this weekend when I have time to get out and cache. :)

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Didn't Mary Hyde have some sort of puzzle? I thought it was going to be more like that. I'm not a fan of puzzles, but this seemed to be gearing up to some actual "detective" work, that seemed appropriate for this theme, and I was kinda looking forward to that. I'm not sure if this promotion is doable for me, it's a fair amount of caches to look for, with not as much payoff as I thought there'd be. We'll see.

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Just now, OhioRider said:

I was geocaching yesterday and forgot about the promotion. I logged the ones that I found and no detective in any of them. I wonder if they will count when I get the detective? 

 

Nope.

 

You have to find the caches in your level and you only get clues if you find caches with the clues at your level.

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7 hours ago, bruzie said:

 

A new (virtual) cache that was published today at 2019-07-12 0000 UTC doesn't have the Detective clue. With your use of tense here, does that mean it won't get the clue? (GC89178)

 

4 hours ago, Tungstène said:

GC89ZXC and GC8A72F were published today by a friend of mine but none has a clue. Is it expected behaviour, @HiddenGnome
?

 

If the geocache was created before this week then it is expected to not have a Clue when it is published. We are working on a small update to automatically add a Clue whenever a geocache is published which should be ready soon. Until then I am running a script that will retroactively add the Clue to recently published geocaches.

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13 minutes ago, HiddenGnome said:

 

 

If the geocache was created before this week then it is expected to not have a Clue when it is published. We are working on a small update to automatically add a Clue whenever a geocache is published which should be ready soon. Until then I am running a script that will retroactively add the Clue to recently published geocaches.

Drats! I was hoping my new cache would have a clue!

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1 minute ago, Max and 99 said:

Drats! I was hoping my new cache would have a clue!

 

All new caches will have a clue. Sometime today the system will begin picking up new caches automatically. If your cache is published before then it might not have a clue for up to an hour, but I am regularly running a script to add clues to new caches. I am also keeping an eye on this thread in case there is a cache that doesn't have a clue.

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