Virtual rewards 3.0

[+dennistubaplayer]

Hey everybody! I had a quick question that may be a little strange-Is geocaching HQ planning on doing Virtual rewards 3.0? I did not get a virtual reward last time and I was wondering if Groundspeak was going to do another one. Does anyone know? Thanks! -Dennis

[+niraD]

Why did you post this in the Off Topic forum? Virtual Rewards seems like a Geocaching Topic to me...

[Rock Chalk]

I moved this from the Off-Topic forum.

[+cerberus1]

5 hours ago, dennistubaplayer said:

Hey everybody! I had a quick question that may be a little strange-Is geocaching HQ planning on doing Virtual rewards 3.0? I did not get a virtual reward last time and I was wondering if Groundspeak was going to do another one. Does anyone know? Thanks! -Dennis

 

Were most of the last "rewarded" ever created ?  Maintenance (fake logs mostly) seems like a good chunk of your time with those things.

Noticed you haven't found one yourself, to get an idea what they are.  Why not ?  Thanks.   

If a next one would be similar to the last, by HQ's eligibility requirements , you don't seem to meet the criteria for "Your owned geocaches must have at least 25 total Favorite points."

[+Lynx Humble]

5 hours ago, dennistubaplayer said:

Hey everybody! I had a quick question that may be a little strange-Is geocaching HQ planning on doing Virtual rewards 3.0? I did not get a virtual reward last time and I was wondering if Groundspeak was going to do another one. Does anyone know? Thanks! -Dennis

Did you change account? According to this one you created it recently.

 

Currently Adventure labs pretty much replaced virtual in HQ plans even if they are flawed. In my area there are 238 lab cache and only 13 virtuals.

[+coachstahly]

16 hours ago, dennistubaplayer said:

Hey everybody! I had a quick question that may be a little strange-Is geocaching HQ planning on doing Virtual rewards 3.0? I did not get a virtual reward last time and I was wondering if Groundspeak was going to do another one. Does anyone know? Thanks! -Dennis

 

It's my guess that they wouldn't announce this at all as there would then be some COs who would begin to take their maintenance more seriously than they currently are, all in the hopes to be awarded the opportunity to place a virtual reward.  By not announcing it, there's a better chance that they'll be able to filter out those COs who haven't shown any interest in maintaining their caches, at least in my opinion.  

 

I wouldn't be surprised if there's another round but I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't another round as well.

[+sernikk]

I honestly think there may not be a 3rd round. Virtuals came back very numerous and they uniqueness went down drastically. Giving even more virtuals would only aggravate this problem.

[+K13]

With the advent and proliferation of the AL and the chatter of them beings integrated into the regular map/app, there is no need for future Virtual rewards, is there?

[+barefootjeff]

3 hours ago, sernikk said:

I honestly think there may not be a 3rd round. Virtuals came back very numerous and they uniqueness went down drastically. Giving even more virtuals would only aggravate this problem.

 

That depends on where you live. In my region, there were no grandfathered ones, none from the first round and three from the second. Yes, I can see how that second round aggravated the problem of their proliferation here, after all one is unique but three, well...

 

Edited September 23, 2020 by barefootjeff

[+Lynx Humble]

3 hours ago, sernikk said:

I honestly think there may not be a 3rd round. Virtuals came back very numerous and they uniqueness went down drastically. Giving even more virtuals would only aggravate this problem.

Very numerous? In my province there are a grand total of 13 virtuals (G+1+2) versus 238 lab caches.

[+sernikk]

10 minutes ago, Lynx Humble said:

Very numerous? In my province there are a grand total of 13 virtuals (G+1+2) versus 238 lab caches.

It depends on the interpretation. If virtuals are common like Mystery or Multi caches I think the quality will drop. I prefer virtuals to be a rare opportunity to cache differently. Lab caches is a different (tough) topic.

[+JL_HSTRE]

7 hours ago, K13 said:

With the advent and proliferation of the AL and the chatter of them beings integrated into the regular map/app, there is no need for future Virtual rewards, is there?

 

Lab caches have at least one big disadvantage over Virtuals: they require a live app.

 

Didn't the deadline for Virtual Rewards 2.0 get extended to the end of the year because of the pandemic?

 

Also, VR1 was in 2017 and VR2 was 2019. It would seem likely to me that even if there is a VR3 it wont happen until 2022.

[+colleda]

2 hours ago, dennistubaplayer said:

The  deadline didn't get extended. bummer!

New deadline: December 31, 2020

In response to COVID-19, Geocaching HQ is extending the deadline for all unpublished Virtual Reward 2.0 Caches. The last day to submit your Virtual Cache for review is now December 31, 2020 (5:00pm Pacific Daylight Time).

[+Vooruit!]

If there will be a third round, I'm hoping it's more like 1.0, rather than 2.0. The quality of the 1.0 virtuals is WAY higher than the 2.0 ones, at least in my area. Despite all the criticism Groundspeak took for picking the top XXX cache owners, in hindsight it was a very good idea. Letting 'everyone' place a virtual is just a bad idea.

[+barefootjeff]

59 minutes ago, Vooruit! said:

If there will be a third round, I'm hoping it's more like 1.0, rather than 2.0. The quality of the 1.0 virtuals is WAY higher than the 2.0 ones, at least in my area. Despite all the criticism Groundspeak took for picking the top XXX cache owners, in hindsight it was a very good idea. Letting 'everyone' place a virtual is just a bad idea.

 

My region didn't receive any 1.0 rewards but got three 2.0 ones, which is a far cry from letting 'everyone' place one. Of the other ten reward virtuals I've found, six were in Sydney, three were in Newcastle and the other further north. I can't say I noticed any difference in quality between the six 1.0 and seven 2.0 ones I found; most were at interesting locations that I wouldn't have otherwise known about or visited and were fun to do.

 

I threw my hat into the ring for the 2.0 release but was unsuccessful. I had a couple of possible locations in mind, both in national parks where the placement of a physical cache wouldn't have been allowed under their current geocaching policy. One I've since made into a multi with virtual stages inside the park and the physical cache outside, and the other I was considering making an Adventure Lab until I discovered that the map in the AL app doesn't show any of the trails in there. So if there's a 3.0 release and I get one, that's probably where it'll go.

 

[+Lynx Humble]

2 hours ago, Vooruit! said:

If there will be a third round, I'm hoping it's more like 1.0, rather than 2.0. The quality of the 1.0 virtuals is WAY higher than the 2.0 ones, at least in my area. Despite all the criticism Groundspeak took for picking the top XXX cache owners, in hindsight it was a very good idea. Letting 'everyone' place a virtual is just a bad idea.

The quality of 1.0 might have been higher than 2.0 in your area because they grabbed the best spot and then those that got a 2.0 had to choose something else.

 

I really hope if there are a 3.0 Groundspeak will do similar as 2.0 and choose X number of people willing to put one. Their algorithm of 1.0 had so many flaws that they gave it to people not playing anymore or with only 5 hides.... Not what I call ''Top player''

 

 

[+Shop99er]

Personally, I think the "winners" are picked ahead of time. 

[+barefootjeff]

31 minutes ago, dennistubaplayer said:

That may be true. I thought I heard somewhere that They were based off who has the most owner maintnance logs though.

 

 

I'd hope not as that would exclude those COs who hide good quality robust caches with good-sized logbooks that are fit for their environment and simply don't need constant maintenance. Of my 41 active caches, 24 have never needed maintenance and some of those are more than 5 years old.

 

The criterion for each of the Virtual Rewards was in the blog announcement. For the first one:

 

Quote

Starting today, approximately 4,000 geocachers in 63 countries around the world will receive emails with information about their Virtual Reward. This group is made up largely of top quality cache hiders from countries with at least 100 hiders. We created an algorithm to identify these people based on overall cache quality and cache health. Active community volunteers are also receiving a Virtual Reward as a thank you for giving their time and talent to support the geocaching community.

 

We are not sharing the algorithm. But we can say it factors in geocaching activity, geocache quality, and geocache health. The algorithm heavily favors cache quality over quantity. The algorithm was created by Geocaching HQ without direct input from community volunteer reviewers.

 

Cache quality means many things to a hider, a finder, and the community. For this promotion, the algorithm included many factors but it heavily favored cache quality over quantity. Among these factors were percentage of Favorite points on active caches (not the total number of Favorite points) and current geocache Health Score.

 

For the second round, which was an opt-in release, the criterion was:

 

Quote

To be eligible to apply, you must meet the following criteria:

Virtual Reward: You did not receive a previous Virtual Reward.

Ownership: You must own at least two active non-event geocaches.

Hidden: You must own at least one geocache published within the past four years (May 14, 2015 to May 14, 2019).

Activity: You must have posted a log on a geocache within the past four months.

Quality: Your owned geocaches must have at least 25 total Favorite points.

 

[+frostengel]

18 hours ago, dennistubaplayer said:

That may be true. I thought I heard somewhere that They were based off who has the most owner maintnance logs though.

 

That's wrong for sure. Don't take everything for granted what you here. Logging owner maintenance often doesn't mean anything and Groundspeak knows that....

 

If I hide several nano caches I'll have to change the logbook more often so I log owner maintenance - while the ammo box hider doesn't have to maintain the cache!? So perhaps I'll leave the full logbook for a month, exchange it (or someone else does) and log needs maintenance and my "good hider count" encreases!?

Some cachers use to log owner maintenance "I will check" after 10 DNF logs. Instead temporarily disable the cache would be correct so in this case the OM log is even wrong!

 

I think you mixed that up with cache owners that have good maintained caches. That is independent of the number of owner maintenance logs but obviously having logs with "needs maintenance" active - don't disable or repair them - decreases the "good hider count".

 

I got a Virtual reward in phase 1.0, so it's easy to say that I do not want round 3 (sorry). But that's for one reason: It was an honour for me to get one from round 1 and with each new round the virtuals will get less rare and so less "valuable". It's like the adventure labs: as nowadays so many are created each one loses in begin special (<-- that's poor English, I am sorry, hopefully you'll understand what I want to say). I don't want my virtual to go down between many others so please don't make a new round. Keep the virtuals special!

Edited October 22, 2020 by frostengel
typo

[+barefootjeff]

4 hours ago, frostengel said:

I got a Virtual reward in phase 1.0, so it's easy to say that I do not want round 3 (sorry). But that's for one reason: It was an honour for me to get one from round 1 and with each new round the virtuals will get less rare and so less "valuable". It's like the adventure labs: as nowadays so many are created each one loses in begin special (<-- that's poor English, I am sorry, hopefully you'll understand what I want to say). I don't want my virtual to go down between many others so please don't make a new round. Keep the virtuals special!

 

It depends on where you are. My region had no old grandfathered virtuals, got no Virtual Rewards 1.0 and three Virtual Rewards 2.0.

 

 

Much the same goes for Adventure Labs. With my two that have recently gone live, we now have four of them here.

 

 

Those should keep the locals busy for, what, a couple of weekends?

 

[+terratin]

52 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

 

It depends on where you are. My region had no old grandfathered virtuals, got no Virtual Rewards 1.0 and three Virtual Rewards 2.0.

 

 

Much the same goes for Adventure Labs. With my two that have recently gone live, we now have four of them here.

 

 

Those should keep the locals busy for, what, a couple of weekends?

 

 

That's not too bad, really. For my local area, say roughly 15km in diameter things look similar.  How many more similar sized places are there around the world? Should every smaller place have 5 of them, or 10? Where do you draw the line with regards to saturation? Are there enough interesting places at all? What if those selected locals decide that there's just nothing interesting nearby and they'd rather place the caches in Sydney?

Edited October 22, 2020 by terratin

[+frostengel]

1 hour ago, barefootjeff said:

It depends on where you are. My region had no old grandfathered virtuals, got no Virtual Rewards 1.0 and three Virtual Rewards 2.0.

 

Hi Jeff,

 

in my hometown (not too small) there was one old virtual cache. It was something special next to two webcam caches (one archived by now). This one virtual cache had an easy - and I would say boring - task of taking a picture and naming a tree looking like what kind of animal!? But this one was a special cache and I think before virtual round 1 cachers just visited the city to do these caches, virtuals and webcams.

 

Nowadays you'll find five virtual caches in a circle area with 5 kilometres radius (three V1.0 (including mine), one V2.0 plus the old one of course) with three more if you are ready to go away only about 15 kilometers.

Funnily enough I know of two local cachers who were rewarded in round 1.0 but listed there virtual far away so there might be even more....

 

But that's not the point. Let's just take the old virtual cache (17 years old) that was always something special. Today it is not special any more as there are too many (better!) virtuals. I think the numbers are okay - but I don't think we need more (here).

 

I like these old cache types that are really rare - perhaps they should be kept rare or at least don't make them too common again! That's my point but it may be unfair as we have many virtuals (in my eyes)!

 

Best wishes

Jochen

[+colleda]

1 hour ago, dennistubaplayer said:

That's one of the reasons that Geocaching forums was created to check to make sure that your info is correct, right? I agree that Virtual rewards make other virtuals less special, but not every area recieved virtual rewards. I don't think anyone in my area got rewards from either round. Maybe (If Groundspeak does another) They will base it off of wich area areas need more virtual rewards.

In the last round GS asked COs to self nominate to receive a virtual. Perhaps there were no COs in your area that wanted the responsibility?

[+NYPaddleCacher]

1 hour ago, dennistubaplayer said:

That's one of the reasons that Geocaching forums was created to check to make sure that your info is correct, right?

The best way to get an answer to a question in a forum is to post the wrong answer.  There's always going to be someone that will correct an answer that might not otherwise answer directly.

[+barefootjeff]

6 hours ago, terratin said:

 

That's not too bad, really. For my local area, say roughly 15km in diameter things look similar.  How many more similar sized places are there around the world? Should every smaller place have 5 of them, or 10? Where do you draw the line with regards to saturation? Are there enough interesting places at all? What if those selected locals decide that there's just nothing interesting nearby and they'd rather place the caches in Sydney?

 

Yeah, you're right, there nothing interesting here, just boring old seascapes, secluded beaches, waterfalls, lookouts, rock formations, sandstone caves, Aboriginal rock art, etc.

 

 

There's even a convict-built road in the hinterland for anyone wanting to be bored with a bit of history.

 

 

All these are in places physical caches aren't allowed so would be well suited to virtuals, or even ALs if it wasn't for the difficulties of getting mobile data access and a map that doesn't show the walking trails. But no, why would anyone bother with places like these when there are car parks and shopping malls gallore in the big smoke?

 

Edited October 23, 2020 by barefootjeff

[+frostengel]

8 hours ago, dennistubaplayer said:

Maybe (If Groundspeak does another) They will base it off of wich area areas need more virtual rewards.

 

That was my first idea, too: adding virtuals to areas without or with a small number of existing virtuals, but there is a problem: the awards are given to cachers not to areas. And if there is a beautiful or historical interesting place in your country perhaps the new awards will go there instead of the home coordinates of the cachers which were still be left empty.

So in this case you needed the cachers to tell where they want to place the virtual cache with the process of application but I think that's impossible (for both sides: hiders and Groundspeak).

But in fact if you could not just apply "I want one." but "I have this idea ...." the results would surely be better and better spread out if the right ones are chosen. But who does the job of sorting through millions (!?) of applications?

[+barefootjeff]

15 minutes ago, frostengel said:

But in fact if you could not just apply "I want one." but "I have this idea ...." the results would surely be better and better spread out if the right ones are chosen. But who does the job of sorting through millions (!?) of applications?

 

That's one of the reasons virtuals were discontinued in the first place, the "wow factor" criterion that was supposed to determine which person's "I have this idea" got a virtual published and which didn't.

 

From what I've seen here, most who've received the new virtuals have placed them within an hour's drive of home, and even in the Sydney region there are only 15 (rewards 1 and 2 combined) so it's not as if all worthwhile possibilities have been exhausted.

 

I won't lose any sleep if there are no more virtuals (or ALs for that matter) published in my region, but I think it would be sad if that happened because there were deemed to be too many in a few European or North American cities.

[+Vooruit!]

On 10/22/2020 at 11:17 PM, frostengel said:

 

Hi Jeff,

 

in my hometown (not too small) there was one old virtual cache. It was something special next to two webcam caches (one archived by now). This one virtual cache had an easy - and I would say boring - task of taking a picture and naming a tree looking like what kind of animal!? But this one was a special cache and I think before virtual round 1 cachers just visited the city to do these caches, virtuals and webcams.

 

Nowadays you'll find five virtual caches in a circle area with 5 kilometres radius (three V1.0 (including mine), one V2.0 plus the old one of course) with three more if you are ready to go away only about 15 kilometers.

Funnily enough I know of two local cachers who were rewarded in round 1.0 but listed there virtual far away so there might be even more....

 

But that's not the point. Let's just take the old virtual cache (17 years old) that was always something special. Today it is not special any more as there are too many (better!) virtuals. I think the numbers are okay - but I don't think we need more (here).

 

I like these old cache types that are really rare - perhaps they should be kept rare or at least don't make them too common again! That's my point but it may be unfair as we have many virtuals (in my eyes)!

 

Best wishes

Jochen

 

This HAS to be Karlsruhe you're talking about; that was actually my first virtual ever, and man, how special that one was indeed!

[+frostengel]

8 minutes ago, Vooruit! said:

This HAS to be Karlsruhe you're talking about; that was actually my first virtual ever, and man, how special that one was indeed!

 

100 points for you, that's right! :-)

And that is exactly what I mean. Virtuals were rare some years ago and so you remembered them all....

 

Greetings to the Netherlands

Jochen

[+barefootjeff]

16 minutes ago, frostengel said:

And that is exactly what I mean. Virtuals were rare some years ago and so you remembered them all....

 

Virtuals still are rare here and yes, I remember all three of the local ones as well as the handful I've done on trips further afield.

[+terratin]

Oh yes, Virtuals used to be special. Hey, they were even special when I started caching.
I went to Germany on Friday specifically for a webcam. Wow, that was super special as I only have one left in NL, on an island that I can't get to easily. Without the special thing attached most Virtuals are just, well.. caches without a container.

[+Barnyard Dawg]

There should not be a Virtual Reward 3.0 if it means they end up in the same places.  Have you seen the global map?  There are cities with more virtual caches than some continents!  Distribution is completely screwed!  I would say, look at the map, and provide additional credits to motivated players in regions where the game could seriously benefit from such support, but if you can't do that, let it be!  The idea, to award more virtual caches to existing owners, somewhat following the Adventure Lab crediting system, might be an option.  There is nothing that stops HQ from seeding areas outside Europe and North America if only to balance out the distribution!  Hand pick players in remote regions, and give them a handful of virtuals.  If no more are to be distributed, and Virtual Caches are to remain a limited edition reward, HQ should consider allowing virtual caches to be adopted to increase their survival rate.

[+dennistubaplayer]

I agree. If Groundspeak does another round, they should change the distrubuting method and give the rewards to areas that don't have very many virtuals. Too many virtuals are a problem, but a few here and there would be an awesome idea.

 

[+colleda]

1 hour ago, dennistubaplayer said:

I agree. If Groundspeak does another round, they should change the distrubuting method and give the rewards to areas that don't have very many virtuals. Too many virtuals are a problem, but a few here and there would be an awesome idea.

 

A virtual cannot be allocated to an "area". It has to allocated to a potential CO who is willing to do what is necessary to set it up and maintain  and has shown ability to do so with the caches they already own.  This is why volunteers, who are then vetted, were asked for  with V.2.  No suitable CO = no virtual.

I think I may have mentioned like this before.

[+K13]

As a cacher who lives in a small country town, there aren't any "Virtual worthy" spots within a long distance of me. If I had been awarded a Virtual Reward listing, I would have to go to a location at least 50 to maybe 75 miles away to have a suitable-to-me placement. Just like regular geocaches, GS can only limit how close together they are placed, not that a cache is placed in remote or seldom traveled locations.

[+barefootjeff]

 

On 11/4/2020 at 1:59 PM, Barnyard Dawg said:

There should not be a Virtual Reward 3.0 if it means they end up in the same places.  Have you seen the global map?  There are cities with more virtual caches than some continents!  Distribution is completely screwed!  I would say, look at the map, and provide additional credits to motivated players in regions where the game could seriously benefit from such support, but if you can't do that, let it be!  The idea, to award more virtual caches to existing owners, somewhat following the Adventure Lab crediting system, might be an option.  There is nothing that stops HQ from seeding areas outside Europe and North America if only to balance out the distribution!  Hand pick players in remote regions, and give them a handful of virtuals.  If no more are to be distributed, and Virtual Caches are to remain a limited edition reward, HQ should consider allowing virtual caches to be adopted to increase their survival rate.

 

This morning I visited Gap Creek Falls in the Watagan Mountains, about an hour's drive from home and the best part of an hour's hike down from the car park (think T4).

 

 

I'd like to put a cache of some type there, but it's inside the Watagans National Park so getting permission for a physical one will depend on it ticking all the boxes in their geocaching policy and getting a favourable response from the ranger. Failing that, it'd have to be something virtual. An AL is out of the question as there's no phone coverage anywhere near there (even at the car park there's nothing), so it would have to be either a Virtual Rewards 3.0 if they eventuate (and I get one) or a virtual waypoint in a multi. I've used the latter for national park waterfalls in my other Chasing Waterfalls caches but with this one there's not much there to base waypoint questions on (there are no signs and no really distinctive features apart from the waterfall), while there are too many online photos of the falls to make it a match-the-falls-to-the-photo waypoint.

 

The nearest other virtuals are all over 20km away and mostly urban, so it's not as if the area's saturated with similar caches.

 

 

So yes, I hope there's a 3.0 release.

 

Edited November 16, 2020 by barefootjeff

[+dennistubaplayer]

Even it there's not a 3.0 release, I wonder if Groundspeak would make it so you can download and play ALs on a Garmin.

[+MartyBartfast]

7 hours ago, dennistubaplayer said:

I wonder if Groundspeak would make it so you can download and play ALs on a Garmin.

That's unlikely as it would require Garmin to write the code for it, not Groundspeak, so I can't see it happening.

[+K13]

20 hours ago, dennistubaplayer said:

Even it there's not a 3.0 release, I wonder if Groundspeak would make it so you can download and play ALs on a Garmin.

 

First Garmin would have to make a device that maintains a full-time connection to cell data or wifi signal that must be present at the AL locations

[+Corfman Clan]

On 10/9/2020 at 4:49 PM, colleda said:

New deadline: December 31, 2020

In response to COVID-19, Geocaching HQ is extending the deadline for all unpublished Virtual Reward 2.0 Caches. The last day to submit your Virtual Cache for review is now December 31, 2020 (5:00pm Pacific Daylight Time).

On November 20, the deadline was extended once again to June 4, 2021.

 

At any rate, I can't see GC HQ announcing a virtual rewards 3 until a time after 2 is complete.

[+Lynx Humble]

2 hours ago, Corfman Clan said:

On November 20, the deadline was extended once again to June 4, 2021.

 

At any rate, I can't see GC HQ announcing a virtual rewards 3 until a time after 2 is complete.

I don't see why not they couldn't release a 3.0 before the end of 2.0. They overlapped so many souvenirs together this year.

 

Also they are sadly continuing to give more AL credits even if they have pushed to the right many times already the expiry time of current AL credits.

 

 

[+Gill & Tony]

I've just checked.  There are 2 virtuals within 50 Km of my home and 8 within 100 Km

 

There are 5 Ad labs within 50Km (two are mine) and 24 within 100 Km, including mine

[+lee737]

With the flood of ALs, there won't be any spots left for virtuals to go.....

[+dennistubaplayer]

On 12/11/2020 at 8:25 PM, Lynx Humble said:

 

 

Also they are sadly continuing to give more AL credits even if they have pushed to the right many times already the expiry time of current AL credits.

 

 

I heard at an event from one of my caching freinds that they thought that Groundspeak is kind of slowing down on the ALs. I wouldn't be suprised if they grandfather them soon. From what I've heard HQ was really pushing the Adventure labs.

Edited December 15, 2020 by dennistubaplayer

[+lee737]

5 hours ago, dennistubaplayer said:

I wouldn't be suprised if they grandfather them soon.

I'd be surprised, but not bothered to be honest. We've drunk the kool-aid and feasted on some easy finds lately, sure, but I don't think it is at all good for the game.....

[+Lynx Humble]

9 hours ago, dennistubaplayer said:

I heard at an event from one of my caching freinds that they thought that Groundspeak is kind of slowing down on the ALs. I wouldn't be suprised if they grandfather them soon. From what I've heard HQ was really pushing the Adventure labs.

Sadly your friend is wrong because Groundspeak announced they are giving 500 more AL to random player that placed at least one AL before today....

 

I hope I am not getting a third I have no idea where I would put those 5 cheap +1.

[+dennistubaplayer]

This is exactly why

1 minute ago, Lynx Humble said:

Sadly your friend is wrong because Groundspeak announced they are giving 500 more AL to random player that placed at least one AL before today....

 

I hope I am not getting a third I have no idea where I would put those 5 cheap +1.

This is why Virtuals were origanally grandfathered- there were too many virtuals and all the most remarkable places were taken up and replaced with not so interesting virtuals. They have been grandfathered for quite some time now and the numbers have dwindled away (at least in my area, I am sure that there are many old archived virtuals that weren't mantained) so why not bring back virtuals in some kind of opt-in or reward manner? I think that sadly ALs are going down the same path as Virtuals.

[Keystone]

20 minutes ago, dennistubaplayer said:

This is why Virtuals were origanally grandfathered- there were too many virtuals and all the most remarkable places were taken up and replaced with not so interesting virtuals.

 

What is your source for this statement?  I was part of the decision-making process for stopping the publication of new virtuals way back in 2005, but perhaps my memory has failed me.

[+dennistubaplayer]

4 minutes ago, Keystone said:

 

What is your source for this statement?  I was part of the decision-making process for stopping the publication of new virtuals way back in 2005, but perhaps my memory has failed me.

I have heard from Numorus people who have been caching a lot longer for me that virtuals weren't just as special anymore and that there wasn't as many interesting spots. I know that I'm talking in circles, but there are so many cool and interesting spots that don't allow physical caches or you can't get a cell phone signal from for ALs. Even if they don't do another round of VRs, I would be happy with just being able to do ALs on a GPSr. Does this make any sense? Thanks everyone!

[Keystone]

Your contacts are misinformed, or you are mispercieving them, both in regards to (1) Geocaching HQ's plans for Adventure Labs and (2) the reasons why virtuals were grandfathered in 2005 until their revival in 2017 on a limited basis via the Virtual Rewards program.

Edited December 16, 2020 by Keystone