What's the future of Ad Labs?

[+ErewashPaddler]

New Adventure Labs have almost dried up in my area, and there is a fair degree of saturation too (though I can still think of several that I would like to do if I had more credits). So, what for the future? Does Groundspeak have a plan? 

The biggest issue is that conventional caches come and go - they go missing and get archived, or the C.O. just gets fed up and they get archived. But an Ad Lab, once created, is likely to last for as long as the app survives. Even if all cachers in the area have completed the Ad Lab, the C.O. can't just delete it and set up a new one - they need a totally new credit to be able to do that.
Possible suggestions, then, to keep the game fresh....
1. Allow owners of Ad Labs to delete an existing placement and give them a totally new credit when they do so?

2. Automatic archiving of Ad Labs when nobody has visited any of the stages for a pre-determined period?

3. Continue to give out new credits by whatever system Groundspeak choose - but make the system transparent, and don't ignore those C.O.'s who already have four or five successful Ad Labs?

Anyone else got any ideas? Or is there an "official" line on this?

[+arisoft]

You forget that there are other players in the game. Not everyone has found all labs in your territory.

 

Normally, a geocacher enlarges the territory to find more geocaches. I guess that there are more labs available than you can ever find if you go further to find them.

[+ErewashPaddler]

No, I don't forget that there are others. I look forward to people coming to find my Ad Labs but now that they have been out there for a couple of years the number of players has dropped to a trickle. And I've not found all the ones in my area yet either. But it is not an issue that is going to go away - eventually only new players will be looking for them unless they are away from home. With conventional caches, you can "refresh" an area by archiving a series and placing a new series - we need to have something similar for Labs in my opinion.

[+arisoft]

7 minutes ago, ErewashPaddler said:

With conventional caches, you can "refresh" an area by archiving a series and placing a new series

 

Why would you do something like that? It is called churning and not a recommended practice. If there was an intention to visit the same place again and again then it could be easier to allow to log tha same cache again and again after every three months.

[+ErewashPaddler]

1 minute ago, arisoft said:

Why would you do something like that? It is called churning and not a recommended practice. If there was an intention to visit the same place again and again then it could be easier to allow to log tha same cache again and again after every three months.

Not heard the term "churning" before, and I do understand what you mean. And it would be valid if you were to put out the same sort of caches along the same route - that isn't what I was suggesting.

[+Mausebiber]

3 hours ago, ErewashPaddler said:

2. Automatic archiving of Ad Labs when nobody has visited any of the stages for a pre-determined period?

 

There are ALs out there which did not get visited for 6 Month or more because they are hard to reach, why would anyone delete those?

 

Found once since Sep 23

 

 

Edited February 24 by Mausebiber

[+ErewashPaddler]

7 hours ago, Mausebiber said:

There are ALs out there which did not get visited for 6 Month or more because they are hard to reach, why would anyone delete those?

Yes, you're right - I don't think that that would work. Or it would have to be a very long period, say a couple of years, thinking especially of those ALs where there are seasonal issues.

[+L0ne.R]

I've just started to try ALs and noticed that most of them are a few years old. About half had one stage that was a problem. Some could be brute-forced with guesses. Some couldn't. Some had problems that were noted in the reviews but with no response from the owners. 

 

Last year I went to a library where I had to find a reference book. It had a small reference section so I scoured the shelves. Couldn't find it. Double checked the catalogue. Not in the catalogue. 2 librarians checked the shelves again with me. Another checked the database. They confirmed that the reference book was no longer there or listed in the catalogue.  The owner of the AL is active but didn't respond. I couldn't complete the AL so I couldn't leave a review to warn others that the reference book is gone. 6 months later it's still active but not fixed. Last find was a year ago.

 

I'm new to ALs and I'd be very happy if they archived the old ALs and cleaned up the database.

 

A good AL  exceeds the geocaching experience for me because it doesn't end in a wet piece of scrap paper to sign, so I'd like to do more of them.

 

My suggestion is that AL owners need to log an owner maintenance log once per year. If they don't, the AL gets archived.

[+lee737]

17 hours ago, L0ne.R said:

My suggestion is that AL owners need to log an owner maintenance log once per year.

How do they even do that?

 

[+L0ne.R]

I expect that the developers could include an option for owners to log an owner maintenance. It would indicate that the owners verify that their ALs still work and can be completed. 

[+JL_HSTRE]

On 2/24/2024 at 3:28 PM, ErewashPaddler said:

Possible suggestions, then, to keep the game fresh....

 

3. Continue to give out new credits by whatever system Groundspeak choose - but make the system transparent, and don't ignore those C.O.'s who already have four or five successful Ad Labs?

 

Define "successful."

 

If people actually left meaningful ratings on ALs then high ratings could be rewarded, but as it stands the ratings variance between a really cool and a really dull AL is minimal because most players give 5 stars to every AL.

 

Number of Finds is largely just a measure of location. The best AL in a small GA town will have far fewer finds than the worst AL in New York City.

[+ivss_xx]

On 2/25/2024 at 9:28 AM, ErewashPaddler said:

1. Allow owners of Ad Labs to delete an existing placement and give them a totally new credit when they do so?

2. Automatic archiving of Ad Labs when nobody has visited any of the stages for a pre-determined period?

3. Continue to give out new credits by whatever system Groundspeak choose - but make the system transparent, and don't ignore those C.O.'s who already have four or five successful Ad Labs?

1. I would partially agree with your first point - archiving an existing one, if there is an issue that makes it unplayable, and getting a replacement credit should be a thing. But I would strongly disagree if players would start archiving and recreating purely to "keep the game fresh"

2. Which comes to me completely and strongly disagreeing with any sort of a suggestion of auto-archival. I am sometimes going out and finding lonely caches that haven 't been visited for 10 years. And they are still there and in good condition. I want to go and find historic AdLabs when I first travel to a new place where an adlab was placed in 2019, even if it hasn't been visited for the last 4 years.

3. I don't think the system ignores the COs who have put out successful AdLabs. It's just more of a random thing than anything, I think. I kept getting the credits even though I wasn't specifically applying for them. I have now made 7 ALs in total. (Excluding that experiment one back in 2014)