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Re: Pokémon Go

Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2016 10:11 am
by Bon Echo
I am very curious to know how the PG game compares to Monster Cache - not in terms of quality or development, but in terms of concept. when I learned of PG I immediately thought of monster cache. I know nothing about either and have no plans to change that. It just doesn't appeal to me.

Manville, why do you use a 1-year period as your maximum-time-between-finds-or-a-cache-is-useless benchmark? For some of us, the longer it sits unfound, the more fun it is to find. I found one a few weeks ago that's been lonely 6 years! Felt great to find it! There's very few geocaching.com caches on my "radar", but a bunch of OCNA and TC caches because they are old and haven't been found in years.

Letterboxing is certainly far from dead IMO; but some previously-active regions may be "dead". I attended a letterboxing event in May with well over 100 letterboxers in attendance (http://www.atlasquest.com/showinfo.html?eventId=3569), and my event in October has 40 sign-ups and growing (http://www.atlasquest.com/showinfo.html?gEventId=3655); I have "will attends" from users from Michigan, Ohio and New York plus all over Ontario. That event is also cross-listed to OCNA and I'll be shocked if even a single OCNA user shows up. I'm not sure what we're comparing with, but those numbers dwarf any alt-caching event I can think of (correct me if I'm wrong). And the number of new letterboxes in a 200-mile radius of where I live outnumbers new alt-site caches by...well I don't have the number (they're available thought) but it's probably 5 to 1 based on notification I get. I have a few dozen alt caches in my area, and only one of those has ever been found. I placed a letterbox at the end of May and it was found within a month of being listed. And by a player who does more geocaching than letterboxing. Do you think he even bothered to go the extra few hundred feet to find my GC cache near the letterbox? Nope.

Re: Pokémon Go

Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2016 8:20 pm
by TermiteHunter
PG is actually very similar to monster cache. Yes. ..better production values overall. Looks better, plays better, involves indirect and direct interaction with other players and it appears that you can continue to play without spending actual cash.

I too dislike a cache remaining dormant for long periods if it is my own but i have to agree that there is a thrill in finding a long forgotten cache. There is intrigue and excitement. One of my favorite finds was finding a multi year archived multi cache with only clues from logs and the starting point location. It is now listed on OCNA. It was found a few times initially but now is racking up more lonely time
(The truth is out there)

Sent from my SM-J320P using Tapatalk

Re: Pokémon Go

Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2016 11:30 pm
by Mr.Yuck
DudleyGrunt wrote:1. I was doing some Sightering Saturday afternoon while on the National Mall in DC. A family walked past me and the son (10?) asked me if I was playing...you guessed it...Pokemon Go. His family was moving along, so I just said no and attempted to show him my screen. I hadn't done any Sighter in a while, but knew there were a number there on the Mall. I really wish they would make it possible to view the map with only the Sights I need.

2. There are a few local in Maryland who create Whereigos. I've been doing a lot recently and probably have at least a few more trips to Southern Maryland, where most are concentrated, before I start running out.

3. I've found Letterboxing to be more active than I had previously thought - especially the AtlasQuest site. I had been on a kick late last year, but do plan on working on more around here.

4. I've even trying to get Monster Cache working on my phone, again. Apparently, there is a problem with Galaxy S7's falsely reporting Mock Location as being enabled for apps that check that sort of thing, like MC does.
For No. 4, You can probably blame a local to me for the mock location thing. He played our August contest a couple years ago when Monster cache was in it, and captured I believe close to 100. He discovered it was easily defeated by Fake GPS (I believe that's what one of the apps for droid is called), and "reported" it to the developer. And no, this guy wouldn't for a second have done this for our contest, he just checked it out. :D

Re: Pokémon Go

Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2016 11:34 pm
by Mr.Yuck
Manville Possum Hunters wrote:
Mr.Yuck wrote: I have no freaking clue what to do at the Gyms. I can battle, but the creature will have a CP of like 600-1000, and all mine are under 100. I also went to a Blue Gym (I choose team Blue), but no clue what to do there either.
Keep one of each type, transfer the others in trade for candy to the professor, then evolve and power up to get more CP. I'm still building up mine, but have dropped some off to help at Yellow gyms, I have about 4 over 1220 CP.

I'm learning as I go, and mostly I'm out walking over 2 miles each day, but I do drive to different locations and restart the app, just like geocaching, clear out an area then move to another.

This game is fun to me, and I would never play Munzee or Ingress. I spent a few hours today with the famous Mega numbers cacher Ranger Fox in a smelly storm drain in Kingsport, Tn looking for a geocache, and that is the most fun I have had in a long time playing geocaching. Tonight, I went for a solo walk in Gate City, Va and ended up playing Pokemon for around 3 hours and meet several people doing the same.

We (my crew) have been archiving quite a few geocaches listed on Groundspeak along fitness trails in our area, they are just not being found, or have already been found, but no finds within the last year.

I know I pissed off the admins here when I archived my OCNA listings, but they were not being logged and I strongly dislike stale data like the Terra Caching site and LitterBoxing has to offer.
I finally stumbled on the official PG FAQ, and it's pretty good. I finally started giving ones with crappy CP to the professor. If I battle at a friendly blue gym, it "trains" my own Pokemon, so I didn't screw up there. I also see where I can drop one off now, but I don't think I've seen that option highlighted at a friendly Gym yet, as they can only hold between 1-10 depending on the prestige of the Gym. I must have been at some pretty low prestige friendly gyms.

Re: Pokémon Go

Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2016 12:11 am
by TermiteHunter
Well I played a bit more with this while on vacation in Pawley's Island. The Adult kids found things while riding in the car and at every stop along the way. I tried to keep up and reached level 5 on the trip. It was like taking a trip with a geocacher, Had to wait while the players hit everything in sight to gain pokemon or pokeballs. ( being on the other side of an adventure ) The eldest took over a couple gyms that were usually lost in the early hours of the morning to a rival clan. Learned how to take advantage of the Pokestops and a few tidbits of info on what to do with what I have caught. We would see people clustered in areas that one of the kids would say was a gym only to get a report that they had failed or succeeded in taking over the next time we passed.

I still see this as a fad but then so was Geocaching at one time. I expect it will fall to a similar level with new players coming in and a few big time players. Eventually it will be new players actively working as most drop out as difficulty increases or the newness excitement wears off. It does have the benefit of attracting those of a particular age. They played the card game when younger and now have a new outlet. We (the NCS and myself) enjoy hearing all those Pokemon names we heard coming from them years ago coming out again. I can only imagine the attraction they have.

Re: Pokémon Go

Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2016 12:59 pm
by KnowsOpie
Here is an interesting article on Pokemon GO with Geocaching co-founder Bryan Roth. Maybe Ground$peak has plans for Wherigo after all and not just abandoning it like their Waymarking site?

We here are all aware that many people do want a virtual element to geocaching and some really like a point scoring system, so hopefully Wherigo is the answer that GS is looking for, not that they ever listened to their customers before, but I'm seeing a decline in geocaching locally. According to Bryan Roth, Pokemon GO has been great for business.

Has OCNA seen more new members in the last two weeks?

http://www.geekwire.com/2016/geocaching ... okemon-go/

Re: Pokémon Go

Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2016 1:48 pm
by Mr.Yuck
Manville Possum Hunters wrote:Here is an interesting article on Pokemon GO with Geocaching co-founder Bryan Roth. Maybe Ground$peak has plans for Wherigo after all and not just abandoning it like their Waymarking site?

We here are all aware that many people do want a virtual element to geocaching and some really like a point scoring system, so hopefully Wherigo is the answer that GS is looking for, not that they ever listened to their customers before, but I'm seeing a decline in geocaching locally. According to Bryan Roth, Pokemon GO has been great for business.

Has OCNA seen more new members in the last two weeks?
We have not seen more new members, but we average what I consider a healthy 100 or more sign ups a week this summer (It's lower in the winter). However, we show in like page 9 of the results of a search for the word "Geocaching". They do not have that problem. I saw that article before you posted it, and I have verified The Rothster is not lying. That link is "Geocaching" on Google Trends. They are trending higher in July 2016 than they did at any point in all of 2015. Something that previously hadn't happened once since 2010.

Re: Pokémon Go

Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2016 3:03 pm
by KnowsOpie
Wow, Pokémon Go has been good for their business. I had lunch with the founder of the Wherigo Foundation after doing a little geocaching in the area with him and he asked me what I thought about a type of points system with the Wherigo cartridges, which sounded to me like it may get more people interested in Wherigo geocaches.

I set up one WIG locally at a State Park, and it's just not getting many finds at all, but multi caches are not popular locally either.

This Pokémon Go is still crazy, I'm seeing more new players joining in on the fun. I have downloaded the Pokewhere map that shows where they spawn and how long they will be there for catching the rare ones. :D I can relate it to geocaching and going after just one more cache down the trail when I'm already tired. :P

Re: Pokémon Go

Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2016 7:22 pm
by Bon Echo
There is a geocaching site with a points system, it nicely shows you your ranking in relation to geocache types and location. The longer a cache is unfound, the more points it's worth. Pretty neat system IMO. Guess how well it is doing right now. But if GC implements such a system, 65% of the players will be falling all over themselves to score high points, 40% will be disgusted that such a system has been introduced and the rest won't care about the numbers or the system. As you can clearly see in point 7 above, numbers are not my thing.

Re: Pokémon Go

Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2016 2:41 am
by KnowsOpie
Bon Echo wrote:There is a geocaching site with a points system, it nicely shows you your ranking in relation to geocache types and location. The longer a cache is unfound, the more points it's worth. Pretty neat system IMO. Guess how well it is doing right now.
That sounds a lot like what Ranger Fox was telling me about his idea for WIG. Which geocaching site are you speaking about?

Geocaching is not a numbers or points thing to me either. I'm more interested in Pokemon Go now, and I'm not joking about that. :)

I'm at the point where it's time to sign out and walk away from the geocaching for awhile. :(