dragonZone
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spatialriq
- 5500 or more caches found
- Posts: 326
- Joined: 12 May 11 11:52 pm
- Location: Perth
Re: dragonZone
So do clandestine activities gain you points?
Re: dragonZone
Hmmm, I'd hoped for higher standards.caughtatwork wrote:Honourable? Have you read Game of Thrones? That's what the 4 clans are like. Beheadings everywhere (or so I hope)nutwood wrote:Thanks for that. I've got a cache location that's been under consideration for some time now. If there's any further strategical considerations, I'll post them in the Griffin section of this forum as I presume that other clans are sufficiently honourable not to peek.
Murdering opponents is far more honourable than reading their private correspondence!
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caughtatwork
- Posts: 17016
- Joined: 17 May 04 12:11 pm
- Location: Melbourne
- Contact:
Re: dragonZone
Only if you find a moveable, steal it to your zone and bulk it up with your own clan points.spatialriq wrote:So do clandestine activities gain you points?
You can allocate additional DZPoints to a cache you have found in the last 7 days here.
http://geocaching.com.au/my/dragonzone/allocate
Re: dragonZone
Without being a wet blanket, there seems to be a basic problem with the "no holds barred" approach. Basically, it sounds good as a theoretical proposition, or engaged in as a computer game, but rules have evolved for a reason and without them, things can get nasty very quickly.
For instance, this afternoon Friesianess was out with me and we called by a couple of caches we've found in the past. I stopped so she could have a chance to find them in her own right. This she did, and will log them in due course. However, what's to stop me logging them again and, following on that line, what's to stop me logging every cache I've ever found again, and again and again. I appreciate this would be a silly activity and not in the spirit of a game, but if the spirit of the game is win at all costs, where do you draw the line?
I can see some sense in allowing re-finding of caches but perhaps there should be some restriction? An obvious one would be time based. Can't find a cache twice in two years or something like that. Liven things up for unloved caches and, by giving guidelines, prevent a problem arising between those who won't re-find and those who are chasing DZ points.
There's undoubtedly other areas that will cause issues but the re-finding issue seems fraught. All the long term cachers have found every GCA cache in their area so they are limited to hiding, or re-finding. Some will re-find, some won't as a matter of principle. Those who hold to a principle will find themselves at a disadvantage compared to those who sacrifice their principles. I doubt this will result in beheadings but is not likely to induce harmony amongst GCA cachers.
For instance, this afternoon Friesianess was out with me and we called by a couple of caches we've found in the past. I stopped so she could have a chance to find them in her own right. This she did, and will log them in due course. However, what's to stop me logging them again and, following on that line, what's to stop me logging every cache I've ever found again, and again and again. I appreciate this would be a silly activity and not in the spirit of a game, but if the spirit of the game is win at all costs, where do you draw the line?
I can see some sense in allowing re-finding of caches but perhaps there should be some restriction? An obvious one would be time based. Can't find a cache twice in two years or something like that. Liven things up for unloved caches and, by giving guidelines, prevent a problem arising between those who won't re-find and those who are chasing DZ points.
There's undoubtedly other areas that will cause issues but the re-finding issue seems fraught. All the long term cachers have found every GCA cache in their area so they are limited to hiding, or re-finding. Some will re-find, some won't as a matter of principle. Those who hold to a principle will find themselves at a disadvantage compared to those who sacrifice their principles. I doubt this will result in beheadings but is not likely to induce harmony amongst GCA cachers.
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caughtatwork
- Posts: 17016
- Joined: 17 May 04 12:11 pm
- Location: Melbourne
- Contact:
Re: dragonZone
This is a larger question than just the dragonZone game in what's to stop you doing almost anything you like?
The only thing that really stops you is community / peer pressure. If you're willing to accept the pressure of the community and your peers, then you play the game how you would like and go double log every cache. If you feel that the community / peer group is there to steer you in a reasonable direction, you follow the law of the land where the law is not written down and enforced, it's just what you do because you feel it's right.
We never set out to be big brother. There are some restrictions that a locationless cache holder can place on a cache, but other than that, it's pretty much the wild west. What we stringently avoid is coding the system to restrict your freedom. Unlike some other caching sites, you are really free (from the website perspective) to play the game how you would like to play it. "Cheating" or "gaming" the system gets you what, exactly? Everything (apart from the 100 finds, 500 finds and 1000 finds rewards) are all strictly virtual. They're pixels on a screen. They do not mean you're better than anyone else, just that you play the game in a different manner.
The same goes for the dragonZone game. I took a lot of time to consider whether hides should count in your points. There is nothing (apart from community pressure) to stop you hiding a cache one day, archiving it the next, publishing a new cache (or the same one) the next, archive, publish, ad nauseum. You gain some different shaped pixels. You cause some angst amongst other cachers. The community shuns you. They don't try and find your caches. You would only be doing yourself harm because the website is a bunch of 1's and 0's. It doesn't care.
So the way I play the game (both DZ and caching in general) is I behave the way I would like others to behave. But if they don't behave in the manner I would like I shrug my shoulders and ignore them and their caches. There a nice set of caches not too far from me that I simply won't do because I have a philosophical difference with the hider. It's no skin off their nose. It doesn't bother me that they're on my ignore list. We're both happy.
If you go too far beyond the bounds of what would constitute "reasonable" behaviour and the community decides not to involve you in their activities, then you would only have yourself to look at and decide whether to ignore them and continue or modify the behaviour to become accepted.
Our first cache http://geocaching.com.au/cache/ga0001 was hidden in December 2004. At that point (and for quite a few years on) people were still doomsaying the approach of Geocaching Australia in that it would fail, it would be lawless, it would all come to naught, there would be fighting in the streets, cats and dogs would be living together and the fabric of the space time continuum would tear apart. That hasn't happened, only because the community is there.
Geocaching Australia is a niche provider in the geocaching space. We're not exactly gaining ground fast on the major fish, but we're at the very least holding our own and gaining some traction in areas where the big player doesn't wish to venture. This is all held together because the community that play on your website play nicely. I have no doubt that it we had a million players it would be much more rough than it is right now. There are some who will stretch the boundaries and play the game right on the edge and very few who will go over the edge. Most of the edge dwellers fall over the edge and aren't heard from again. Community pressure (whether it be out in the open or whispered at informal gatherings) brings the game and most of the players back to the midpoint.
Remember this is all a game. There are no sheep stations or millions of dollars at stake here. All you get are pixles. They're free. The shape of pixels doesn't make you better / worse than anyone else. What one persons pixels say should never sway you to behave in a manner inconsistent with your own inner self. My position is do what you want. I don't want to be an umpire making decisions about the way you spend the evenings or weekends. My lord, I don't even make decisions about what I do.
However I don't want to stifle debate. My opinion is the opinion of one person who happens to be cutting the code that makes the website work. I'm not a god, I'm not better than anyone. I have some administrative powers, but as we have more than one site administrator my admin powers can be easily retracted and handed over to someone else. i.e. My word is not he be all and end all.
If you have suggestions (like the ones already suggested), bring them up. Let the community choose whether they would be supported. If the majority of people would like a tightening of the rules at Geocaching Australia they get done. If the community want tighter rules around dragonZone they can be adopted. The only thing to consider if whether the rules are there for "just in case" scenarios or whether there is genuinely someone who is taking pleasure in causing grief.
So, please continue to conversation.
The only thing that really stops you is community / peer pressure. If you're willing to accept the pressure of the community and your peers, then you play the game how you would like and go double log every cache. If you feel that the community / peer group is there to steer you in a reasonable direction, you follow the law of the land where the law is not written down and enforced, it's just what you do because you feel it's right.
We never set out to be big brother. There are some restrictions that a locationless cache holder can place on a cache, but other than that, it's pretty much the wild west. What we stringently avoid is coding the system to restrict your freedom. Unlike some other caching sites, you are really free (from the website perspective) to play the game how you would like to play it. "Cheating" or "gaming" the system gets you what, exactly? Everything (apart from the 100 finds, 500 finds and 1000 finds rewards) are all strictly virtual. They're pixels on a screen. They do not mean you're better than anyone else, just that you play the game in a different manner.
The same goes for the dragonZone game. I took a lot of time to consider whether hides should count in your points. There is nothing (apart from community pressure) to stop you hiding a cache one day, archiving it the next, publishing a new cache (or the same one) the next, archive, publish, ad nauseum. You gain some different shaped pixels. You cause some angst amongst other cachers. The community shuns you. They don't try and find your caches. You would only be doing yourself harm because the website is a bunch of 1's and 0's. It doesn't care.
So the way I play the game (both DZ and caching in general) is I behave the way I would like others to behave. But if they don't behave in the manner I would like I shrug my shoulders and ignore them and their caches. There a nice set of caches not too far from me that I simply won't do because I have a philosophical difference with the hider. It's no skin off their nose. It doesn't bother me that they're on my ignore list. We're both happy.
If you go too far beyond the bounds of what would constitute "reasonable" behaviour and the community decides not to involve you in their activities, then you would only have yourself to look at and decide whether to ignore them and continue or modify the behaviour to become accepted.
Our first cache http://geocaching.com.au/cache/ga0001 was hidden in December 2004. At that point (and for quite a few years on) people were still doomsaying the approach of Geocaching Australia in that it would fail, it would be lawless, it would all come to naught, there would be fighting in the streets, cats and dogs would be living together and the fabric of the space time continuum would tear apart. That hasn't happened, only because the community is there.
Geocaching Australia is a niche provider in the geocaching space. We're not exactly gaining ground fast on the major fish, but we're at the very least holding our own and gaining some traction in areas where the big player doesn't wish to venture. This is all held together because the community that play on your website play nicely. I have no doubt that it we had a million players it would be much more rough than it is right now. There are some who will stretch the boundaries and play the game right on the edge and very few who will go over the edge. Most of the edge dwellers fall over the edge and aren't heard from again. Community pressure (whether it be out in the open or whispered at informal gatherings) brings the game and most of the players back to the midpoint.
Remember this is all a game. There are no sheep stations or millions of dollars at stake here. All you get are pixles. They're free. The shape of pixels doesn't make you better / worse than anyone else. What one persons pixels say should never sway you to behave in a manner inconsistent with your own inner self. My position is do what you want. I don't want to be an umpire making decisions about the way you spend the evenings or weekends. My lord, I don't even make decisions about what I do.
However I don't want to stifle debate. My opinion is the opinion of one person who happens to be cutting the code that makes the website work. I'm not a god, I'm not better than anyone. I have some administrative powers, but as we have more than one site administrator my admin powers can be easily retracted and handed over to someone else. i.e. My word is not he be all and end all.
If you have suggestions (like the ones already suggested), bring them up. Let the community choose whether they would be supported. If the majority of people would like a tightening of the rules at Geocaching Australia they get done. If the community want tighter rules around dragonZone they can be adopted. The only thing to consider if whether the rules are there for "just in case" scenarios or whether there is genuinely someone who is taking pleasure in causing grief.
So, please continue to conversation.
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Zalgariath
- 5500 or more caches found
- Posts: 1749
- Joined: 17 August 09 10:44 am
- Location: Sydney, NSW
Re: dragonZone
Like always on GCA (or any online game for that matter) there is always a way to buck the system. Rodger could archive his BMPT series (with 80 odd caches or more in it), and republish to gain an instant burst of points... then those of us who had already found them all could spend half a day refinding them and getting more points... the possibilities are endless. People can hide caches with inflated D/T scores or change the ratings on Trigs as they are community editable. At the end of the day it has been nearly 10 years on GCA where (for the most part it seems) the lack of rules hasnt meant anarchy. The community is generally self governing... which is much better than having the volunteers who run it putting in hundreds of hours in policing 
DZ on a massive site... wouldnt work in it's current form. Look at Ingress, where Id hate to think how many resources go in to trying to stop spoofing which nearly destroyed the game in some places. The advantage here is with a relatively small and close community things are much more manageable.
...not to say some new Dragon Blood wouldnt be welcomed!
DZ on a massive site... wouldnt work in it's current form. Look at Ingress, where Id hate to think how many resources go in to trying to stop spoofing which nearly destroyed the game in some places. The advantage here is with a relatively small and close community things are much more manageable.
...not to say some new Dragon Blood wouldnt be welcomed!
Re: dragonZone
A question on My Query and dZones - can we make a query that singles out caches controlled (or not controlled) by a particular clan?
ie how do I list the caches not controlled by my clan (with various other attributes) so i can capture them?
ie how do I list the caches not controlled by my clan (with various other attributes) so i can capture them?
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caughtatwork
- Posts: 17016
- Joined: 17 May 04 12:11 pm
- Location: Melbourne
- Contact:
Re: dragonZone
There is no query at the moment that can do this. For me, personally, I am using the MyQuery, then running my eye down the screen list to see which ones don't belong to my clan. Not the best I agree. I didn't really think about it.blossom* wrote:A question on My Query and dZones - can we make a query that singles out caches controlled (or not controlled) by a particular clan?
ie how do I list the caches not controlled by my clan (with various other attributes) so i can capture them?
I'll see if I can change the MyQuery function to allow for this. It will be a simple change (I hope) to select a clan and either Controlled or NOT Controlled.
e.g.
Phoenix Controlled
Phoenix NOT Controlled
Griffin Controlled
etc.
There won't (initially) at least be the ability to select multiple clans. Only one clan selection and a controlled or not controlled.
Re: dragonZone
I'm a bit concerned that my simple concern has been taken way further than intended. This is a Dragon Zone forum and my comment was directed towards the game at hand. It was not directed at GCA caching in general. If it was to be extrapolated to cover other areas, those areas would be caching games, not caching in general. I'm more than happy with the GCA philosophy, indeed I reckon I'm in a fairly small group where my GCA finds outnumber my GC finds by about three to one. The question I'm putting is not about GCA caching but about Dragon Zone specifically.caughtatwork wrote:This is a larger question than just the dragonZone game in what's to stop you doing almost anything you like?
......
So, please continue to conversation.
You've cited Game of Thrones as the guiding philosophy for the four clans. Game of Thrones is basically: "When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground".
On that basis, "community / peer pressure" is irrelevant. Anything you can do to advance your clan should be applauded by your clan. If there are no rules, you need not abide by any. That means multiple finds, dodgy hides, muggling the opposition caches, etc, etc. That actually sounds like a lot of fun but I wonder how many cachers would want to go there?
If we don't want to go there, some guidelines are needed. Rules of the game are not a restriction of freedom, or something requiring hundreds of hours policing, they are simply something on which players can base a strategy and engage in. If players choose to ignore them, then the peer group pressure bit can kick in. Personally I would like a clear opinion on re-finding caches. General caching philosophy is that once you find a cache, that's the end of the story. This seems like a waste of resource. If DZ cleaned the slate, what a shake up for caches that have hardly been touched for years!
As it stand at the moment, even though there are no rules, no one will re-find caches because it's against the rules?!
Re: dragonZone
I'll refind moveables, otherwise I will apply my normal behaviours - ie only find a cache once. To do otherwise is against normal caching actions.
I can see you're just raising a question but it seems quite reasonable to treat dZones the same as everything else - play by the normal rules. Don't hide rubbish and don't log a find more than once unless it moves.
I can see you're just raising a question but it seems quite reasonable to treat dZones the same as everything else - play by the normal rules. Don't hide rubbish and don't log a find more than once unless it moves.
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caughtatwork
- Posts: 17016
- Joined: 17 May 04 12:11 pm
- Location: Melbourne
- Contact:
Re: dragonZone
Don't be concerned. I read your point in the wrong way.nutwood wrote:I'm a bit concerned that my simple concern has been taken way further than intended. This is a Dragon Zone forum and my comment was directed towards the game at hand. It was not directed at GCA caching in general. If it was to be extrapolated to cover other areas, those areas would be caching games, not caching in general. I'm more than happy with the GCA philosophy, indeed I reckon I'm in a fairly small group where my GCA finds outnumber my GC finds by about three to one. The question I'm putting is not about GCA caching but about Dragon Zone specifically.caughtatwork wrote:This is a larger question than just the dragonZone game in what's to stop you doing almost anything you like?
......
So, please continue to conversation.
You've cited Game of Thrones as the guiding philosophy for the four clans. Game of Thrones is basically: "When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground".
On that basis, "community / peer pressure" is irrelevant. Anything you can do to advance your clan should be applauded by your clan. If there are no rules, you need not abide by any. That means multiple finds, dodgy hides, muggling the opposition caches, etc, etc. That actually sounds like a lot of fun but I wonder how many cachers would want to go there?
If we don't want to go there, some guidelines are needed. Rules of the game are not a restriction of freedom, or something requiring hundreds of hours policing, they are simply something on which players can base a strategy and engage in. If players choose to ignore them, then the peer group pressure bit can kick in. Personally I would like a clear opinion on re-finding caches. General caching philosophy is that once you find a cache, that's the end of the story. This seems like a waste of resource. If DZ cleaned the slate, what a shake up for caches that have hardly been touched for years!
As it stand at the moment, even though there are no rules, no one will re-find caches because it's against the rules?!
On the GoT analogy.
What I really meant is we can't stop (or we can, but there's a lot of manual work involved) one clan reading another clans forum posts. My GoT analogy was only regarding their probable lack of restraint in peeking into another clan thread, checking up on their movements and stealing their ideas and strategies. It was not meant as a general comment about the game at large.nutwood wrote:Hmmm, I'd hoped for higher standards.caughtatwork wrote:Honourable? Have you read Game of Thrones? That's what the 4 clans are like. Beheadings everywhere (or so I hope)nutwood wrote:Thanks for that. I've got a cache location that's been under consideration for some time now. If there's any further strategical considerations, I'll post them in the Griffin section of this forum as I presume that other clans are sufficiently honourable not to peek.
Murdering opponents is far more honourable than reading their private correspondence!
In specific terms of dragonZone, the same principles apply as they do to the game of geocaching. I think it's a generally accepted principle that you find a cache once (with the exception of moveables). I am going to play the game that way and I'm not going to head back to other caches I've found. This restricts my ability to find caches as I'm pretty much zoned out in my area. I am genuinely hoping that the fewer caches there are for people to find, the more they may choose to hide. The more hides, the more finds, the more people will play.
However, we can't police the actions of anyone. If someone wants some differently shaped pixels, have at it. I'd really doubt that any clan would condone the breaking of the principle of finding a cache more than once (where would be the challenge?). I have very high expectations of the Geocaching Australia community and I think they'll stick to being extremely reasonable about how they attach dragonZone to their general game of geocaching.
Re: dragonZone
OK, that's fair enough. Re-finding caches is against the rules and we're not actually allowed to be-head our opposing clan members. I can work with that!
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caughtatwork
- Posts: 17016
- Joined: 17 May 04 12:11 pm
- Location: Melbourne
- Contact:
Re: dragonZone
I never said thatnutwood wrote:<snip> we're not actually allowed to be-head our opposing clan members. I can work with that!
Long live
Re: dragonZone
I'm finding myself with a bit of a moral dilemma along the same lines. One of my kids who I've been trying to get 'into' Caching for years (apart from me blackmailing and bribing her to come with me) finally wants her own login and to do her own caching....... There is no way I want her in another clan but she will often be out and about with me giving our household 2 'votes' for lack of a better way to put it.
Still working this one through.... she hasn't really paid a lot of attention to this aspect of the game yet so I have time to decide what to do.
Still working this one through.... she hasn't really paid a lot of attention to this aspect of the game yet so I have time to decide what to do.
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Zalgariath
- 5500 or more caches found
- Posts: 1749
- Joined: 17 August 09 10:44 am
- Location: Sydney, NSW
Re: dragonZone
Zhaoy and I are the same, we cache under separate names but her activity is mostly limited to shorter bursts of activity on roadtrips and holidays rather than week to week scheming and strategic trig visits so in the long run I don't think it will throw the balance too much. If she really wants to go revisit trigs or caches I have previously found I see no problem (as long as I dont tell her where they are 
