The list of games that have been played in the past are listed below where you can see the style of the games in terms of finds, hides, physical or not, GC and GCA inclusions. You can remind yourself of the fun or not fun you had, whether you found them challenging or boring, whether they were worth it or you only played... because.
There will always be challenges about game requirements.
- Including vs excluding Locationless (there will always be someone unhappy)
- Including vs excluding Moveables (there will always be someone unhappy)
- Too onerous to log an entry in the game vs wanting to "feel involved" in playing the game (there will always be someone unhappy)
- People fake moving geocaches in moveable cache races (who decides if a move was fake or whether it was moved and then moved back?)
- People fake logging virtual or locationless caches (a human check is the only way to catch that and I will never be involved with that again)
- People hiding geocaches for "mates" which are then archived (sigh!)
- People hiding cache after cache after cache to get to a goal (a cache is a cache is a cache, but someone who didn't think of it is bitter)
Let's be 100% honest, when we make it a competition, some people get competitive and, to be truthful, assholes. When people become competitive they also forget how to behave and the abuse the various administrators have received over the years for "pulling someone up" is simply beyond belief.
The following quote is attributed to the poet John Lydgate and later adapted by President Lincoln:
So, lets get down to brass tasks. What do you want a future game to incorporate?“You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time”.
Here are some principles that you must consider when you are designing a game.
- How will the game promote Geocaching Australia as a site to hide and find geocaches?
- How will the game encourage people to hide and find geocaches at Geocaching Australia?
Here are some things you will need to consider that may impact the way that you need to think.
- Not everyone will like the geocaches you exclude
- Not everyone will like the geocaches you include
- Not everyone has the physical capability to get high terrain geocaches
- Not everyone has the mental capability to get high difficulty geocaches
- Not everyone want to hide a geocache
- Not everyone wants to find virtual or locationless caches (especially not more than once)
- How will you stop fake and false finds and moves on moveable geocaches?
- How will you stop fake and false finds on geocaches that don't have a physical logbook?
- How will you automate the process of game scoring to take the "abuse element" out of the scoring?
- How will you stop people cheating (anything you can think of to get around a rule people will do)?
Have an open, friendly and transparent discussion. Don't make a complaint without a compliment. Don't make a criticism without a solution.
If you had the idea to develop a game:
- what would it be about
- what cheats can you think of (others will always find more)
- what would make people want to play (apart from any tangible reward)
- how easy is it to calculate whether an achievement has been met
- how long would it run
- when would it run
- how do you handle the situations where geocachers have "no caches with 1000km that I can find" scenarios
Have a discussion and if you think you there is enough interest and discussion on an individual game idea we can break that out and have a whole conversation about those in general. We can also run a competition to have a new game designed, but we need to have the discussion about what sorts of games to run and the benefits and pitfalls first.
Other things that are on the table are also:
- Never run another game again
- Have activities which are not competitive, but still reward you with "virtual" things
So, the floor is open for discussion. Make it so.
Games list:
- Blitz 2021
Find based on physical geocaches - 2020 December
Find and Hide based on physical geocaches (with lockdown focused on specific locationless geocaches) - Showdown 2019
Find based on physical geocaches - Blitz 2019
Find based on physical geocaches - Journey or Destination
Find and Hide based on physical geocaches - Spring Caching Carnival
Moveable cache race on moveable geocaches - GeosportZ 2018 (Gold Coast Commonwealth Games)
Find based on "requirements to complete", included GC and GCA, and all cache types - States of the Nation
Find based on "requirements to complete", all cache types - Christmas In July
Find and Hide based on physical geocaches (dragonZone based) - Summer Scavenger Series
Find based on "requirements to complete", all cache types - GeosportZ 2016
Find based on "requirements to complete", included GC and GCA, and all cache types - GeGnome ][ Electric Boogaloo
Moveable cache race on moveable geocaches - Winter is Coming
Find based on physical geocaches (dragonZone based)