MnGCA

[termdisc]

From the Geocaching Guide to the Game link, with my additional commentary related to these so-called Challenges (like kissing a picture of a frog in your kitchen or burping toward St. Paul):

Geocaching is a real-world, outdoor (*NO*) treasure hunting game (*NO*) using GPS-enabled devices (*NO*). Participants navigate (*NO*) to a specific set of GPS coordinates (*NO*) and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location (...let me think: *NO*).

[KRedEP]

[JJnTJ]

There's a mobile app just for Challenges. It's free (at least on Android). It's actually pretty neat, and much less goofy than the web page.

If there was one for Waymarks, I might actually do a couple.

[bflentje]

These new challenges.. they suck, suck and suck.

If you experiemented with accepting a challenge and then marking it as completed, you will find that there is absolutely no way to delete record of it from your profile.

[Rustynails]

Are the Challenges gone?

I clicked on find Challenges and was bumped to the GC home page.

[Rustynails]

[Hunter-Killer]

[sparkyfry]

[termdisc]

At least today you don't have to worry about challenges, since the geocaching website is either non-responsive or unworkably slow. Speculation on the various fora/Facebook etc is that the 'update' (or downdate) this week has slowed everything down - and with the avatars, bar graphs, and other overbuilt new features to load, that speculation seems reasonable to me. Can't find anything from Groundspeak addressing the slowdown, either.

In a recent post, Jeremy said he is not a businessman at heart. Well, it's probably time he hired one.

[Sharknose Bunnies]

At first I was excited about the "something-like" virtuals that were coming. Then when I saw what Challenges were, I was disappointed. Over the next day or so I started coming around to them a bit.

But the fact that you can't edit a challenge you've created once someone accepts it, the fact that people can create identical/similar/muitiple challenges at the same spot, and the fact that there are only mob-rule quality-control factors in place, have left me nonplussed. The overall sense I get is that the whole thing just wasn't very well thought out.

I've enjoyed creating some challenges, and I was thinking that I'll create a second account to log any.

But more and more I've been realizing that Challenges aren't aimed at geocachers. The app is listed in the Social Networking category, which I think says a lot. Challenges are aimed at broadening the customer base for Groundspeak and drawing in the FourSquare/CheckIn/SocialApp crowd. Which is fine, but in the end I'm not sure I want another activity to do on top of Geocaching. I might do one or two interesting ones now and then, but I think that's about it.

[JJnTJ]

The app is easy enough to use that I will probably log find complete them as a secondary thing, if I'm near one and feel like I want a little change-up in my day. For instance, we go to the Science Museum once in a while, so TecGeoJim's Challenge down there will be a nice addition.

Interestingly, the API is up and running fine, so mobile apps that use the API have been working all day, despite the main site's implosion.

[JJnTJ]

Another step forward: Instead of just "This Challenge has been archived", they at least tell you the possible reasons why:

http://www.geocaching.com/challenges/view.aspx?cx=CX1EB

[mayberryman]

My family and I completed 4 challenges today. To be honest, we had a lot of fun. I am not really worried about them not being considered "real finds". We put a lot more energy and effort into "completing" them then finding some caches. The 4 we found today, were not different than the original virtuals. Those that I feel are not worthy of completing I will thumbs down and not complete.
Someone I know is not a huge fan of geocaching, and today they went with us and had a good time completing "challenges".

Not so much a fan of the worldwide challenges. Geocaching should be about going somewhere (specific) and exploring our world. Kissing a frog is not that. I didn't do it. My 2 cents.

[sir_zman]

[Sharknose Bunnies]