[GeoStL] seen in the forums more and more......

  • From: Glenn <glenn.geocachingadmin@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "St. Louis Area Geocachers" <geocaching@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 15:44:24 -0500

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passed along without comment.... 
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Dep&Uno&Co has just posted a new topic entitled "Where Has The Creativity 
Gone?" in forum "Midwest".
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Hey all

We just recently moved to Indianapolis, but this was becoming a problem back in 
Northern VA as well and from what I see, it is almost everywhere.

When we got here to Indy, we immediately put in our home coords and what did we 
get in search results? Pages and pages and pages of micros. Now, we have 
nothing against a well thought out micro. But, it seems as though micros are 
now the norm instead of the exception. They are popping up on every street 
corner in our area, and there is no creativity, no thought, no anything to 
them. They aren't even fun to go out and hunt. We do them because they are all 
that's out there. There are a few people who get creative with containers or 
with the spot they are placed in, but these are rare. Most are just placed on a 
street corner, just so that they can say they have one placed.

What happened to people actually placing (gasp??!??!?!?) ammo boxes where you 
could trade items and not just find a wet log. What happened to people creating 
caches that were big enough to trade items in, and that you could put an item 
in without fear of it being muggled? What happened to caches that were actually 
more than 1 star and where you had to walk more than 500 feet from where you 
parked?

Now, before anyone goes off, I will say that we currently only have one adopted 
cache that is ours. We had another that was stolen, and another that we gave 
away when we moved. We don't believe in just placing 35mm film canisters 
everywhere so we can say we have caches placed.

When caches are just placed willy nilly, it really starts to ruin the sport. We 
have seen a few caches where the description tells you where to park, and 
exactly where the container is. You don't even need a GPS. We constantly see a 
cache that was placed, soon get crossed off because it was muggled....hmmm, 
maybe because it was outside the local Starbucks? There is a cache in our area 
that log after log tells how the employees at a local repair shop literally 
TELL people exactly where the cache is located, so all you really have to do is 
stand on the corner and they will tell you where to go. What is the point? Yes 
you get another cache find, but is it rewarding?

We have lost 7 travel bugs now before they even reached 1000 miles, all because 
of them being placed in caches that were too public.

Now, we are currently working on two, possibly three 4 - 5 star caches that 
will not be for the faint of heart 
but, these take time and planning. We got the idea from a really awesome cache 
in Virginia called "Blood & Guts in Virginia". We started that when it first 
was published and it was a doozy. Unfortunately, we never got to finish it, but 
many people have now. Even just working on the first 2 stages was so rewarding. 
I can tell you that what was required for stage one of that cache made us think 
we were crazy, requiured 3 trips to complete (our fault) and was extremely 
messy. And we weren't even sure we were in the right place, but the pics we 
took once we found what we were looking for really made our day. We hope to 
finish it someday.

All we are saying is that people really should try to put some thought in and 
make the game more challenging instead of continually dumbing it down. There is 
definately a place for a few micros and a few quick P&G's here and there. Every 
neighborhood needs a few. But, can't there be a few challenges that make you 
think? that make people have to work together? That actually have a really nice 
payoff that makes you glad that you spent the time and solved the puzzle.

Sigh. I will stop ranting now. I am just really frustrated with the whole 
thing. Hopefully, others will jump on and really put some thought into some new 
caches for the 2nd half of 2006. 

If anyone in the Indy area is interested in helping us create ours, let us know.

Dep&Uno

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