As one who was crazed the first month or two, then switched to “oh, so this was a lonely cache, cool” as we did our usual thing (we enjoy tougher terrain and did lots of canoe caches, which got us “coincidental points), I’m wondering about a different twist. I’m sure it won’t be popular with those who worked their butts off all year, but it might motivate others to get out and play a little harder, which will ultimately lead to greater participation and attention to the ones that are really lacking visits.

Let’s say that each month, some predetermined number of points puts you into the “bragging rights” pot. Prizes are nice, but honestly, it seemed to be more about bragging rights. So, a person finds or checks on X number of lonely caches. Their name gets thrown into the hat for that month for the prize. Maybe we don’t even know what that number is, only some anonymous board member or someone like that. I know this is just like the kids in t-ball; no score is kept, but the kids know exactly who won. But at least this way, others who have given it a good shot have a chance at some level of bragging rights. It was fun at first, and I especially enjoyed those “wow, this hasn’t been found in a YEAR?” caches, but unless our travels took us to the hinterlands (which is our preference), we weren’t getting to those areas with concentrations of lonelies to be checked.

Another part of me would like to see some way to recognize people’s efforts to help with cache maintenance, whether it’s lonely or not. Lots of replacement pencils and logs go into the lonelies, but not into others found that need the TLC? I guess the point I’m trying to make is that maybe we don’t need to burden Dave with keeping track like this on top of everything else he does, but create a way to encourage everyone to help out where they can, bragging rights, prizes or not. There were instances where I could have gained a few more points by putting out a replacement cache, but the owners seemed to have left the game, so why do that? Sometimes I think in our excitement to get points, it was easy to put out replacements when really, archiving might have been the better option. After I did a couple like that early on, I gave it more thought and opted not to replace unless I’d already contacted the cache owner.

As I said, these are just my thoughts as someone who “coulda been a contenda,” but just didn’t have it in me. I really want to commend Dave for setting this all up and making it pretty easy for players to track things, and for putting up with all the questions and other stuff that went along with it. In the end, it has helped improve the Wisconsin caching experience, even if there are places that still need help.

How do you get more particpation?= How do you get non-WGA members involved in the WGA?
Once you get ouside of the urban-metro areas, there are alot of cachers who don’t know about the WGA or LCG. Just how many ACTIVE WGA members live north of hwy 29 or 8 or whatever highway you want to use.
There were less than a handful of participants from this area.
Myself, Zuma and PassingWind are the only ones that I know of that took part in the game, thou there could be more that I am not awear of.

And even thou it was apain to put together, the map helped out a lot too.

@seldom|seen wrote:

@Team Deejay wrote:

As we are in the last month of the year, it seems like a good time to review the Lonely Cache Game and decide if we need to make any changes to the program. So far we have had around 66 participants, which is good, and around 10 crazed individuals who make it their life’s work to “win”, which is not so good. While I am very happy that a lot of these caches are getting found (or not found), I’m thinking we need to do something to encourage more participation in areas outside of the Fox Cities/Green Bay area. I don’t have any really great ideas, but I do have a few thoughts to start the conversation.

Thanks for starting the conversation now. I thought that we’d dicsuss this at the Only the Lonely Event, but then next year’s game will already have started, so it makes sense to talk through some of this stuff now.

I’m not sure I agree with the statement about the 10 crazed players of which I am one, and I’ll get into the why’s further on…

@Team Deejay wrote:

1. I’m a little disappointed that many of the “very lonely” (longer than 1 year unfound) caches continue to be ignored. Maybe we need more incentive for these.

I don’t there’s anything that you will be able to do to further encourage players to get these. The serious player are going for the really tough ones as it is and the double point incentive is certainly a good reward for the effort some of them require. Also, I would couch the comment about the serious players by saying that many of these very lonely caches would not have been found if not for the game and for the top ten contenders. I think getting the word out is different than trying to confine regions to regional players. There have been months when a player in LaCrosse or EauClaire could have cleaned the board if they cared to, but the interest wasn’t there and it wasn’t because the Valley players were playing hard either.

I think if you emphasize the yearly totals and the top 10 or top 20 players getting some kind of reward or recognition that might go farther than the monthly winner bragging rights and rewards in sparking more interest in the game.

@Team Deejay wrote:

2. I’m not sure that the “prizes” motivate anyone.

Agreed, while nice, I certainly am not playing hard to win the prize. I like the idea of handing out awards at the end of the year which is why I am going to be doing that for the top 10 at the Event.

@Team Deejay wrote:

3. If we are going to continue with prizes, I would like to have a volunteer to coordinate prize acquisition and distribution. Apparently I am not real good at coordinating this sort of thing.

See previous comment….

@Team Deejay wrote:

4. I’m thinking we need to “better” incorporate the Cache Rescue program.

Agreed. There caches should be part of the list and there should be a new checkbox for “performed rescue mission – 4 points”

@Team Deejay wrote:

5. I’m also thinking that the scoring is a bit too complicated, but I am reluctant to change this and make more work for Jeremy. (This is what I get for copying stuff from Indiana!)

I don’t know that the scoring is that complicated. I think that I agree with T&B that we should just get rid of the maintenance points and simply expect that anyone in the lonely game should make it a point to do what they can to doctor up caches.

There’s a big one here that we need to talk through and that is the replacements of MIA caches, of which there have been many. Sometimes the replacements are much appreciated and pre-approved, sometimes the opposite is true. I think in the future there needs to be some kind of verification widget that sends the owner of a lonely cache an e-mail requesting permission for entry into the LCG and permission for any player to replace and MIA cache. Not sure how it would work, but if those suspect caches were green-lighted for replacement prior to hunting that would make it a lot easier on us all.

@Team Deejay wrote:

So, chime in, post your thoughts, challenge each other, and I will sit back and take it all in. Just be aware that this is a sort of “brainstorming” thread, so not everything mentioned will be implemented. The goal is to make the game more fun for all participants.

I have more thoughts to come…

Thanks Alex for writing this. I agree with 100% of your many well made points. You saved me the time of typing them.

Also thanks to Dave for being willing to make some slight modifications in the game to help it run smoother, and thanks for soliciting the input of the players.

zuma

Tie “winners” to the period rather than monthly. (for instance, Nov/Dec).

“Officially” recognize more yearly prizes (thanks to s|s for going ahead and doing it this year). I think yearly is much more attainable for most players.

Perhaps give out WGA coins, apparel, “free” campout entry, etc. as prizes? Continue to try to spread the word about the WGA…

To simplify scoring: Get rid of all maintenance points. (as is mentioned, this should be done regardless and we should stop encouraging the replacement of containers without owner consent as has been discussed in another thread) Get rid of “revisit” points, which in my opinion are lame.

Points for a DNF should take into consideration the difficulty AND the terrain. I have DNF’ed many difficult lonely caches and would like “credit” for a tough puzzle solve or jumping through the hoops that often come with 3+ star difficulty lonely caches.

Should a player be able to get points for a DNF and find on the same cache in the same period? Multiple dnf’s? Something to think about.

Somehow increase value of performing a cache rescue and finding those year + lonely caches.

Overall the current model seems to have worked pretty well this year. Yeah there’s always the nuts in the room…

Some odd thoughts …..

1. Tell Dave he can not play any longer!

2. Give a substantial number of points for a Cache rescue.

3. But, limit a player to only 1 cache rescue per month.

4. Or, make it mandatory to find 1 cache rescue per month, to ‘win’.

5. A Team can only win one month a year. Any other months they are high score, their name is thrown out.

Actually, I think Dave can still play but he should be considered a celebrity player who will be playing for his favorite charity.

@seldom|seen wrote:

I do this this is a valuable aspect of the game but by the same token needs some kind of constraint imposed to we don’t end up with the same lonely caches next year.

Bingo!

The mechanism for this process is already in place–DNF logs, write notes, “needs maintenance,” and “needs archived.” It’s the owners’ responsibility to maintain caches and therefore respond to those logs. If not, the cache should go through the process of being allowed to die, be removed via cache rescue if needed, and hopefully a better one with a more responsibile owner put in its place which benefits the geocommunity as a whole (not to mention gives everyone a new cache to hunt).