Munzee

[GeoBill]

We joined Munzee a couple weeks ago. We have two hidden in Wisconsin. Just happened to be in Minneapolis when about a dozen were released and used an Iphone with no problems finding them, coords were very close. We hadn’t expected to be doing any when we were there. Thought this would be fun when there is not enough time to hunt for actual geocaches which we like best. Actually had a fun time discovering many small parks in Minneapolis that might be hard to put a regular cache in. Hope the whole concept keeps growing.
The Searchers

[2CraziesMSN]

It went down Friday night. Too bad, I wanted to find a few.

[-cheeto-]

@Marble Guy wrote:

It went down Friday night. Too bad, I wanted to find a few.

Some info from their facebook page: (this was posted Friday)

Munzee is officially OFFLINE until tomorrow. I (Snicker) took the server completely offline by accident. We will won’t be able to get physical access to the box until tomorrow to repair my error. Sorry guys!

No data is lost. Everything is retained, I just disabled the ability for the server to talk to the internet. It’s setting there lonely wondering why no one is playing Munzee tonight 🙂

We weren’t testing new code or any changes. It was a production environment error we were trying to fix that failed after the facility power outage.

Despite the headaches this week we are still having so much fun with this project! New features in the apps are about to roll out to beta testers and we hope you guys still stick around this weekend 🙂

[rcflyer2242]

I first read this post this morning. Going to have to place some of these around my town. I have a few caches with QR codes on the pages and am working on a puzzle cache that will have them as waypoints. They are so cool you can embed video’s in them or even costumize them to look like art.
This one http://coord.info/GC2XA7J has a nastalgic vid attached to it.
Let the added fun of geocaching with QR codes begin.

[-cheeto-]

Looks like they turned back on their server.

[benny7210]

Sharing what I found on Munzee. No more paper logs. Or pen required.

http://www.timesleaderonline.com/page/content.detail/id/532285/Munzee-sub-game-garnering-interest.html?nav=5010

[CodeJunkie]

@benny7210 wrote:

Sharing what I found on Munzee. No more paper logs. Or pen required.

http://www.timesleaderonline.com/page/content.detail/id/532285/Munzee-sub-game-garnering-interest.html?nav=5010

I found these quotes from the article a bit interesting (i.e. disturbing):

the premise of Munzee is that it takes the fun of geocaching while discarded a lot of the tediousness involved

You don’t have to worry about … log your cache and making comments.

It’s definately different than geocaching and this makes it sound more like Foursquare to me than geocaching.

[benny7210]

This game is really taking off. Look at the numbers. Not bad for
a little over one month since it’s inception.

Munzee’s Deployed 7,270
Munzee’s Captures 13,631
Total players 4,661

[Team Vaughan]

I just placed one in Sussex.

[redhead3434]

This seems more like geocaching than those new challenges. 🙂

[Todd300]

I’m not completely sold on Munzees.

I knew about this months ago but never bothered with them despite having an android phone.

Then I received a log some time ago from one of my caches that said something like “Was out looking for munzees and decided to grab this cache that was nearby.”

I didn’t realize my area had munzees so I made an account and sho’ ’nuff there are about a dozen munzees in the area.

So I decided to go get one today just to see what it is like. As it turns out, it was just less than 30 feet from a geocache. Thankfully the munzee itself was only a laminated QR code hung from a tree and was marked as a munzee, not a geocache. I scanned it and left.

But it made me think – what is to prevent new geocachers from confusing munzees with actual geocaches if they are placed close together?

Then again, I’ve already seen it happen with Letterboxing as many letterboxes are near caches as well but at least letterboxing has been around for a long time, even before geocaching I believe.

I’ve accidentally found a letterbox a couple times thinking it was a cache. One letterbox was just 30 feet away from the cache itself.

I feel the same will happen with Munzees. Newbies may end up confusing the two.

Hopefully Munzees are just a passing fad and will eventually disappear with time. The only reason I’m even finding them in my immediate area is so I am aware of their locations so that if I want to place a cache, I know to put it far enough away from the munzee to avoid confusement.

But I won’t be actually be playing munzee just to play munzee. As someone said, it’s a lazy man’s geocaching game and it’s for the numbers too. And I’m not a numbers person.

[gotta run]

And some ‘boxers characterize geocaching as a lazy man’s version of letterboxing. No pesky stamps you need to carve and no clues to decipher to figure out where the box is, just follow the little arrow on your screen.

All a matter of perspective……..

On the Left Side of the Road...

[CodeJunkie]

@gotta run wrote:

And some ‘boxers characterize geocaching as a lazy man’s version of letterboxing. No pesky stamps you need to carve and no clues to decipher to figure out where the box is, just follow the little arrow on your screen.

All a matter of perspective……..

But at least ‘cachers write descriptive logs of the adventure along the way to where that little arrow points. 😉 😆 🙄

[Todd300]

Exactly. Log writing is one of my favorite parts of geocaching along with a nice hike in the woods followed by finding creative well hidden geocaches.

Munzees is just for the numbers. No fun in that. TFTC loggers should go do munzees because then they won’t even have to write “TFTC” at all. Just scan and go.

[GetMeOutdoors]

I think this new game has some merit, particularly because of what I’ve been reading in the “what will kill the game” thread. It’s obvious that there are alot of people out there playing the geocaching game that find aspects of the game “tedious” and not in-line with the area of the game they enjoy. geocaching, although typically done individually or in very small groups, is a highly social game. The social aspects are shared primarily through logs (written and on-line), forums such as this, and at events. There is a “sharing” aspect to the game that alot of people enjoy and feel are an integral part of the game.

It’s become obvious however that many do not want to play the game that way and have no fondness for that aspect. I think we’ve seen this in the “TFTC” logs, the “.” logs, the aggravated owners, etc. Munzees are a great solution to the geocacher who wants the numbers, doesn’t care to interact with others playing, but wants to get out and do something. To be honest, I’d rather have them leave and go do that than aggravate active and participatory geocahers.

I’ve often heard people say “play the game how you want to” and to a certain degree it’s good to have that kind of flexibility in the game – when there’s something for everyone to love. But when and if flexibility stretches too far and deviates from the nature of what the game is (i.e. being numbers driven instead of experience driven) then you end up with people who have been participating for a long time getting very frustrated and upset. I get the feeling from the “what will kill the game” thread that many people feel that the flexibility has gone too far. If offering an alternative to geocaching let’s those people go off and have their own game, then that sounds like a good thing.

Besides the numbers, it seems like Munzees might have a few other special things up their sleeves – like prizes for the FTFers and different special themed munzees – execution may prove to be difficult with that but if they can pull it off it will be another attractive aspect to the game that GC cannot offer.

While I am merry to let those dissatisfied with the “tediousness” of geocaching to go have their own game, it’s real easy to get to the point of advocating a separate game for every aspect of the game (i.e. puzzle solving, earth caches, etc.) and I’m not trying to do that. Just trying to point out that some of the frustration alot of people are feeling MIGHT be somewhat alleviated by this Munzee alternative. Frankly, there are lot of geocaches that may as well just be munzees too. So this may be an alternative for the caches as well as the players.

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