New look site

[theswerve]

At last as promised all traces of challenges have disappeared =D> =D>

[abbeyackbar]

Well spotted Swerve. The Challenges tab is still in our profile, I like their message in it
"In our effort to inspire outdoor play through Geocaching, we are often faced with decisions about what to focus on next, and what to focus on less. It is through these decisions that we explore opportunities to grow the global game of geocaching.

Occasionally, during this process, we are faced with the reality that certain ideas don't catch on as we had hoped. In these situations we owe it to ourselves and to you to make tough decisions about the future of every project and the resources to be applied to each. Sometimes, as a result, cool features must become casualties.

In this spirit, we have decided to retire Geocaching Challenges.

On an office wall here at HQ is a sign that reads, "Let's make better mistakes tomorrow." By accepting that we will sometimes get it wrong, we can allow ourselves to learn from and imagine new opportunities in the world of Geocaching. Our hope is we can take the lessons from Challenges and create better tools to guide you on your next adventure."

In otherwords: "You were right, Challenges sucked"
(or fill in the "In otherwords:__________" yourself )

I remember at the time there was this expectation of what they were going to bring out, and what they were doing was so hushed that people were able to come up with other ideas in the mean time , then when met with the reality it didn't match up to the ideas they had.

So long Challenges , though I won't notice you're gone, you were a Tab on our profile that was never visited.
Feel sorry for anyone who liked Challenge caching though. They came to an abrupt end. Imagine they suddenly took away something from the game or site that I cared for like...oh, I don't know, Trackables! or the gallery Tab


Abbey

[MunsterFan]

Good riddance, it was always rubbish. I tried a few virtual ones and then got them removed from my profile as I felt durty!!!

[TheBigAndyT]

I heard they might replace it with a QR code based games like munzies. This might be just hearsay though

[Fjon]

Surprised they got rid of challenges, and yet Waymarking remains. I guess more people have invested time in Waymarking.
I can't find the release notes for this update - usually they are posted in the forums.
I've noticed a few changes, most obvious being the redesign of a lot of the icons. I don't think I like the grey look of most of the new icons as it's very hard at a glance to make them out.
Take an event cache: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_de ... 8ff26fe011
It's really not that easy to make out "Will Attend", "Write Note" and "Announcement" by icon alone.
One change I do like is there's now a link directly to your GC.com map right beside "Search for geocaches near your home location"

Also just noticed that sometimes that stars for Difficulty and Terrain are red, and sometimes they're blue. What's that about?

[beefy4605]

Never liked them - never did one - won't miss them .
Fair play to them for recognizing that they were a mistake - onwards.

[GoldCircle]

Is it me or has the smiley changed now???

[THE_Chris]

Spotted that yesterday. I don't really like the new smiley, much preferred not the old one, but the original one before it