Mission Day: "MISSIONS" Criteria
Breenzy
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Can we get clarification of how the missions should be designed?
The guidelines don't give too much detail to this aspect.
eg, this one in Brisbane Australia is walkable in a loop
while this one in Irvine is clearly not
Is one design correct and one wrong? Are they both correct? A hybrid?
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Comments
Neither the words "walk," "walking," nor "walkable" appear anywhere in the guidelines, so you've already assumed more than you should. Niantic doesn't really stop MD organizers from creating "driving missions," even though I think they should.
Historically, most Mission Days in the U.S. have looked like your second, "hybrid" example: Individual missions are walkable, but not all of the missions are close enough to walk in one walk. Because that's just how U.S. cities are -- history and landmarks are spread out, because most U.S. cities were built or expanded around driving.
You're overthinking this. Relatively few agents go for all 18 missions. As long as your MD has one or two "walkable 6" clusters that can be walked under the recommended 2 hours, you're fine. If a few missions get stuck on the outskirts of town to create a challenge for the "all 18" agents (like me), that's OK -- we're used to it.
I'm not an expert here, but there have been Mission Days where the 18 missions were intended to form a banner of sorts (the first example), and ones where the Missions simply highlighted spots of interest (the second example). Neither is more correct or more wrong than the other.
In terms of design, it's best to decide what you want to highlight about the place, and to accommodate how people will be moving about. Some prefer to walk. Some refuse to get out of their car. Some might be mobility-impaired. Etc.