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Same locations again and again

Same location keep showing up again and again. There's rarely a game without a place that I've been before. Below few samples of games that have had same places than other games:

https://geoguessr.com/results/jN32mbBnUJJXeoVe

  • 41.549544, 2.427920 Mataro, Spain <-- Later
  • 53.810035, -1.593324 Leeds, Great-Britain <-- Later
  • 48.122044, -1.680882 Rennes, France <-- Later
  • 41.578387, 12.793701 Cisterna di Latina, Italy
  • 43.389179, -8.085564 Ferrol, Spain

https://geoguessr.com/results/1v3hesFfmimWHKJJ

  • 41.549544, 2.427920 Mataro,Spain <-- Again
  • 51.282769, 0.524876 Maidstone,Great-Britain
  • 41.857277, 12.477544 Rome,Italy
  • 42.098148, 14.699704 Vasto,Italy
  • 41.122794, 16.850255 Bari,Italy

https://geoguessr.com/results/Yq79jP5RwfRP0ujM

  • 45.790595, 15.965817 Zagreb,Croatia
  • 49.403752, 15.589916 Jihlava,Czech
  • 45.575687, 14.238379 Ilirska Bistrica, Slovenia <-- Later
  • 41.787814, 3.021031 Sant Feliu de Guíxols, Spain
  • 53.810035, -1.593324 Leeds, Great-Britain <-- Again

https://geoguessr.com/results/yYYcQiEDYm0v6oNI

  • 45.575687, 14.238379 Ilirska Bistrica, Slovenia <-- Again
  • 39.087469, -9.217396 Near Torres Vedras, Spain
  • 53.120448, 18.006588 Bydgoszcz, Poland
  • 58.595500, -3.522532 Thurso, Great-Britain
  • 60.247746, 24.059935 Lohja, Finland

https://geoguessr.com/results/CqoqocRSPOGy6sER

  • 53.742369, -0.318299 Hull, Great-Britain
  • 42.614105, 23.027164 Pernik, Bulgaria
  • 50.913376, -1.400810 Southampton, Great-Britain <-- Later
  • 38.908239, 1.417285 Ibiza, Spain
  • 48.122044, -1.680882 Rennes, France <-- Again

https://geoguessr.com/results/SAFN9sZtFiWpAYlh

  • 47.361297, 0.691945 Tours France
  • 51.303032, 7.217943 Wuppertal Germany
  • 52.696358, 6.185242 Meppel Netherlands <-- Later
  • 37.979188, 23.719262 Athens Greece
  • 48.835809, 2.307160 Paris France

https://geoguessr.com/results/BQg3meNMhWYIw341

  • 50.425942, 2.818018 Lens, France
  • 54.004614, 16.984470 Miastko, Poland
  • 52.696358, 6.185242 Meppel, Netherlands <-- Again
  • 50.913376, -1.400810 Southampton, Great-Britain <-- Again
  • 53.205987, 6.613727 Groningen, Netherlands

This can't just be bad luck that RNG puts me same spots twice, if it does it (almost) every time. There must be some bug in algorithm that generates places.

Attached file:
https://kundo.se/site_media/attachment/forum_93...

ttv

Comments

  • Wow, that's a thorough report. I see it's on the European map - I only play the world map, so I haven't had any double locations (though I have heard from them as well).

    I certainly hope the developers can do something with this information! :-)

    Carel
  • Well, it happens that I just came across a double location in a World-game!

    It is twice that I have been placed on the exact same spot in Northern Russia. And I have heard from a third guy who has been placed in that exact same spot in one of his own games as well!

    This is the place (in Apatity, Murmansk): https://www.google.com/maps/place/67%C2%B035'03.7%22N+33%C2%B024'49.8%22E/@67.584358,33.413833,10z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x0

    The first game: https://geoguessr.com/results/iSbHqSJbFtXuE5CR
    The second game: https://geoguessr.com/results/qR4NjsZRIS34pg77

    I find it odd how exact the locations match. I'm very interested in how the location selection algorithm works.

    Carel
  • Alright, another duplicate location in the world game, Mexico this time: https://www.google.com/maps/@28.419217,-108.570...

    The first game: https://geoguessr.com/results/FWdiPJPW5y6slbk8
    The second game: https://geoguessr.com/results/E6mRkisIadAy0Syg

    And it's funny that both times I guess on the other side of the country... ;-)

    Carel
  • I've been sometimes even 3-4 times in same place. Here's one set of games that i was in Kouvola, Finland. Games 2 & 3 were consecutive games.

    https://geoguessr.com/results/yFfDo2IyHFmCPXgP

    • 48.857505, 2.328993 Paris, France
    • 45.663974, 25.631171 Brasov, Romania
    • 60.885158, 26.724202 Kouvola, Finland
    • 56.936199, 24.142578 Riga, Latvia
    • 41.079056, -8.657250 Porto, Portugal

    https://geoguessr.com/results/st0CwoJPCZ9WvaqQ

    • 39.070342, -3.614485 Daimiel, Spain
    • 36.721441, -4.383528 Malaga, Spain
    • 60.885158, 26.724202 Kouvola, Finland
    • 55.913791, -4.424734 Glasgow, Great-Britain
    • 50.784875, -1.060225 Portsmouth, Great-Britain

    https://geoguessr.com/results/GJYnSl1bWZeBpCtK

    • 40.338204, -3.790334 Leganes, Spain
    • 60.885158, 26.724202 Kouvola, Finland
    • 45.767470, 21.203852 Timisoara, Romania
    • 52.951979, 5.916268 Heerenveen, Netherlands
    • 48.092903, 20.764292 Miskolc, Hungary
    ttv
  • Carel
  • Carel
  • Well, it does happen a lot... Kansas this time. Also, one time I was dropped very close to this exact spot, but it was no duplicate.

    https://www.google.com/maps/place/37%C2%B043'00.6%22N+100%C2%B000'54.6%22W/@37.716836,-100.015156,10z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x0

    Game 1: https://geoguessr.com/results/46sZd3DDzLQhfzee
    Game 2: https://geoguessr.com/results/Asiti2fSrfFXeYXg

    Carel
  • Okay, this is interesting... Right now, for the first time in different World-games, I had a single location appearing three times!

    In Russia: https://www.google.com/maps/place/60%C2%B054'13.2%22N+35%C2%B016'35.7%22E/@60.903653,35.276595,10z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x0

    Game 1: https://geoguessr.com/results/HbliEXwdHQ10v4eS
    Game 2: https://geoguessr.com/results/y4LK7hXlp5ocv8yZ
    Game 3: https://geoguessr.com/results/C4IGx9k37AZogs8M

    Now how random could that have been? :P

    Carel
  • Hi Carel and ttv

    Thanks a lot for the feedback and the thorough reports!

    ttv: I noticed that a few of your games used the EU map. We've had some similar complaints regarding this map in the past and it's most likely due to fact that the location pool for this map is a bit too small, we're working on increasing this!

    Carel: That is very weird, thanks for the links, we'll look into it!

    Kind regards,

    Anton
  • Mark
  • Thanks Mark,

    We'll have a look at it!

    regards,

    Mikael
  • Hi, new player here! I love playing speed rounds (60 sec) in Sweden with my mates, and within a couple of hours the same locations keep popping up again and again. Seeing as the Swedish map is real easy to begin with (i.e. thoroughly signed along the roads), couldn't you implement a hardcore mode with completely random locations? Perhaps that would be a welcome addition for your international players as well?

    Love the game, cheers!

    Daniel
  • Thanks Daniel, we'll have a look at the Sweden map however the locations should be picked randomly already.

    regards,

    Mikael
  • I have been playing the "famous places" maps and get the same locations over & over again. Can you maybe try adding Maho Beach in St Maarten, Banff/Jasper Alberta, Whistler BC, Hotel california in Tudos Santos MX, petra at Jordan, Tombstone AZ, places in Africa etc. Other than that, I am completely addicted to this game!

    L Blondie
  • Hi L Blondie,

    Thanks for the suggestions! I'll see what I can do. However some locations are not covered by Google street view. For example coverage in Africa is pretty poor which limits us some what. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverage_of_Googl...

    Thanks again for the suggestions!

    regards,

    Mikael
  • I have played on the swedish map quite a bit and I agree on this issue. I'm pretty sure I don't get the exact locations I've had before. But they are often located very close so after a couple of turns I recognize that I've been there before.
    *Outside Brålanda, Vänersborg a couple of times, the given locations were very close on the same road, Färgelandavägen. I quickly recognised a couple of horses on the side of the road, the second time.
    *Vilhelmina: It's not a big place, so even if the locations were on different sides of the town, after a short time moving around I recognized a pizza place.
    *Nybro, Småland. The first time I moved a kilometer to get to a crossing on road 31 where I could get my location. Later I was placed exacly on that crossing.
    *Storuman, Stensele. Not far apart and not that far from Vilhelmina (I guess this is because the low density locations in north of Sweden.)
    ... There are more places I've ended up very close to where I've been earlier.

    It's nice to get locations all over Sweden, but maybe the randomizer should be weighted by the data density. I'm rarely placed in places like Stockholm, Göteborg and Malmö or their suburbs, but I get placed in the same village in the north of Sweden several times....that's not right.

    Other than that, great ting you have here. Some improvements and it would be even better. I really like looking for clues and make deductions form the information. Thank you.

    Daniel
  • Hi Daniel

    Thanks for the feedback! We've gotten a few reports where the location selection seems a bit off and we're looking into it!
    The distribution between rural and urban areas is perhaps the area where we've gotten the most feedback. The main problem is that the users' preference varies greatly between each user. At the moment we're applying slight tweaks to the location selection constantly to improve the experience but in the future I think we may need to allow users to influence this in some way.

    Kind regards,

    Anton
  • I've been playing Geoguessr quite a bit lately. It's a great game, however, I do have the same problem with the same locations occurring over and over again. I often play the map of the Netherlands, and almost every time it drops me in an exact location I've been before.

    Of course, the Netherlands is a small country, but since it is densely populated and virtually every road is included in Streetview, there should still be literally millions of places where you could end up - so the same view locations occuring over and over again is a bit too much of a coindicence to me. So I'm curious how does this work - Daniel says the locations are radomly selected, but are they randomly selected from a (limited) set of locations? Or could you end up literally in any place with Streetview coverage (in which case I would find the duplications very hard to understand)?

    DavidE
  • Hi David

    Sorry, for the delayed response. The locations are randomly selected from a fixed but very large pool of locations (there are some exceptions like on "special maps"). The size of the pool varies between each map but they are large enough so that a user, in theory, should never experience the same location twice. Do you often experience the exact same locations on the Netherlands map or are the locations just very close to each other?

    Kind regards,

    Anton
  • https://geoguessr.com/results/zCTcmwUxV4fGWP1t

    This was an interesting famous places map. Except that we got dropped at Stockholm stadio, TWICE, and right after eachother... That really shouldnt happen. You should have some kind of block that prevents being at the same famous place in the same game, i mean get it out of the pool of possibilities so to say.

    Raven
  • Hi Raven,

    Yep agree that shouldn't be possible, we'll look into it.
    Thanks for the feedback.

    best,

    Mikael
  • EU map here, this issue comes up A LOT lately. I keep on getting the Giardino di Boboli in Florence (3 times in 2 days), Pramvej Street in Randers, Denmark (2 times), some building with a bus station in front of it in the downtown of Tallin, Estonia ( 3 times), etc.

    Andrea
  • Is it possible for you or Google to eliminate regions - without exception US States - where the image is distorted, and over exposed, and unfocused? I have had so many of these locations I sometimes feel like giving up the pleasure of Geoguessr entirely.

    Chris Nanaimo
  • Hi Andrea,

    Sorry for late reply. The problem with the EU map might be that there's a limited pool of locations to choose from. I'll bring it up with the team and see if we can add more locations to it. In the meantime do you know that you can build your own maps with a pro account, it comes with a 10-day free trial if you just want to check it out. Maybe you can build a better EU map?

    Thanks for playing!

    regards,

    Mikael
  • Hi Chris,

    Google update the images all the time and we're trying to get rid of old ones with poor quality and switch in new ones when we detect them. Hopefully it gets better and better, but I agree it's really annoying to get a bad one.

    Thanks for playing!

    regards,

    Mikael
  • This issue is still persistent on some maps, such as Great Britain. I've been playing that map a lot as I wanted to break a 25000-points time set by GeoguessrWizard (haven't succeeded yet), and there are a few locations that repeatedly pop up. Which means I now remember the locations of a golf club near Swansea and a factory near Workington by heart.

    JfromHolland
  • It's still happening repeatedly in the free game four years later... the same street in Malaysia three times, outside a Peroni building in Italy twice, multiple other duplicates. And just for added fun once to a rooftop swimming pool in a us city with nowhere to move and nothing to identify a location at all
    Matt
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