2010-12-21 Mundia, The Game

Genealogy Badge

Mundia

Remember Mundia? Maybe you already forgot about it, but it is the social genealogy that Ancestry introduced a year ago, to compete with FamilyLink née We're Related and Geni.com. You should know about it; Mundia is still in Beta, and while it remains in beta, everyone gets full access to all features - and that includes free access to all profiles. Mundia uses the same database as Ancestry.com Family Trees, and it contains more than two billion profiles now.

logging in

I just noticed that Mundia forgot about me, perhaps because I did not log often enough? Anyway, when I tried to log in, it did not recognise my password. I acted as if I had forgotten my password, received an email, clicked the link, entered my password again, and again (Mundia asks you to enter it twice, as it should). After doing so, I got to see this web page:

Mundia Server Error

Such a hard error was a bit unexpected, but it just proves that Mundia is still in beta.

Anyway, I remember what I discovered a year ago: Mundia still does not tell you this, but there is no such thing as a Mundia account. You log into Mundia with your Ancestry.com account. After logging in, I clicked on Your Home Page, and got that error page again.

Mundia is a game now

It appears that I may have been wrong when I described Mundia as Ancestry.com's social genealogy site. Apparently, it isn't a genealogy site at all, it is a game. When I checked out Family Tree, I was welcomed back by a new dialog box, which encouraged me to Earn points as you build your family tree and preserve your family history for future generations.

The dialog box further informs me that You've earned 4 points for already completing some of the tasks in your family!, and the button below it invites me to View tasks

Task List

Mundia has a Task List now. This is what it looks like. You get two points for adding your father, two points for adding your mother, and one point for adding a sibling. Apparently, users without a sibling are out of luck.

When you add a sibling to your family tree, Mundia will immediately prompts you to invite them to Mundia. I am not sure whether this prompting was already part of Mundia a year ago, but this aspect of adding individuals to Mundia is probably the real reason for the new point system; Ancestry likes it if you add more individuals to your tree, but they'd like it even more if you invite your family to become Mundia members.

It would be a good idea for Ancestry.com to hire a genealogist to assist them in developing this application.

points

You get two points for each parent, one point for your sibling, three for your grandfather and your grandmother, five for your great-grandfather and your great-grandmother, and eight for your great-great-grandfather and your great-great-grandmother.

The creators of the Mundia apparently not only assume that you have a sibling, but even assume that you have exactly one sibling. The even assume that you have one grandfather and one grandmother, instead of the more usual two grandfather and two grandmothers. They even seem to think that you have just one great-grandfather and great-grandmother and just one great-great-grandfather and great-great-grandmother.

These are some unbelievably basic blunders. It would be a good idea for Ancestry.com to hire a genealogist to assist them in developing this application.

goals

You don't get points for adding additional siblings or more than one pair of ancestors in each ancestral generation. You don't get any points for adding children, and none for adding aunts or uncles either. The new point system seems focussed on two things; obtaining several generations of your ancestors and getting your siblings to sign up. Both are fairly logical goals for a social genealogy site; they want you to become invested in their site and want living individuals to become members. These goals are underscored by the other two things you can earn points for; you get five points for adding five family photos and eight points for inviting five family members.

rewards

badges

The points you've gathered are displayed at the bottom of the Family Tree page, but what are these points good for? The Task page displays a progress bar. If you hover over it, a tooltips tells you that This shows your progress towards earning the next badge. So, the points get a badge. Mundia is a game.

To earn the badge, you do not need to complete all the tasks on the task list shown. You need to get a certain number of points. After adding all the family members the task list prompts for, I had 34 points, and a dialog box appeared to congratulate me on becoming an official Mundia seedling, and, as if it where some FarmVille accomplishment, suggested that I posted this to FaceBook. You earn this badge by collecting 32 points.

Mundia First Badge: Mundia seedling

Mundia: badge progress on Your Home Page

The Mundia seedling badge seems to be the only badge you can earn right now. When I checked back on the Task page, Mundia did not show the next badge I could earn, it merely showed a question mark.
Mundia shows your badge progress on multiple pages. It is on your Task page, on your Family Tree page and on Your Home Page. The image to the left shows how prominent the progress bar and the View Tasks button appears on Your Home Page.

features

There is some text below the progress bar on the Task page: Earn points and unlock features as you build your family tree. The more you discover and save, the more you earn. Plus, you'll preserve your family history for future generations..

You will have to unlock Mundia features by earning the prerequisite Mundia game score.

What it says there is that there are two kinds of rewards for collecting points in the Mundia game: badges and features. Let sink in for a moment what it says there: some Mundia features will only be available when you have the qualifying Mundia game score. You will have to unlock Mundia features by earning the prerequisite Mundia game score.

What kind of features will be unlocked by scoring points is not clear yet. What is clear is that Ancestry has turned its social genealogy site into a game where you can earn badges to post to your FaceBook profile. It is an offer I passed.