Board Game Arena

As we did last month, we'd like to introduce some recent changes on BGA.

3D

3D has been introduced 3 weeks ago on BGA. To activate it, you must click on "3D" button on top right during a game :



We want to be very clear about this: we consider that 2D view is better to play online. Please tell us if you think different, but we didn't find a situation where it's more practical to play in 3D. However, we are definitely considering using 3D effects on games from time to time, just for the "eye candy" thing.

Most games are not optimized for 3D at now, so sometimes it looks a little bit weird, but most of the time it's fine and allow us to communicate better on our service. Beside all of this, this is very important for BGA to show everyone (especially, game publishers) that we are capable of having a game in 3D here.

Don't hesitate to give us a feedback on this!

New friends feature



With this new icon on top right, you cannot miss a friend who is online when you are

This new feature is associated to a new Invite a friend button when you create a new table. This way you can invite a friend very fast at your table.

Soon, we will introduce another additional feature for those who like to play with specific players.

Group list

From Community page, there is now a link to list all BGA groups.


Game lobby interface

The simple lobby design change a lot and will continue to change during the following months.

It's a quite powerful tool now that you are using more and more. It allows you to check your ELO from the lobby page + to wait for different realtime games at the same time, which is pretty cool. Please don't hesitate to give us your feedback about it.




Reputation system change

We slightly changed the reputation system:
_ Now you get a double penalty for leaving a game (-20) if you quit 2 games within 1 week (it was 1 month before). This change ensure that we focus the big penalties on players who really abuse of the system, and are more tolerant with the others.
_ When your reputation is really really low, you get more than +1 when you finish a game without any issue. This way, we'd like to encourage players with very low reputation to recover from this situation.

Game interface small changes

By clicking on players names during a game, you can now access their profile.

Some of you asked us to disable the "Turn based personal notes" popup auto showing when loading a turn based game. We consider that if you take some notes during a turn based game, then you'd like to have it back as soon as you get back to this game, but some of you complained about this. For this reason we'd like to experiment the "non-automatic popup" for a while. Please tell us what you think of this.

Finally, we slightly changed the "Go to next table" button, because a lot of you complained that they were clicking on this button by mistake. We hope that the new design will fix this.

Thanks for your continuous support & feedback that allow us to improve this service!

a little note about the increased penalties for 'leaving a game'.

I'm sure I'm not the first person to fall foul of this when my network suddenly fails and, by the time I get it back it appears I now suffer a 20 point reputation penalty.

I appreciate this is hard to police but is it possible we could introduce an 'appeal system' where people can maybe get the 20 points back?

Frequent attempts to abuse this system would obviously lead to requests being ignored.

-20 is for a SECOND penalty. The first is -10, so this is not a big deal.

By the way, we do not remove any point for the very first penalty on BGA.

we consider that 2D view is better to play online. Please tell us if you think different, but we didn't find a situation where it's more practical to play in 3D. However, we are definitely considering using 3D effects on games from time to time, just for the "eye candy" thing.

Most games are not optimized for 3D at now, so sometimes it looks a little bit weird, but most of the time it's fine and allow us to communicate better on our service. Beside all of this, this is very important for BGA to show everyone (especially, game publishers) that we are capable of having a game in 3D here.

Don't hesitate to give us a feedback on this!

Feedback - you are right, 2D view is better to play. If you feel the need to have 3D, go for it. But personally, I'd prefer you spend your time on almost anything else.

As to notes: I primarily use notes when i have several turn based games of the same type going so that it will pop immediately after I goto my next waiting table so I can get a reminder that I am attempting a long sequence of tactics that needs to be carefully executed or that this game looks similar to another but with a glaring difference in what I need to do. This makes me pause and look more closely before making my move. I often cycle through 10 turn based games when getting online for the first time after work or sleep and take all of those turns in less than a minute or so. I actually enjoy the thrill of assessing a board and optimizing my strategy in such a short time period and is a part of the draw to me personally in playing games like this. It forces me to enhance my cognitive recognition and reasoning skills for speed. BUT I do rely on the notes to force me to slow down and look carefully when I have cooked up a plan that requires I follow that exact plan rather than capitalize on the newest advantage offered to me since my last turn. I need to evaluate if my original plan or my new options more tempting.

I agree with turtler7; I cycle through many turn-based games and will completely forget there are notes unless they pop up.

The problem with the turn-based notes isn't that it pops up automatically, it is that it covers info like the scores, which you want to see first, before your notes. The positioning is poor at all times, because I often want to reference the scoring info to write or modify my notes. Solve all the problems by letting us reposition the notes ourselves, or maybe you could just slide it over to the upper left corner.

I'll try to at least organize this:

• 3D: I would agree that 2D view is better for the games. I'll see what it looks like with some games, but I kind of already know I'd prefer 2D. (I don't think the Jaipur example showing looks all that great and seems "muddled.") But I'm also not someone who needs eye candy. I want to be able to see it, distinguish things well, have it work right, etc. I'm with EMBison that I'd rather see time spent elsewhere. Well, I guess if a publisher won't let you have a game without it, that's a different matter, but... is that really happening?
• The friends top right icon... most of the time it's not correct and tends to say there's one more person online than there is, and often disagrees with the one that shows how many players are online, how many friends, how many playing... whatever you call that one. I'm not personally too concerned about it being incorrect as I really don't pay that much attention (since I mostly play turn-based), just pointing it out. I considered it being a refresh delay, but I would think the pop-down list itself and the number showing on the icon would refresh the same? And the number always seems to be exactly 1 too high.
  
  Related: the new rectangle green thing showing if someone is online is very difficult to see IMO. I can hardly tell the difference between when it's highlighted and when it's not. The circle was a much better visual to me. (I'm referring to other locations - such as my profile page.)
• Simple lobby: having your own ELO is a very nice idea. It should be on the advanced view too. One thing I noticed here and I'm surprised I haven't seen a comment on it, is that when I click on the simple lobby, it's still saying "simple lobby" in order to click and get back to advanced, instead of saying "advanced lobby." It's not like I don't know where I am, so again, just pointing it out.
• Reputation system: those are great improvements! I know there isn't a really good answer for when someone has connection issues or emergency, since the system can't tell the difference. I can only hope those people think to report it and see if something can be done. But for those that are "for real," it really is an improvement and gives people a better shot at a second chance.
• Clicking on names during a game: great!
• Turn-based notes: also great! I never publicly complained about it, and oddly I didn't see anyone else do so either, but I didn't like that. (Probably the first thing I've disagreed with tutler7 on.) I don't necessarily need to look at it every turn, or immediately, and I would rather look at the game situation first in most cases, and then look at my notes if I want.
  
  I did once post about wanting it to "float" and no one responded. (But glad to see someone else saying it now.) I've found it especially a problem in Caylus so I stopped using it. If I could move it, I might find having it popping in my face first thing less annoying. I'd like for it to not pop open, and would like to be able to move it. But if I was forced to pick one, I'd rather be able to move it. (Even better if it stays where I last put it on each game.)
• "Go to next table" - I don't really use this since I leave my current games page open, but I think having to confirm it is a bit of a hassle. But then, I never had an issue with how it was to begin with. (I'm on a 17" screen so if I mis-click, it's my own dang fault... or the cat's. )

Liallan wrote:[*]"Go to next table" - I don't really use this since I leave my current games page open, but I think having to confirm it is a bit of a hassle. But then, I never had an issue with how it was to begin with. (I'm on a 17" screen so if I mis-click, it's my own dang fault... or the cat's. )[/list]

Oh, I see. The arrow/confirm thing is when you want to skip over that game, and the old red "go to next game" box (w/no confirm) is when you've finished your turn. Hmm. Since it's been moved to the right further, is it necessary to have two different kinds? The arrow doesn't seem all that intuitive to me.

But I don't use it enough to make much difference to me, so should probably shut up and let those who do decide about that.

Just a small complaint - in Tash Kalar the "skip to next game" button is behind the Undo/Redo buttons and therefore unclickable, at least for me on my PC.

Thanks for all your hard work by the way. It's great to see the support the site is getting!

Chris