New lobby (integrated to game page)

[Wreckage]

I have had many friends join BGA over the years, and none of them ever told me the lobby was confusing at all. But I really do think the new page is very confusing. Even regular members are struggling with joining and managing tables after hundreds of times using it.

My suggestion is for the page to look like this:

The top has all the info that's currently on this page without the top 4-5 inches of mostly empty space. I strongly believe that joining or quitting or managing a table is friendlier and easier to understand with these old features included.

I have a different suggestion as well. If new players are confused with the old lobby, perhaps the problem is the header at the top.
Maybe they are clicking on ''GAMES'' when they want to start or join a table. So this...

could be changed to this...

''LIBRARY'' makes sense as a place to look up games, and it doesn't sound like a place to go to play a game. Perhaps this is the only fix that was needed?

[JiPaul]

Completely unnecessary changes.
It would be better to fix the MANY reported bugs.

And also to improve the bug reporting pages:
- make it possible to see all the bugs of a search without having to click (several times) on "see more"
- make it so that when you look at a report and go back you don't have to redo the whole search
- make it easy to indicate that a bug is really annoying and important.

For example, bug #73690 (which had already been reported several times but for which nobody had voted, because it is too complicated to find a bug considering what I said above) would really deserve to be fixed.
And by the way it'll be necessary to everybody to vote for this bug.

[CanuckEddie]

Our weekly game night incurred many of the previously stated bugs.

Quotes included "I cannot believe how incredibly annoying AND broken this page is" and "there has never been a single time this thing worked for me".

And of course "No Time Limit / Friends Only / ELO On" was dearly missed.

Sigh. What a dumb hill to die on.

[ceedee_on_hols]

I can only reiterate abd support everything everyone has said.
* why get rid if timeless games with friends - I use this ALL the time.
* I click 'accept' on an invite and there is no game there - its asking me to start a new game??!

* totally confusing as to where my actual game is, as I can't see the person who asked me to the game on the list.

* why no banner saying "we're trying out a new version of this page, please give us your thoughts" to warn people?

* try this with a few test users before unleashing on everyone!

[Wintertide]

I randomly clicked on an earlier page in this thread just to see what others were posting and saw that someone from BGA apparently replied a few weeks ago. (I must say I'm completely disappointed that they are intent on forcing such a bad User Interface on the users. )

Anyway, it looks like someone else had the same problem as me where they somehow got into an "un-cancellable" game and sourisdudesert asked for a link to a game.

I just tried to cancel an
Arena game (Noir: no other opponents found as yet) using the new interface, and it won't let me: nothing happens when I click the shiny red cancel button

Sorry but we need some specifics (ex: link to table) otherwise we cannot see what happened. This is the same for all other bugs reported.

Ok. Here's a link to a game and my bug report.

https://boardgamearena.com/gamereview?table=328853532

https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=78443

I had clicked on Martian Dice in the Games page and it immediately launched a game and I could not cancel it. I refreshed the page and still could not cancel it. Not knowing what else to do, I closed the webpage. Because of all the times BGA shows me as "offline" then "online" I thought it would cancel the game because I was offline. NOPE! Apparently the whole time I was trying to cancel the game in the UGLY lobby of despair, someone else thought I was a flaky player who wasn't taking my turn! I ended up getting penalized for having run out of time and quitting a game that I
1) did not start
2) did not "accept" to join
3) tried canceling once the lobby of despair started a game and searching for players
4) did not ever see the game page in progress

It has happened at least 2 times since then where I click on a game and the "lobby" starts a game on its own.

The 2nd time, being worried about getting penalized again, I thought maybe if I join some other game it will cancel the un-cancellable game. Fortunately, it did. However, I should NOT have to play a game in order to cancel a game I didn't start!

Why isn't there information about this new lobby on the NEWS section? Why isn't there a poll to ask users if they like this?

[Mr_Magic]

The problem is, when you are invited into a game you are dropped on the new game page where there is a big "start" button over where your name is. People are clicking on that instead of waiting for the game to launch automatically and end up starting a new game that they are unaware of with people they were not intending to play with. Then there is a lot of confusion and Karma points lost and frustration.

This is something I have definitely done when trying to set up a game with friends

[RicardoRix]

Recently had a friends and family session where we all played a few games.

A few days later, people started telling me that they were getting constant email reminders from BGA. Later turns out that they all unwittingly joined other games.

I see this:
https://boardgamearena.com/6/haiclue?table=329948731

No less than 3 of the 4 people were from my group, joined a table they never wanted to play.

Confused much... absolutely.

[Hoboc]

Sorry, I think it's really crowded, I don't like it... The old one is much better.

[Roger B comme Bär]

Sorry, I think it's really crowded, I don't like it... The old one is much better.

I'm agree at 100%.

[CanuckEddie]

Sorry, I think it's really crowded, I don't like it... The old one is much better.

I'm agree at 100%.

If that was the worst of it that would be one thing.

These orphaned accidental games are much worse.

Thanks for the ongoing complete silence on the subject, BGA. A polite reminder we are actually paying customers (well, some of us).