Ranting about the site going in the wrong direction

[MrDiegues]

A nice summary.
Weird, I have almost the exact same list of gripes. Plus a few more. Month long tournaments can be ruined by bad rep players, and the user experience is just awful and try this from a developer side - it's been 18 months since I fixed a lot of the game bugs in Troyes: multiple emails, tickets, conversations and nothing has happened. Where did the forum translate button go? Why do 10% of my posts go missing on submit?

If they don't listen to the game developers then something is truly broken on the inner workings of this organization...

[maveleo]

A nice summary.
Weird, I have almost the exact same list of gripes. Plus a few more. Month long tournaments can be ruined by bad rep players, and the user experience is just awful and try this from a developer side - it's been 18 months since I fixed a lot of the game bugs in Troyes: multiple emails, tickets, conversations and nothing has happened. Where did the forum translate button go? Why do 10% of my posts go missing on submit?

If they don't listen to the game developers then something is truly broken on the inner workings of this organization...

Amateurs

[charanth182]

Free-to-Play = ya get what ya get.

Pay-to-Play = ya get what makes them money.

Where do ya get what you want?

[Lady_Jane]

So in the absence of objective data, I'm forced to rely on anecdotal evidence: I play in a league with serious players; I play with a lot of more casual players; I read the forums. And thhe majority of this range of people I hear from feel that many of the recent changes have been ill advised and made the site worse for them, not better.

I feel like the vast majority of changes made ever, anywhere, would be able to be described like this. Unfortunately it’s human nature for us to notice every little thing we don’t like and there are way more people willing (and/or people are way more willing) to express complaints, and to go out their way to do so, then to voice content over a change they like.

I believe they don't listen and they don't want to listen to anything. Not sure if they are short staffed or short sighted but think about it, is not just the forum... If you complain about a moderation you risk your penalty to be increased, to report a bug you need to fill in a huge form and hope that some one else vote for it, the forum as usual is moderated but not really administered.
For the rest... We can all see the issues with Arena and ELO, winning streaks and misrepresentation of the values but all these voices are ending unanswered.
This is simply an amateurs platform that growth too much and the reflection of it is in every issue unanswered or voice unheard

My guess (or maybe my hope?) is that they made these changes because enough people asked for them, even if some feel the result may have missed the target. I don’t know if either are true, but in the absence of evidence to say otherwise I prefer to assume good intentions, which turns out to be the case in most situations. You mention the bug/suggestion system requiring votes as evidence of them not listening, but I would think this is evidence of the opposite, that they want to make sure the request is wanted by more than a single or few users.

I feel like this mantra of “they don’t listen” is unfair and way too contagious. I think it’s a perfectly reasonable policy to have, to not respond to or allow moderation disputes in the forum. They would end up moderating every report multiple times. Personally, I have had no problem reaching BGA staff when needed and getting a quick and helpful response.

If the number and vocality of negative reports was the only measure, we'd have to conclude the BGA dice are rigged

It is borderline offensive to compare conspiracies about dice (which I as an engineer and developer am aware are false) with concrete bullet points ...

That may be offensive, but the writer didn’t compare the two at all. They simply pointed out the flawed logic in thinking that something being voiced loudly in the forum means it should be listened to or acted on.

[h_illes]

I feel like the vast majority of changes made ever, anywhere, would be able to be described like this. Unfortunately it’s human nature for us to notice every little thing we don’t like and there are way more people willing (and/or people are way more willing) to express complaints, and to go out their way to do so, then to voice content over a change they like.

It's not the unhappy voices itselves that should be taken into account, but proper logical arguments.

[Lady_Jane]

I feel like the vast majority of changes made ever, anywhere, would be able to be described like this. Unfortunately it’s human nature for us to notice every little thing we don’t like and there are way more people willing (and/or people are way more willing) to express complaints, and to go out their way to do so, then to voice content over a change they like.

It's not the unhappy voices itselves that should be taken into account, but proper logical arguments.

absolutely agree

[DoctorFianchetto]

To add my two cents, my view is that BGA as a whole puts a lot more emphasis on creating shiny new games than fixing the mountain of issues with existing games and the core website. But perhaps that is related to the ecosystem of developers: a new developer joins BGA not to fix bugs, but to implement their favourite game. Which is fair enough, I suppose. I don't know if it's exactly a one-to-one ratio between developers and games (probably not for more popular games), but if that is the case, a developer leaves and a game goes to rot. I'm not sure how accessible it is for a new developer to step into an existing game's code and work on it.

Besides that, my biggest problem with the site is that some aspects are clearly very amateurish. Take for example the arena positions. The ordinal numbers have been entered incorrectly (e.g. 21th instead of 21st). Why has this never been fixed? I can't imagine it would be difficult to do. Other examples: the underlying websites code or status codes often leaks to the GUI when an error happens. Table creation is flawed - I often see a user (I assume unintentionally) creating 5+ copies of the same table at the same time. I know these last two problems are not easy to debug but there doesn't seem to be any effort put into fixing fundamental issues with the website.

The attitude is that the website works (in a "barely satisfactory" sense), and that's good enough. If this were an industry there would be some kind of freeze on creating new things until the general website and framework is tightened up. Correct me if I'm wrong but BGA developers are volunteers right? If that's the case, I understand why it is the way it is. Nobody is being paid to do that type of boring maintenance work (I wouldn't either, as a volunteer), so it's not being done.

[ufm]

To add my two cents, my view is that BGA as a whole puts a lot more emphasis on creating shiny new games than fixing the mountain of issues with existing games and the core website.

BGA staffs don't focus on developing games, but they work with BGA framework itself (at least after they join BGA team).
Compare the developers who implemented recently added games from the game pages and the BGA team member list.

But perhaps that is related to the ecosystem of developers: a new developer joins BGA not to fix bugs, but to implement their favourite game. Which is fair enough, I suppose. I don't know if it's exactly a one-to-one ratio between developers and games (probably not for more popular games), but if that is the case, a developer leaves and a game goes to rot. I'm not sure how accessible it is for a new developer to step into an existing game's code and work on it.

The attitude is that the website works (in a "barely satisfactory" sense), and that's good enough. If this were an industry there would be some kind of freeze on creating new things until the general website and framework is tightened up. Correct me if I'm wrong but BGA developers are volunteers right? If that's the case, I understand why it is the way it is. Nobody is being paid to do that type of boring maintenance work (I wouldn't either, as a volunteer), so it's not being done.

BGA is a platform. Think of other game platforms: the platform developers do not fix individual game codes.
The developers and publishers who add their games do not 'join' the platform to fix bugs. They are not hired BGA staffs.
But you're right, if the developer leaves, the game is likely to be abandoned.
Because BGA is not obliged to guarantee permanent maintenance after all: BGA ToS section 11.
This is the same for other platforms as well. Users don't expect platform developers to fix individual games.
If you want to fix something yourself, here's the link: https://studio.boardgamearena.com/studio

Besides that, my biggest problem with the site is that some aspects are clearly very amateurish. Take for example the arena positions. The ordinal numbers have been entered incorrectly (e.g. 21th instead of 21st). Why has this never been fixed? I can't imagine it would be difficult to do. Other examples: the underlying websites code or status codes often leaks to the GUI when an error happens. Table creation is flawed - I often see a user (I assume unintentionally) creating 5+ copies of the same table at the same time. I know these last two problems are not easy to debug but there doesn't seem to be any effort put into fixing fundamental issues with the website.

Well, I have no idea. EDIT: At least the ordinals have been fixed.

[Jellby]

If you want to fix something yourself, here's the link: https://studio.boardgamearena.com/studio

But don't expect too much. It's quite possible the game you want to fix is not there, and requests to access its source code may be ignored (been there, done that, for clearly "abandoned" games.)

[ufm]

If you want to fix something yourself, here's the link: https://studio.boardgamearena.com/studio

But don't expect too much. It's quite possible the game you want to fix is not there, and requests to access its source code may be ignored (been there, done that, for clearly "abandoned" games.)

Some very old games created before BGA studio are not there.
Also, BGA won't entrust fixing their games to a random person for obvious reasons, especially when the game in question is relatively popular and is already have been officially released. You need to earn their trust first (mostly by developing some games, if needed).