Plenty of little things

[sourisdudesert]

We are constantly adding new things to BGA, but very often they are too small to be noticed. Here is a quick summary of what changed recently for groups, friends and ELO management:

GROUPS are a very good way to exchange with the BGA community. When you are a member of a group, you are receiving the updates of this group on the BGA homepage.

We improved the "find a player or a group" (in the "community" menu entry) to display the most important groups first, with the number of players. We also completely redesigned the group page to make it up to date. Then, we created automatic groups for players who are playing a game. This way, game developers and publishers can send messages to you when needed, for example when an important bug has been fixed, when a new option is available or when your feedback is requested.

You already know that you can add any player to your FRIENDS so that you can check his activity and create tables restricted to you and your friends. In addition, it is now a lot easier to invite a friend at a table: when you click on "Save a place for ...", before you start typing a name, the list of all your friends is displayed, so you can invite them with just 1 click.

Concerning ELO rating, we did a small change in ELO calculation: before today, when 2 players with an ELO difference of more than 600 were playing together, we considered the difference to be exactly 600. Some strong players were abusing this limit to boost their ELO by playing with very weak players, so we removed it. When playing on BGA, to gain ELO the best (and most fun) way to go is to choose opponents matching your level.
Another small change: to stay in a game ELO leaderboard, you must play at least one game every 60 days with ELO option switched on (until today it was possible to switch it off and stay in the leaderboard).

Enjoy!

[Oso]

Last implementation was the best. Lot of people play with ELO OFF for recover their positions in rank...

[EllieK]

Is this the "New Feature" mentioned in an earlier post?

[sourisdudesert]

Is this the "New Feature" mentioned in an earlier post?

No. The next big feature to come is integrated audio/video discussion for those who choose to activate it.

[snoozefest]

what are groups, and how do you get to the ? links in the post might be nice..

[agentlik]

It will be better to divide groups by 2 colours: automatically groups like "boardgame players" and groups maded by players. It would be helpful

[RogueM]

Excellent changes regarding ELO, I have indeed noticed players abusing the system and this also will flush out of the top positions players who are inactive for long period (or no longer visiting). Thumbs up!

[JollyBird]

It will be better to divide groups by 2 colours: automatically groups like "boardgame players" and groups maded by players. It would be helpful

Yes, i agree

Good chances.

[Sabian80]

Awesome change with the elo option having to be on....I have notied even more players starting over and then gaining a high elo to then turn elo option off. And by starting over, I mean players who create a different bga account.

[Silene]

Thanks for your great work

But on this part I think the solution is not optimal:

Then, we created automatic groups for players who are playing a game. This way, game developers and publishers can send messages to you when needed, for example when an important bug has been fixed, when a new option is available or when your feedback is requested.

This way you also created a tool to spam a LOT of players at once by using group discussion. When I play many different games, I maybe don't want to get informed of any minor change in every game. So I removed manually over 50 groups from the list which took me some minutes... I realized now that when i play a game again I automatically join that group again which is quite annoying for the given reasons.
--> suggested solution: When a group was once removed manually you shouldn't re-enter it automatically again.
--> suggested better handling of leaving groups: A surface where all groups are listed at once with a leave-group-button (so it's not necessary to load the group page + leave + go back which all takes some loading time)

I also agree to

It will be better to divide groups by 2 colours: automatically groups like "boardgame players" and groups maded by players. It would be helpful

... or even make 2 lists for 1) personal groups + 2) game groups