New lobby update (Sept 17th)

[dhnyny]

I like the new lobby but I've noticed a change that seems like maybe a bug. But I'm not sure how to report it. Since the new lobby was introduced I've found that when I join a game a new chat space is created and it doesn't go away until I manually get rid of it. That means that if don't manually get rid of the chat spaces for games they start to accumulate at the bottom of my screen, even for games that ended a long time ago.

[farfyy]

PROBLEM:
Tiny icons is a super cool feature to create tables but totally useless to find a table as it does not show which tables are available.

RATIONAL BEHIND MY CRITICISM:
What most players want from a lobby are tools to find open tables as easily of possible. Now you just show all the "other games I know" icons even when tables are non open ( this is counter-productive )

SOLUTION:
Add a filter "sort by available tables" in order to make non open table disappear (or at least appear at the list end).
or Add a red border to game icons which are open
Combined with tiny icon it will become super cool !

Thx for all the development, despite my ( positive hopefully) criticisms, i strongly support you. Long life to BGA

[nandblock]

The original introduction of the new lobby was great, but I'm now finding (as the new lobby has been modified to basically be the old lobby) that I engage in as much pointless navigation as I did before.

For instance: if I want a game, I hit Create Table. Instead of leaving me in the lobby, it takes me to the table, where I manually open it. Now I have to navigate back. If I click on the message at top that says I have X number of open tables.... it doesn't take me to the lobby but to a different page. So I have to navigate back via clicking on "Play Now!" ... Then I must make sure I'm on Real-Time or Turn-Based, because otherwise I'll end up with the wrong kind of table. No-one joined my new table, so I need to go through this whole process again, to make more tables....... Until I get a game going, at which point all the tables I created are removed, which is fine except once the game is over I start all over again.

In the Turn-Based lobby, if I join a table the game STARTS.... no warning that it will be X number of days, as before. I've frequently accidentally clicked Join on a table, thinking it was a real-time table, and then realized it was turn-based.... too late.

[Evreka]

Thanks for replying to my concerns, but I guess I wasn't clear, because I think you misunderstood me.

This is especially troublesome in Kingdomino, where you can start on 2-4 players but 3 players are not recommended (for good reasons, I think). So when the board takes two, that message flash, but you can't tell (as easily) when it's full.

I suggest in this case to set your table with a minimum players of 4. This way, your opponents will know that this is going to be a 4 players game, and the message "Your game is ready to start" won't popup until the game reach 4 players.

I love playing Kingdomino on either 2 or 4 players, just not 3. So setting it to 2-4 is deliberate: If few people are around/interested I'll start at two, but I like to give it a little time to reach four.

However, this is applicable to any game. If you set a table to have non-required places, the banner of "enough players to start" will flash at the minimum amount. If the table starters always act on that, only the smallest possible games will be played. My suggestion was to show the number of currently occupied spots around the table. Then if you've left open to start a table of (some other) game at 3-5 players, you can see the current amount without scrolling.

That said, I understand if that's not possible from an optimization point of view.

Anyway, thanks for listening to so much of the feedback that's poured in lately. This just keeps getting better.

[Argotron]

For whatever it's worth, I like the new lobby just fine. It's nice that I can safely join multiple games at once and then wind up playing in whichever one happens to start first, and it's nice to group the tables by game, and the interface was clear enough to me even when you first unleashed it. I was (and remain) a satisfied customer.

[senatorhung]

PROBLEM:
Tiny icons is a super cool feature to create tables but totally useless to find a table as it does not show which tables are available.

tiny icons is brilliant. if you click on a tiny icon with a blue box around it, you see all the open tables for that game. clicking on the tiny icon a 2d time collapses it. kudos for that design.

if you want to see all open tables .. just click on the 'see all available tables' link at the bottom of your favourites.

collapsing all the 'games i know' at the bottom into tiny icons is also fabulous - i have 104 games in that category so seeing them all at a glance is pretty yeeps. looking at that, i would still like a category that is the opposite of favourite - that way i can toss the ones that i've tried but don't really want to play again into that category (it can still be displayed as a lowest section), while still leaving games that i dive into occasionally in the 'known' games section.

so my suggested game sections would be:

1. favourites - expand all open tables automatically

2. known (would play again)

3. suggested games

4. known (would NOT play again) - opposite of favourites - default display as tiny

this might also give some statistics about games which people have actually tried, but don't like, which i think is harder to capture at the moment.

[Typhlosaurus]

Loving the new lobby - it does the things I thought I must somehow be missing in the old lobby.

[Matasiete]

Will there ever be an option to see games sorted by creation time? I mean mixing different games not by game name as first sorting criteria.
Without that there's no live feeling in this new "thing"

[sourisdudesert]

Will there ever be an option to see games sorted by creation time?

What you're looking for is the "See all available tables" link, at the end of your "Favorite games" section.

The tutorial should have explained this: did you got this information?

[DoctorSink]

I have a lot of "Favorite Games" so I wish the icon was a different color when there are tables available so they're easier to spot. Other than that, I like the new lobby. It certainly fixed the main complaint I had about the tables moving up and down which made it hard sometimes to join a table. Thank you BGA!