New lobby (integrated to game page)

[cigma]

I joined at the start of July 2023. I've no idea what a 'new' or 'old' lobby is. I probably don't care. BGA seems to be a reasonably navigable site. I can switch from "play now" to "arena".
...

Please consider new joiners who will never have known the 'old lobby' and would likely be confused if two parallel views/systems existed.

The "Play now" page is the "old lobby".
How would you do without it? It's very likely the plan of BGA is to eliminate the "Play now" at some point.

[JohnnyCyclops]

The "Play now" page is the "old lobby".
How would you do without it? It's very likely the plan of BGA is to eliminate the "Play now" at some point.

I read the OP from the devs and it sounded reasonable to allow people to play directly from the Games page for their relevant/chosen game. The "Play Now" allows me to select multiple games at the same time (in Arena mode) where there are 3-4-5 short duration games that I could play any of, and am happy to go with whichever starts first.

[cigma]

The "Play Now" allows me to select multiple games at the same time (in Arena mode) where there are 3-4-5 short duration games that I could play any of, and am happy to go with whichever starts first.

Again: How would you do without the "Play now"?

[KenFin1]

Cigma is on the money, play now aka old lobby is far superior. Someone a few posts back suggested getting rid of the new lobby. I would prefer this too. I detest the new lobby, it's awful by comparison. I only use play now and if they get rid of it I'm almost certainly gone from using bga. Even basic things like game chat while waiting at a table can't be done via the new gamepage lobby. All that dev time seems so wasted when all it's achieved seems to be a cluttered downgrade.

[cigma]

Even basic things like game chat while waiting at a table can't be done via the new gamepage lobby.

It's been 10 months now since the new lobby was released, and yet the chat bug https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=79791 isn't fixed
Maybe it needs some more (much more!) votes?

[KenFin1]

Even basic things like game chat while waiting at a table can't be done via the new gamepage lobby.

It's been 10 months now since the new lobby was released, and yet the chat bug https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=79791 isn't fixed
Maybe it needs some more (much more!) votes?

the request for a native dark mode has oodles of votes and they've done nothing with that so....

[Remkar]

Finally, I don't think I see anything called 'lobby'. There's the landing page with various game suggestions by theme with some handy filters. There's the Play Now page which is really easy to see what games are available and quickly join.

Yeah, that "Play Now lobby" is the "old lobby," and exactly what they intend to remove. It would cripple the site horribly if they go through with it.

[KenFin1]

Finally, I don't think I see anything called 'lobby'. There's the landing page with various game suggestions by theme with some handy filters. There's the Play Now page which is really easy to see what games are available and quickly join.

Yeah, that "Play Now lobby" is the "old lobby," and exactly what they intend to remove. It would cripple the site horribly if they go through with it.

I quite agree. Just modify the old lobby to do the missing things:

• filter game variants so you don't see ones you don't want (same as it filters incompatible tables currently for red thumbs/ELO rating etc)
• have a box to launch table chat without leaving the lobby to go to the table page
• see karma % next to player names

[Sjarmtrollet]

The "Play Now" allows me to select multiple games at the same time (in Arena mode) where there are 3-4-5 short duration games that I could play any of, and am happy to go with whichever starts first.

Again: How would you do without the "Play now"?

Here: https://boardgamearena.com/gamelist?menu=favorite

You're welcome.

[nik592]

Here: https://boardgamearena.com/gamelist?menu=favorite

You're welcome.

That doesn't work. I believe games are supposed to be defaulting to your last played state (I can't find the post detailing how that was supposed to work), but for a number of games, including ones I've started recently, it's incorrect, most notably having the real-time setting on instead of turn-based, which is most of what I play.

The other issue is that it's not easy for me to switch between simple and arena for the same game - sometimes a friend might ask me to start a game with them, and I decide I'd like to play it in arena too. This is easy in the old lobby, and impossible here - I am forced to go to the game page. Sure, not a big deal if I'm only doing it for one game, but again, I have had the scenario where my friend asks for 3-4 different games and maybe I want to play all of them in Arena, and now I'm going around to several game pages. Or you know, I can do it all within 30 seconds in the old lobby.