Board Game Arena

Hi group - this is my first post. I've been playing actively here for the last week, and have launched an effort to pull my coworkers into some team-building fun.

I've gotten a number of them to join and Friend me, and I've started adding them to a private Group. I'm speculating I want to run games in Training mode, since it's just friendly games, we don't need to be comparing our ELOs - it's plenty fun enough to see who won a game.

Are there other things I should be keeping in mind for a group of colleagues? Other features of the site I'm not taking advantage of? Does the Group identity do anything else than provide a shared messaging experience?

When you set up a game, you can also restrict it to your named game group. That way, if someone's internet cuts out as you are about to start, a random gamer won't suddenly appear among your team. (Can be an issue if you are playing a popular game.)

Be aware that you may run into a limitation on the site if people try to play from the office. Due to BGA's licensing agreements, games cannot have more than one player from the same IP (unless there is a premium member at the table).


Side note: While many sites put in something like this to reduce cheating, BGA has it because some publishers didn't want people playing together avoiding buying a physical copy of the game. Why buy a copy when you can play for free, right? But, if one person is premium, they have shown they are willing to pay for games.

Using audio/video chat (within BGA or outside) with persons that you know seems really important to me to make a nicer experience (more confortable to discuss which game to play, help with technical/game questions, and just have more social interactions).