How would you like a "Gamers Seeking Gamers" system to work?

[TerraDave]

Something needs to change. I just can't find players through ENWorld. I have through other means (ok, yahoo meetups), but not here, even using the existing profile system, the boards, putting a link in my sig. Of course, it might be that I just drive potential players away with my posts.

I would keep the highest location resolution at postal or zip code. This obfuscates the location just enough to avoid privacy concerns, IMO.

I think the ideal process for me as a DM would be:
- Sign up to ENW (obviously I have already done that!)
- Create a "DM" identity somewhere on the site; all DM's have their own home page, showing their currently open game(s), some blurb about their playstyle/history/ etc. Having a DM identity opens up all sorts of possibilies for campaign journals and wiki's, or even a "rep" score from people who've played in your game.
- Add games to my DM identity
- Mark games as open (1 or more slots) or closed (no open slots)
- Games should have attributes including: location (if not electronic), system, descriptive blurb, number of players, number of open slots, average length of game, frequency of game (weekly etc.), and so-on.
- Interested players should be able to PM me
- Ideally any game you add to your DM profile would have its own forum
- Once a person has been "accepted" into a game, I'd like to be able to administer them as a player; so, give them read- or write-access to the wiki, campaign journal, forum etc.

As a player it would be:
- Sign up to ENW
- Search for games by location (radius of my post-code or zip code), system, frequency, basically any attribute.
- Browsable results either on-site or via a nice Google Maps scatter graph.
- One-click PM to the DM.

I'm sure you'll have opinions on which of these things would be subscriber only.

This is good. But the key is getting enough people on the system to reach critical mass.

 

[Morrus]

Well, user profiles will be made a major part of the new site,a nd we 85,000 of those. At the moment, your EN World profile exists, and can hold as much info as we want it to, but they are very background. The new site will utitilize user profiles much, much more. So much of this stuff is simply ensuring the user profile has all the information you want on it - plus integrating with your blog, pictures, and other EN World activities.

The core issue then, is the "matching" functionality. We can make a profile as detailed as we want, and it can include swathes of information on your games and so forth - that's just data; our task here is a searching/browsing interface which leads you to the profiles you need.

Geography is clearly the MOST important aspect here, and is the primary filter for narrowing down the member database to those which could be relevant to you.

So our options so far seem to be:

1) Postal/Zip Code. Problematic part here is obtaining the data for different places.

2) Keywords. Search by country, state/county/province, town. Then perhaps a "distance from" that location.

3) Lat/long. Oviously the most accurate way to do it, but I'm not clear on how that works. Do people need to know their latitude and longitude for this to work? Because I certainly don't know mine! It sounds like that would be a barrier to entry; people could find out that info, but will they bother? Is there some easy way to determine lat/long (assuming you don't have a GPS device)?

 

[Jack7]

I'd like it to work with long walks on the beach, and light 70s romantic pop. Something like the Pina Colada song. Or with anything by England Dan and John Ford Coley.

But otherwise I'm with this suggestion:

If you really want to steal functionality, look at Meetup.com.

It's worked out fine when I've used it. It seems like it's worth studying anyway. They're pretty good at what they do.

Of course, it might be that I just drive potential players away with my posts.

Don't use posts then TD, especially not if they've still got the barbed wire attached. I've found you catch more horseflies with honey and free grazing land than cold steel and fence posts.

 

[Scribble]

3) Lat/long. Oviously the most accurate way to do it, but I'm not clear on how that works. Do people need to know their latitude and longitude for this to work? Because I certainly don't know mine! It sounds like that would be a barrier to entry; people could find out that info, but will they bother? Is there some easy way to determine lat/long (assuming you don't have a GPS device)?

Pretty sure google maps can determine this.

 

[Morrus]

Pretty sure google maps can determine this.

What does it do? Use your IP address to plot your location?

 

[wedgeski]

Lat/long. Oviously the most accurate way to do it, but I'm not clear on how that works. Do people need to know their latitude and longitude for this to work? Because I certainly don't know mine! It sounds like that would be a barrier to entry; people could find out that info, but will they bother? Is there some easy way to determine lat/long (assuming you don't have a GPS device)?

Well most smart phones will tell you your current location if they have onboard GPS. Otherwise your average punter can enter their postcode onto Google Maps (or wherever), tweak the pin to pretty much where their house is, and get the info that way. This should absolutely be a last resort though.

You should find your coders wanting to use lat/long as a means to locate any one user profile anyway. Post-codes, zip-codes, and so-on are just abstractions. Sure, they're not nearly as accurate as a genuine lat/long, but they're more than good enough for the purpose. As long as they can find the right library, they can probably convert from just about anything.

 

[Morrus]

Cross-posting from that board with all the hooligans.


If you really want to steal functionality, look at Meetup.com. They've done wonders for our town since I started a group. It gives us a place to talk, to schedule local games, and to arrange meetups in a public place before you start telling folks what your address is. I think ownership is an important part of it as well. Maybe something were if you're a gamer in Syracuse NY you can start the ENWorld Syracuse group or whatever, and other Gamers Seeking Gamers can see it and join in. Helps narrow things down by geography which is really one of the central problems with finding gamers.

I know you've got groups now and someone could theoretically do this, but having it integrated could make it so much more useful. If I'm in the next town over and I look for groups in New York, I can see there's a group in Syracuse. When I join if I enter my zip code it will tell me 'hey, there's an ENWorld Game Group in your city!'.

The Meetup structure has led to more gaming than we know what to do with, and our meetups have gone from a single game to an entire weekend.

Would that be accomplished by essentially tying the existing Groups functionality in with the Gamer Search functionality? So that a search gives your results both in terms of matching user profiles and matching groups? (Assuming someone gives their group a "location")?

 

[Umbran]

3) Lat/long. Oviously the most accurate way to do it, but I'm not clear on how that works. Do people need to know their latitude and longitude for this to work? Because I certainly don't know mine! It sounds like that would be a barrier to entry; people could find out that info, but will they bother? Is there some easy way to determine lat/long (assuming you don't have a GPS device)?

I don't think you want to get into the level of detail of Lat/Long or street address.

As you yourself note, people would be forced to look it up themselves. Yes, it is easy to do so - but unless you're going to provide your own tool for users to look it up, they'll have to actually go to another website altogether, and enter data and come back. In the UXD world, this is called a "speedbump".

Also, many people are not going to want to expose that level of detail (or will enter intentionally vague or inaccurate information) due to privacy concerns. Thus, the system must be functional assuming much of the data is questionably accurate.

At that point, use of postal code or State/Province and town information should do as well. Thus, you remove the lookup and privacy concerns, which should increase the adoption rate - and adoption rate will be crucial for this to fly.

 

[Scribble]

What does it do? Use your IP address to plot your location?

Well that's one way you can do it... those tend to be a bit off, but if you're worried about people not wanting others to know exactly where they are, it might be a better route... but that's not how google works.

Here's a site that does it for example: Latitude and Longitude of a Point

When someone put their location in their profile it would use that info.

If you can find yourself on a map you can get the coordinates pretty easily... If you can't find yourself on a map... well chances are you don't have any other gamers nearby.

You might want to like only make it as accurate as city or maybe as far as someone wants, to protect privacy. (Obsidian Portal can show the location of your game on a map if you let it either exact locaion or just general area.)

 

[Scribble]

I don't think you want to get into the level of detail of Lat/Long or street address.

As you yourself note, people would be forced to look it up themselves.

Not unless your coders code it that way... they can build the functionality right into enworld if they want.

If you use the tools google provides though, you'll probably need to pay for the ability since this site makes money.