I'm working on a website project, that I'm tentatively calling django-frogohs. I'm using this thread to blog my progress and stay motivated, and hopefully get feedback and / or ideas.
The issue list is here, and should be public, though you might need to sign up for a bitbucket account to create or comment on issues.
I mentioned briefly on twitter last week that I have had this gaming site idea stuck in my head for like 4 years now, and I think I've finally hit the point where I need to make it, if for no other reason than to be able to stop thinking about it. Unfortunately, it isn't terribly original. Most of the features I have in mind exist in one site or another, but I haven't seem them all in the same site. So yes, I think it would be useful, but it would require a ton of work just to get parity with other sites, before even working on the stuff that is original (or at least less common).
If I'm actually going to get a site live this time (rather than languish after a couple weeks like I usually do), I need to keep motivated and focused.
For keeping focused, I'm going to work in thin horizontal slices (e.g. data-model, UI for admin, search, list and detail for platforms). Before I've typically done vertical slices (e.g. the entire data model) and it's led to burn out.
For keeping motivated, I want to be working on the right things. For first release (whenever the hell that ends up being), I want to find the minimum set of useful functionality. For that, I come to you guys.
Features I had planned:
- Game data. This is a lot of standard game database stuff, like which platforms a game is available on, and dev / publisher info. This might be as simple as a field for dev name and pub name, or a more general credits system, with Company Roles (dev studio), Person Roles (lead designer), and Acting Credits (VO + Mocap for a character). GiantBomb has a lot of this info but it is in wiki format, rather than structured data.
- Game Attributes. I'm not a fan of genres for describing things as I think they are too limited. I'd like more granular data like Perspective (e.g. First person, fixed, over-the-shoulder, etc), mechanics (e.g. Gun-combat, Melee-combat, Turn-based, etc) and modes (Solo-campaign, Team Deathmatch, Hordemode, etc). This might be as simple as a tagging system, or more detailed.
- Recommendation system. This is why I want the previous two items as structured data. Ideally, the system would be able to recommend games to you based on ratings. In the short term though, I would probably require actively searching. You like games by a particular designer, you can search on that. Particular mechanics, you can search on that.
- For the requisite rating system, I tend to think of even the 5 stars system more granular than is useful (nevermind confusing if there are "0 stars" ratings), and was thinking of a simple "Must play / Whatever / Avoid" system.
- Trading / Lending system - this idea originally came up because guys at my last job would often lend games out to each other, mostly by asking if someone had a particular game you were interested in. I thought it would be cool to have a system that allowed you to search for a game and find people who were willing to lend it to you. Goozex sort of does (as does a site called gametz that I found during research) this, but it was meant for lending, not trading, and was meant for in person lending / borrowing. It would probably need Lending Groups to be useful for this. I don't really want to build a full trading system, but an additional flag would be okay (e.g. "Willing to Lend" plus "Willing to Trade / Sell").
- List management. Collection, Played, Currently playing would probably be the same list, with filtering options (like backloggery). Wishlist could also have options for "Want to own" / "Plan to buy at release" / "Want to borrow" to hook into the lending system
- Playthrough information, like howlongtobeat. Possibly including a flag for whether the game has an in-game clock so you know if it is an estimate or exact time.
- Steam / XBL / PSN integration - Pull in games and achievements to populate lists. Perhaps auto-create playthrough info for steam games. Perhaps tag achievements so that I can do things like hook into the backlog system and automatically mark the game complete when you get the "Beat the game" achievement. Steam and XBL both have official APIs. I thought PSN got rid of theirs, but I know a few sites that support it, so there must be some solution.
There might be others that I've forgotten, but those are the big ones.
So, goodjer collective:
Would you use a site like this?
What are the minimum features to get you to shift from whatever you're using and use this?
Does something like this already exist and I'm wasting my time?
Any major features I'm missing?
If you could do something like backloggery that would actually populate based on your live/psn profile - you would get my money.
Trading/Lending would be awesome as well. I used to use Switchgames, but that went the way of the dodo.
I don't anticipate that I'd use the trading/lending feature all that much, but the rest of it would be awesome.
I like Backloggery for tracking my collection, but it does take a lot of manual work to start and to maintain. I primarily used True Achievements for automatically tracking completion percentage for games and as a means of setting goals, but I didn't like that those features were hooked into a larger meta-gaming system. And howlongtobeat is a neat site, but it has the same problem as Backloggery that it requires a lot of manual work, and I already have a carefully groomed Backloggery account.
What's really hooked me into Backloggery are the statistics: what percentage of my collection is unfinished or unplayed, what percentage is beaten, etc.
One feature suggestion: it'd be awesome to auto-populate your collection based on your Gamertag/Steam ID/whatever, but would you please give users the option to exclude games? I wouldn't want a rental showing up as part of my collection, for example, and some games just get the ax even if I own them digitally for all time.
It sounds pretty good to me. When I read "another gaming site", I thought you meant another editorial site but this seems to be more of a social utility and it sounds pretty cool the way you want to go about it. Some sites are doing what you are talking about but not necessarily the way you're talking about doing it. Colour me interested.
Will you sell my data to 3rd parties? If so, can I get a cut?
A video game social network, huh. I'd be very into that.
A video game social network, huh. I'd be very into that.
Didn't they already try that with that game idea thingy? I remember signing up to something along those lines a few years back. It was posted on here..... if i could just remember the name....
[edit]
Ah, this was it but it's shut up shop...
What would be both handy and extremely dangerous to stack height would be the ability to tag items with "let me know when price is less than $x at Steam/GOG/Impulse/etc". Kind of like http://www.steamwatch.com/ but with more features.
Metacritic & review data. If people prefer particular review sites, maybe the option to just turn on reviews from specific sites?
How about the question of ratings with & without game-changing patches? I've never seen that done.
I like multiple types of game. For example I like solo story-driven games (e.g. ME3), but also multiplayer TF2. If you can somehow work an "if you like this, you'll like that" system that understands I don't just like one type of game, that would be good. i.e. I wouldn't want the next TF2 to be marked down in a rating system because I mark that I like plot-driven games.
To your media list I'd add the Apple OS AppStore (non-transferrable) for Macs and the DSiWare shop (non-transferrable). The DSiWare shop is only for the DSi; the DS doesn't have it and the 3DS uses the eShop for DSi games.
And then.... I stupidly checked that into source control. So I generated a new password and off we go.
Hehe, been there, done that.
Neato overall. Keep us updated!
Keeep poking. Keeeeeeep poking.
Yes, the styling of HTML form controls is a hot mess. There are a number of things out there that try to normalize things for you a bit, such as Uniform.js
I don't remember having trouble getting fieldset/legend tags to do what I wanted once I had rules to override the UA's default styles, but what you came up with should be just fine as well. Just get something that works and isn't horrible, rather than spending hours fussing over the markup not being as semantic as it could possibly be.
LTTP, just for a change, but raptr seems to be doing stuff in a cool manner of late. I think we may have mentioned it in passing in the TA thread.
It kind of takes TA's friend and stat feed, presents it leaderboard style, per game, then adds another layer of differentiation (casual, dedicated, hero, some other guff) depending on no. of Cheevs and difficulty of those Cheevs to obtain.
There is a 'wall style' posting area, like FB and Fitocracy too.
Actually, if we're talking Fitocracy, I'd really like to see the ability to set up community based challenges too. That could drive the social side considerably, be an expansion on the TA goal system, and give you an edge.
360voice is meant to have a feature like this, but I think it's pretty well buried, or it was last time I looked.
I'll echo Monkeyboy. I fell into Raptr after coming really LTTP to xfire and finding it a terrible mess after a month of it seeming to work well. Now I use Raptr, and I like how it tracks anything that can be pulled from an online profile, and lets me compare achievements / trophies in a very clear way, although I seem to have issues getting to that screen.
Of course, now I want to compare the same game across other platforms. Like my progress in Batman: Arkham City PS3, vs others on 360 and Steam. I wonder how hard it would be to line that up. Says the man who knows nothing about how this works.
Also, all the consoles need to start tracking time played and the length of each individual play session like the Wii (Steam doesn't even do this), and Nintendo needs to get that stuff accessible online. I know they have it on their servers in some form as they post the total time played for the game globally, number of play sessions globally, average play session per user, and average number of times played per user to their Nintendo Channel.
Also, all the consoles need to start tracking time played and the length of each individual play session like the Wii (Steam doesn't even do this), and Nintendo needs to get that stuff accessible online. I know they have it on their servers in some form as they post the total time played for the game globally, number of play sessions globally, average play session per user, and average number of times played per user to their Nintendo Channel.That would be sweet. Steam is only system that offers playtime info at all, and even then it is just total for a game. The one cool thing I planned to do with it is automatically update your playthrough info. Like, if you list a completed playthrough at 17 hours for a game, more time over that would start tracking in a new playthrough.
What makes it even worse is on the Wii, you can actually go into the Nintendo Channel and see your total time played and number of times played, and via the message board, I can track each individual play session all the way back to the day I got my Wii at launch. It's all there, just not available to view online, which makes it so annoying.
It's a real mess still, but it's a bit like finding diamonds in a dog turd.
All the points mentioned by mrtomaytohead are the bits I like, but the layout is a hell of a mess.
I don't so much use the site, as watch it. I only sit on my own profile page, and rarely venture outside of that space.
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