Potential AWBW Features

**Xmo5** Tue Jun 16, 2015 10:35 pm

Greetings denizens of the AWBW Forum!

As many of you may be aware, the Map Committee is always trying to find ways to improve the site in ways that general users can appreciate. Most recently, we've been discussing how to find ways to help players do a better job of identifying and joining games with other players with which they would be compatible. While we have some ideas as to what potential changes could help in this regard, there are a couple of things to consider:

Changes of this nature are designed to make players happy! We might have a good idea of what players want, but it helps to hear input from the end users.
There is no guarantee that the best course of action (or any helpful course of action for that matter) will be within the scope of MC abilities or practical to complete in a timely fashion.

With respect to the first point, that's where you all come in! Yes, you reading this right now. I'm going to list a couple of proposed ideas below and I want you to provide feedback on those items. Do you like the ideas? Do you think they'll accomplish the intended goal? Are there any tweaks to the idea(s) that would improve it/them? Is there a new idea you have that would help accomplish the same goal?

Unfortunately, there isn't much that can be done about the second point, so it's important to keep in mind that some or all of the ideas in this thread may not come to fruition. However, by helping us create a more defined task that can be practically accomplished, you increase the chances of seeing this through to execution.

Now, here are some of the ideas that have been discussed, in order of increasing complexity:

More accessible player stats. These stats would be displayed on a page linked on the User Profile and have information geared towards player activity, skill level, and preferences based on more than just Global League games. (We would still keep Global League Stats). Keep in mind we would want a relatively short and easy to interpret list. Do you feel this would be helpful to you? If so, what stats do you think would be helpful to include?
A way of searching for players who meet certain criteria. The stats would be similar to above, but this is independent. Instead of having them listed on a profile page, you would be able to go to a search page and select an option (or options) to get a list of players that (for example) are very active and have a similar skill level to you. Do you feel this would be helpful to you? If so, what stats do you think would be helpful to include? We could have more stats available in a search feature like this.
An informal automatic game generation system, similar to the Global League. Players would be able to select preferences (maybe "Hits" and "Misses") for game or map type and a number of games they'd like to be placed in at any given time, just like Global League. Participants would be automatically placed in matches with compatible players with similar preferences and these games would show up in "Your Games", and perhaps have a "decline" option in addition to the "ready" option so that a player could opt out of a game if they didn't like the settings for it. Potentially included with this would be two tiers of games, one open to all players (like Global League) and one open only to players with certain number of games under their belts. There are a lot of details involved in something like this so there's a lot to flesh out- discussion may be more open ended.

That pretty much summarizes the discussion that's been going on behind the scenes; what do you all think about the ideas listed and the driving force behind them? Thanks in advance for your feedback!!