Can I get some feedback on a webapp/service I'm planning on developing?

[ozbarry]

Hello Ladies and Gents,

I've been trying to get some feedback from real gamers on a website I am currently in planning and early development stages of. Here is a brief summary on what it is, what it is not, and at the end, I'll post a link to a google form that you can give me the sort of feedback that I really need (although also replying here will be most helpful, too :D )

There are three main functions of this web app:

* Clan (or guild) professional looking hosted landing pages with forums
* Community professional looking hosted landing pages and forums
* Users who are free to subscribe to clans (or request to join their rosters), or communities, find servers/games that may interest them, and have the ability to socialize casually with other users, clans, or communities

To give a little more detail on the differences between Clans and Communities:

[B]Communities[/B] are social hubs that any user is free to join, leave, participate in. Anyone, whether a registered user or not, is able to view communities (unless they are explicitly private). Communities are defined by a name and a list of tags/keywords. They can be centered around a person or group, a game, a gaming company, or anything that is not generally illegal. These communities may not always be gaming focused, but should still be things that are generally for gamers. I don't know what level of moderation will be on community building, since this is still really early stage, but I am willing to basically let the site users to be able to self moderate and keep things within reason. Community admins will have access to statistics on their users, potential reach, and moderation tools for their forums. There will be simple privacy tools to define who can find the community, and what sort of data/statistics can be public, and which should be tracked privately or not at all. Users can be given titles and permissions within the community (much like assigning moderating positions, or just having some awesome titles because you can)

[B]Clans[/B] behave much like communities, but have two main levels of users, people that are clan members (active on their rosters), and subscribers (people who just like to see what the clan is up to). Clans will have more tools to define who can be a member vs. a subscriber, if subscribers are allowed at all, and so on.

The main idea is that anyone can use this service for free, but if you are hosting community or clan landing pages, you will have to pay fees based on what services you are using. Some services that are planned (but are by no means exhaustive) are:

* Customizable landing page (drag and drop widgets, custom css, etc.; small hosting fee, yet to be decided)
* Forums (I designed a nifty forum system system that uses tagging instead of subforums that I think will be much cleaner than the average phpbb forum)
* Admin Panel with various levels of access for managing your users and/or subscribers, forum moderation, how the landing page works, enabling an API for other web developers and managing who can access it, and probably more
* RCon web console to access your server (if it supports it) - don't worry, I won't store your rcon password!
* Live web audio conferencing using [URL="http://opentok.com"]OpenTOK[/URL] (may add additional fees based on usage)
* Mobile integration; for the time being, this just means a mobile-friendly landing page, but maybe mobile apps in the future?
* Challenge other clans to matches
* Schedule matches
* Donation portal (paypal, credit cards, bitcoin, maybe others?)

A big thing with community-based websites, is that most clans or communities already manage a lot of their resources using tools like steam, twitter, google, facebook, twitch, gametracker, and other similar projects, so instead of reinventing the wheel or forcing you to duplicate your data across many sites, why not integrate? All users, communities, or clans will be able to connect their various accounts to this central community hub, so you can still use the tools and applications you already use.

Right now in my planning phase, I'm more interested in getting feedback from people who will be shelling out cash to host their pages. I'm not ignoring the needs of the average user, but if someone is going to pay for this service, I want to prioritize their needs so they don't feel like they are going to be wasting their money, and so that they also have the tools they need to grow their userbase, which is important when you are supporting a potentially large community. Once this phase is complete, I will be getting feedback for regular users who just want to participate in the community.

As an aside, I was asked today if this is just an [URL="http://www.xfire.com/"]xfire clone[/URL]. Well, it does appear that there is some overlap in what I want to achieve and what xfire provides, so why am I bothering? Well, first off, xfire is a closed community, meaning that you have to register or have an account to even just see what's going on behind their main page. XFire does support hosting community pages, but they are isolated islands, with no connection to other communities (other than the fact that they use xfire to host their pages). XFire's website is also not mobile friendly - although this is not a deal breaker for most, but this is just not necessary with today's web technology. XFire re-invents the wheel in some cases - having an instant messenger and in-game overlays shouldn't be the job of a social-based website. Many platforms (for instance, steam) already provide friends lists, instant messaging, and game overlays, so why do you need more of the same thing, when there are APIs out there to already perform these tasks. My webapp isn't about reinventing the wheel, it's about using tools you're already comfortable with, and connecting with other gamers.

If this sounds interesting to you, and you want to potentially host a community or clan page, I'd really appreciate it if you could [URL="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1HjqoC3UYqdJvFF4R8Q_lfKiwrnmyUaPhUevtnYINuww/viewform"]fill out this google form[/URL]. Any other feedback, please just post a reply.

Thanks everyone for your time, I really appreciate you reading through this and giving good feedback. Or bad feedback. Whatever.
-ozbarry

[ozbarry]

[QUOTE=onebit;43876483]Good idea, would be cool to see stuff like K/D ratio and headshot %[/QUOTE]

If the server provides that information through APIs, then we can pull it and use it.

[TheNickle]

Is this an advertising thread?

[Thelurker1234]

[QUOTE=ChronoBlade;43881279]Is this an advertising thread?[/QUOTE]

Nah, people have come in posting their work and asking us about it before.

[ozbarry]

[QUOTE=onebit;43880808]Wide selection at your disposal [URL="https://steamcommunity.com/dev"]STEAM[/URL] [URL="http://bf3stats.com/api"]Battlefield 3[/URL] [URL="http://bf4stats.com/api"]Battlefield 4[/URL] [URL="http://blizzard.github.io/api-wow-docs/"]World of Warcraft[/URL] [URL="http://blizzard.github.io/api-sc2-docs/"]StarCraft 2[/URL] [URL="http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/API:Main"]Guild Wars 2[/URL] [URL="http://wiki.planetside-universe.com/ps/API"]Planetside 2[/URL] [URL="http://www.forswor.com/index.php/data-apis/"]Star Wars The Old Republic[/URL] [URL="http://www.elophant.com/league-of-legends/api/docs"]League of Legends[/URL] [URL="https://github.com/thunder-spb/wot-api-description"]World of Tanks[/URL][/QUOTE]

Yeah, I already have many of these documented :)

[QUOTE=ChronoBlade]Is this an advertising thread?[/QUOTE]

Almost, but not quite - I have nothing live, and I'm just trying to get feedback. To do this, I am forced to give a feature list, so it looks like advertising, but honestly, it's just trying to get a feel for what real gamers would want in this sort of service.

[Esession]

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[SpookyWookiee]

I will like to give you a hand, it would be really nice since im starting to Learn Web Design and Coding stuff like HTML5, CSS3, C#,etc. Such a nice voluntary help for my career xd

[ozbarry]

[QUOTE=SpookyWookiee;43913511]I will like to give you a hand, it would be really nice since im starting to Learn Web Design and Coding stuff like HTML5, CSS3, C#,etc. Such a nice voluntary help for my career xd[/QUOTE]

For the early alpha stage, the code is going to be closed-source, but I will be making it open source after the beta, and I will be reviewing (and accepting) pull requests and patches.

If you are just starting to learn, I'm going to be doing things that are more advanced than just html and css (like a ruby on rails 4 backend, some cron jobs, and other lower-level management). I don't want to discourage you, I just wouldn't want to plunge you in the deep end without you knowing what you're volunteering for.

Also, this isn't just me, I have a designer and network specialist on board with me, so we'd be throwing you in the middle of scrum/agile development, and all the other professional fun stuff. We aren't a junior team, we're all professionals, and it just so happens that the three of us have enough free time on our hands to make this dream a reality.

That's all to say that I will try and keep you posted, and if you PM me your email, when we open for alpha, I'll send you an invite (alpha and beta will be limited and invite only), so you can see what it is we're doing for the gaming community, and you might get a better idea how you can help.

Later gaters,
-ozbarry