New Game Pages! (gamerDNA Update Notes March 3rd 2009)

[Jono00]

Originally Posted by mykalgaidin

Something you might consider doing is allowing us to "subscribe" to a specific game, so that we can get periodic updates on comments, game activities posted by other members, and any details/news that may emerge, similar to how we can get email updates on any game activities we comment on. Could be helpful in following an upcoming release or keeping tabs on what our fellow members are saying about our current faves.

A great idea. Its very useful for guild/clan leaders as well (I think).

---------------- Now playing: Audioantics - Geometry Wars - 46860 Choices (Megamix) via FoxyTunes

[KaimerasPain]

*she comes into the room upside down through the ceiling, looking at Jono00s avatar and smiling*

Very.... evil and/or insane Jono00. I like it. You should be one of deaths minions.

*as she floats upside down on the ceiling she turns to the thread posting and reads it over carefully.*

I would agree that this could be a good added feature. I'll leave it at that.

*she winks at Jono00 and slowly fades into the ceiling.... Death trailing behind.*

[Retodon8]

Originally Posted by mykalgaidin

Something you might consider doing is allowing us to "subscribe" to a specific game, so that we can get periodic updates on comments, game activities posted by other members, and any details/news that may emerge, similar to how we can get email updates on any game activities we comment on.

gDNA has a News system (which feeds on user submitted content), but it feels separate from the rest of the site.
To be honest I'm not even sure how to use it exactly/properly.
What I do is enter a game name to filter out news specific to that game, to see if anything is there.
It would be neat if that collection of news would appear on that game's page, to keep us updated of the latest happenings without us having to look for it.

Edit:
Would it be possible to add a character search form to game pages?
I can search for those with the form at the top right of the site, but it doesn't discriminate between games.
Rightfully so, because adding such a filtering option would needlessly complicate that form.
However a form on the game page where that filter is already applied for you...

If I remember playing COD4 against somebody called "Neo", the form in the corner gives... 19 pages worth of hits, whatever the exact amount of characters is.
If I'd do it from the COD4 page, I could get a much smaller, more useful list of results to find who I'm looking for.

[DevsterC]

Originally Posted by QforQ

A lot of this paragraph is assuming that most members of gamerDNA are coming to the site to join a guild/clan. That isn't entirely the case...while we do have guild hosting as a small part of the overall site, there are a good number of people that come to discover new games, automatically track their gaming, take the quizzes, etc etc. With this in mind, it is important to always keep in mind a "single player" experience of gamerDNA(to use a gaming term to describe the usage of the site ).

I'm one of those non-clan/guild/whatever people QforQ is referring to; there probably a lot of us who came over from 360Voice. I like (slowly) adding to my gaming history, posting activity summaries nobody will ever read, reading other gamers info and snooping around the forums. I'm looking to these swanky new game pages as a way to help me gauge new purchases, particularly in the area of iPhone games, given the selection is over 6000 games and growing, and the existing appstore isn't really helpful for browsing or seeing what people actually play - and what they play more than once. I also hope to use it to help me find hidden gems I haven't played yet on the 360 or perhaps PC.

I'm not a fan of shoutboxes, but it might be because I've yet to see one that "works". My shoddy definition of works means that people use it to communicate about/to whatever/whomever it is supposed to be related to. Too often it comes off as a facebook style wall post or worse a myspace "hey all u suckas! my clan r0x0rs yer clans! losrs! lulz!". Or you get one where nobody's said anything for like a billion years except that one guy who said "I like this game/person", or people try to have conversations by replying to one-time visitors. Like I said, just me - it's clear lots of people like them.

In any case, it's starting to feel like the site is building momentum and purpose. Keep up the good work.

[mykalgaidin]

Going to have to agree with DevsterC. I don't really belong to any actual gaming guilds (forum roleplaying guilds? You betcha.) so I use the game pages to find out about games I may have somehow missed on the multiple gaming news sites I visit daily. Oh, and I'm going to have to start perusing the iPhone app section. I've found a few gems, but with so few having trial or lite versions it's hard to know what's worth my money. Rarely do I buy a game without first giving a demo a spin.

I do like shoutboxes, though. I've found there are many instances when they allow me to quickly get info or whatever to my friends when I'm too damn lazy to actually send them a private message. Which is most of the time.

[Retodon8]

Originally Posted by DevsterC

I'm not a fan of shoutboxes, but it might be because I've yet to see one that "works".

Like I said, I don't think Shoutboxes would be the perfect solution, but it would be nice for game pages to act as a hub for discussions about those games.
What about if we could link to forum threads on game pages?

Obviously a forum for every game on gDNA is impossible, so we can create a thread to talk about for instance Halo 3 if we want.
What if we could link to that thread on the game page?
I don't think that could be automated, again because there are simply too many games to give a tag or something like that.
Giving us the power to do it manually would give us an option to misbehave, but I don't think many would.

Without the option to create a thread about Halo 3 in the FPS forum right from the game page, the feature would still feel incomplete though.
Also there could be threads in the FPS forum not specifically about Halo 3 that would still interest me, for which I'd have the actually visit the forum proper anyway.
This would probably make things much too complicated, leading me to think about something simpler like a Shoutbox again.

My conclusion: I'm hoping the gDNA people are thinking along the same lines I am (game pages act as discussion hubs), except that they actually have the perfect way to implement something like that.

I am more sure about wanting to see the News feature implemented though.

Allowing us to submit links to external pages would be nice as well.
(Official site, official forum, Walkthrough/FAQ site, major fansites, sites on modding the game, that kind of thing.)