new GAME FINDER format

by **Dukasaur** on Fri Aug 14, 2015 7:09 am

Serbia wrote:I just tried searching for one of my old tournaments, and can't find any games from it at all. I can use the "Find a Tournament" drop down and select the tourney in question, but it doesn't fill the request. And when I search for the game label "Detroit", I get zero results. Even without selecting a tournament, the game label "Detroit" should return me literally hundreds of games, based on my tournaments alone.

Bollocks.

Yeah, there seems to be two separate problems here. One is, as you say, that results from the Find a Tournament window are not being filled in to the proper slot in Game Finder.

The other problem is that Game Label won't return anything for partial strings, it has to be the whole thing in its entirety. I was able to come up with your game by searching specific ones, like "Montreal vs Detroit - ED7" but not by using partial strings.

Both problems forwarded up to the chief.

by **BuckNasty00** on Fri Aug 14, 2015 7:39 am

I agree with the first comment. New game finder is very annoying to use. I'm not sure why this was changed. Was there allot of people complaining about the old version?? Doesn't seem likely. I thought the old design was good. Easy to use. CC has done this in the past. I don't know why they change stuff. If it isn't broke don't fix it.

by **Dukasaur** on Fri Aug 14, 2015 6:01 pm

BuckNasty00 wrote:I agree with the first comment. New game finder is very annoying to use. I'm not sure why this was changed. Was there allot of people complaining about the old version?? Doesn't seem likely. I thought the old design was good. Easy to use. CC has done this in the past. I don't know why they change stuff. If it isn't broke don't fix it.

Yes, quite a number of people have requested improvements in Game Finder over the years.

by **ConfederateSS** on Fri Aug 14, 2015 9:22 pm

------I never use Game Finder.......I just scroll the public JOIN A GAME PAGES....When I pass up games I like as I go. I join A GAME. Then I go back and type the page number of other games I passed. Till I join all the games I found playable... Even the little box to type the page number was down for like 4 months... When I was waiting for it to be fixed. I was told to use the GAME FINDER/and snickered at for joining games the way I do... I'm glad I stuck to my old ways. Didn't take the blah,blah advice of the FRONT OFFICE.

Otherwise I would have your problem now. Some time it pays to keep things simple.

ConfederateSS.out!(The Blue and Silver Rebellion)...Maybe in 4 months the Game Finder will work for you guys...I'll cross my fingers for you... But don't hold your breath......

by **Dukasaur** on Fri Aug 14, 2015 9:53 pm

Don't need to hold your breath. All the bugs from last night were already fixed by mid-afternoon today.

by **BuckNasty00** on Fri Aug 14, 2015 10:17 pm

Dukasaur wrote:
BuckNasty00 wrote:I agree with the first comment. New game finder is very annoying to use. I'm not sure why this was changed. Was there allot of people complaining about the old version?? Doesn't seem likely. I thought the old design was good. Easy to use. CC has done this in the past. I don't know why they change stuff. If it isn't broke don't fix it.

Yes, quite a number of people have requested improvements in Game Finder over the years.

Sorry to tell you but you guys didn't improve it. Made it harder for everyone to find games. As usual my voice and my friends voices dont matter here on CC though

by **ch0rn** on Sat Aug 15, 2015 11:37 am

Couple of very minor easily implemented suggestions.

-Maybe have Game Status "waiting", and Joinability "public" both checked by default. I have to imagine these are what most people are searching for, then if you forget to check them you end up getting a list of games that are already in progress and you can't even join.

-Hide the slots per player row using javascript unless polymorph is selected.

by **Redfelt** on Sat Aug 15, 2015 12:02 pm

It is stupid shit like this that is making this site too complicated for a new user. All of this shit makes playing a simple game of this site far too complicated appealing to only a few hundred players. The writing is on the wall, 97% of my friends list is no longer active on the site, games waiting seem to sit for days as all is available to join are niche maps with bizarre settings. In 07 the appeal was the opportunity to play a simple game against a live person, now its all fucked up.

by **isaiah40** on Sat Aug 15, 2015 12:31 pm

They changed something and didn't make an announcement?? Shocking!! Since I don't play games here anymore, I decided to check out the "new" game finder page, after 3 minutes of waiting - I had a very slow internet connection at the time - the page still didn't load. I then took off the "2" at the end, and what do you know, the page loaded faster than the new page. Yep this will definitely cause members to leave.

by **Demonic** on Sat Aug 15, 2015 12:51 pm

I don't much care for the new search either but the major issue is it won't display time in the results.

Time is mandatory; different maps need different amounts of time to make moves. For example 2 player doodle earth with chained reinforcements is fine for 1 minute but Baltics with unlimited reinforcements needs more than 1 minute to complete moves.

The search results don't have time limits which is a needed map specification.

by **Dukasaur** on Sat Aug 15, 2015 3:21 pm

ch0rn wrote:Couple of very minor easily implemented suggestions.

-Maybe have Game Status "waiting", and Joinability "public" both checked by default. I have to imagine these are what most people are searching for, then if you forget to check them you end up getting a list of games that are already in progress and you can't even join.

I disagree. I'd say less than 5% of the time do I use Game Finder to look for games to join. 95% of the time it's to compile scores for tournaments, or to invite people into tournaments, or to do research on what settings people prefer on various maps in order to think about future tournaments, or to check something that someone is saying about usage patterns or C&A allegations that someone is making, or, or, or....

Would be maddening to have to uncheck "Waiting" every time.

ch0rn wrote:-Hide the slots per player row using javascript unless polymorph is selected.

That one I'd agree with more.

by **Mad777** on Sat Aug 15, 2015 7:26 pm

I have 2 things in regards to that new format;

1) when I search for my game under a tournament in organizing, the game aren't showing in numerical order, I think it sort when game actually started. This is annoying and painful when you invit players using te same order is your bracket but game are showing shuffled and hard to pair up.

2) I made a suggestion to add "win" and "loss" option into the game search (see https://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=213972, since it seems the staff is making twick still with this new format, any change to implement those button?

by **Dukasaur** on Sat Aug 15, 2015 7:58 pm

Mad777 wrote:I have 2 things in regards to that new format;

1) when I search for my game under a tournament in organizing, the game aren't showing in numerical order, I think it sort when game actually started. This is annoying and painful when you invit players using te same order is your bracket but game are showing shuffled and hard to pair up.

Bottom right corner:

You now have six choices for sort order. Default should be Newest by Create Time First which was the standard for the old Game Finder as well. Maybe something went wrong and some bug crept into yours. Sounds like yours is sorting by Start Time First. Try hitting Reset and try again, see if it goes back to Newest by Create Time First. And as with all updates, the obvious question: have you cleared your cache since the update?

by **Mad777** on Sat Aug 15, 2015 8:02 pm

I tried to use all 3 different "by newest" option and none of them displays the game in a numerical order...

I will try resetting the cache however I don't see how the cache would affect this.

Thanks Duke.

by **cowbuki** on Sat Aug 15, 2015 9:42 pm

reading through this thread, it seems clear that the change is justified by speed and increased functionality. this has nothing to do with the majority of the problem expressed here, i.e. the format of the search results. there are decades of research on presenting information sets to users. i'd suggest anyone with reasonable skill in the art would understand immediately why the results presentation of 'finder2' is cumbersome.

i'd suggest that any person who explained the changes based on speed and functionality and ignored the data presentation complaints is not suitable as a CC 'product manager'.

having the requisite skill to hack together a UI in no way qualifies someone as a UI designer or even product manager.

please reflect on your general experience with UIs presenting potentially large sets of info with a lot of similarities. i propose that it is more common than not for a UI to provide a choice between a list view and a gallery view. further, one expects list views to be sortable by column.

i don't know what standard CC holds itself to, but i'd suggest it should aim for not sucking any more than might be expected of a small commercial web site. In my limited experience, it sucks more.

by **iAmCaffeine** on Sun Aug 16, 2015 8:47 am

I haven't read through it yet, but it sucks. The design aspect is terrible, but regardless it's a lot less functional. Looking through the results for what you need is a pain. The most annoying thing for me, and probably other tournament organisers, is that the game labels get cut short and the ordering system of newest/oldest first doesn't seem to work either.

I know it's not going to be reverted back because things never are once they're changed around here, but this was not a necessary alteration. There are much more pressing things to sort.

by **Dukasaur** on Sun Aug 16, 2015 9:03 am

iAmCaffeine wrote: is that the game labels get cut short

If you mouse over the game label you see the full thing.

by **ch0rn** on Sun Aug 16, 2015 9:41 am

cowbuki wrote:reading through this thread, it seems clear that the change is justified by speed and increased functionality. this has nothing to do with the majority of the problem expressed here, i.e. the format of the search results. there are decades of research on presenting information sets to users. i'd suggest anyone with reasonable skill in the art would understand immediately why the results presentation of 'finder2' is cumbersome.

i'd suggest that any person who explained the changes based on speed and functionality and ignored the data presentation complaints is not suitable as a CC 'product manager'.

having the requisite skill to hack together a UI in no way qualifies someone as a UI designer or even product manager.

please reflect on your general experience with UIs presenting potentially large sets of info with a lot of similarities. i propose that it is more common than not for a UI to provide a choice between a list view and a gallery view. further, one expects list views to be sortable by column.

i don't know what standard CC holds itself to, but i'd suggest it should aim for not sucking any more than might be expected of a small commercial web site. In my limited experience, it sucks more.

I hate to pile on here, I know a lot of people around here spent a lot of time and work putting this together. But I have to agree, I think as far as speed and server side programming and some of the new search features there are improvements in the new system. (These are things that casual players would never notice) It's the presentation of the UI that is in need of help. The current search just feels "clunky" and doesn't seem modern or easy at all. With all the new features html5 and css3 and all the other fancy tools out there now, there has to be a better way. This search is even more confusing than the old one was.

by **Lord Arioch** on Sun Aug 16, 2015 12:16 pm

I will think of it like this ... i will have to learn new stuff and when ive done that i expect it to work better for me if it dont then i will bitch:) Buuuut at first glance it takes me to long to find games, but i guess that will pass or i will stop looking for games and create me own... me precious:)
To early to say good work guys ... but u need it so Good Work!

by **KernowWarrior** on Sun Aug 16, 2015 5:35 pm

Absolutely horrendous, makes searching for games to join all but impossible. Change it back or i'll predict a massive drop in premium members.

by **angola** on Mon Aug 17, 2015 12:35 am

How do I drop games I created that I'm not in now?

I was making games for a clan war and accidentally made two of the same game. I want to drop one of them, but I see no option to do so now.

by **Dukasaur** on Mon Aug 17, 2015 1:16 am

angola wrote:How do I drop games I created that I'm not in now?

I was making games for a clan war and accidentally made two of the same game. I want to drop one of them, but I see no option to do so now.

Being worked on. Here's a list so far of the bugs that have been reported. About 40% have already been fixed.

Results from the Tournament Finder window are not being translated back to Game Finder. Fixed on Friday
The "Game Label" won't search for partial strings, only the full game label. Fixed on Friday
The Tournament Name and the Game Label appear on the same line in the results, and if there isn't enough room they are just truncated. Not really a bug. The full Tournament Name and Game Label are available by hovering over the short title.
How do we make a link that can be posted in the forum? With the new Game Finder, the URL doesn't change in the address bar.
can't choose which team to join. Fixed on Sunday
cannot drop games created in error Being worked on.
cannot cancel invitations Fixed on Saturday
Making an invite in a tournament game does not bounce me back to Game Finder with the selected tournament. It bounces me back to my own Waiting Games page, and the game in question does not appear on it.
Those question marks don't actually do anything. I understand that they should expand to allow you to see the players that have been invited, but they don't. Clicking on the question marks does nothing at all. Fixed on Saturday
The search results don't have time limits which is a needed map specification. Fixed on Sunday
add a "win" & "lost" option in the game finder section. Not really a bug, but we're pushing BW to get it added.
One of my biggest issues is I am getting games from last round mixed in with games from this round.
The "Hide Fully Reserved Games" button that is on the original Game Finder needs to be added.
On Assassin games, the round limit isn't showing. Sometimes with non-Assassin games, but not always. Partially fixed.

by **WingCmdr Ginkapo** on Mon Aug 17, 2015 1:40 am

KernowWarrior wrote:Absolutely horrendous, makes searching for games to join all but impossible. Change it back or i'll predict a massive drop in premium members.

Are premium members on this site so fickle as to leave at EVERY change the site makes. There is constant moaning at lack of change, yet it appears everytime there is an update huge swaths of members are supposed to have quit the site. Good luck keeping the site going if thats the type of player who is here.

by **CatchersMitt14** on Mon Aug 17, 2015 2:49 am

I just finished setting up a round of clan games and pulling the opposing clan's games and settings from the new game finder. There are a few things I would like to comment on regarding the new finder.

1. Currently, it looks like only the first six settings of the game appear as bullet points for each game. There are two points I'd like to make that go along with this observation. First, there are anywhere form one to six settings listed next to the map. For me this makes it hard to read when this means that a particular setting can be found as a different bullet point (and a different place) next to each map, if it's there at all. This leads me into the second point, not having all the settings listed (meaning it's a default setting) means that the user must know what the default settings for the site are. For example, escalating spoils seems to be the current default setting. Meaning that if a spoils type is not one of the bullet points the user has to know and realize two things, one - the spoils would be in the first three bullet points, and two - if it's not there then it must be an escalating game. Then they also must know how high up that setting is listed because, for example, the round limit or trench settings, can potentially be past the sixth bullet point and therefor not shown at all.

2. The random map, un-started game our opponents set up does not have a picture where the map would usually appear. Instead there is an oddly shaped, tall, rectangular, empty box. I would think that the standard random map icon should appear there. As it stands now, it looks more like something went wrong with the creation of the game then that it's supposed to be a random map.