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Hello,
Me and a close friend were thinking for some time now about making a website where you could plan your gaming nights or larger events with your buddies, and when we saw this topic, and realized that other people were interested too, we just had to do it.
We started planning it, and the must-haves, should-haves and could-haves started to pile up, so we chose the features we thought would make the base of it, and we developed them. Here is the result:
BGMeet.net
What it is:
At this stage, it's a boardgaming-oriented Doodle (which we love), with game-searching capabilities.
How it works:
- Without needing to sign-up and create any kind of account, anyone can create a public or private event.
- After filling in some basic data (event name, location, date), the creator of the event can search for and add the games that will be played (the search is made using BoardGameGeek's API, so there are basically the same number of games)
- After sharing the event, people confirm their presence (again, no sign-up), comment on the event, suggest games, etc.
What it will be:
As I said, we only developed a very small part of the features we plan to implement, and have decided that it shouldn't be just the two of us that decide which features go in every release, it should be you.
So we need your help to come up with ideas and vote for existing ones, and the highest rated features and requests will be the first to enter production. We set up a UserVoice account where you can post new ideas (again, no sign-up required) or vote on existing ones, or you can reply and upvote here.
The advantage of using UserVoice is that we can mark ideas as "accepted", "in production", "done", etc, but again, your call, any feedback is greatly appreciated 
Among the things we planned:
- An optional user account system, for those that want to keep a record of their events
- Placing events on a map, so that people that don't live nearby can get directions
- Many more
How you can help:
- By providing feedback, either in this thread, or (preferably) on the UserVoice page
- By testing and alerting us of any bugs. The more details provided, the better.
- By having fun using the website, we promise to make it grow 
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Paolo Robino
Italy
Dueville
Vicenza
"I'm a Nay Saying worm beast!"
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I've been waiting for something like this for a while. Count me in. I'm spreading the word to my usual game buddies!
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Paolo Robino
Italy
Dueville
Vicenza
"I'm a Nay Saying worm beast!"
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And my first suggestion is: please allow to search http://rpg.geekdo.com/ also!
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Guido Gloor
Switzerland
Ostermundigen
The statement below is false.
The statement above is correct.
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You so totally stole my idea - awesome
I even started development myself as well, have a domain and all. Might well not be necessary now! Rock on!
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haslo wrote: I even started development myself as well, have a domain and all. Might well not be necessary now! Rock on!
Then we will be really glad to hear what you would have done differently and any feedback you might have
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Mark Gerrits
Belgium
Leuven
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Great idea and it seems to be off to a promising start!
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We solved the first UserVoice item today
The BoardGameGeek API doesn't return the search results in the correct (most relevant first) order (I posted a bug report here), so we had to apply our own relevance algorithm to the results in order for the search to behave correctly until the bug is fixed.
Hopefully it will be as close to the BGG on-site search as possible
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Great ideea.
Big thumb up
Question:
How do you search for the existing public events?
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You cannot, for now, though this feature will enter production pretty soon
As I said, we are big fans of the "release early, release often" policy, and will implement a feature as soon as it's turn comes as requested by the users
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OK, i will cast my vote on your UserVoice page
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Bradley Keen
United States
Harrisburg
Pennsylvania
www.punkzter.blogspot.com
It's a horse. On a chair.
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This is a great idea. Origins (a major US gaming convention) is coming up in late June and this would be a neat testing ground for organizing games.
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\m/ Stoner Rock \m/ (Joe)
United States
Sandy Springs
Georgia
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Very cool idea. Would be awesome if BGG bought/integrated the functionality.
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Great initiative!
But please, if ever possible, try to integrate poll options on a) dates and b) preferred games for the evening. We are using doodle right now for finding the best suitable dates and have no tool at all for voting on games, so these are the most needed features for my group* (I have already voted for this on UserVoice, so this post is a bit redundant, but these points are really crucial for the needs of my players, so I'd like to emphasize that once more).
*Many potentially interested gamers with sometimes very different preferences, only a few of us have many board games, and those who have the games don't have a suitable location. So in effect, I guess our logistics are a little bit more complicated than usual - but you see, we are truely waiting for a game night planning tool.
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Thanks for putting the effort in to set this up. It has the potential to be really popular.
I've had a quick look and I like the idea. Its something that my group has discussed in the past so its great to see something like this being available.
There is one concern I have. Each private event has a seperate URL. So in order for the gaming group to be aware of the event I have to email out the URL. Instead of them just replying to the email, they now have to logon to BGMeet and then reply which I can't see happening once the novelty has worn off.
If possible, a fixed page per gaming group with top level detail and URL links to specific gaming events would be more user friendly and would stand a much higher chance of being used. Having game sessions planned for the next few months along with whos attending and preferred games would be amazing.
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Panzerknacker wrote: But please, if ever possible, try to integrate poll options on a) dates and b) preferred games for the evening.
We sure will, right after the public events search feature and the map positioning for events
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Josephus wrote: There is one concern I have. Each private event has a seperate URL. So in order for the gaming group to be aware of the event I have to email out the URL. Instead of them just replying to the email, they now have to logon to BGMeet and then reply which I can't see happening once the novelty has worn off.
If possible, a fixed page per gaming group with top level detail and URL links to specific gaming events would be more user friendly and would stand a much higher chance of being used. Having game sessions planned for the next few months along with whos attending and preferred games would be amazing.
First of all, thank you for the appreciation
We were thinking of accomplishing this in one of two ways:
1. Gaming groups, where users can register for a group, see all the group's events, etc. The problem is that this adds an extra layer of complexity, and we really really want it to be as simple as possible.
2. Once the user system is in place, each user will have her own page where other users can see a list of all her events, and perhaps having the possibility of selecting multiple events and joining all of them at once. The "user" account doesn't have to be for a particular person, it can be the group's account, perhaps with more than one person having admin access.
What do you think?
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I think that your right in that admin accounts will be shared however people will also need to logon with their personal account to show attendance etc.
I appreciate your point in that a group registration adds more complexity but in doing so it would round off your whole package. From my experience people tend to use sites/shops where they can do everything in one place.
If I was organising a large gamining event and wanting a tracker for who was coming etc then your current set up would be fine and the points I have raised would be irrevelent. However, if your target demographic is the group of friends with weekly game nights then I think that adding the page to see all 'Group' events would be essential.
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Hmm, I think you're right after all. I've put it in UserVoice, and once the top-priority stuff is done, we'll definitely work on it
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Matt Musselman
Canada
Burnaby
BC
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I like it! Foarte buna!
Some ideas for future enhancements:
* I support the idea of being able to search for public events
* For ease of adding games, perhaps a tool for importing a list of games from a BGG collection and/or geeklist (for example, if I frequently have events at my house, so I can easily list all my games -- same for a store or club)
* A separate attribute for requested games might be cool as well, especially if associated with RSVP: "I'm bringing X, Y, Z, and request that someone bring A, B, or C if they have it." As people "Count Me Out", remove their contributions to each list.
* A way to send a notification to all participants who've provided their email addresses, for example if the date, time, or location has changed, or to ask a question.
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mussels wrote: Some ideas for future enhancements
Great ideas all of them! I'll start adding them to UserVoice. We already started working on the most popular ideas
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Mark Thompson
United States
Encinitas
California
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Wow this rocks! Thanks for all the effort
I have added to this geeklist: Software Tools for Board Games, RPG's and BGG
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Paul Clarke
United Kingdom
Southampton
Hampshire
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Why limit it to board game meetups? You could make money via advertising providing this service to other hobby groups and also businesses/public sector meetings.
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Justus Pendleton
Australia
Sydney
NSW
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paulclarke339 wrote: Why limit it to board game meetups? You could make money via advertising providing this service to other hobby groups and also businesses/public sector meetings.
Everyone else can use http://www.meetup.com/ or http://doodle.com/ already
The benefit here, I imagine, is the integration with the BGG database.
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hoostus wrote:
Exactly! And besides this, without trying to cover everything like any generic meetup website, we can concentrate on the specific features that board gamers want.
We're not after making "just another meetup website", nor after making money out of it. We get a lot of satisfaction out of building something that like-minded people that share our hobby like, and it's the perfect project to work on when we want to take our minds off the projects we build at work.
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Alessandro Fibbi
Italy
Florence
Tuscany
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Great idea and great job! I've just posted my first event. BGG integration rocks.
Kudos,
Alessandro
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