Doing my Part, Suggestions

[bugs181]

First off, i'd like to say what an amazing site this is. I absolutely love it - it's simply fantastic! On top of you saving me money for not having to buy crappy software but now I can access my collection on the go! Already added games to the database, edited more and will continue to do so (All with full details of course.). Now where was I? Oh yes, bug/suggestions.

I didn't use the search feature for these items so I apologize in advance if they've already been mentioned.

Bug Collection Duplicates:
I'm not quite sure if this was intended or not but you can infact add a game to your collection more than once. The duplicates can be rather annoying. Not to mention if you're on the item page and looking at the game, the user has no way of knowing if the item is already in their list. My suggestion would be to check if it's already in your list or not. For the item page, you could simply display the "Added!" button/image instead of the "Add to Collection" when the item is already in the list. To add a little more protection, on the development/coding side - i'm assuming PHP, SQL too perhaps? You should query whether the result already exists before adding it to the table. I'm a bit of a web developer myself - let me know if you ever need any help - free of charge of course. What can I say, i'm a community guy.

Update: Above bug is Confirmed as intended. My position still stands on the duplicates matter for unintentional collection/wishlist items.
I understand that most people will want to keep this feature, so a small work around would be some sort of notification on game info page
that displays if the game is already in collection/wishlist.

Just like the one on the mobile version. IE: "This item is on your wish list."

Bug Redraw problem:
I'm using Google Chrome so not sure if this is a browser specific bug or not. The following steps replicate this problem.
1. Go to your collection.
2. Scroll half way down the page.
3. In the search field, type in a phrase like "donkey" (stop there, this would happen if we were looking for donkey kong for example)
4. Now scroll back up to the top.
5. Notice how the list leaves the drop down area.
6. If you try to continue using the search box, the results happen out of screen.

Update: Redraw Bug Confirmed, added tofix list.

Suggestions:
1.) Allow users to add consoles to their collection.
Use a separate list for consoles/hardware. (IE; wishlist, collection, hardware). With the correct coding you could use the hardware list to the user's advantage to speed up productivity.

We used to have hardware all under one category but broke it out because it became a nightmare to maintain. The current plan is to keep them in your collection, but consolidate them into one category.

2.) This ties in to the suggestion above, you could use the consoles in the list as a filter when the user searches for a game and then only display the results of games that the user has an available console for. This will help limit the items returned.

Search will be getting an overhaul soon. Most of my efforts are going to go to improving the Advanced Search page as well as making it more visible for the user.

3.) Mobile front end for vgcollect. Not only could you get away with not coding app specifics (Android, iPhone, and the like) but you
could just format the site for mobile and be done with it.
Mobile site completed. Link for news: http://vgcollect.com/forum/index.php/topic,1193.msg12789.html#new

4.) On the user's stats page, for the Total Spent section, i'm getting $0.00. Using the new/used prices from Amazon, what I would suggest would be to show the Total spent if the user paid new for all games, and the total spent if the user paid used for all games. Later on you could add an option for the user collection of how the user obtained the item (obviously using a combo/drop down box or checkbox) and calculate it that way.
Fill the "My Cost" box with the prices from amazon. If the user didn't fill out the "My Cost" then it should automatically use a default cost option so the user can see an estimate of how much his collection is worth without having to fill out the details

5.) This is similar to the suggestion above. Under the site stats, you could display the value/cost of all games in the database reflecting new prices and used prices. This would be rather useless but would be interesting to see.

Confirmed for sections 4 and 5.

This section is all sort of broken right now. My end plan is to tap into the eBay API and use those prices to get an average cost. This is on the to-do list buy no where near the top. I'll make a forum post once I'm starting to go down that path.

6.) More social aware! Everybody loves being social. I'm not up on most of the social sites, but each item should have social actions like a comments box, +1 (like) button, etc. I know for a fact facebook has developer options that are EXTREMELY easy to incorporate. I added them to my website with ease. Some social sites would be facebook, twitter, google plus, etc. When a user clicks the "Like" button on the game webpage, allow the user to share this to their social feed. This will allow their friends to see what games they like and bring in more traffic from the outside.


Thats all for now. I love the site and excited that I found it.. not to mention... it being free.

With your permission, I wouldn't mind programming a scraper/front end for a mobile website so I can access it from my iPhone.
Curious if everything is hard coded in PHP or whether the results are returned as json, xml, etc.. this would help a ton if this was the case.

-Bugz

Alpha Sort on Collection Update:
Under the list viewer (not sure what else you would call it) IE: the wishlist, collection, etc. I notice there are methods of skipping through pages. How about let's take that a step further and add alphabetical search? For example, A.B.C, etc. Click on the letter "N" and it takes you to games/items starting with the letter N. Would be truly helpful for huge collections and you wanna get right to the game you're looking for in your collection.

Notification System Update:
Notification updates for other user's collections. Everyone LOVES notifications - and they love to know whats going on in the world around them. It gives people the opportunity to talk about things going on. The ideal setup would be a notification system when other users update their collection and basically show what items that have been added to their collection in a simple display feedback system. It's possible we could just use the forum popup feature as a notification system alert.
IE: Messages -> Preferences -> Change Settings -> Show a popup when I receive new messages.

Game Progress Tracker, with Levels/Chapters Update:
Whats this about a "Game Progress Tracker"?
Features could include a "Game Completed" option. Perhaps a level tracker (a far out option would probably increase the database) however would be interesting to see a level table for each game. IE: chapters, levels, etc. Also allow tracking for each level.
IE: bugs181 completed Chapter 2 – Welcome To Rapture in Bioshock

Friends List Update:
Should be fairly straight forward, but having a friend list would go along great with the notification system and game progress. This would allow users to keep track of what their friends are doing. Can anybody say, some friendly competition? Who can beat the game first?
Would also allow users a one click solution for going to their friend's collections.

[kirbysuperstar]

I'm not staff at all, but I can give you a bit of insight:

I'm not quite sure if this was intended or not but you can infact add a game to your collection more than once.

Totally intended, IIRC. If you add a game more than once, you can have different details (ie, what parts of it you have, price, notes) for each instance.

Allow users to add consoles to their collection.

You already can, they're under "Hardware" for each platform. Example: http://vgcollect.com/browse/com64hardware

Using the new/used prices from Amazon, what I would suggest would be to show the Total spent if the user paid new for all games, and the total spent if the user paid used for all games.

I imagine that'd require a LOT of API requests to Amazon and eat a fair bit of CPU time on the server.

Later on you could add an option for the user collection of how the user obtained the item (obviously using a combo/drop down box or checkbox) and calculate it that way.

I'm not quite sure what you mean here - is that any different to the "cost" option when you add a game with details?

[bugs181]

Thanks for the input. Appreciate your time.

If you add a game more than once, you can have different details (ie, what parts of it you have, price, notes) for each instance.

I see how the duplicates could be useful now.

You already can, they're under "Hardware" for each platform. Example: http://vgcollect.com/browse/com64hardware

As for the hardware, I already knew of this option - in fact, I have Xbox 360 listed. I suppose what I was trying to say was a separate list for that (IE; wishlist, collection, hardware). With the correct coding you could use the hardware list to the user's advance to speed up productivity.

I imagine that'd require a LOT of API requests to Amazon and eat a fair bit of CPU time on the server.

The amazon prices are already retrieved, so the API request wouldn't be any different. Plus on that note, you could always locally cache the values returned for the vg db (database). This wouldn't require any more processing on the server than usual.

I'm not quite sure what you mean here - is that any different to the "cost" option when you add a game with details?

Edit:
I was unaware of the "My Cost" feature when I made this post.
I retract my last statement about the cost per game. However, another suggestion would be to automatically fill the "My Cost" box with the prices from amazon. Actually, 2 suggestions. If the user didn't fill out the "My Cost" then it should automatically use a default cost option so the user can see an estimate of how much his collection is worth without having to fill out the details.

Again, thanks for your time! =)

[matt]

Hey bugs 181! Welcome to the site. I'm the guy responsible for all this and I really appreciate the kind words and suggestions. I'm always looking for feedback and never release anythign into the wild without consulting the community first. I see that kirbysuperstar answered some questions so I'll try to fill in the gaps.

Bug:
Redraw problem. I'm using Google Chrome so not sure if this is a browser specific bug or not. The following steps replicate this problem.
1. Go to your collection.
2. Scroll half way down the page.
3. In the search field, type in a phrase like "donkey" (stop there, this would happen if we were looking for donkey kong for example)
4. Now scroll back up to the top.
5. Notice how the list leaves the drop down area.
6. If you try to continue using the search box, the results happen out of screen.

Nice catch. The header wasn't always floating to the top and it looks like the result list is relative to the window and not the input field. I'll add it to my to-do list.

Suggestions:
1.) Allow users to add consoles to their collection.
Use a separate list for consoles/hardware. (IE; wishlist, collection, hardware). With the correct coding you could use the hardware list to the user's advantage to speed up productivity.

We used to have hardware all under one category but broke it out because it became a nightmare to maintain. The current plan is to keep them in your collection, but consolidate them into one category.

2.) This ties in to the suggestion above, you could use the consoles in the list as a filter when the user searches for a game and then only display the results of games that the user has an available console for. This will help limit the items returned.

Search will be getting an overhaul soon. Most of my efforts are going to go to improving the Advanced Search page as well as making it more visible for the user.

3.) Mobile front end for vgcollect. Not only could you get away with not coding app specifics (Android, iPhone, and the like) but you
could just format the site for mobile and be done with it.

Announcement time: The mobile site is about 95% complete at this point. Should be released by the end of the week.

4.) On the user's stats page, for the Total Spent section, i'm getting $0.00. Using the new/used prices from Amazon, what I would suggest would be to show the Total spent if the user paid new for all games, and the total spent if the user paid used for all games. Later on you could add an option for the user collection of how the user obtained the item (obviously using a combo/drop down box or checkbox) and calculate it that way.
Fill the "My Cost" box with the prices from amazon. If the user didn't fill out the "My Cost" then it should automatically use a default cost option so the user can see an estimate of how much his collection is worth without having to fill out the details

5.) This is similar to the suggestion above. Under the site stats, you could display the value/cost of all games in the database reflecting new prices and used prices. This would be rather useless but would be interesting to see.

This section is all sort of broken right now. My end plan is to tap into the eBay API and use those prices to get an average cost. This is on the to-do list buy no where near the top. I'll make a forum post once I'm starting to go down that path.

6.) More social aware! Everybody loves being social. I'm not up on most of the social sites, but each item should have social actions like a comments box, +1 (like) button, etc. I know for a fact facebook has developer options that are EXTREMELY easy to incorporate. I added them to my website with ease. Some social sites would be facebook, twitter, google plus, etc. When a user clicks the "Like" button on the game webpage, allow the user to share this to their social feed. This will allow their friends to see what games they like and bring in more traffic from the outside.

Good suggestions. Right now we are pretty active on FB and Twitter but our "Like" button is site-wide an not page specific.

Okay I think that covers it all. Let me know if you have any question or other comments. I know there is a to-do list thread that used to be stickied before our forum make over. I'll have to dig that back up and add your suggestions to the list.

Thanks!

[foxhack]

4.) On the user's stats page, for the Total Spent section, i'm getting $0.00. Using the new/used prices from Amazon, what I would suggest would be to show the Total spent if the user paid new for all games, and the total spent if the user paid used for all games. Later on you could add an option for the user collection of how the user obtained the item (obviously using a combo/drop down box or checkbox) and calculate it that way.
Fill the "My Cost" box with the prices from amazon. If the user didn't fill out the "My Cost" then it should automatically use a default cost option so the user can see an estimate of how much his collection is worth without having to fill out the details

Please, no. Make this optional. I have no interest in finding out about the value of my collection, estimated or not.

I rarely pay more than ten bucks for my games, and I don't want Amazon's inflated marketplace prices to mess with my collection page.

[bugs181]

Thanks matt! That clears up a lot actually. I'm partly excited about the mobile version of the website and partly disappointed too. I was really looking forward to contributing something. Another idea popped into my head. I'm all for open-source. I wouldn't mind programming a developers API. There are many things that this could benefit. RSS feeds, XML output, etc.. that way user's could incorporate this into their own programs and websites. How cool would that be?

[soera]

I actually am not a fan of the multiple of the same item additions. Thats what notes are for. Ive got 20 copies of SMB/DH. I dont think its right to add them all. Can just put *multiple copies* in notes.

[matt]

Thanks matt! That clears up a lot actually. I'm partly excited about the mobile version of the website and partly disappointed too. I was really looking forward to contributing something. Another idea popped into my head. I'm all for open-source. I wouldn't mind programming a developers API. There are many things that this could benefit. RSS feeds, XML output, etc.. that way user's could incorporate this into their own programs and websites. How cool would that be?

I am a huge API fan as well. The Android app actually hits a custom API I wrote which returns JSON. I've always thought that someday I'll open it up for external use. At this point thought I don't have the server infrastructure in place nor the $$$ to fund something like this.

That being said, I'd be more than willing to open it up to someone just to play around with. It's not ready for public consumption right now but I could probably clean it up within a few weeks.

[matt]

Please, no. Make this optional. I have no interest in finding out about the value of my collection, estimated or not.

I rarely pay more than ten bucks for my games, and I don't want Amazon's inflated marketplace prices to mess with my collection page.

If there is no consensus on these updates we'll definitely make them optional. That is the problem with using Amazon/eBay for prices as they will never be accurate.

[darko]

Is it possible to have the last 5 completed listing ebay prices averaged? If so that would be a pretty accurate representation IMO. I have no idea if it's doable or not but thought it would throw that out there.

[scott]

I rarely pay more than ten bucks for my games, and I don't want Amazon's inflated marketplace prices to mess with my collection page.

I agree with this. Amazon's "new prices" for a lot of older games are all jacked up and I've seen common games "sealed" marked for $1300, which is retarded. If we used Amazon's prices for a default entry in the event that you don't enter how much you paid for it, it would give the false impression of worth.

[darko]

I rarely buy anything new so as long as the prices were coming through as used I don't think it would be that big of a deal to me. Especially if I still had the option to put my own price in.

[bugs181]

That being said, I'd be more than willing to open it up to someone just to play around with. It's not ready for public consumption right now but I could probably clean it up within a few weeks.

Gotta admit. That would be pretty epic. It seems like you've got everything under control but if you ever need a helping hand just shoot me a pm. I'v been working in PHP for about 5 years for a software development company out of ohio. I'v got loads of private projects but just never got around to finishing them. I'd really like to be a part of the development team. I'v got a private server of my own so i'd kindly take the processing power off your head if I ever get access to any API/code. The only thing I wouldn't be able to control would obviously be the database access however for private use I could always create a dummy db on my server for testing.

[darko]

Gotta admit. That would be pretty epic. It seems like you've got everything under control but if you ever need a helping hand just shoot me a pm. I'v been working in PHP for about 5 years for a software development company out of ohio. I'v got loads of private projects but just never got around to finishing them. I'd really like to be a part of the development team. I'v got a private server of my own so i'd kindly take the processing power off your head if I ever get access to any API/code. The only thing I wouldn't be able to control would obviously be the database access however for private use I could always create a dummy db on my server for testing.

You're going to fit in here nicely

[bugs181]

You're going to fit in here nicely

Thanks. It's a passion. lol =)