What Would the Ideal LFG Platform Look Like?

[deer_buster]

I'm thinking that adding the ability to personally blacklist/whitelist someone (perhaps a json, xml, or lua list file that is stored locally) should be in the base design.

GMs could have a player feedback/review system in place (and for that matter players could be reviewed). This is definitely optional, but nice to have. It would need to be something that makes the review poster responsible for the content of their post, and they would need to be able to edit it.

[damned]

I'm thinking that adding the ability to personally blacklist/whitelist someone (perhaps a json, xml, or lua list file that is stored locally) should be in the base design.

GMs could have a player feedback/review system in place (and for that matter players could be reviewed). This is definitely optional, but nice to have. It would need to be something that makes the review poster responsible for the content of their post, and they would need to be able to edit it.

No rating system should be used.
The downsides far outweigh the upsides.

[deer_buster]

The downsides far outweigh the upsides.

Opinions vary

[LordEntrails]

How many players does one need to ban/mark negatively? I've been using FG for 5 years and have never had such a need. I mean why not just keep a personal text file? The negativity to having any such type of public system would probably harm the friendly community atmosphere we enjoy. That would be my concern.

[JohnD]

When I was pretty heavily into Neverwinter Nights, there was a matchmaking website called Neverwinter Connections. It went strong for at least 8 years as an unofficial "hub" of public multi-player gaming in both NWN and NWN2.

Players could rate DMs after a game. There were about 10 categories and you rated from 1 to 10. The most coveted one from my stand point was something to the effect of "one of the best DMs you'll find on NWN".

Likewise DMs could rate players. There were a similar number of categories, and you could mark a player as "Best in Game".

All of these votes garnered the player and the DM "XP" behind the scenes and eventually you sort of leveled up in the internal website hierarchy. This advancement didn't mean anything other than it could be used as a gauge of how "good" in theory a player was by their overall rating/score. Similarly, you could generally know whether your new DM was decent by their overall level/score and comments left by previous players.

At the end of every year there was a Player of the Year and a DM of the Year that went into the Hall of Fame... basically whoever gained the most XP during the calendar year - a gauge not only of perceived quality of play but also quantity in terms of number of sessions.

This generally worked well, but there was no recompense if someone left you an unjust rating - you basically were left with a possible blemish on your "record". This happened to me once when I lost points for starting a session late... but the reason it started late was half the players were late.

So... it wasn't perfect but it was something. I don't know if a set up like that would work for FG... certainly not as something maintained as an official part of the FG website.

[Black Hammer]

Considering most negative reviews are likely to come from players who signed up for games that didn't fit them and weren't going to be changed just to please them, I suspect reviews would be a complete waste of time. About the only people I'd "blacklist" at this point are those who ghost after one session, but while that's annoying, it's a self-correcting problem.

It's not the DM's fault you signed up for a game that stated what it was and you ignored it because you just wanted to play that system with no regard for the actual campaign frame.
It's not the DM's fault you bickered with the other players.
It's not the DM's fault players show up late/leave early/have RL priorities interrupt.

On the other hand:
It's not the players' fault if the DM does a bit of a bait-and-switch and those players who have been offered one thing and gotten another are disappointed with the change.
It's not a player's fault if other players ruined the game for the DM/other players and they threw in the campaign as a result

And so on and so forth. People look for a lot of different things when they play RPGs, and just because some incompatible wants ran into each other doesn't make anyone involved deserving of a bad (or good, for that matter) review.

[deer_buster]

like I said, opinions vary, which is why I said it was optional.

[SirGraystone]

A bad rating could probably be defeated by simply creating a new fresh forum account. An unless I know the DM who gave a player a bad rating, I would have no way to know who's right or wrong.

[celestian]

Internal message system to communicate directly within the system. Exchange details between players/dm/other players.

Attachment from players DM (import/export characters).

Alerts for messages over LFG system sent to user email.

Reminders sent to DMs with games looking for people but not "full" yet.

Reminders sent to DMs with games to update them if they've been there a long period w/o updates.

[LordEntrails]

Good stuff Celestian