BoardGaming.com – The Website
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Note: This page was originally created to allow us to test certain features, but it is already taking on a life of its own. We're especially excited that users have begun to write helpful tips for using the site!
On BoardGaming.com you can be an Explorer and discover new games and strategies, act as a Professor and offer new game tips, strategies and house rules to help other gamers, or be the Critic and review games, all for experience points, achievements and other rewards!
- User friendly site geared towards making it fun and easy to find great games to play.
- Track and follow games that interest you.
- Gain recognition and followers who value your insight.
- Customize your profile with exclusive and licensed avatars, badges and background themes!
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Boardgaming.com is a great site that is easily accessible to new users to the boardgame hobby. The graphics are gorgeous and fun to view. This site fills a niche of gamers that isn’t addressed in other gaming sites. (NOTE: This review is of the site in Beta stage, some of the comments may no longer apply as features are added)
PROS
Superb graphics
Accessible
Easy to get straight to the content
Fun quests to keep you coming back (meta-game)
CONS
Not comprehensive
Heavily slanted to newer games (a lot of side effects)
Difficult to interact with other users on the site
Can’t share gold or gems with other users
GAMEPLAY
Boardgaming.com has a meta game of many quests that drive you back to the website. You can add value to the site through reviews, tips, strategies, and house rules that rewards you with experience and titles. Other users will reward you of how good your content is by “liking” it. Also, you’re rewarded in XP for playing games on the site and exploring other parts of the website from user profiles to game pages. The reporter quests reward users for inviting their friends to participate and spreading the word about the site. You can spend gold on showing how much you like game beyond saying it’s one of your favorites and spend it on customizing your profile.
CONCLUSION
Boardaming.com is a really good complement to heavier and harder to navigate boardgaming websites like BGG. The meta game is nice, so long as they can keep providing achievements for more experienced users which is difficult to do. The graphics are great and make great eye candy with some nice customization of graphics on your profile. I do like the site a lot, but I feel like they need to improve on the level of user interaction. Especially if you have a site about quests, it seems natural to support a way to help users quest together like guilds or band of adventurers in RPG’s.
I like the streamlined interface overall, and I hope this site continues to improve.
Well, if you’re here, then chances are you already know the sheer wonder this little corner of the interwebs has been bringing gamers over the last year or so. If you don’t already know, well then let me give you a quick run down so you can dig into the nooks and crannies and (hopefully) enjoy this place as much as I do!
Boardgaming.com is a social networking site dedicated to this wonderful hobby we all identify with called gaming! The creators, Jim, Greg and Jon and all of their collaborators set out to create a website that allowed this diverse and rich community to express their opinions and ideas about the games they love and have fun while doing it. The clever plot twist to this whole endeavor was creating a game out of the whole experience.
Taking fundamental staples from various games like experience points, rankings, levels, and gold they found a way to fuel the user driven content on the site and reward the contributors for their hard work and passion. I can think of few things more fun than playing a game that lets you talk about your favorite games!
Now this unique concept alone wouldn’t have the steam needed to get the train out of the station… that’s where the wonderful layouts, beautiful hand drawn artwork and frequent new features pulls together this proverbial witches brew and magically transforms it into a vintage chardonnay (or hearty ale if that’s your forte
)
Just like any RPG worth it’s salt, exploration yields wonderful rewards and digging around this watering hole will surely yield plenty, but the greatest reward this site will yield to those willing to root around is excellent new games to bring to your gaming tables and new friends to talk about them with during the down times!
I look forward to this website’s continued success as it marches onward towards becoming the premiere gaming resource on the internet. Count me fully vested in it’s journey!
Like many, I assume, I stumbled onto this site during an outage at another site for board game geeks. Having felt that other sites had/great communities and resources, but were very dry, sanitized experiences/looks, I was quite excited to see Boardgaming.com, and experience the site.
That is really it, too – this site is an EXPERIENCE. It feeds into the “loot drop”/rpg fan in me, seeing experience and gold appear when I contribute something. It feels gamey, and keeps me coming back.
The community side is something that I feel is lacking at the moment, although via comment sections for articles/games people are able to communicate back and forth. I’m sure, though, that this is but one of many areas where the site will continue to improve and involve.
For now, though, Im happy to read the news, give opinions, tips, and reviews on my latest additions to my game collections, and see what badges and features I will unlock next.
…so we made a game out of a website about games so you can game while you talk and learn about games.
I remember how excited I was about the concept for Fitocracy, when I first heard about it. An RPG for fitness?! What more could a gamer hope for in terms of motivation?!?! I was invited to be a part of the beta and… I fell off the wagon pretty quickly.
By contrast, this website has been like crack to me. So, what is Boardgaming.com doing so much better than Fitocracy?
Why I love Boardgaming.com:
The obvious thing that sets this site apart from Fitocracy is that it’s about something I actually thoroughly enjoy and full of people who share that sentiment, but that’s not the whole of it. If I had to point to merely two things that separate it from its fit-crazy cousin is that its comprehensive visual/design aesthetic is far more appealing and accessible and that its incentive structure is better implemented.*
I’ve found (and bought! ) games I never would have even heard of if it weren’t for Explorer quests and I’ve turned a critical eye on games I play habitually, so that I can earn those Professor points. I’ve also poured over countless tips and reviews that have given me a surprising amount of insight into even the games I’ve already played exhaustively, thanks to a community that really cares about the content.
What could be improved: **
As you can see from my rating, I don’t think this website is quite perfect. To begin with, I want to give it a higher rating, having now allowed it to consume a fair chunk of my life, but I can’t change my opinion on anything I’ve rated. I can understand (though disagree about) not being able to change your indication of whether something was helpful or not, because that impacts the other player’s quests, but not being able to revise your opinion of a game is pretty ridiculous.
As for other players, I think possibly the greatest room for improvement is in the social component of the website. Right now, the only way I can give feedback on a tip is by saying that it’s helpful, but wouldn’t it be great if each tip (particularly rules) could start a conversation about how to tweak it to greatest effect. Rather than simply giving down-votes, people could actually express why they don’t think a tip was helpful. Also, there’ve been a couple occasions where I really wanted to be able to message a gamer I respect to ask for their valuable insight on something.
Moving on from the bottomless pit of potential social features (I have many more thoughts on that matter), there are a number of things on the site that appear to serve no purpose, like the “Additional Rating Criteria” in the reviews and the calendar when you track gameplay. I’m not really irked about these things, because I hope they are an indication of exciting things to come.
Speaking of things to come, one final thing (I promise… I’ve rambled quite long enough) that I hope to see is simply more content , both in terms of game-related materials and incentives. Right now, there are definitely more exhaustive resources out there when looking up games (but they aren’t nearly as much fun) and quests peter out as you advance.
The gap from 20 to 680 positive ratings between Strategist and Tactician, for example, is so huge that only five people have ever made it… 7010 positive ratings is so inconceivably large that “Genius Tactician” doesn’t really serve as a realistic objective (maybe that will change as more people join the community).
Takeaway:
You may see that I have a lot more to say about improving the website than I do about why I love it, but I think it’s a testament to how much I value this site that I’d write a treatise on how I’d love for it to continue to grow. I could easily nitpick further on things like the balance of game elements (why is your first review only worth a little cash, whereas simply clicking a number for your first game rating is worth XP?), but I think it’d be distracting from my main point: this website is awesome and I hope the creators keep up the good work!
*I’ve revisited Fitocracy recently and they’ve improved dramatically since when I last used the site (it was in beta after all), but I still prefer Boardgaming.com’s design.
**Note the date on this review: some of these comments may be rendered obsolete as the website continues to improve.
This little site has been a joy of mine since the beginning of the year and Oh how I have loved thee. Daily I come to this site to log my different actions and see what others have to say about games that I am both interested in and could care less about. But I still love seeing what they have to say about different games and how they work. I love seeing new games and the ways that they work.
Outside of seeing what others are doing you are also able to dive in and offer your own opinion and experience and reap the rewards of the different quest. Each quest has a little bit of a different feel and can offer different impression for different gamers. If you just enjoy lots of different games without much thought then you can log those games in the gamer quest. If you like to tinker and tear mechanics apart then the professor would appeal to you. There is a little bit of something for everyone!
One of my favorite aspects is the tips section for the different games. Here I can see the ideas and strategies my gamer kin have used on different games to bring about their victory. Reading this gives me a hands up above my opponents at the table.
I also love giving my opinion about the different games that I have played. Its kind of like hearing the sound of my own voice.
Another thing that is easily to love that most people do not even realize when that are on a website, unless its broken, is website usability. And this site does it great. If you are on other sites for board gaming, its looks like they just threw up code all over the place. But here you get great usability, links take you where you think they will, and the artwork while you are exploring is terrific.
Overall, there are a few things I would like to see added to the site that could bring more people back for longer periods of time, such as news or enhancing game discussions. But there must be a good amount here already. Why else would I come back multiple times a day for months on end. I would also say that it is very easy to point out things that we would all like to improve, but I know the guys who are running the site are working hard to give all of us the best experience without losing their life to the site. For that I say thanks!
So, I could talk (write) about what I think about the site as a site, describing the attractive layouts for the games with an intuitive UI for reviews, tips, discussions etc. I could discuss the excellent community to be found here thus far, and the care and attention received by those involved in keeping this site active and up to date.
However, this is listed as a game and therefore I will review the “game” aspect of Boardgaming.com.
Basically I’m hooked, I check back daily, I click on those little hourglasses, I await the new additions to the game exploration quests and have submitted reviews, tips, house rules and opinions on this site where on others I have not as this site has made it into part of the game.
I think the restriction on played games is too much as I have often exceeded my daily allotment for games (especially when including online iterations), but apart from that, the Boardgaming “game” is a complete success.
Kudos to Boardgaming.com, well done all.
As far as I am concerend, this is THE place to be if you are looking for excellent reviews and information on all things board gaming. Sure, BGG may be bigger and have more members but talk about a mess! I don’t know if there is a more cumbersome and difficult site to navigate.
Here though, a joy. Boardgaming.com is easy on the eyes and is fun to look around. The system set up for uses to rate, comment, and review game is simply wonderful. I have gone head first into the Questing experience and I am having a blast. There is just so much to do!
I am happy to call myself a member of this community and I look forward to adding more reviews, more comments, and more rating to the games I love to play.
I joined less than a month ago but am already loving the site. Been reading reviews here before along with all the other obvious gaming sites, but the whole atmosphere and the fact that browsing the site itself is an addictive game makes BoardGaming.com really stand out from the crowd.
Already bought two new card games and a board game thanks to this… my wallet is crying but I’m happy with my new games and it was really good to go into the shop knowing exactly what I wanted thanks to the numerous reviews, game tips, etc.
A must read site for anyone into boardgaming, I only wish they extended their miniature gaming section a bit.
I see from the news that several conventions made their way onto the site and I would love BoardGaming.com to have a place where we can go and see what Cons are coming up soon. Currently I have to go searching for them in several different places, but I would rather find them here. The pictures and videos were great and I can’t wait for my next Con to come around the corner. U-Con may be next, but I have a Halloween party to attend…
I am trying to get some of my friends and family to use the site because they always want games for gifts – especially at Christmas time. It will be so easy to shop this year… once they have their own accounts I will just jump on over to their Wants page, see what they want vs. what they have, make a few notes, check the prices, and order up some games…
BoardGaming.com is awesome! I have found several games that I would never have stumbled upon without this site. I like the game reviews and love the tips and strategies. Look back in the News for some hidden Gems – that’s what I did.
…I have no real Cons so say about BoardGaming.com… Good Gaming!
None of my friends are “gamers”. There is also no local game store in my area. I really like games, however, I never get the chance to play new ones without purchasing them. That being said, I research heavily before I spend any money. Boardgaming.com is the best place I have found to research. For a number of reasons.
Pros:
- The reviews are opinions by real people
- I am research oriented, I don’t care if someone’s review of a game has a misspelled word in it, I only care about the content and this site is perfect for researching new games (other ‘research sites’ allow users to tear people apart…not helpful)
- Earning exp is fun
- No adds
- No mailbox
Cons:
- I want a lot of games after playing on this site
- Would be nice if there was a “games on sale” type forum
- Needs more news (I haven’t seen anything on here about Pandemic edition 2 new rules, art, or expansion)
Summory
Just set Boardgaming.com as your start page. Come on, DO IT!