jhkimrpg (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} jhkimrpg) wrote,@ 2005-10-18 21:36:00 |
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New Player Finder Utility
Viamemento_mori, nikotesla, and amanofhats ...
So, Clinton Nixon has opened a new utility for finding nearby RPG players, As far as I can see, this is superior to nearly all similar utilities out there -- unless I'm missing something. It queries FreeGeo (which in turn queries Google Maps) to find latitude and longitude, and thus calculate geographic distance to find nearest gamers. It also shows you when the poster was last active -- and allows you to send to them without posting their email address for spammers or others to harvest. Plus he's openly distributing the source. Here are the competitors that I've seen:
What I'd love to do is add to it an engine which points you to related entries in at least some of these other databases. I'd also like an optional field to give a webpage link, and possibly one for brief notes or requests. I'm also slightly troubled by the "Last Played" since with only three slots it can make me look radically different depending from month to month. (i.e. I've played D&D, Parlor Larp, Dogs in the Vineyard, HarnMaster, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the past two months, say. Depending on which three out of those go up, my gaming may seem quite different.)
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memento_mori, nikotesla, and amanofhats ...So, Clinton Nixon has opened a new utility for finding nearby RPG players, As far as I can see, this is superior to nearly all similar utilities out there -- unless I'm missing something. It queries FreeGeo (which in turn queries Google Maps) to find latitude and longitude, and thus calculate geographic distance to find nearest gamers. It also shows you when the poster was last active -- and allows you to send to them without posting their email address for spammers or others to harvest. Plus he's openly distributing the source. Here are the competitors that I've seen:
It says something that Wizards of the Coast has a sucky posting board as its official way to find players; while Palladium, White Wolf, and Eden have so-so utilities; and indie games have the best. In short, sign up on FindPlay.
- Access Denied
- This is a large database, with ostensibly 13594 listings -- but it includes boardgamers and others, and many are out of date. It also hands out your email, and can only search by text match of city name.
- White Wolf Game Finder
- This has over 8000 listings for the U.S. plus international. It hands out your email, but you can search by state or player-entered "Metro City Area".
- Palladium Gamers Registry
- This is classified by country and state, and just a flat page otherwise. It has 1529 entries in the U.S., and again broadcasts your email. All entries for a state are listed together on one page.
- Steve Jackson Games Gamer and Store Finder
- This allows searching by city name, zip code, and/or country. It again hands out email, but also includes game stores as well as gamers. It currently has 769 entries.
- Eden Games Player Registry
- This has only 470 listings, and now has some broken links, but at least it gave the option to not openly post your email.
- Wizards of the Coast Community: RPG Gamer Classifieds
- This is a lousy alternative -- post on a board, and you can't even be accurately searched. A sticky suggests formating your subject line as State, City -- but no one follows that, so sorting is useless. About the best that can be said is that it has high visibility.
- RPGnet Forum: Gaming Gatherings
- Ditto for this, but it should be mentioned, I guess.
- ENWorld Forum: Gamers Seeking Gamers
- Another posting board on a high visibility forum.
What I'd love to do is add to it an engine which points you to related entries in at least some of these other databases. I'd also like an optional field to give a webpage link, and possibly one for brief notes or requests. I'm also slightly troubled by the "Last Played" since with only three slots it can make me look radically different depending from month to month. (i.e. I've played D&D, Parlor Larp, Dogs in the Vineyard, HarnMaster, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the past two months, say. Depending on which three out of those go up, my gaming may seem quite different.)
