[Dark Age Iron Savior]

man, what a compressed topic title...

For reasons that will never likely become clear, I've been lightly thinking over the past few days about game server browsers and wikis.

It's been a long time since I played an onilne game (long story). I used to use the All Seeing Eye, and it was pretty great, but it's gone now. Nothing seems to have really matched it's breadth since then, although I may be mistaken.

Now there's Steam, but as far as I'm aware, it only tracks games that are sold via Steam (or something like that), although you can say what you own on it like a profile, etc.

The thing is, I'm thinking of something...more. I mean, what I actually want doesn't exist and would be hell to make, but I want to know what is out there that could make up the difference.

See, one of the things that is a major problem with keeping a community gaming together is that everyone has a different set up hardware and software wise. Match of the Millenium is actually doing pretty well compared to some boards I've seen, but a message board isn't really the ideal thing for setting up/soliciting interest in multiplayer sessions. Things like exchanging IMs, steam IDs and such help people actually contact each other, but I can't help but feel that there's a better way.

The crazy idea I'm conceiving, and which I'm sure someone has to have attempted at some point, is a site that acts as both an information respository and a social network that people can update with a moment's notice.

The information side would work like a wiki, with players creating profiles that list their consoles, computer specs, games and hours/time zone (as well as any other information they want). All of those things would also have their own pages, so things could be cross-referenced - you could see all the people with 360s, or everyone who owns game X, and so on. I'm sure with the right programming you could specify more complicated things, like everyone who uses Steam who can run Source engine games who is around at such and such times.

The other side would be to make a part of the site live, not just in the sense that members could edit it freely, but that they could also post in a chat-like area games that are going to happen, ongoing games, or status reports (game was abandoned, is currently full, etc). Obviously, you could never create software that could monitor all or even a fraction of the games themselves, but with a significantly dedicated group of users, it could be a very useful tool for organizing games.

And of course, there could be things in-between, like a calendar system with a schedule, maybe set up a bot to post in the live area with games that are about to happen..

I realize this idea is quite unrealistic, and unlike game server browsers, it relies entirely upon user input.....but I think there's an inkling of a good concept in here, and I want to know if anyone has ever seen something like this, or knows what kind of software might allow for a combination of wiki and chat with some level of reliable security.
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[Takashi]

Eurogamers?
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low-end.net | Whimsy (soon) | Serfdom 2.0

[Sushi K]

Kind of like xbl or msn gaming or whatever else microsoft has in the works?

Another idea create a website that automatically aggregates all those sources (xbl, ps home, steam whatever) that people can sign up for to collect all that information in one place.
(For example for xbl you can get those banners for your signatures that shows all your games/score, find some way to read that information right off the microsoft servers and automatically feed it into your website idea.)

I am sick so I don't make much sense or care if this is even possible or has been attempted before so you can take their work.
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[CubaLibre]

Just want to point out, you can register every game on your PC on Steam even if it isn't a "Steam game" and avail yourself of the Community features during gameplay. Which makes it something like XBL on the PC except minus the jump-in matchmaking (since if the game isn't a Steam game it obviously won't handle any of the server browsing).
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Let's Play, starring me.

[BIGJ420COOLDUDE]

isn't this one of the things windows live does? not really sure because nobody uses it.

[BIGJ420COOLDUDE]

the whole thing is pretty fucking fragmented if you're not using xbl/psn/windows live/steam. 2df is really good for setting up quick matches in mame games--if your mame game is supported by 2df

[BIGJ420COOLDUDE]

i'm really unsure as to why you want to make a wiki attached to it.


it would probably be relatively easy to write a facebook app that did this but you'd need facebook and maybe people who use facebook are a little bit nervous about listing a shitload of videogames on it. or not, whatever