News & Opinion

Temporary Canadian Postal Code Weirdness

Hello Canadian gamers... and everyone else!

UPDATE:  This problem has been resolved. 

I noticed a problem with some new postal code lookups from our free Geolocation vendor LocationIQ.  The good news is that they will have it fixed in about a week.  The bad news is that it won't be fixed for at least a week.

If there is a new Canadian postal code not in our database, Find Gamers sends a query for the missing data.

For example, we queried for J0N 1G0 but the response dropped 1G0 and only sent us the data for the entire J0N region instead of the exact postal code geolocation data.  As you can assume, this is a bit of a problem.  

This is the type of data we get from LocationIQ:

[{"place_id":"77060","licence":"https:\/\/locationiq.com\/attribution","boundingbox":["45.5135","45.5135","-74.0534","-74.0534"],"lat":"45.5135","lon":"-74.0534","display_name":"R\u00e9gion d'Oka (Oka), Quebec, J0N, Canada","class":"place","type":"postcode","importance":0.1,"address":{"suburb":"R\u00e9gion d'Oka (Oka)","state":"Quebec","postcode":"J0N","country":"Canada","country_code":"ca","state_code":"qc","town":"R\u00e9gion d'Oka (Oka)","city":"R\u00e9gion d'Oka (Oka)"}}]

Until this is fixed in the next week, we might continue to receive some wrong data.  But when it's fixed, LocationIQ has promised to notify me.  I will then delete the bad data and manually fix the bad postal code data.  

That's it folks, so no worries.  I will update this news article when it's done.

NPC Backgrounds with Feeling

Hello gamers.  

Today we released a new DM/GM generator for fantasy gamers called NPC Backgrounds with Feeling.  Not everyone is comfortable creating NPC backgrounds off the top of their head.  This web tool is intended to give you a great start in fleshing out real characters who feel more like living, breathing members of your game world.  

Our focus is on giving NPCs their own personality traits that can make them feel like separate individuals.  They can have different backgrounds or occasionally maybe even the same.  Some people do frequently have the same or similar life experiences, like surviving a raid on your village.

There are a variety of options to modify the types of NPCs generated.  Job types, name types, size of their Home Location or even special Groups like Traders or all females.  You can even have their livelihood or name generated as a underline blank to be filled in later.

Each feature about the NPCs is randomized.  But you can increase the odds of more personality traits by adjusting Random Complexity.  It will affect the odds of certain types of traits occurring.  Those include their personality and nature as well as backgrounds, fears, quirks or even hobbies.  

You can find NPC Backgrounds with Feeling on our menu under NPCs, Coins & Tools or by clicking it in this sentence.

Hopefully this tool with help a few of you out.  I'd appreciate a message in Feedback if that's true.

Is 'Edit My Profile' Too Complex

Find Gamers wants to know if the website's user interface is too hard or just a pain for you.  With that in mind, we're starting by asking about the user interface specific to creating & updating our member's profiles.

Do you think it's too much hard to complete or update your profile?  Your personal profile creates your Gamer Biography.  It's where you pick your games and your gaming interests.

Only about 55% of members have ever updated their biography, this percentage is consistent year after year. We'd like to increase that number.

A new poll was created today for members.  It will clues and hopefully let us know if the interface is too hard for some members.  If it is, we'd like to simplify it.

Eventually Find Gamers hopes to have a more simple interface in general.  But maybe this is the best place to start.

Click Here to visit the Survey page and let us know if you have an opinion.

Minor SSL Update

Hi all, hope you are surviving the 2020 apocalypse.  Just a tiny thing to take note of today. 

As of this morning, we're requiring TLS 1.2 instead of TLS 1.0 for HTTPS now.  It means your web browser and the server will use tougher encryption when talking to each other.  That makes it less likely someone will intercept your private information.  It has not been a problem so far but using better locks is always a good idea.

After reviewing our active 2020 members, no one seems to be using ancient browser technology.  So this likely won't even be noticed by anyone that I can find.  

Have a great Fall folks!  

Minor Update - RPG Gamestyles

Greetings Gamers!

You asked for them, so we've added two new options for your Gamer Biography in Roleplaying Gamestyle Preferences.  You can now rate your interest from 0 to 5 in Crunchy and Lightweight.  They both refer to game system rules.  Do you prefer more rules in your game system or less?  Some of us probably like more of both depending on your DM, GM or the story your playing through.

Remember that your interests often change.  So it's a good idea to update your Gamestyle Preferences once in a while. 

In case you wonder why these were added, they were voted for in our Survey Page.  It's where our members also vote on adding new Game Systems as well.  Don't forget to vote!

VTTs for Gamer Profiles

A number of Virtual TableTop applications have been added to our member's profiles.   

They will appear in your personal Public Biography page and in the search results for Online Gamers.

How To Add VTTs to your Profile

1. Go to Edit My Profile then Basics.  It's available on the left-side menu or top menu.
2. Select Yes for Game Online in your Profile Basics.  
3. Pick the VTTs you want to appear in Gaming Basics.

If you have problems with this new feature, be sure to let us know through Feedback.