Site Map.. ?

[TheFull9]

I got back from some time in the sand a few weeks back and a few of my fellow armourers want to try airsoft one evening after work, but the airbana map is sadly down now (and was fairly out of date last time I looked at it anyway).  We're a little bit outside of Reading and I'm struggling to find a decent evening game to suggest we attend now the mall is long gone.  I'm from Middlesex myself so I've been skirmishing in this area since about '06 but at the moment it seems the only evening games are Sentinel which is an hour drive and will be a bit of a hard sell; not impossible and I know many of you consider that a short hop but these are not dedicated enthusiasts.  I'm also not sure if they really light the place much at all at night (done a fair few days there myself but no evenings) and that'll possibly put off the guys who've not done it before.  Any input from you NW-London/Oxfordshire players would be appreciated.

While I'm here I'll also mention there's a real gap in the market now for an airbana replacement, if I actually played more than 1-2 times a year I'd jump on it tbh.  If any real active players who enjoy keeping right up-to-date on new sites/developments happen to read this (there's definitely a few on here) I reckon the cost of annual hosting could well be covered by advertising on a website like that, if AF-UK didn't fancy hosting it.  Be a hell of a resource for the community.

 

[lukeB]

I've always been frustrated by the lack of decent uk event maps.

Lots of people seem to attempt new ones every year or so, whether it's a google spreadsheet or a full web site, but they never last long or gain enough traction.

Is there a reason why these fail?  So much info seems to just be on FB these days, or word of mouth.

The web sites for a lot of these airsoft sites are so poor it's often hard to tell if they are still in business.  

Any system needs to be more than just a list of links.

For me, I would want to see a more powerful site search than I've seen in the past, that can be filtered on

• FPS limits (particularly DMR as 400 is pointless imo)
  
• Milsim / Battlesim / Skirmish
  
• Outdoor / CQB / Mixed
  
• Full day / half day / evening games
  
• You usual cost/location/distance etc
  
• HPA refill availability
  

If you can collate upcoming event info then as a user I'd want email alerts based on a predefined search criteria.

I've missed out on a few events that I would have attended had I known.

 

[Musica]

I to wish there was a better resource for this. Half the time I can't  even get straight answers from FB page only sites about their schedule. I ask for a list of games next month they tell me the next game they are doing instead. Well fucking done but I asked for next month not next week.

Very frustrating I can see why Roger mostly just goes to the Depot. Games posted up in advance, fully booked every time, not weather dependant.

 

[FreeFrag.UK]

Unfortunately like a lot of things (as @lukeB and @Musica have highlighted) has shifted to social media, the same is true for other types of event I used to frequent. This just leads to issues such as though highlighted already. Further to this website designs are often amateurish and piss poor with information often buried behind piss poor attempts at trying to be flashy and on top of that you've usually got hosting fees which many sites are unwilling to pay/invest in.

These issues are by no means exclusive to airsoft and while a universal database of professional design and quality would be a welcome resource I suspect it's something we're unlikely to see. Such a tool would need some form of backing in the form of a recognisable supporter (for sake of argument let's say it were to be added as a tool onto AF-UK), it would need a skilled designer/programmer, supporting researchers and it would no doubt require some semblance of financial backing. Bear in mind that this is just what you'd need to get it started. Once it was up and running you'd need someone with the skills who would be willing to continue updating it and appropriate support staff.

In an ideal world such a tool would be readily available as it would serve the interest of the community but it would require the means to build/develop the actual product, it would require some serious networking to build relations with sites/event organisers and finally it would need advertising to raise awareness in the community. I imagine that the second item I've suggested would be hardest one to develop based on the quality of communication I (and many others) have experienced when it comes to dealing with sites/events.

 

[Supermoose]

Similar to the suggestions like @lukeB made, What other features would you all want from this? ?

Hosting wise its wouldn't really cost  anything at the start  and literally a few ads would probably cover that but depending on what features its really not a massive development job.

Like @FreeFrag.UK said Your biggest issue is getting the data in there and maintained by the sites, once you have the traction and proven beneficial to a site, then it will self maintain, but if they are not willing to put the time in to add their events its a waste of time, then you would have to have it community driven and might not be 100% reliable data. 

P.s My day Job is being a very bored developer ?

 

[TheFull9]

I think I've either mis-represented my question or this has gone rather off track.  I'm happy to dig around myself to find out when games/events are going on, that's easy once you know who to ask, it's just finding the actual sites and organisers in the first place (mostly sites that run regularly as I'm not generally in to long events).  It's also far less effort to maintain a map of actual sites (probably only a few dozen) vs a list of the hundreds of games happening all around the UK every month.

For those who ever used airbana/airsoftmap.net that's all I'm proposing.  For those who didn't, it would look like just a google map of the UK (and you can freely customise those) with a pin for each site location with some supremely basic info - name, website/social media links, if the place is woods/cqb/urban; shops were on there too.  Then people can just find the places, navigate through and find the game dates on their own.  Infinitely less work than maintaining a database of events which has already proven is a non-starter and should be dismissed.

 

[Samurai]

It's the maintenance of the data that's about impossible. The collecting of it is just very very hard.

 

[TheFull9]

I don't agree at all, it'd take a couple of people from different parts of the UK who play regularly to occasionally update when a site opens or closes and that happens a few times a year, airbana did a decent job for many years so it very clearly is possible and demonstrably so.  Hell 1 person could manage it for the most part. You only have to look at the site reviews section here to see the clamour and enthusiasm there is when a potential new venue is opening up.

 

[Tommikka]

I don't agree at all, it'd take a couple of people from different parts of the UK who play regularly to occasionally update when a site opens or closes and that happens a few times a year, airbana did a decent job for many years so it very clearly is possible and demonstrably so.  Hell 1 person could manage it for the most part. You only have to look at the site reviews section here to see the clamour and enthusiasm there is when a potential new venue is opening up.

It may seem as simple as that.  One person could collate some info, drop it on a map and do basic maintenance ...... but of the many maps that have come and gone over time this hasn’t happened 

 

[TheFull9]

"here's an idea that'll be really great"

"it'll never work! give up now!"

-airsoft

I've only known 2 maps in my ~13 years playing and airbana went down very recently, it lasted for years, but clearly whoever was running it moved on from the game.  Even the admin of this very forum isn't involved anymore, it happens, it doesn't make (for example) 5 years of a useful resource being up for folks to use.  Not that it matters what I say as someone other than me who knows the lay of the land would have to put in a few hours to make such a thing, but I think with the online resources we have available now, the medium-to-long term success of previous examples etc it's an entirely viable idea.  If people don't... cool.

 

[Philby21]

Okay, I'll admit that I've skimmed some of the comments on this thread but I'm guessing that something like this might work?  Alternatively there's this link instead?  Simple web page integration that works well and if you click on any of the branch names or icons you'll see details that can be stored (including links to site specific pages)

This is zero cost from Google but does require curating - unfortunately this is usually where these things (especially via social media) fall down.

Updates are not difficult but I'm not sure if it can be set up to allow multiple editors.  Editors can be quite keen initially but that wears off extremely quickly when they figure out that it is actually unpaid "work" - and this is the point that pretty much all social media attempts fail, these things only work due to the effort of a committed group of volunteers.

If we've got enough of those on here spread around the country then maybe we could  put something together ourselves that might actually last more than five minutes?

As far as events are concerned there are simple website plugins with excellent functionality and the capability to output directly to Android/iOS calendars to provide reminders.

Maybe the admins/moderators could look into if the board software for here would be able to integrate some of this stuff?  If not then it wouldn't be too difficult to find some free hosting somewhere (i.e. Wordpress?) and set something very simple up?  I'm sure there are enough of us here who could chip in some time to help get it set up and keep it running, at least for our local areas?

 

[Albiscuit]

It certainly has my interest.. I know a developer who plays Airsoft and he thinks it’s pretty simple. 

I am happy to do leg work and have some ideas already!!

 

[lukeB]

This is something that I'm looking into.

The idea being to get something simple done to start with, then looking at improvements later on if they make sense.

I run my own software consultancy so development time, support and hosting will not be an issue as I'll put it through my business.

If we have any junior UI/frontend devs on the forum that want to help, then get in touch.

 

[Samurai]

I'm a senior web dev. I saw the site maps come and die. I don't think it can work like that but I wish best of luck for it.

 

[ChrisG]

I've toyed with building this for several months now.