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Tiebreak and the Future

Stefan Ashwell 22nd January 2016 Comments 3 mins read

With the break of a new year I thought it would be a good time to look forward to the year ahead for Tiebreak, and also look back over the last 4 years since Tiebreak’s first creation.

A look back

Since 2012 Tiebreak has come a long way. The system has expanded and improved immensely over the years adding more and more features along the way. It has been used at some of the biggest events in the UK. It’s changed our expectations when we attend events, having all the information we need at our fingertips. Ticketing and Rankings systems have been developed to enhance the service too. If I could I would thank each and every one of the 1,215 members who have so far registered on the site, either as a player or an organiser – or indeed both!

2016

And so what does 2016 hold for Tiebreak? Many of you will be aware that Tiebreak is built, managed and run by just one person. I do this because of my love of wargames, and my enjoyment of competitive play. If I could dedicate all of my time to Tiebreak I would but in reality this isn’t the case. That said, I feel there a lot many facets of Tiebreak that need some love and attention, and a number of goals I feel the system needs to achieve in 2016. Below I’ve listed the main goals for Tiebreak in 2016.

Communication

One of the biggest places I think Tiebreak currently falls down is in communication with it’s members, and the wider world. This blog is a prime example – you’ll notice it’s not updated all that often. Well I think that should change. I’d like to open Tiebreak’s doors a lot more and keep everybody up to date with anything that goes on here. So that’s goal number 1 right there. And I’m not talking “Guess what I’ve had for lunch today” – useful stuff, like reports of events, or insights into future releases etc.

New Features & Requests

New things are added all the time. And the list of ideas for new things keeps growing and growing. I don’t think a day goes by when I don’t think of something new that could be an awesome addition to Tiebreak. Therefore I will shortly be launching a new section of Tiebreak that lists  potential new features. All the ideas for improvements or new features will be listed along with your chance to tell me which ones to build next via a voting system. Not only that but the community will have the chance to suggest things too – so it won’t just be my ideas any more.

Squashing Bugs

In a similar vain to the features system above, I will be launching another new section for bugs. Unfortunately every piece of software encounters things that aren’t quite working properly. Equally, Tiebreak’s grown to the point now that updates can have an unforeseen knock on effect that I’m unaware of. The best way of dealing with these and patching them up is to ensure it’s easy and obvious for members to report them. That way I know they’re there and I can stomp them out! This, again, will be completely open. So it you’ll be able to go in and see if there are any known bugs, or look back over bugs that have been fixed in the past (you know, if you’re a curious one…or have nothing better to do on a Saturday night!).

Regular Updates

I’d like to move to a more regular update schedule. Right now when new features are built or bugs fixed I just push them live when they are ready. However I think it would be sensible to do this on a regular basis. This, of course, will be posted and announced, so you know what new features have been added or what pesky bugs have been squashed!

This isn’t to say that if you spot a bug it won’t get fixed until the next release date – critical updates and bug fixes will continue to be fixed when required. But again, I feel this kind of thing should be posted about so everybody knows it’s happened.

Beta No More

One of the biggest goals of 2016 I feel is to finally get out of Tiebreak’s seemingly perpetual Beta state. I started this post reflecting back over 4 years of Tiebreak, however in 4 years I think it’s a shame Tiebreak hasn’t been unleashed into the wild and used to it’s full potential. That will change in 2016, and instead of 20 or 30 events every year let’s get Tiebreak running every event!

I could list here everything I want to do to improve or expand Tiebreak, but this post is already long enough and you’ll see that once the feature list section is online anyway.

If you’ve got to the end of this post then thanks for reading – let’s make 2016 an awesome year for tournaments!