Late last year we began work on a new version of PlayTracker, rebuilt from scratch to be faster, better, and most importantly allow us to continue adding new features that people were asking for, but could not happen without lots of technical work.Over the coming days, this new version will roll out to everyone. As our 5-year anniversary looms, PlayTracker is leveling up.
Today, May 31st, the existing PlayTracker is going into "read-only" mode, meaning pages will still remain available, but new data will not sync and users will not be able to update any settings or create new accounts. Tomorrow, on June 1st, visting playtracker.net will begin to direct to the new app. We ask for patience as this happens - not all features will work right away. Here's what awaits in this new world.
A completely revamped interface
For the new app, senior designer Matija Radović joined the team full-time to help us redesign the entire PlayTracker interface to be more user friendly, intuitive, and just plain delightful. From small tweaks like being able to follow a user from the header of any of their pages, to entirely new interfaces like the new Dashboard, we've put an enormous amount of love and care into every bit and bob and we hope you'll love it as much as we do.
Game labels to organize your library
Users can now attach labels to their games that serve a variety of functional and organizational purposes.
Hidden - the game will not contribute to your totals or appear for anyone except you.
Backlog - helps you keep track of what you've yet to play, and allows the game to show up in certain Quest features
Completed - shows that you've beaten a game's main mode
We will be using this tech to add more labels in the future. We're already working on "Hall of Fame" which will denote games you think are absolutely outstanding and Game of the Year material, and some community members have already suggested other ideas we're looking into.
A privacy first approach
We enlisted the services of established data privacy experts here in the EU and, with their help, built the new PlayTracker infrastructure with a privacy-first approach. Not only have we moved everything to secure EU-based infrastructure, we've also made sure not to use any services that expose your usage of PlayTracker to targeted advertising elsewhere online, like Google Fonts or Facebook's share button. We've also built in a large number of privacy settings and given you full control so you can fine tune how much you share with the whole world, just your friends, or keep for yourself.
New tech within, ready for the future
Under the hood, the new PlayTracker runs across multiple servers each specialized for a specific purpose, making everything much faster, easier to manage, and allowing us to scale up to support our growing userbase. It also allows us to expand beyond the web, but more on that in a moment...
A bigger and more rewarding Quest
We wanted to make Quest more substantial and rewarding while decreasing the pressure of its' time constraints. Thus - Quest's beloved themed challenges are now on the same seasonal cycle you know from League with an appropriately increased number of challenges and a more substantial mystery gift. There is also an entirely new system on Quest: Reputation. Instead of XP, completing challenges (and other objectives) grants Reputation in addition to progress towards the mystery gift. You can use Reputation to purchase cover images, titles, and special unlocks for your account, with more to come soon.
We'll be adding more features to Quest beyond just the rotating themed challenges and league leaderboards, and we're starting with the long-awaited Backlog Dungeon where random games from your backlog will be chosen to grant reputation for every achievement earned, giving you extra rewards for clearing the ole' backlog. In addition to the Insight and Achievement pages, each game now also has a Quest page which contains any active challenges and rewards.
We're just getting started
All of this is just what we considered to be the minimum before we swap everyone over to the new app. With the benefit of this new technology and the ability to gather more feedback, we're going to keep adding new stuff. Here's what we're cooking.
Almost done and coming soon:
Desktop PC app with tracking for all games
Help knowledge base/mini wiki
More features on Insight
Unlockable profile badges
Customizable profile cards
Card sticker cosmetics
Permanent sets of challenges with rewards on Quest
Game progress and achievement sharing for local coop games
Better integration for GW2 and Overwatch 2
Hall of Fame label to mark your favorite games
Mastered label which is 100% of the core game's achievements
In development and likely to happen by Fall:
Mobile app on Android and iOS
Epic Games Store sync
RetroAchievements sync
Groups/Guilds/Clans
More ways to personalize the user profile
Under consideration:
Social networking features
User reviews for all games
Nintendo Switch support
Thank you for your patience and continued support. As always, stay tuned for more.