Remaining functionality for version 0.1

After the testing period ended I have made a list of what I consider to be the essential functionality to add before the final release of version 0.1. I am now assuming that it will release in the end of April.

This functionality has been decided upon:

• On each closed prediction a full result list where each trader can see how he/she did. This is a part of the general idea of improved history.


• Make it easier to buy and sell. By adding some cool javascripts and putting all the trading on just one page it should become even more intuitive how to buy and sell. This is important to keep new traders in an open game.


• A graph on each prediction to show how the price/value has evolved. This is something everyone thinks of when thinking of a regular stock market.


• Relevant news should be shown on each prediction as well on each trader's portfolio page. To make this work some database changes have to be made as well as adding functionality to the admin management module for news items.

This functionality is under consideration:

• A way to edit an offer. For now a trader has to cancel an offer and create a new one to do the same as an edit.


• A different, perhaps weighted average way with emphasis on the latest trades to calculate value. The reason for this is that the number of stocks traded does not matter on the last value.

More new funtionality in version 0.1

As the testing period is ending and I have had time to look at the suggested feedback, I have implemented some new features for version 0.1:

• More grids are sortable (by clicking on the column header).


• The Traders and Prediction pages have new columns.


• Medals now have tooltips to explain what they are for.


• Info box on the right hand side has more information.


• Stock value is calculated corretly and showing more intuitively.


• Activity level is shown in a trader's portfolio. This will soon show up on the Marketplace as well.


• Number of stocks owned are showing intuitive numbers.


• More and better tooltips.


• and more ...

Overall score

I don't consider the gaming aspect of the Forecast Exchange to be the main aspect, but once you play it is important to know how you are doing compared to the others. This has not been possible so far, but today I implemented a new feature. I added two columns to the list of all traders (players). One column for Stock value and one for Total value. I made this column sortable and had Total value as the default sort. Now it will immediately be obvious who is doing best (assuming that the calculation is correct, of course).

This feature was the top choice in the Feedback system and it actually did feel good to choose the item that most people wanted implemented. Here is how the All forecast traders page look now:

First medals won

One of the features of the application is that it decides who won the prediction. The calculation is done as follows:

• If the prediction succeeds, the player that had the most stocks wins the Predictum medal.


• If the prediction fails, the player that made the most money trading his/her stocks in that prediction (mostly selling at a decent price, of course), wins the Fatalum medal.

In the example below, the player Torleif H had the most stocks in HUGO when that prediction succeeded. On his portfolio page this is shown:

Feedback

In order to get feedback from testers, a new feature was added to the Forecast Exchange today. On the left side you will see a red button saying Feedback. By clicking that you will find a list of suggested new features which you can vote on. All users gets ten votes they can spread over the different suggestions as they please (max 3 per item). The idea is then that the most voted for suggestions will be the next to be developed.

If you have a similar web site you can easily add this feature yourself. UserVoice is the company that does this. Most features are available for free. For an open source project like this you even get unlimited use on the features, in some areas even more than for the professional version. Our link was registered and we had to add a code snippet generated by UserVoice to our main.master file and that was it. Very cool!