New Website [beta]

[Malchaeius]

Taeltrin has put a lot of work into this website and he has asked that I make it available to you guys to take a look and make some suggestions.

http://irumeru.genesismuds.com

Beta 2 Website (the links do not really work)

Post comments, suggestions, et cetera below.

EDIT: Beta 2 website added.

[Dale]

Cool stuff.

[corpsestomp]

Overall, I'm pretty impressed. It's easy to navigate and informative. I gave it a quick look over and noticed a couple things. The title on my browser for the 'About FL' part doesn't have a t. Also, it says we have 18 playable races, and we have 19. The last thing, is that I couldn't find in the Cabal info was the names of clans. I just think this is info that should be readily available.

Other than those few small quibbles, I really, really like it.

[Mudder]

I have the feeling I am going to come across as over critical...

I don't want to. I love what we are doing. This website, I feel, is better than the current. That said, here are my critiques.

I don't like the font. It does not appeal to me. I think its too... Eh. Too wanna be old english looking.. Hard to explain.

The red background. I know our theme is black and red... Those are just horrible colors to be a majority of the website. It makes the whole page look unprofessional. When we look unprofessional we look like we're a new mud that doesn't know what we're doing... Which is very untrue. We're the best MUD out there and I feel our website should reflect just that. I think maybe an off-white background would be much better, for now.

The old aabahran banner. It looks grainy/boxy. If we could update that and make it look smooth and new - it would be perfect.

Also, the banner is a link... To the home page. When on the home page it shouldn't be a link.

Now I will comment on the "layout." When someone first visits a website, the very first thing they see is incredibly important. It should be simple, classy/professional, and overly easy. I am a firm believer on the scroll bar not even existing on the home page. On this webpage you are forced to scroll down every time you click a link. I would recommend changing the layout around so this doesn't occur.

EDIT: I like the "About FL" page. Maybe that should be the home page?

[Ex-D&Der]

To be honest, I think it looks a little childlike. The existing site is better, and Mali's proposed site is better still.

[Aulian]

I have the feeling I am going to come across as over critical...

I don't want to. I love what we are doing. This website, I feel, is better than the current. That said, here are my critiques.

I don't like the font. It does not appeal to me. I think its too... Eh. Too wanna be old english looking.. Hard to explain.

The red background. I know our theme is black and red... Those are just horrible colors to be a majority of the website. It makes the whole page look unprofessional. When we look unprofessional we look like we're a new mud that doesn't know what we're doing... Which is very untrue. We're the best MUD out there and I feel our website should reflect just that. I think maybe an off-white background would be much better, for now.

The old aabahran banner. It looks grainy/boxy. If we could update that and make it look smooth and new - it would be perfect.

Also, the banner is a link... To the home page. When on the home page it shouldn't be a link.

Now I will comment on the "layout." When someone first visits a website, the very first thing they see is incredibly important. It should be simple, classy/professional, and overly easy. I am a firm believer on the scroll bar not even existing on the home page. On this webpage you are forced to scroll down every time you click a link. I would recommend changing the layout around so this doesn't occur.

EDIT: I like the "About FL" page. Maybe that should be the home page?

This wasnt over critical. It was perfect.

1.I agree about the graphic, surely there is someone around whom can create something more update, or even the same but smoothe.

2. The website does look a bit unprofessional - merely a first impression and easily fixed

3. I agree that perhaps we should consider having a more basic front page similar to Mali's. Its to the point, non-overloading and very effective.

4. What I would liek to see with the dumbed down front page (less complicated) would be only the messages of the day (UPDATED EVEN IF WE JUST INCLUDE SOME OF THE AWESOME RECENT CHANGES FRM THE CHANGE THREAD IN THE FORUM.) To show that we are trucking onwards and upwards!

I'll give it a bit more thought and look through the entire website.

[random_clown]

The navigation is handled somewhat poorly. You are repeating the entire page many times over in each .html file it seems. At bare minimum (though not necessarily what I would do) you should use a frame for the content so that on click you don't get a full page refresh. This much redundency is to be avoided.

I won't comment on the layout/graphics simply because I don't have the time to contribute a solution to any problems I may bring up.

However, from a pure technical stand point, I am sure there are many here that have the skill to give the page a better "feel" as you navigate.

A little ASP and simple AJAX would go a long way here. Maybe just wrap the content in a panel with async postback? Silky smooth.

I am happy to give technical advice...or god forbid, a code review...to the work if you would like, Taeltrin.

Ex-D&Der and Mudder have some valid points...but really, depending on your experience in this area, it's nothing out of the ordinary. There are many things I would change about the layout as well, and if I have some spare time I'll be sure to drop a few comments on it. It does need some refinement, and after that, the professional polish, but I'm sure we can get it there.

['tarako]

'I really like the website. I don't think anything is wrong with the banner except that it's a link. I only know a little coding, but i agree with rc about not need the page to load when each sidelink is clicked, just the info box. But yeah. add the demon smiley and that should be good to go.

[goldbond]

all this work towards the MUD is pretty exciting.

[Guest emp_newb]

Hey man, I put my hands together. It is a bit friendly than our current site. As well as portrays the mud in a fantasy style that makes it appealing, but still leaves alot to learn. Not to mention the fact that Malch made a post asking for ideas on the website. So Im gonna say nicely done. I can agree that the rough edges need smoothed over, but that can be done easily. Considering this is just Beta, and the first draft we have been shown, I say rock on.

[Grumpy]

I honestly like this site better than the current one. It can definitely be improved upon though. What I really like about the site is that it looks clean and comfortable to read.

[Quigt]

I really like it; It's very informative. I think he forgot Avatar on the qclass list though. Unless I'm mistaken and Avatar isn't a qclass. Either way, keep up the good work.

[WagesofSin]

Weeell....I don't want to be too critical, but it's not much better than the one we have now. Really, it needs to be cool, slick, and sexy. Click on any of the top MUDS in the TMP top 20; some of them look really good, to the point where I say "Wow, this MUD looks like it doesn't even need my business!".

[Calron]

People have had some good ideas already, but I'll add a few more:

1) A very important hallmark of website design is making people aware that they have "arrived" at a new location (it is a mental thing). This is the reason that many websites use varying colors when travelling between pages. When people use a website, they need to know where in the website they are. Having different colors is meant to decrease navigational disorientation. Another thing you could do is add a flash graphic of the scroll falling open before you fill out the text.

2) Walls of text are always to be avoided when making a website. A browser is not going to read entire paragraphs, so it is necessary to make the experience easier (and effective). Bold or highlight key words so they jump out (Even on the welcome page, I had to read four paragraphs to find the link to the forums, bold it! Bold role-play enforced, etc, you get the idea. Do this throughout), and think about utilizing something other than block text (an inverted pyramid is proven to be effective).

3) The text needs to be larger. People shouldn't have to work to read it, the text should be flowing out at them. (This means you'll also have to reduce the quantity, which goes back to #2)

4) Having a flash movie intro would be an AWESOME way to make people want to see more. It is very rarely done for MUD games and it would really impress. (Make sure you have a "Skip Intro" link for people that may not want to watch it, or else for repeat users. You never want to make your customer wait.)

5) From an efficiency standpoint, random_clown is right in that everything shouldn't be reloaded each time if it isn't necessary.

6) And just a little more specific this time. Having the red background with 1-2 inches of blank space on each side gives it a bit of an amateurish design. One of the most difficult parts of designing a website is making the user feel content, but not too crowded. If there is blank space on a website, the user should never be drawn to it.

I'll try to add more specific ideas later.

[mya]

Good work. I even in this present state it is already better than the existing one.

- Border.

I do not like the border. It think it makes the page information area smaller.

If you like a border i would suggest other thing. Like a 5 mm blood trail.

- The top banner.

I think you lost something during the resize of the banner. The letters look a bit fuzzy on the pixels. This is a minor that can be fixed latter.

- The Scrolls

Very nice idea. And well implemented. But they look a bit to thin, perhaps an idea would be to reduce the width of the links area and increase on the scroll width.

- Not using frames.

I think this was a very good idea. I don't notice any slow in loading the pages. Looks fine to me.

- Space

To much space underused. We could condensate the site vertically. That way we would have more info without having to scroll down.

- Images

We should have images, for example a 10 cm^2 image would look very nice just above the "Avaiable scrolls" (in red). We could even have a player contest to fill this space. In the mean while we could have a generic FL image there or the demon...

From Carlon:

"1) A very important hallmark of website design is making people aware that they have "arrived" at a new location (it is a mental thing). This is the reason that many websites use varying colors when travelling between pages."

I Disagree. I think that keeping format/ colour scheme consistent is more important, and at the moment it looks fine. To much change and Bold colour would look like a viagra advertising site or one of those XXX enlargers.

PS: You have invisible black text on the Imortals Page. In the links section under Valganti it says: "gion2" .

[random_clown]

- Not using frames.

I think this was a very good idea. I don't notice any slow in loading the pages. Looks fine to me.

While I, too, would not use frames, my earlier post disagrees with the redundency of having the entire page (menu and all) repeated across all pages when really all you need to do is change the content "panel" to the right of the links. You will notice the entire page getting reloaded. I won't go into too much technical detail, but it is a small fix to make it so that when you select the menu item to the left, the content on the right will refresh "silently" so that you do not see any refreshing of the page, and removes all page redundency carried between content.

Speed will obviously be faster, but on such a small page, you won't notice much difference in speed...just that it will have a smooth transition while navigating. Its things like this, though seemingly small, mark an important step to making a page seem professional.

[Ex-D&Der]

I'm impressed with the content. I wonder if a font that looked more hand-written would be appropriate?

I don't like the gray 3-D tablet-like frame. I think the intended effect is okay, but it's too wide and monochromatic and looks kind of amateurish. Same with the red border, as has already been observed.

I agree with Random Clown about the refresh thing. It also puts you back at the top of the page when you click a new link at this point, which is kind of annoying--it would be good if you could stay centered on the scroll. Also if you wanted to be really clever the text could quickly write itself on the scroll from top to bottom (not really write itself just appear in that order).

Also I thought Paladins were also hybrids.

Also the first page has a lot of the links duplicated at the top and on the left. Is there some way to change the static links along the top and 1/3 of the way down for the first page only? I.e. just create a unique front page and have the standard page shown for the rest of the pages.

Sorry for my previous post it was 3 in the morning, wife's away and I had been partying with Budweiser and old Battlestar Galactica episodes on Netflix.

[Guest Taeltrin]

Keep the ideas flowing! Lots of good ones so far. I take criticism well so don't worry, I suppose when an amateur builds a site it is bound to come accross with an amateur feel. Those of you who have any tips and tricks for refinement please keep them coming, just keep in mind I don't actually know HTML so any advice needs to be in layman terms.

[a-guitarist]

Where'd the music and animated gifs go?

a-g

[goldbond]

hopefully, the music went to a place where it will never be heard from again. people who surf the net these days are already listening to their own music or at least watching TV or have any other source of sound they'd rather listen to. i know there's isn't one time i'm on the net and not have my pandora.com station already playing.

[mya]

If you ever wish to know, this can aid you in "Building a basic website in 2 hours." using only notepad.

http://www.2createawebsite.com/build/html.html

and:

http://www.htmlcodetutorial.com/

A small advice, we should not focus yet on the actual text content in the site. As this is easy to modify after.

[random_clown]

hopefully' date=' the music went to a place where it will never be heard from again. people who surf the net these days are already listening to their own music or at least watching TV or have any other source of sound they'd rather listen to. i know there's isn't one time i'm on the net and not have my pandora.com station already playing.[/quote']

Agreed, midi music on a website was all the rage for geocities in the 90's, but its a bit hokey now. It is even forwardly irritating to many, such as myself. There are a few better ways to integrate sound into a website, but I don't see having a full fledged song playing in the background as one of them for almost any site.

[Aulian]

I honestly like this site better than the current one. It can definitely be improved upon though. What I really like about the site is that it looks clean and comfortable to read.

ANYTHING that doesnt say "NEWS AS OF 2005" is an improvement at this stage I think.

The information in it is all very good.. Just had a wee read through...

Everyone else has basically summed up the best imporvements and things that need fixing..

[J.Twendrist]

You guys should add the hall of fame to the website to show new people examples of past characters.

[Aulian]

And maybe the map done by Grannyman (? think so) back in the day? That was an awesome map.