Project_Werewolf

[ShawnV]

Project_Werewolf

A site that is finally nearing completion and with only minor items left to tune and adjust, I think some general feedback of what I may have missed, a little detail I overlooked or a modification that would improve the current design would be helpful.

It is a themed MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) guild site that I have been working on for quite some time.

This site is flash enhanced, so Broadband is recommended; also the splash page has a link to update your flash plug in if needed. Clicking enter on the splash badge will take you to an intro movie and story that will set up the mythos and theme for the site, please remember that atmosphere, art and entertainment was paramount in its design, this is a functioning showpiece, it is not supposed to be another get as many users as possible standard board or community; it was designed to represent and meet the needs of an MMORPG guild only.

A 1680x 1050 resolution or higher is recommended, however it can be viewed in diminished value at 1024 x 762 if necessary.

Some Basics:

These flash systems detect the viewers time setting and then plays a primary movie based on the users computers clock time depending if its night or day. This means the site changes from day to night.

The smaller sized forum headers play 6 different movies plus special change over sunset and sunrise movies that can be seen between the hours of 5:30 and 6:00 AM & PM. To see any of the movies just open your computers time setting and change the AM/PM settings save and refresh the page. Note that the animated cross visible during daylight hours in the KOWW header logo changes to a set of werewolf teeth after sunset with the rest of the header changeovers.


I appreciate any and all feedback for improvement of this site, however please no I like or don’t like flash recitations.


Thank you in advance for your time,

Knights of the White Wolf (http://www.koww.net/)


Work Friendly Site Details,

Sound On/Off (http://www.koww.net/forum/showthread.php?t=12329)

Splash Page – Options

Skip Intro (http://www.koww.net/forum/showthread.php?t=12365)


Cheers,

_V

[ExTincTi0N]

When you have to sign up i dont even know what half of it means so untill then im holding off on a review.

[ShawnV]

When you have to sign up i dont even know what half of it means so untill then im holding off on a review.

Hua?

If your talking about a test account, you can use this one,

user name: test

password: test

however you should be able to see 80% of the site as a UNREGISTRERED user.


cheers,

_V

[ExTincTi0N]

No i was talking about having to put the game server and that stuff in i dont know what any of that means lol.

[ShawnV]

ah, that does two things. First it makes it harder for bots and second it keeps non MMORPG gamers from registering since it is moderated registration and if the information doesn't match known MMORPG information the user is deleted.

_V

[ChU v2]

the flashwork is amazing, must have took a long time to get right.

[Boofo]

Nice flash but takes too long to load. And flash gets stale real quick.

[TonySkullz]

The art and theme is very nice, it would be good for a personal showcase type site.
But, it's not really a practical design for a production site.

[/2pennies]

[ShawnV]

the flashwork is amazing, must have took a long time to get right.

Thanks, lets just say if I had a penny for every hour spent. :)



_V

[legionofangels]

It's YOU!

I'm gonna make a thread on my site about this. You have possibly the sickest forum I've seen in awhile...well except for a few things. It's as if reviews are only to tell you what you are doing wrong, I know.

But I've used your site as a reference before due to the level of sickness that it displays.

I really enjoyed the opening you added to it. I love your banner. I like your offline/online images, and the new posts icon is wicked.

Very gothic oriented which works well with what you wanted.

However I think there are some drawbacks to consider.

First of all, I'm guessing the Hand icon appears during the opening if I want to skip it. The negative is having to hit that every time. Unless I could go directly to the forum and skip the pizazz.

With limited registering, you're really restricting your member base and unfortunately cannot attract new members that are curious about the game before playing.

Design doesn't always mean members, we all know that.

I'm not liking how you went all transparent on me. I just don't enjoy the way it looks now indifferent to before. The borders are near useless even as white, I can't distinguish columns now which makes it hard visually.

If the blood is red on the top and the bottom, then it should have been red on the background, that makes no sense man.

Overall I love this forum, would I join? no, i don't play the game, lol. Have heard of it though but I try to stay away from MMORPG. I like some things you are trying to do here but I would have almost made the opening video an option, like watch our site intro video and put it in the navbar, that way if people want to see it they can. I'm sure you wanted to make a good impression, but if I have to deal with it every time, it gets annoying.

Love the sound, and I found the sound button pretty easily.

No one can deny the level of professionalism shown here, but I think there are some things that could be tweaked. Heck I'd even recommend a semi transparent set of tables, so you can kind of show the bg through the tables, like we did on my own site.

I want to know your coder, unless it's you, then I know who you are.

I don't have the same reaction as Boofo, load times were very fast for me. No problem at all actually.

I think most of all I'm impressed with not just the effort but really trying to do something new. Flash is mostly seen as a good additive and shouldn't be over done. But why couldn't the whole forum be flash is what i'm wondering. N' with computers getting better all the time, won't we be able to handle all the flash that is going on?

Regardless, I don't think you've went too far yet. BG is the worst or transparency being 100%, I don't like that.

Great work overall.

L E G I O N

[ShawnV]

Hi Legion,

It's YOU!

Yup it’s me. Awesome review by the way, I am going to go down the list. (Grin)


I'm gonna make a thread on my site about this. You have possibly the sickest forum I've seen in awhile...well except for a few things. It's as if reviews are only to tell you what you are doing wrong, I know.

I was hopping someone would give it a thrashing, after looking at the dam thing for so long I’m sure to miss something from one revision to another.

But I've used your site as a reference before due to the level of sickness that it displays.

Sickness is good; however I was going for plague type status.

I really enjoyed the opening you added to it. I love your banner. I like your offline/online images, and the new posts icon is wicked.

Thanks, we got Julie Berry to do the narration from England and the rest feel into place, though it has a little too much of a Lord of the Rings feel to it I think.


Very gothic oriented which works well with what you wanted.

Yeah, I'm a fan of hand drawn, gritty, unperfect graphics.

However I think there are some drawbacks to consider.

I knew this was coming, fire away. :P

First of all, I'm guessing the Hand icon appears during the opening if I want to skip it. The negative is having to hit that every time. Unless I could go directly to the forum and skip the pizazz.

Yes you can skip to the portal page anytime during the intro movie by clicking on it, however if you look close at the splash screen, there is a “TAB” to skip “intro” before you enter, there is also one to update your flash plug in and some basic minimum requirements to view the site.

Sound On/Off (http://www.koww.net/forum/showthread.php?t=12365)

With limited registering, you're really restricting your member base and unfortunately cannot attract new members that are curious about the game before playing.

I know this one is almost impossible for forum enthusiasts to believe, but the site wasn’t built to get more members, in fact registration is moderated and membership for KOWW is difficult at best.


Design doesn't always mean members, we all know that.

That is true, thank whoever” that wasn’t a concern: P


I'm not liking how you went all transparent on me. I just don't enjoy the way it looks now indifferent to before. The borders are near useless even as white, I can't distinguish columns now which makes it hard visually.

Dam I was going to keep this under wraps, but since you asked now I have to tell you, the full transparently is needed for the next upgrade, now that the base images are in and all the new graphics are about finished, animated blood will dribble out from the headers over the base blood and flow down an animated background to splatter on the footer.

If the blood is red on the top and the bottom, then it should have been red on the background, that makes no sense man.

The thing most people who look at the site don’t see, because if it’s done right you don’t notice it is Lighting and Light Source. We tried to take those into account on every image. The background is further back in perspective; check the overhang of the header, then follow the blood down to see it darken to the background color blood.


Overall I love this forum, would I join? no, i don't play the game, lol. Have heard of it though but I try to stay away from MMORPG. I like some things you are trying to do here but I would have almost made the opening video an option, like watch our site intro video and put it in the navbar, that way if people want to see it they can. I'm sure you wanted to make a good impression, but if I have to deal with it every time, it gets annoying.

See above post and the skip tab thingy.

Love the sound, and I found the sound button pretty easily.

Great, sound is a big part of atmosphere, I was hoping it would be but you never know, hence the recent post about it.

No one can deny the level of professionalism shown here, but I think there are some things that could be tweaked. Heck I'd even recommend a semi transparent set of tables, so you can kind of show the bg through the tables, like we did on my own site.

Funny you should mention that, I have been playing with semi transparent tables for a week now, nothing yet has stuck me, but I will keep toiling.

I want to know your coder, unless it's you, then I know who you are.

Transverse Styles helped me with the coding of all our graphics back in version 3.5 when I moved the site from phpBB, since then I figured out vBulletin and have recoded and updated it since.

I don't have the same reaction as Boofo, load times were very fast for me. No problem at all actually.

Yes it loads ok, once the flash has been cashed. And like all things on the internet, sometimes the server or a router is clogged and it has pause.

I think most of all I'm impressed with not just the effort but really trying to do something new. Flash is mostly seen as a good additive and shouldn't be over done. But why couldn't the whole forum be flash is what i'm wondering. N' with computers getting better all the time, won't we be able to handle all the flash that is going on?

Thank you very much; I have tried hard to build something different. It could, and most likely will be at some point, however at this point in time, pound for pound you just can’t beat a vBulletin based forum.


Regardless, I don't think you've went too far yet. BG is the worst or transparency being 100%, I don't like that.

Darn, not even a little bit too far? I will have to do something about that then.

Great work overall.

Thanks again for your help, very much appreciated.

_V

[Shelley_c]

I reviewed your style a little over 6 months ago and see no differences since my last review.

Just to re-cap (and be brief) I think the style looks great. I'm not to sure about the lengthy flash intro although the option is there for people to skip this even though the flash integrated throughout the site looks excellent.


Normally (like youself) I haven't got a problem in designing and applying large icons. Though I have to say the forum status icons are a little to big. 72 px width by 66px is a little on the large side and I would set a maximum of 50px square for forum status icons. Regardless of that, they have been designed nicely and complement the style very well.

In my last review I'm almost sure that I commented on the collapse icons and I'm sure these are different from the ones I seen before but there's still room (visually) for improvement. Normally, for the average person I would let this one go but your talents warrant for something visually more eye pleasing.

The lastpost arrow within the icon could do with being a little more prominent. I know what the icon conveys but I just think that icons within an image should show their prominence where necessary.

Overall, the style looks visually great. I've always been a fan of your style and see no reason for that to change in this review though I will say that several grievances I mentioned above should be addressed.

Good work and goodluck. :)

[ShawnV]

Hi Shelley! /wave

I reviewed your style a little over 6 months ago and see no differences since my last review.

It’s been a while, actually allot has changed from the last version, mostly removed all of the table graphics and went transparent for the next flash upgrade that’s in design, the header, footer, background and allot of the other icons are new and some other stuff that is easy to miss.

Just to re-cap (and be brief) I think the style looks great. I'm not to sure about the lengthy flash intro although the option is there for people to skip this even though the flash integrated throughout the site looks excellent.

There is also a Skip intro tab on the KOWW splash badge so you don't even have to load the intro movie; however I am thinking I need to make it stand out more since it seems to get missed easily.

Updated first post

Normally (like youself) I haven't got a problem in designing and applying large icons. Though I have to say the forum status icons are a little to big. 72 px width by 66px is a little on the large side and I would set a maximum of 50px square for forum status icons. Regardless of that, they have been designed nicely and complement the style very well.

Yeah, I really tried 50px but with the animation that’s as small as I could bring myself to using, hence why the smaller forum display icons only have the (fire) animation for hot topic.

In my last review I'm almost sure that I commented on the collapse icons and I'm sure these are different from the ones I seen before but there's still room (visually) for improvement. Normally, for the average person I would let this one go but your talents warrant for something visually more eye pleasing.

Oh yeah, those were test icons, I meant to get around to changing them and forgot, thanks for catching those....yet again, they are fixed now.

The lastpost arrow within the icon could do with being a little more prominent. I know what the icon conveys but I just think that icons within an image should show their prominence where necessary.

Hum, I will have to fiddle with those and see if I can make the arrow more striking.

Overall, the style looks visually great. I've always been a fan of your style and see no reason for that to change in this review though I will say that several grievances I mentioned above should be addressed.

Good work and goodluck

As always, thanks so much for your help and talents, just the stuff I was looking for in this thread, cheers.

_V

[Awjvail]

I dunno.. in my opinion, the flash is just extra bloat.. It's nice, but it gets annoying very very fast.

That is one thing that would keep me from returning.

[ShawnV]

I dunno.. in my opinion, the flash is just extra bloat.. It's nice, but it gets annoying very very fast.

That is one thing that would keep me from returning.


Exactly how is it annoying?

You can turn off the sound, then its nothing more then a animated header.

Please read the thread before posting non helpful garbage.

_V

[Boofo]

The same flash over and over is very annoying on any site. That is why a lot of boards don't use them. And they are killer on dial-up, which there are still quite a few people using that. I think his point was valid. Sorry if it isn't what you want to hear. And you did ask for people to comment on it. Accept the bad as well as the good.

[ShawnV]

You are correct, however did either one of you even read the first post?

_V

[Boofo]

Of course we read it. if you don't want honest opinions, then please don't ask for them. Not everyone is going to have the ultimate setup to view your site.

[ShawnV]

Boofo,

Posting I don’t like flash comments about a “flash site” is not only unhelpful it’s completely immaterial. It is a flash site and that’s not going to change. I clearly state that the site is flash enhanced, why it has it, what it does and how to minimize it in the first post.

I want honest options as I am looking for flaws in what can be fixed, not praise; ergo things that people who work with forums all the time might catch, like a table is whacked or a graphic is not working in one kind of browser, or you should move this to there, that’s why I asked for them on this site.

_V