Your Opinions On Developing Community

[Lianelli]

EDIT: Just improved the design a bit further. Let me know what you think about it!

Dear members,

I'd like your honest opinions on a new forum/community I'm trying to develop. It's quite plain and dull right now, but with some activity going on it's going to be a nice place to stay.

Got some ideas to create an avatar-addon like Gaia, with shops to buy new fashion. At the moment I got a pre-made hack installed for that. I'm in the process of hiring designers to create custom fashion for Frogo Online.

Further it's going to feature an RPG. For now based on RPG Inferno, but going to expand on it with flash-based gaming and a rich MMORPG-experience.

Last but not least it integrates with Twitter, FaceBook and has a toolbar to quickly navigate you thru our forums and allow you to submit to Social websites like Digg and StumbleUpon. 7

Using all these functions yields you gold which can be used in the RPG and to buy fashion for your avatar.

What do you think of it, so far?

www.Frogo-Online.com

[Lianelli]

Have received some tips thru PM, thanks for that.

Still looking for more tips and suggestions!

-Dave

[TurkeySub]

Your web site is very slow other than that, it looks pretty good!

[Brandon Sheley]

I don't know much about RPG sites but if you have the passion and drive and network, you will be successful :)

[Lianelli]

Thanks for those guys.

I'll work on making the website faster, although my host has been really slow recently too. So the problem might lay there.

It's becoming a mix of an MMORPG and a forum and a networking site. The RPG will be far more integrated into the whole site than just a page where you can play the game.

[Tanapangarap]

Well, I see that when you post a topic, you put thought into it. However, its apparent that the forum just started. It looks like it just started today, in fact. Before advertising, I would spent quite a while building up content first.

Also, as pleasant as your layout and logo seem, they also seem kinda plain. The logo, specifically, I'm not sure if that was a completely custom job, or if it's one of those logos that you just add your name to in the ACP or something like some templates allow you to do.

I hope I don't come off to harsh. I just want to be honest with my first impressions.

[gearspro]

Looks pretty cool man, i would change the font personally. Other than that a nice clean layout, which is always good. Did you have to pay for the toolbar at the bottom of your site or is a it a free mod? Please tell :P

[Tanapangarap]

After registering, I took a better look around. I like all the aesthetic changes. For example, the vertical panels for the profile, as well as the rest of the layout for the profiles. Definitely doesn't look as plain when you have membership access.

[Lianelli]

Hey Tanapangarap,

thanks for the comments. The forum indeed isn't as plain as it seems, there's already lots of hours into building up the style and implementing mods.

The logo is completely custom work, but the rest of the forum needs to have these colors in them too. The rest of the style is pre-done work available somewhere on the net.

You should try the avatars as well, it's really fun and I've got lots of custom work being done on it as we speak. For the rest I know profile's and content are really important, so I'm working hard on them. Luckily I got a team of 5 working for me ;)

Gearspro: the toolbar is a free thing you can obtain thru a website. Though the website and program is in beta-testing and not open to the public.

-Dave

[Lianelli]

After registering, I took a better look around. I like all the aesthetic changes. For example, the vertical panels for the profile, as well as the rest of the layout for the profiles. Definitely doesn't look as plain when you have membership access.

We also just redesigned various parts of the site for unregistered members. I hope this makes it more appealing to you now.

[Lianelli]

Upgraded last week to vB 4 but it's going to cost us a lot of time to recode all the modifications and styles. If anyone can give me some tips, let me know.

[Xtrato]

very stock ...... i suggest upgrade your styles asap.... all vBulletin sites that upgrade are looking all the same... i like your Button on top left for registration.. but , you got the vB 4 fever . ( stock )

[Lianelli]

Hey Xrate,

I know it's really plain. Working hard on recoding the old vb 3.x styles...

Now also launched a blog (also still quite plain) at www.Frogo-Online.com/blog/