Feedback for GSPTruth.com

[DaPro]

Hello Guys!

I am working on a new community and I would like to get your feedback. Thanks to inspiration from WHT, I decided to try and something like that but more geared towards the gaming community. Their are a handful of Game Server Providers and I have feeling more and more will come into the market, and when they do we will be there to evaluate their services and let the community know if their worth the peak :-D. Anyway, just wanted to get feelings on the overall look of the site and if there are any immediate changes you think I should make. Thanks all!

http://www.gsptruth.com

If anyone also wants to get involved with this, let me know. Take care...

[dooch]

Ok, here's my opinion.

I really like the subject matter. Something which lots of ppl can rant and rave about. I rent 2 game servers so I know the score.

So thats a great basis for a forum, however... 1st impressions to me is thats its very bland and not geared towards the gaming community. How about some nice glossy photoshoped images for the header... ie quake / c/strike / BF2 / WoW characters behind the .com name.

Maybe use a hack to make the icons different for each section. It needs livening up.

Obviously the forums are very dead so you need to get advertising / spamming. If this was to take off then you may get some interest from the big game hosts for a bit of advertising.

Also I cant tell whether this is a EU UK US, whatever based website. So someone could write a review on say Multiplay.co.uk which would be pretty useless if the website is for the US.

Overall

Great potential, good idea. Needs tarting up, maybe a sexier template. Needs advertising or users. Maybe spam your own board in the beginning with spoof users, use the fake stats hack and make it look a little bit more alive. Also, dont start a forum off with too many categories.. its spreads the content too thin. This can always be sorted again later when the board is a little bit more busy. Also concider the use of a portal such as vbadvanced for a news page etc. This is what I have done.

Hope this helped.

Dooch

[DaPro]

Originally Posted by dooch

Ok, here's my opinion.

I really like the subject matter. Something which lots of ppl can rant and rave about. I rent 2 game servers so I know the score.

Hehe, then maybe you wouldn't mind becoming a members

Originally Posted by dooch

So thats a great basis for a forum, however... 1st impressions to me is thats its very bland and not geared towards the gaming community. How about some nice glossy photoshoped images for the header... ie quake / c/strike / BF2 / WoW characters behind the .com name.

Good idea, I will work on this tonight, nothing too crazy tho.

Originally Posted by dooch

Maybe use a hack to make the icons different for each section. It needs livening up.

Hmmm, not too crazy about this idea. I see what you mean but I am a minimalist in some aspects of designing, I try to keep things key and to the point. Bland maybe...but pointless never .

Originally Posted by dooch

Obviously the forums are very dead so you need to get advertising / spamming. If this was to take off then you may get some interest from the big game hosts for a bit of advertising.

True, but I just opened the forums, in some aspects its not fully opened because I haven't done any advertising or really asked any of my buddies to join up. Hope to get it up there soon.

Originally Posted by dooch

Also I cant tell whether this is a EU UK US, whatever based website. So someone could write a review on say Multiplay.co.uk which would be pretty useless if the website is for the US.

It's for all companies, why limit it to the US, that is sort of a ignorant thing to do. This is for all companies no matter where.

Originally Posted by dooch

Overall

Great potential, good idea. Needs tarting up, maybe a sexier template. Needs advertising or users. Maybe spam your own board in the beginning with spoof users, use the fake stats hack and make it look a little bit more alive. Also, dont start a forum off with too many categories.. its spreads the content too thin. This can always be sorted again later when the board is a little bit more busy. Also concider the use of a portal such as vbadvanced for a news page etc. This is what I have done.

Hope this helped.

Dooch

I considered vBAdvanced then I thought no because I am sick of it. I really like just the forums coming and diving right into the meat of things. The amount of categories is set so that people know where things go, I like to keep things a bit organized.

[concepts]

Originally Posted by dooch

however... 1st impressions to me is thats its very bland and not geared towards the gaming community. How about some nice glossy photoshoped images for the header... ie quake / c/strike / BF2 / WoW characters behind the .com name.

Maybe use a hack to make the icons different for each section. It needs livening up.

I was literally about to type the same thing! scary
anyway, yes.. this does not look like a gaming forum looks like one of those off topic discussion forums... that top black header needs to be filled in .. a nice flash banner/code will do perfectly up there.. and maye an interactive navigation. with so many game sites out there already, you really need to stand out... I always google my competition, see what their strong points are, then I make it better on my end.. I can imagine if you do that, you'll notice a drastic change in the entire direction of your forums

Originally Posted by DaPro

I considered vBAdvanced then I thought no because I am sick of it. I really like just the forums coming and diving right into the meat of things. The amount of categories is set so that people know where things go, I like to keep things a bit organized.

by the way, vbadvanced in limitless, and I believe a must have for all boards I use it for magazine covers/pages... features, profiles, etc..
use your imagination... I use to feel the same way until actually did my homework...

then the dog ate it.

[DaPro]

Hey guys thanks for all the feedback, I might look into vBadvanced, but I am still on the fence. Anyway, I have made some changes to the top banner today, what do you all think? Better? Worse?