PlaneShift website criticism (extensive)

[AryHann]

My hope is that it would not be turned down. But it is not me deciding, unfortunately

[Karyuu]

I have this feeling he\'s never going to check the thread again :P

[AryHann]

THat\'s just a pity. Well, bubbles in the air

[DaveG]

It\'d be sad to post a very detailed rant, which was actually listened to and agreed upon by the dev team, and not follow up on it.  Though, we get piles like this all the time, hence our skepticism.    I hope he responds, but I\'m not holding my breath...

[Kerol]

Now we only need some good people to realise the points..  Please sign in here!   )

[clint8565]

Well, yeah the website\'s not the best, but you learn to navigate it just fine and the looks don\'t really matter as long as it\'s still readable imo.

@Uyaem: no offence, but you can rather easily achieve W3C level \'A\' conformance with more than just text and still be browser independant

I could help, but am rather bogged down with school at the moment(one assignment of which being a W3C \'A\' website with tons of features...)

[Pestilence]

Well I am surprised a bit about the dev team.

One moment they are saying how much time it takes to make a website and that noone can  find enough time to do it and the other moment they are asking for someone else to just whip out a concept out like that.

Specially if Talad has already said he doesn\'t accept the way it would be coded if such a draft would be submitted.

You can hardly expect for someone to then put a lot of work into it unless atleast there is a promise to have a serious look at it and I don\'t have the feeling the devs who replied so far have done this.

The fear it may just be a rant may be justified, but don\'t say he cant critisize something if he isn\'t willing to do it when he says his workstyle isn\'t accepted and your obviously not willing to it yourself either.

[Karyuu]

Originally posted by Pestilence
One moment they are saying how much time it takes to make a website and that noone can  find enough time to do it and the other moment they are asking for someone else to just whip out a concept out like that.

Building the entire site and \"whipping out a concept\" are two entirely different things with vastly different difficulty levels. However, no one on the dev team has time - because a concept then needs to become a site, and that\'s where our lack of time kills it. This is precisely why we can\'t take care of it at the moment - is there anything really wrong with letting people know that and suggesting that anyone else try?

You can hardly expect for someone to then put a lot of work into it unless atleast there is a promise to have a serious look at it and I don\'t have the feeling the devs who replied so far have done this.

We\'re skeptic of anyone actually making a concept or proposal - because so far everyone criticised, but no one contributed. A concept doesn\'t have to be a lot of work - a Photoshop mock-up doesn\'t take too long to put together - but people are wishing for things and not working on it, which the others generally dislike. We\'ve replied why working on the website by the team is nearly impossible right now, and invited others to give it a try. If you think this wasn\'t posted \"nicely\" enough, well... Nitpicking ;)

[josephoenix]

Well, I felt a bit inspired by this to make my own concept-thingy in a more minimal \"clean\" style. Not the norm for fantasy MMORPGs, but then PS isn\'t your normal fantasy MMORPG, is it? Not going to post it inline since that might stretch peoples browsers, but here\'s the link: http://josephoenix.ps-mc.com/psmain-redesign.png

Uses a similar color scheme to the current version.

I also tried a bluish version: http://josephoenix.ps-mc.com/psmain-bluedesign.png

I could make either of these into xhtml/css layouts but I want to know whether people think they\'re any good first ;]

One small caveat is that the server status box I showed in the brown design would not be possible at the moment, since for some bizarre reason the server does not support PHP (hence the forums and the recruit form being on separate servers ).

Comments, criticisms, \"go-aways\"?

josePhoenix

[acraig]

I like the blue one,  and the info box on the first one is a nice idea.  I would like to see something more than a plain blue background.  Something that is subtle like a faint outline of the temple or something to give it some \'feel\'.  Also I would like to see what sort of menus to have down the side.  Pull downs or static?

Kudos for putting some ideas out there.

[josephoenix]

I\'ll try some stuff with the bg. The reason I don\'t usually use graphical backgrounds is they can be a bit distracting, but a watermark shouldn\'t be a problem.

The menus are hiearchical (is that a word?) menus, like in the windows explorer or konqueror or finder of nautilus or-- eh. They\'re like the menus you\'d find in a file manager\'s \"tree view\".

josePhoenix

[Gripen]

Originally posted by Karyuu

You can hardly expect for someone to then put a lot of work into it unless atleast there is a promise to have a serious look at it and I don\'t have the feeling the devs who replied so far have done this.

We\'re skeptic of anyone actually making a concept or proposal - because so far everyone criticised, but no one contributed. A concept doesn\'t have to be a lot of work - a Photoshop mock-up doesn\'t take too long to put together - but people are wishing for things and not working on it, which the others generally dislike. We\'ve replied why working on the website by the team is nearly impossible right now, and invited others to give it a try. If you think this wasn\'t posted \"nicely\" enough, well... Nitpicking

Ahh, heck, now you made me log in.  
Looking for a job is one of the things I hate most, especially low reward jobs.  The fact that so many have been ignored, is indeed motive to not apply. Yes, nit-pikky\'s rant is exactly what you describe, but it is more than a rant--it is a challenge--and has dev attention (obviously).

If it is true that the only program that will be accepted is Dreamweaver, so Luca can edit the site as neededI do not see why someone who uses Adobe would be able to join the team.  I also do not see that there is \"a website team\" for one to join and just submit mock-ups to implement which the team can load into Dreamweaver.  

There is nothing worse than joining a team that bails--throwing away the project--after you have done so much work (especially if you have carried the team).

I\'m may not be well worded (my eyes hurt) so don\'t be too nit-picky about what I\'ve said.

I hope the pro lurks back and dazzles us all.

Question: would the poops volunteering have access to a set of Planeshift art to put on their pages?


For Jose:  They are basic and sweet. Yes, hierarchical is the word--if they spring a set of links in a hierarchy.

The brown one--well, dark brown on different browsers tend to look like ___.  Turning it into wood, or rock (preferably game art wood and rock) it would look much better.

The blue one, much less gloomy, and ____ looking.  Still just a plain background however--clouds, the crystal, perhaps something like that.  The idea for the temple watermark is a good one, but in design terms--the colors crash (going by ingame color of temple, not refined art to temple which may be available).

I recommend highly that your pages are not all the same, use some variance.  Oh, and also--the main page--the splash page--need to be catchy, vibrant, linked completely, and easily interactive.  Brown is definitely not a good scheme for it--try some spell blasts.

[acraig]

Originally posted by Gripen
Ahh, heck, now you made me log in.  
Looking for a job is one of the things I hate most, especially low reward jobs.  The fact that so many have been ignored, is indeed motive to not apply.

Heh, well, I\'ve been ignored lots of times when I put out requests for help for the website or people want to be hand held for everything which defeats the purpose of having somebody work on it

If it is true that the only program that will be accepted is Dreamweaver, so Luca can edit the site as neededI do not see why someone who uses Adobe would be able to join the team.  

To me it sounds like a misunderstanding here.  I am sure that we can work around something like that.   I still edit php in vi so it\'s not a big deal.

There is nothing worse than joining a team that bails--throwing away the project--after you have done so much work (especially if you have carried the team).

Heh, that\'s the truth.  We\'ve had several people that impress us at the start and then end up dropping off the face of the planet for whatever reason, leaving us with trying to cover the work they were supposed to be doing.  But nature of the beast I guess.

Question: would the poops volunteering have access to a set of Planeshift art to put on their pages?

Depends on what sort of art work that is required.

[DaveG]

Originally posted by acraig
I still edit php in vi

/me flees in terror

[Netty]

Hi, guys

I didn\'t think I would check back on the replies, as I thought it would be full of flames towards me. I decided to take a risk and read them, and even though there were a few flames, I\'m impressed that many have listened.

I won\'t make extensive comments on the \"this isn\'t a fashion show\" replies. The only thing I will say is that a professional web designer would probably be fired from their job, if they made a comment like that to their clients, after putting up clashing or uninteresting color themes or skins on a site. Is car design a fashion show? Does it have anything to do with a girl\'s hair? No. But there\'s a high demand for a good and slick design. I will leave it at that.

My main issue with the current website situation is exactly what\'s been mentioned by some replies in my defense - a new proposal would most likely be turned down because Luca has stated that he only wants to use a Dreamweaver template. It would seem like a waste of time to even try. Hence, my criticism, which he might use, if he wants to do all the work himself.

If we could get a clear reply that he would indeed seriously consider a proposal with valid HTML code, then it becomes a whole different story.

By the way, the blue design proposal made me laugh with its \"not mystery meat\". That was a nice touch.

One of the reasons I posted my extensive criticism thread is because someone on this forum has contacted me and asked me to post. That very person wanted to redesign a site but made some rather alarming discoveries about it most likely being turned down due to Dreamweaver requirement. I conducted my own \"investigation\" and eventually created a thread.

I don\'t know if I\'ll personally have the time to make a new site due to my work, considering that a new proposal may not even be an option. But I\'ll see what I can do. The person who contacted me would most likely be the one to design it but only if there\'s a clear answer that a professional new website would be accepted.

Having said that, I encourage those who have gotten inspired to keep on working on your own proposals. The best advice I can give you right now is to please get rid of all the graphics for now. Just completely remove the logo and any graphics from your sites. First, temporarily assign pure colors to a background and your tables and make a good and functional design. Give every table column, cell, row etc a reason to be where it is. Think of why you need each particular space on your site. Only when every feature has a clear purpose and makes sense, worry about the presentation. And please, keep all the presentation strictly in your CSS. That way, editing .html would be extremely easy for the news updates.

I also strongly recommend an elastic layout. To see what it is, please go here:

Fixed or fluid width? Elastic!

And also please check this site\'s articles (you will see why, once you read them):

24 ways

One other thing. Does PlaneShift have a set theme of colors or is it pretty much \"anything goes\"? A recurring theme seems to be the \"Azure Sun\". Azure is usually a bluish color (not green or blue-green). So, perhaps going with a shade of blue isn\'t such a bad thing. It doesn\'t have to be an overused blue. Perhaps make the main background a very dark but very soft metallic blue. Or perhaps something like this: #202344. And work from there.

What is the main material for writing on in the PlaneShift universe? Is it an old scroll-like paper? Is it a stone? Perhaps an appropriate background could be used for news updates eventually.

Good luck.