Post by GamingSource on Sept 9, 2003 11:25:42 GMT -5
This will be the last post I make (unless in direct response to a reply to this post) before I leave it due to the obvious reason this is not my site to defend. In my long and aged history of site development and webmastering (4 years under my belt at the moment with gamesites, 8 years with HTML) all I can say is that it is not the guest/members place to argue what has been done, but instead try and support the webmaster(s) in his efforts - add constructive criticism not just "I don't like it".
I find the inability to accept a name change from the protagonists, In my learned experience, immature. A site is defined by its content, by its look, and most of all by its members and fanbase. A name is nothing in retrospect to these key benefactors. If the only reason you'd stop visiting the site is because of a name change then maybe you should question where your logic is coming from, and why that is.
I recently merged three of my Morrowind sites from the Morrowind Chronicles Network into one site, Morrowind Source. The regular members of the site who had been there for well over 2 years were skeptical at first - but rather than express their cyniclism of the change (for lets face it, CHANGE is what people are disliking here) they supported me in my actions and provided me with the moral stamina I needed to go through with the change, and I'd say its been for the best. Admitedly a lot of these folks are personal friends of mine (now, through meeting them on my forums) and I have met many of them in Scotland, England and in my tour of the US - all of them bar two are aged over 21. Maybe that makes a difference, I don't know.
Now, with 22,500 members on the forums alone since July 5th, over 2Million page views and 500,000 unique visitors, I'm happy to say that the changes I made, including the name, were for the best. The old members had to move to a new forum, a new skin and new forum software - across the board they're really enjoying the new opinions the new members have brought, and have gained a form of "superiority" over the "newbies", which I'm sure they enjoy
Its for you to decide whether you are going to maturely support the actions of the webmasters or go against them - but if you do please explain why.
Now, as for the site template, thats completely different. Everyone has different interpretations of what constitutes a good design, but IMO the new design beats the old one hands down.
First of all, the old one uses frames. Frames. Do a search on Google for "I hate frames" and you get 1,420 results - that means every one of those pages has "I hate frames" written on them somewhere". Then do a search for "I love frames" - there's 165 results. I know there are well over 100 websites alone DEDICATED to anti-frame propoganda.
Ok, so yes, my first ever website used frames. That was eight years ago when frames were seen as the "in" thing - I doubt the majority of you weren't even browsing the internet at that time and I know frames died out nearly as quickly as flares (and don't tell me about there being a "flares revival" - I've thrown away all my old ones and it isn't happening!).
Second of all, lordy, it doesn't even look like a Palace! If you're going to give a site such a material name the least you could do is make it look like said object.
3rd of all; I'm old. I admit it. I don't need glasses, but I have recently booked an opticians appointment after looking at RPG Palace due to two reasons. (1) I can't read that font size without it giving me a headache and (2) I can't look at that disgusting light blue that's used for links.
4th and last, the site doesn't even have a top banner. I wouldn't even have known the site was called RPG Palace if I hadn't come from Gamers Uplink.
What I'm getting at here (and no the reason isn't to insult you) is the fact you have no basis to complain about the new design, when the old one is lacking in so many different ways!
I'm not a regular, thats fine - I haven't been here for its many carnations and I'm not a part of its history - but thats the point. You folks shouldn't be bent on making the site look good for just yourselves, it should look good for the potential new members who will be joining this forum. I wouldn't think of joining a site's forums unless I knew the site was of sufficient quality. And if you want my personal opinion as a site designer, I'd say RPG Palace is lacking graphically. Lacking is an understatement actually.
What RPG Palace does have potential in though, is its content. The content is the heart of the site - as long as I can read it and can find it simply it often doesn't matter WHAT the site looks like.
Consider what I have said.
EDIT: On a side note, if the webmasters do decide to change the name back and/or the site then that is fine, they can be RPG Palace on our servers. However we will retain the rights to the domain name which I'll probably make use of.
Just hope they don't feel forced into being RPG Source now, especially if they don't want to be
I find the inability to accept a name change from the protagonists, In my learned experience, immature. A site is defined by its content, by its look, and most of all by its members and fanbase. A name is nothing in retrospect to these key benefactors. If the only reason you'd stop visiting the site is because of a name change then maybe you should question where your logic is coming from, and why that is.
I recently merged three of my Morrowind sites from the Morrowind Chronicles Network into one site, Morrowind Source. The regular members of the site who had been there for well over 2 years were skeptical at first - but rather than express their cyniclism of the change (for lets face it, CHANGE is what people are disliking here) they supported me in my actions and provided me with the moral stamina I needed to go through with the change, and I'd say its been for the best. Admitedly a lot of these folks are personal friends of mine (now, through meeting them on my forums) and I have met many of them in Scotland, England and in my tour of the US - all of them bar two are aged over 21. Maybe that makes a difference, I don't know.
Now, with 22,500 members on the forums alone since July 5th, over 2Million page views and 500,000 unique visitors, I'm happy to say that the changes I made, including the name, were for the best. The old members had to move to a new forum, a new skin and new forum software - across the board they're really enjoying the new opinions the new members have brought, and have gained a form of "superiority" over the "newbies", which I'm sure they enjoy
Its for you to decide whether you are going to maturely support the actions of the webmasters or go against them - but if you do please explain why.
Now, as for the site template, thats completely different. Everyone has different interpretations of what constitutes a good design, but IMO the new design beats the old one hands down.
First of all, the old one uses frames. Frames. Do a search on Google for "I hate frames" and you get 1,420 results - that means every one of those pages has "I hate frames" written on them somewhere". Then do a search for "I love frames" - there's 165 results. I know there are well over 100 websites alone DEDICATED to anti-frame propoganda.
Ok, so yes, my first ever website used frames. That was eight years ago when frames were seen as the "in" thing - I doubt the majority of you weren't even browsing the internet at that time and I know frames died out nearly as quickly as flares (and don't tell me about there being a "flares revival" - I've thrown away all my old ones and it isn't happening!).
Second of all, lordy, it doesn't even look like a Palace! If you're going to give a site such a material name the least you could do is make it look like said object.
3rd of all; I'm old. I admit it. I don't need glasses, but I have recently booked an opticians appointment after looking at RPG Palace due to two reasons. (1) I can't read that font size without it giving me a headache and (2) I can't look at that disgusting light blue that's used for links.
4th and last, the site doesn't even have a top banner. I wouldn't even have known the site was called RPG Palace if I hadn't come from Gamers Uplink.
What I'm getting at here (and no the reason isn't to insult you) is the fact you have no basis to complain about the new design, when the old one is lacking in so many different ways!
I'm not a regular, thats fine - I haven't been here for its many carnations and I'm not a part of its history - but thats the point. You folks shouldn't be bent on making the site look good for just yourselves, it should look good for the potential new members who will be joining this forum. I wouldn't think of joining a site's forums unless I knew the site was of sufficient quality. And if you want my personal opinion as a site designer, I'd say RPG Palace is lacking graphically. Lacking is an understatement actually.
What RPG Palace does have potential in though, is its content. The content is the heart of the site - as long as I can read it and can find it simply it often doesn't matter WHAT the site looks like.
Consider what I have said.
EDIT: On a side note, if the webmasters do decide to change the name back and/or the site then that is fine, they can be RPG Palace on our servers. However we will retain the rights to the domain name which I'll probably make use of.
Just hope they don't feel forced into being RPG Source now, especially if they don't want to be