Web redesign

[ClymAngus]

Moderator: Split from Outworld/We’re quite popular!

The access point to the game could be a little more user friendly though. And a LOT prettier. The first bite is with the eye, and instead of link to link to link there should be a bit of an effort to sex things up a bit. I know it's marketing and a bit painful to deal with but wowing the punter can pay. Our Russion compatriots lead the way. The country of origin however, well, we need a kick up the ass.

The web presence of oolite does NOT reflect the advances that have been made.

[ClymAngus]

Sorry for getting a bit ranty. But a good front end, does wonders for your netrep. Some nice animations, a good bit of flash. Make it all look a bit "Don't PANIC!" and you'd have to beat them off with a stick.

Not just players, coders too are a sucker for a good front end.

[Cmdr James]

Most coders I know are substantially put off by animations and flash on a website

In my opinion our core demographic is 80s gamers who think the height of cool is filled vector graphics, so we dont want to go too futuristic.

Its a fair point though, we could have a nicer web presence.

[Corny]

I would also like to only see little or no flash on the page.
Especially Flash-only sites for new (commercial) games are spectacular, but exaggerated and annoying imho.

[another_commander]

OK, is anyone up for designing and presenting us with a proposal for a new website? It's all nice and good in theory, but at the end the question is always: Who will bite the bullet and do it?

While we are at it, I can see your point Clym. Some parts of the website can be improved, but personally I like the simplicity of it and I think that flash would not help here. The site lets you find easily what you are looking for, which is more than I can say for the majority of sites I have seen, and that is quite important. It may not look much, but at least it is functional.

[ClymAngus]

OK, is anyone up for designing and presenting us with a proposal for a new website? It's all nice and good in theory, but at the end the question is always: Who will bite the bullet and do it?

While we are at it, I can see your point Clym. Some parts of the website can be improved, but personally I like the simplicity of it and I think that flash would not help here. The site lets you find easily what you are looking for, which is more than I can say for the majority of sites I have seen, and that is quite important.

Well for simple comparison;
http://www.oolite.org/

then we have http://roolite.org/

I'm with you 100 percent. I would argue however that it's not simple as it stands. It's about using good solid net programming to give people a good, visually pretty, but simple access point to the game. After that it's a case of clever is as clever does. You could do 101 things to make the web image of oolite slicker, all with varying degrees of complexity and the work that comes with it.

As for who should do. Well, the maps needed doing but I'm not taking on the entire "net look" of the game. Whoever takes that on needs to be both a programmer and a diplomat. A test I failed. ;D

[Corny]

OK, is anyone up for designing and presenting us with a proposal for a new website? It's all nice and good in theory, but at the end the question is always: Who will bite the bullet and do it?

I could do it when I'm through with the exams in February (although, knowing me, I'd probably start earlier as a break from learning for them), but I don't know if you would like it (example for a website made by me is linked in my profile / under this post, note that none of the graphics are made by me, only modified. Other drafts or previous designs of that site are shown at the bottom of the front site). Also, I'd need someone with a better GPU than my GMA 950 to shoot some good screenshots.
I have no experience with or software for creating Flash, so I won't create anything in Flash.

[Cody]

The Oolite site is, as another_commander says, nice and straightforward… but I think it would benefit from a large graphic to catch the eye.
The extract from Drew’s novella looks a little lost on it’s own… it needs a well set-up graphic immediately above it.
Something like a-c’s splash screen comes to mind… what was the word… ‘cinematic’.

The forum is another matter… far too plain and too ‘white’, for want of a better word… too ‘functional’. That’s just my view of course.
A twenty-four hour time format would be nice as well (‘am’ and ‘pm’ irritate me).

[lfnfan]

The second that a Jameson clears the coriolis at Lave for the first time, Oolite.org becomes a distant memory.

Which may be a blessing

The things that I like about Oolite.org are:
1) the site structure is very clear, functional and bloat-free. This is good.
2) the site clearly sets out Oolite's roots in Elite. And we're (mostly) all here because of that great game

But some things could be better:
1) The home page is...dull. Is Oolite also a wireframe graphics game? May well be, judging by first impressions.
2) Why does 1.65 even get a mention in the downloads section?
3) Screenshots - this is a beauty parade; sorry but the trusty coriolis should be way down the list.
4) There's not enough made of the wealth of OXP goodness on offer.

I think the Wiki and the Forum are basically spot-on (apart from the massive Wiki OXP table, but that discussion has been had elsewhere) and I like how the website encourages the Jameson to both places either via screenshots or links.

[drew]

I'd be more than happy for my novella and the associated graphics (remember all the other fan-entries for Mutabilis?) to be part of a revised 'Oolite' website.

We have a great game, backed up with the possibility of beautiful in game shots/videos, alongside a novella which hopefully doesn't let the side down (atleast the cover graphics are awesome!). I think we can at least show people we have a trumpet even if we don't blow it too hard...

I agree it could do with a bit of je ne sais quoi. Perhaps something like Infinity? Or is that a bit OTT?

Like your website, Corny. Looks pretty close to what I'd like to see. The roolite site is kind of cool in a retro way.

Maybe we could do a 'box' feature like the original Elite (open the box and you get the game, the novella, the ship chart, the lenslok... no scratch the lenslok...)

Perhaps the forum/bb could be integrated into the website though - make the, "Ah, so it's a remake of Elite is it? Where's the download? Aha! What's an OXP? Is there a background to this game? Oh, there's an online community, cool!" thing a bit easier to navigate? I'm not convinced the oolite.org to aegidian.org/bb to wiki.alioth.net is the best 'user experience' we can come up with.

In terms of stats, according to my website 'Status Quo' gets downloaded about 400 times a month at the moment.

40% comes from oolite.org
25% comes from wiki.alioth.net
15% comes from this bb
15% comes from my own website
5% comes from sundry others incl Google etc

That indicates to me that most people are finding the game via oolite.org. I reckon we can 'mine' that a bit more.

Cheers,

Drew.

[DaddyHoggy]

OK, is anyone up for designing and presenting us with a proposal for a new website? It's all nice and good in theory, but at the end the question is always: Who will bite the bullet and do it?

While we are at it, I can see your point Clym. Some parts of the website can be improved, but personally I like the simplicity of it and I think that flash would not help here. The site lets you find easily what you are looking for, which is more than I can say for the majority of sites I have seen, and that is quite important.

Well for simple comparison;
http://www.oolite.org/

then we have http://roolite.org/

I'm with you 100 percent. I would argue however that it's not simple as it stands. It's about using good solid net programming to give people a good, visually pretty, but simple access point to the game. After that it's a case of clever is as clever does. You could do 101 things to make the web image of oolite slicker, all with varying degrees of complexity and the work that comes with it.

As for who should do. Well, the maps needed doing but I'm not taking on the entire "net look" of the game. Whoever takes that on needs to be both a programmer and a diplomat. A test I failed. ;D

Can I just say - while I like pretty - I also like FAST.

I want all the info loaded up and presented to me almost immediately after I click on the page/link - if it gets prettier while I'm reading (without reformatting while it does so) then that's all well and good.

[Cody]

Can I just say - while I like pretty - I also like FAST.

I want all the info loaded up and presented to me almost immediately after I click on the page/link - if it gets prettier while I'm reading (without reformatting while it does so) then that's all well and good.

Second that.

[ADCK]

Hehe I forgot about the main page, it's something you'd only ever visit once, cause there's never a reason to go there again...

The wiki has it's problems, no active administration would be the top priority there, no one can register.

As for the boards, they're servicable, I've designed and maintained phpbb2 boards in the past, and from the ones i've done i can say a good portal page certainly goes along way, and are fairly easy to implement (as are most phpbb mods)
For example, here's one for a game i used to play (i admin'd their old site before they moved) http://www.createforum.com/dungeoneternal/portal.php

[Corny]

I could do it when I'm through with the exams in February (although, knowing me, I'd probably start earlier as a break from learning for them)

On the other hand, I just found a perfect excuse for not doing anything related to mathematics.
Design idea sketch thingy.

(The word "Krait" is above the Krait! )
Font is Optima, would have to be changed probably.
The screenshot is (obviously) from Griff's OXP, would need a little hint that the Vanilla-Oolite doesn't look like this, too.

Edit: Link fixed (moved the file) again.

[DaddyHoggy]

I could do it when I'm through with the exams in February (although, knowing me, I'd probably start earlier as a break from learning for them)

On the other hand, I just found a perfect excuse for not doing anything related to mathematics.
Design idea sketch thingy.

(The word "Krait" is above the Krait! )
Font is Optima, would have to be changed probably.
The screenshot is (obviously) from Griff's OXP, would need a little hint that the Vanilla-Oolite doesn't look like this, too.

Nice - although I would take out the laser fire against the station - it looks like its held up on wires otherwise...