Free Allegiance Forums

Spacejunk wins

Bacon loses.


FATALITY

(a link border around an image? really? @#(! bacon you're an HTML nub hahaha)

spacejunk that looks really good; those screenshots should also use a lightbox.

You're just fixated on screenshots on the frontpage Onion

Hell yeah, I've been saying they need to improve the front page for years; but I'll still be shocked if anything happens with this. We should also pick our screenshots carefully, so that they aren't too muddled and confusing like this one: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2577/418442...2e0f57020_o.jpg

versus ones that are clean like this one:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2657/418366...23124ed53_o.jpg

Im not saying we shouldn't have action shots, just maybe disable the HUD in them, I dont know.. too much junk on the screen might turn away players.

I've also noticed that our videos (on youtube) always end up being really dark and hard to see. We need someone who knows what they're doing to touch them up.

Overall great work!
(Don't missunderstand this, I leave the 99% this and that is so good out, and write only the 1 % that is maybe improvable)

It looks very proffessional, maybe too professional. If I, as someone that never has been here before, would see the page i would wonder: where do i pay for it, altough written: free but I need to pay for better guns, after 14 days.... My first idea would be writing a big sticker somewhere : I's free! Full Version download.. but actually if i would see such a page i will expect a trojan or something.
so 2nd idea is to add a 5th pane:

"Community"

#1 Squads <image :maybe a league ranking screenie, or something of the tourney> Squads are the backbone of allegiance. Weekly games beetwen squads are organized. These game have a level of teamwork, competition and skill not seen outside of them. Become a vet. Join a squad.
#2 Allegiance flight school. Allegiance Flight School Mission Statement
The Allegiance Flight School's goal is to set up an environment which encourages new players to play the game, which will help you learn the game and to show you arround in the community. Vets volunteer as your mentor and teach you the basics and the advanced stuff of this game. Apply today <link>
#3 Who pays for it: This game is free and all servers+ the forum are payd by donations of the community members, so no ads, no trojan, no ringtones ;-).
#4 Forum Wiki ACS ... and many other things.

adittional: a big idea and a small idea (originaly i thought this would be 2 small ones)
the big one:

What do you think to of replacing the link to Learn to Play by another pane:
Title: learn how to fly.. or allegiance quick start guide:
part 1: how to join a game (incl. create an accout + install guide)
part 2: how to set up a ship how to fly( with default keyboard) where are the keys, how do you shoot, target,..
part 3: tactical guide: explain short : how to fly a scout, how to fly bbr (make them hungry..) <copy and paste from afs >
part 4: a short talk about the rules and guide to cadet/AFS: i propose a maximum ten line version of http://www.freeallegiance.org/FAW/index.php/Common_mistakes
as example:
-please don't spam chats
-listen to the commander
-you can always ask @ help people, and other players
-read http://www.freeallegiance.org/FAW/index.php/Common_mistakes ROC, TOS
- to learn more about the game: fly! join ACS, read in the wiki (all linked)
the small one: replace the ship icons with screenies. maybe replace one ship with a bbr and talk about pilots and gunners.

If you friendly pm me i can full write one (or both) of this topics while the next weekends.

actually i wonder if it is necessary to tell people not to spam... e.t.c.
uncorrectable spammers will ignore it, and all others will not do it.

I vote for SpaceJunk.

I think Bacon is awesome for putting so much work into it and wanting to do something so big and good for the community. ^_^

I personally dunno about the text links though... Honestly, I don't like them. They look too "simple," somehow. And the intro movie link... I agree with just putting the movie itself on the page, but if you're not gonna do that, I don't think a mere link to it should have such a central position. It's important to engage people, but sending them to another site to watch it... meh. By that point they'd probably prefer some gameplay videos or something. And it would be nice if the banner was seamless with the rest of the page, as the current one is... 6_6

So basically, Bacon's design can be very awesome with a bit of polishing, maybe some nice graphical buttons instead of text links for "community home," "create an account," etc., perhaps a nicer font, the intro video right in the page instead of on a link, neater, smaller buttons on the right for factions, ships, etc. (there's no reason to have them so big since they no longer contain text -- it just looks untidy, imho). The "free download" link should also be the first of the links, followed by "screenshots", followed by "learn to play," I feel.

But also I really like SpaceJunk's design, esp. the pictures at the top, and overall the prettyness. Maybe we should have Bacon be the copywriter for SpaceJunk's site...

Actually, I also kind of do like the current page. I agree that in some ways it is rather dry, but it also looks very polished and pretty. So either SpaceJunk's idea, or put Bacon in charge of re-writing the text for our current page (and maybe add the original video to it also).

P.S. I also kind of prefer the current slogan. Bacon's slogan underscores the importance of teamwork, but then, his text doesn't, so... it's just kind of confusing. Also too much about dying and too much of a "rar! rar! action!" kind of feel. . I like the "best game you've never played" moar. I'm sorry.

I like more color in the banner. I miss the old slogan though ("the best game you never played" -- much more catchy than its replacement). I hate the asteroid movie, it's really hokey (use TE's intro instead, which shows real gameplay). "Click to see intro movie" is bad; it should be shown by default. Description is very wall o' texty compared to the old site (which had pretty good copy I thought). The buttons also look pretty funky for being section tabs (which is what they are). Probably should be laid out horizontally rather than vertically.

The improvements seem to revolve around getting more people to download, but I don't think that's where we lose our would-be-players. Instead they are downloading, running the program, and ... then what? They're completely lost. And in comparison to the old site, the 'Learn to Play' link is even more inconspicuous.

Edit: just saw spacejunk's mockup. That's definitely more along the lines of what we need. Anyways we need more choices to choose from; no design firm runs proposals one at a time by their client, they come up with like 10 sketches at a time or something ...

I think there should be a tab like the factions and ship ones for storyline imo, seeing as how what your going for here is immersing the new players more and making it seem less like a sport.

I do quite like the storyline; I think the way it includes he3 as a fuel source and nice little realistic touches like that really do it favours.



What I think would be a cool way to immerse newbies more would be to actually have them declare their allegiance in some way but I cannot think of any way to implement this without destroying the game totally. Maybe if alleg gets made as an rpg...

Very nice Bacon, very very nice.

It seems you are going to make quite a few changes soon, so no point of me posting new comments here at this time. Well other than one thing: why the “Fly alone, die alone”? It’s a team’s based game with no single player mode at all, so that to me makes little sense tbh. I agree with Norgonq in liking "The best game you've never played" better, I always thought that was quite catchy.

EDIT: A second page of comments? Were they here a few minutes ago? ... oh boy I must be tired

notjarvis wrote:QUOTE (notjarvis @ Dec 14 2009, 12:59 PM) Lol Dorj - everyone's repeating everyone else in this thread (myself included)

We all fail!