Free Allegiance Forums

I just found out about Allegiance but had a pretty frustrating time trying to get into the website and also in getting support. I wanted to provide feedback about these usability issues in the interest of continuous improvement and so that other people can avoid these problems. These prevented me from using the website for an hour.

1) I had some serious problems getting into different areas of the website. It isn't really clear that there are separate user accounts for everything. I think it woulc be much easier is the wiki, game and forums were all one account. Because of this the forgot password feature didn't know who I was as I was clicking the forgot password in the wrong section but assumed all features were linked.

2) Forgot password link and captcha text are invisible as they have low contrast with background colour. Prevented me from seeing it for a while. http://www.freeallegiance.org/forums/index...Reg&CODE=10

3) Support link has no support but instead has donations page. Couldn't email anyone for help from here. http://www.freeallegiance.org/forums/index...?autocom=donate

4) The "Contact the forums administrator" opens a mailto: link with no email address present. If you look at the javascript you'll see it doesn't generate anything. http://www.freeallegiance.org/forums/index.php?act=Members

I don't mean to put a negative slant on things, I'm sure the game is loads of fun, I'm going to go and try it out now.

Thanks for the feedback. We need more of it. The devs wonder why the player base is small, this is partially why.

FYI, for things like passwords, not being able to connect to the servers, etc. we have a Helpline forum for that.

FreeBeer wrote:QUOTE (FreeBeer @ Oct 9 2010, 04:00 PM) FYI, for things like passwords, not being able to connect to the servers, etc. we have a Helpline forum for that.

Seems like you get it wrong... He said it was not easy to find helpline and other support pages.

Nibinear wrote:QUOTE (Nibinear @ Oct 9 2010, 12:10 PM) 3) Support link has no support but instead has donations page. Couldn't email anyone for help from here. http://www.freeallegiance.org/forums/index...?autocom=donate

Thanks for all your feedback, it really does help. Just to explain one thing though, the support link is used for donations because PayPal had a clamp down on people using donate if they weren't charities or non-profit organisations.

If you can think of a better, less potentially confusing (because now you say it I totally see that it's confusing) feel free to suggest something.

Change the current "support" link name to "upkeep", "chip in", "give", "grant", "subscribe" etc
I also think adding a link named "Support" directly linking you to the main helpline forum would be awesome too!

As for the accounts system, the wiki and the forum do use a bridged account system, but alas the game accounts are designed and held completely differently.

The :mailto link is a pretty obvious fix

SP4WN wrote:QUOTE (SP4WN @ Oct 9 2010, 10:42 AM) Change the current "support" link name to "upkeep", "chip in", "give", "grant", "subscribe" etc
I also think adding a link named "Support" directly linking you to the main helpline forum would be awesome too!

Add "Financial" and it will make sense.

"Support Us" perhaps.

Nibinear wrote:QUOTE (Nibinear @ Oct 9 2010, 06:10 AM) 1) I had some serious problems getting into different areas of the website. It isn't really clear that there are separate user accounts for everything. I think it woulc be much easier is the wiki, game and forums were all one account. Because of this the forgot password feature didn't know who I was as I was clicking the forgot password in the wrong section but assumed all features were linked.

I've felt the same way for years.. but for some reason we're mixing technologies, and nobody has the access/technical ability/desire to integrate the systems.

+1 for "Support Us"