Ideas and ramblings

Members Only: This forum is restricted to votes and other formal discussions and is intentionally visible to all forum visitors.

Moderators: General Forum Moderators, Global Moderators

Ideas and ramblings

PostPosted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 12:57 pm

User avatar
NF
Arbiter
Posts: 751
Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 6:51 pm
Location: Manchester, UK
Contact:
So I've been pondering.. a lot.

As a bit of background I’m a user experience designer by trade so as I had some down time at work I thought I’d undertake a review of the STR site and see if there is any way we can boost traffic and engagement.. and also a few other comments on other areas.

First off lets establish what we are trying to achieve here. I think everyone can agree that a win would be the STR seeing a significant boost in members. On the back of this I’m going to also set myself a challenging target and suggest that a “significant boost” would be 50+ members who are active. To make it a little easier though I am going to shy away from defining active as just playing games and instead keep the definition fairly broad and accept IRC and Forum activity as eligible. I’m also going to classify existing members who have not visited in the last month as “lost” and getting them back in to the fold will count as securing a new member.

Just before I get the ball rolling with a quick review of where we are currently I’m want to provide a quick disclaimer before I get started: When I do these kinds of reviews it is essential to stay as detached as possible – it is impossible to do this kind of review properly if you are constantly trying to avoid hurting people’s feelings. Hopefully the below advice will be taken in the spirit it was given: to help the STR. In no way do I want to detract from the great things our members have achieved over the years – you’re all (shattered) stars and that won’t change. It’s also worth adding that my ramblings below are just thoughts and ideas. Thoughts and ideas that are not guaranteed to be right and all of which will benefit from further discussion as they are picked apart, revised and even discarded…

Anyway, I’m going to look at this in four stages:

1. Shatteredstar.com
2. Social Media
3. Getting a head start
4. Old timers

So let’s get started..


1. Shatteredstar.com

So you’ve been playing a game online and you’ve had a blast. Following an evening of pwning noobs in Battlefront with an ad-hoc team of strangers you decide to send out a quick invite in chat for people to pop over to the STR site and say hi, hopeful that they may join. You include the site URL and log off for the night. Great stuff, this is the kind of PR that we were built on and should be everyone’s primary way of building membership.

What we have to consider here is what happens next whilst you are shutting down your computer and getting ready for bed... Let’s look at this from the other side:

L33TDog84 has just had a cracking night. Top of the kill board every match and you’ve finally found a great group of players who worked well as a team and laid waste to everyone who dared go up against you. Before you log off STR-Member throws a link in chat for his guild website and invites everyone on the team to pop in and say hi. As L33tDog84 is looking for a guild and that STR guy seemed like a nice guy you pop over to the site.

On loading you clock the logo, your eyes skip over the navigation bar, you note the first (and maybe second) image on the carousel and then start skim reading through the content - maybe take in a couple of the top tweets on the feed. (This is simplified but, based on research, is how the average person would approach a site like this for the first time)

L33TDog84 likely has a couple of immediate thoughts:

· I expected a gaming clan, I’m not 100% sure that this site is a clan..
· It’s not clear where I can say “hi”

So enough with the roleplay lets break these issues down:

Ref my first point I challenge anyone reading this to have a look at that first page and find anything that suggests we are a guild/clan that plays games – with the exception of the somewhat cryptic “gaming together since 1997” on the first image on the carousel (which they may have missed as it rotates) who we are is not very clear. My gut feeling here is not that it is a bad landing page it is simply that the landing page is aimed at members.. not first time visitors.

Secondly, as a first time visitor, it is not clear how I might say “hi”. To find the forum link it takes effort. I know what you are thinking at this point and it’s something along the lines of “It’s obvious. Just click community, and then community forums and tah-dah, you’re in.” but from a usability point of view this actually isn’t that obvious…

In a blatant misuse of business resources I did a quick user test with 10 of my UX panel and “Community” turns out to be quite an ambiguous term for top level navigation. When asked what each user thought might be contained under the heading of “Community” the majority (8 out of 10) thought it would be an “About us” page.. Yeah it surprised me too.

So with only a cursory glance we already have two clear roadblocks to people getting in touch. I appreciate that L33TDog84 might do some more digging and find his way to the forum but let’s consider those people who visit after finding us on google or linked in someone’s forum signature on another site. These people don’t have the same motivation as L33tDog84 and will have higher expectations as to what they expect from the site..

Generally people form an opinion of a website in the first 50ms. Luckily we benefit from a slick design, engaging graphics and (since the server upgrade) nice responsive pages so that first impression should be excellent for the majority of people. Where we will lose people is when they either try to decipher who we are or how to find what they came here for. Both of these should be discoverable in 10 seconds and with minimum effort (clicks).

Just to clarify here: I am not suggesting a huge redesign of the site.. just a few tweaks. I’m also not suggesting that this will solve all our problems – all it will do is give us the best chance of retaining visitors attracted via other channels.

So my suggestions here would be:

· Replace Community button with Forum and direct link to the boards
· Might just be me but the IRC java client doesn’t work (this may be an issue with Chrome though) so my first question here would be whether we actually get any drive by visitors via the java client? Does it warrant its own menu button? Would a sticky in the main forum linking to the java client and with instructions not work just as well? Added bonus here is that if anyone does want to use it and has problems they’re already in the place they need to be to ask for help.
· Also add a prominent block advertising the forum. At the very least move the “Recent Threads” box higher up the screen and adding a banner inviting people to visit the forum.. my preference though would be a big bright “Come join us in the forum!” graphic..

Here’s a (rough) mock up:

Image

Lastly on the front page I was wondering whether the carousel could also do with a shakeup… here’s my thinking:

· Slide 1: “ShatteredStar: Gaming together since 1997” – Like the message but again wonder if this deserves it’s own slide as it is essentially just repeating the logo above it..
· Slide 2: Ideals – Great but how is this relevant to me and my gaming experience? (asking as a first time visitor)
· Slide 3: Shop – Love the shop but how relevant this is to new/potential members? Existing members know about it from the forum..
· Slide 4: Teamspeak – I like the idea of advertising that we have TS but again more aimed at existing members. I appreciate it is a selling point but worth the prime time? Probably not. On a side note I also wonder if anyone has seen that slide and, as it probably is the most obvious method of communicating with us, and thought they’d log in to talk to STR and then just found it empty..

My solution here would be to take the ideals and turn each of them in to its own slide and reference the benefits to membership. i.e. Friendship: Looking out for each other since 1997 / Equality: Every voice is heard, every opinion matters / etc. For added relevance throw in imagery from the games we play (one game for each slide) as this will help establish the site as a gaming site on first glance.

I know this is potentially a lot of work for what may seem simple tweaks but I hope you can see the reasoning behind each change. The goal here is to ensure we have a solid landing base that we can refer people to with confidence – confidence that the site will continue to pitch the idea of STR to potential recruits and then guide them to the forums and in to the wider community…


Social Media

Everyone’s favourite topic at the moment! MS has undeniably been doing a great job but I think we can all agree that some extra help is needed.

So let’s understand the road blocks to getting people involved first:

· I don’t have the time
· I don’t use Facebook/Twitter
· I use Facebook/Twitter but managing two accounts is not practical
· I don’t have the hardware to stream/record

Taking these one at a time let’s start at the top with the time investment needed here. Everyone is different, everyone has varying amounts of spare time to commit to STR and, let’s be honest here, most people want to spend their time playing games rather than trawling Twitter and Facebook. Personally I fall in to this category.. gone are the days when I can spend 6 hours a day online - family and work put an end to that years ago and, as demonstrated by my absence from STR prior to this year, I’ve only just found enough me time to squeeze gaming back in to my life. I’m sure different people have varying results but the effect is the same… time is precious and if we are going to get more people involved we need to make it easier.

At work I get asked all the time whether we can make it easier for our users to engage with us more on social media and the answer is always the same: Integration. If you want people to post to social media about a feature/event or situation then the software platform needs to facilitate this engagement with the least amount of effort. Applying this principle to STR the ideal solution would be to incorporate social media integration in to the forum.. but yes I do appreciate that this is a huge ask from a technical point of view…

But imagine the benefits as well: If MS posts a cool set of screenshots and I have the option to click a single button and instantly share the link to my followers on Twitter or my friends on Facebook then the chances of me doing so is increased tenfold. I should also point out that this is not just a case of laziness, this is convenience, which is a whole different ball game. phpBB already has plugins to allow this exact feature but perhaps Anny could weigh in here as to practicality. I also wonder if there is the functionality available via a plugin to mirror hot topics from the forum on the FB group automatically.. (pie in the sky thought only - not one to take too seriously!)

Moving on to the second point. People need to accept that some people simply don’t do social media. This is not a case of them not wanting to contribute, it is simply a choice they have made. Respect it and move on. Find them something else to do instead but please, please, don’t berate their lack of involvement.

Likewise some people find it impractical to manage their own account and a dedicated STR account. I use Facebook almost exclusively on my phone and switching accounts via the app every time I wanted to post something on the other account would drive me insane. Likewise on twitter (although Twitter does have a few more supporting apps that help you manage multiple accounts so it’s not quite as bad). Again this comes down to a personal choice. The trick here is not to share out the STR account but instead encourage engagement on Facebook and on Twitter via our personal accounts.

On Facebook its contributing to the STR FB group (and yes I appreciate that I’m hardly a shining light in this regard so I will happily commit now to doing more on there) but it is also posting more STR related items on our own news feeds as this has far more reach than a group filled solely with existing members.

On Twitter it is tweeting relevant items at the STR account and retweeting items you think your own followers would like. A curated list of STR members might also be useful so members can subscribe and easily see what everyone else is posting about, it’s also a useful link for new members who can quickly start following other members.

Just on a slight tangent I know we post about spare copies of games we have lying around that we’re giving away but could we add a requirement to tweet/FB post something STR related to get the game? Maybe not exactly that but why not use them to drive social media.

And finally we need to appreciate that not everyone has the hardware to record and/or stream games. Unless we’re going to fund upgrades for everyone in this boat then we need a different approach here. How about a list of people willing to drop in to games that these people play and act as a camera man.. appreciate that this is dependent on the type of game, multiplayer setup and whether people own a game but perhaps someone will have an idea as to how this might be achieved.


Getting a head start

Battlefront. Beta landing shortly. Potentially there is a lot of people out there who are already looking for a clan to join and currently we’re simply not on the radar for any of them. I’m wondering whether we should we have pre-empted it’s arrival and taken the opportunity to add a dedicated forum, a front page post that we’re going to be playing it and looking for recruits.. if google indexes this article then we might attract some players before we even kick off. The idea to setup a dedicated STR server is a great idea for getting member but obviously we need to bear in mind that there is a cost. Despite the associated risk I’m happy to contribute but perhaps it’s a subject worth discussing further to get an idea of appetite.

I think, overall, we have a fairly good idea of what games people are intending to play but perhaps a dedicated list to track exactly how many of us will be trying a game would help identify which games might warrant a little pre-emptive action.


Old Timers

This is not a comment on the specifics of Socialgate (i.e. who has the accounts), I respect Sl33py’s decision as I think it is the right one but I’d already written it when he closed the thread and I hate seeing things go to waste especially as this is more of a general view on how we got to that particular point..

We’ve talked a lot about how difficult it has been to keep the lights on here and how, if it hadn’t been for a core few, this place would simply not exist anymore. What I want to talk about here is the other side of the coin.. people returning to the fold. I can only comment directly on my own experience but I have some concerns that we are not making it easy for old members to come back and stay.

I’m fairly sure I’m one of the longest serving members in the group. I say this not to get a pat on the back but purely to highlight that I’ve seen a lot since I joined up as a Mechwarrior 2 pilot back in the 90s. The ebb and flow of members is constant and although I appreciate that currently things are particularly bad I want to highlight the fact that people will leave, and people will come back. Fact.

For me I drifted away from the SSX a couple of years ago because of Life™, combined with the fact that I didn’t have a game to play with the group so I put in less effort to stay engaged. During my absence I had various issues with work, I started a new family and I drifted from occasional forum lurker to once a month drive bys at the most.

But then, as life tends to do, things changed. Pressures eased, I had time to breathe again and, most importantly, I had a craving to return to my gaming roots. So I hopped back on the forums and started reading.

After an extended absence coming back reminded me of visiting my old school. The familiar shapes and sounds still struck a chord, there’s even a few familiar faces but you can’t help but note that things had definitely changed. Change is good though and I’ve never balked at embracing it so I dove back in and really enjoyed catching up with people. I’m yet to find my new game but I remain hopeful that it’s just around the corner.

However it wasn’t long before I hit a sour note. There remains an assumption that if you weren’t in IRC or posting on the forums over the past year then you’ve done the STR a disservice. The implication has never been voiced but it feels like it is simmering just below the surface of every discussion about the future of the group.

The recent “Socialgate” is a prime example whereby because people had not tweeted over the past year they never would in the future. Why bother sharing login details as people have proved they are incapable of contributing to the greater good? Forget whatever personal struggles they may have had to keep them away – you have been judged and you have been found unworthy.

I, of course, exaggerate and I definitely don’t want to restart an argument that Sl33py has put to bed - I know that there is nothing malicious behind it. I simply use it as an example to show that humans, by nature, form opinions based upon experience and the experience here is abandonment. So yeah, I get where people are coming from, all I ask is that everyone considers both sides of this coin and look at it from the perspective of a returning member and give them the benefit of the doubt, and not contribute things like this:
“We'll talk further when someone who's able to contribute something of value shows up.”
As a returning member am I going to spend my valuable time challenging this view or am I going to sigh and walk away? I can guess what most would do..

For me this thread is me challenging these assumptions – here’s all my ideas, I want to contribute. Tear them apart if you want to. Offer up improvements if you feel like it. But don’t dismiss it because for 2 out of 18 years I wasn’t here.
NF

Re: Ideas and ramblings

PostPosted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 2:38 pm

User avatar
SL33PY
Posts: 980
Joined: Wed Oct 27, 2004 7:25 pm
The thing with twitter as a driver for a community is that you need active members on twitter.

I live there, MS been living there for about a year, QD is around on twitter and so is Anny, I don't know about the other guys. As such, members active on a particular social platform are the drivers of the community on that platform. Next to that you could have a group account; but that one should be managed by, in my view, Anubis - site admin-, M.Steiner -Major contributor/social media man- and the Arbiter -changes with the times-, group admins -to post group activites-

Main reason to tweet stuff as a group is to show whatever is currently going on "Hey guys we're going to be streaming CS:Go in a minute!", "Next week Friday 7 of us will be playing TF2", "New fantasy football league starts next week, can you beat our 5 times champ? http://bit.ly/joinus"

People from the group also active on twitter will be favoriting and retweeting those tweets that appeal to us. I know I have retweeted a ton of stuff, even when not active on the forums, I did follow our twitter account.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now I do feel that any one person can be a contributor, whether that be someone who was lost for a few years or someone that has just found his way to our community. I do feel that access to community social services is something that must be managed.

As far as YouTube and Twitch goes, that's fairly easily done. As for twitter I believe a separate Twitter Page should exist where people with the necessary rights get access to tweet, without knowing the login at all.

-my two cents-

ps I'm happy to read that you are willing to think about this and take up the glove to do something about it. My personal life is very busy and has been very busy for a long time now and it doesn't look like it's going to get a lot better any time soon. I even barely play Eve Online, haven't logged in for about a month now. I just currently can't do more, for which I'm actually sorry. I've called the STR my home for a very long time and I'm hoping we'll get the necessary oxygen to get it all started anew, fresh wind, enthusiasm and tons of fun!

Re: Ideas and ramblings

PostPosted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 3:37 pm

User avatar
M.Steiner
Posts: 6114
Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 5:57 pm
Location: UK
Contact:
First off, just want to thank you for taking the time to post something like this, NF. All seems very well thought out and constructive criticism & discussion like this will only help us. It's good to be able to look at your strengths and weakness and identify areas you could improve in or change up.

1. Homepage
A lot of valid points here when you look at it from the point of view of a first time visitor and making things as clear and easy as possible. Anny will have to chime in here as well since he does the actual site work whereas I just designed the mockup for him to build it from and provide any art files he needs. A dedicated button for the forum on the nav sounds okay to me though and I can see where you're coming from with that.

I can see what you mean with the carousel images too and like the idea of a dedicated slide per ideal, using different game art for each as well. We could certainly do that if possible. One thing I am wondering about though is whether the carousel would support this as I seem to recall when I provided Anny with the last slide for it, that we picked one of the older slides to remove in its place. I don't know whether that was because there is a 4 slide limit to it (and we have 5 ideals) or by his choice just so as not to be rotating too many images. Anny will know.

2. Social Media
I completely agree with the sharing to social media via the forums & site and this is something we implemented to the launch of the "new look" actually. Posts on the main page itself can be shared to a number of places with the buttons available and for the forum there is a "share on" drop down at the bottom of threads. The forum button may be hard to spot I guess, though this shares the thread itself rather than an individual post. I did consider individual buttons on each post when I was playing about in Photoshop originally but adding (and finding a place to put) several new buttons for Twitter, FB etc would make it look really cluttered I think. Perhaps the "share on" drop down could be linked via posts instead though if that's possible?

I come in under part of the second point too so I agree here. I've taken to Twitter now but Facebook is still something I haven't and don't intend to use myself. As such I wouldn't expect anyone else to feel like they have to use one of these sites either if they don't wish to. For the people who DO use FB or aren't against using it, it'd be nice to see the STR group given some love though.

3. Head Start
Normally we wait until there has been enough discussion & interest shown in the general forum for a game first, to show that opening a new section for it is warranted and will actually get used. This relies on existing members only though so we can add a dedicated forum for Battlefront now if you think it will help, along with a post to the main site. - We need to hand front page access out to more people here too (just give Anny a poke!) so others can post stuff like this too. I don't think there are many people who can post there atm or who have asked to be able to so I'll try and do these myself this afternoon if I can, or this evening if not. Leave it with me :)

4. Old Timers
Just a little comment here. Just wanted to make it clear that despite some of the things I've said in regards to activity levels of the group and people who do their driveby's only to disappear again for X amount of time. I certainly don't think any less of those people (and apologies if I have ever come across that way) and can understand why it is like that for some of them. I just thought it was worth putting into words that a community stays alive because of the people and without the people, it ceases to exist. STR will be here for as long as we want it to be but this is something that only we as a community can ensure. This has just been more relevant now than it probably should be because we haven't had an influx of new members for a while and because of that we are solely relying on our existing membership. Hopefully that won't be the case for too much longer though :)

SL33PY wrote: ps I'm happy to read that you are willing to think about this and take up the glove to do something about it. My personal life is very busy and has been very busy for a long time now and it doesn't look like it's going to get a lot better any time soon. I even barely play Eve Online, haven't logged in for about a month now. I just currently can't do more, for which I'm actually sorry. I've called the STR my home for a very long time and I'm hoping we'll get the necessary oxygen to get it all started anew, fresh wind, enthusiasm and tons of fun!
This place will always be your home even if you can't spend as much time here as you have done in the past. I've always considered this place like a second family <3
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Re: Ideas and ramblings

PostPosted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 3:53 pm

User avatar
NF
Arbiter
Posts: 751
Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 6:51 pm
Location: Manchester, UK
Contact:
SL33PY wrote:Main reason to tweet stuff as a group is to show whatever is currently going on "Hey guys we're going to be streaming CS:Go in a minute!", "Next week Friday 7 of us will be playing TF2", "New fantasy football league starts next week, can you beat our 5 times champ? http://bit.ly/joinus"
100% agree with this and I meant to put this in the above but it got lost for some reason. Posting news is fine but there is a million other twitter accounts doing exactly the same thing. Not to say we don't post interesting news but the focus should indeed be around what we are doing as a group. This links in with my thoughts on being able to tweet specific forum posts easier.. these are the posts that are likely to be of most interest.

With all that being said I don't see social media as the primary means to garner more activity and members, that will always come primarily from gaming. Social media is simply a great way of organising and shouting about what we are doing such as events or regular game nights.
SL33PY wrote:Now I do feel that any one person can be a contributor, whether that be someone who was lost for a few years or someone that has just found his way to our community. I do feel that access to community social services is something that must be managed.
Just to clarify here, I wasn't suggesting for a minute that we open up access to the group accounts to everyone, I'm happy with central control on these but instead I was aiming at simplifying the way people use their own accounts to pass on information and promote the STR.
SL33PY wrote:My personal life is very busy and has been very busy for a long time now and it doesn't look like it's going to get a lot better any time soon. I even barely play Eve Online, haven't logged in for about a month now. I just currently can't do more, for which I'm actually sorry. I've called the STR my home for a very long time and I'm hoping we'll get the necessary oxygen to get it all started anew, fresh wind, enthusiasm and tons of fun!
Nothing to apologise for, that is exactly the ebb and flow I described above that happens with any online community. The key factor here is that when you could commit time, you did. But now that you can't that is also OK and definitely not something that should ever reflect negatively on you. We'll carry on, enjoy catching up with you when you can pop in and simply look forward to your return when things settle down.
NF

Re: Ideas and ramblings

PostPosted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 3:59 pm

User avatar
NF
Arbiter
Posts: 751
Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 6:51 pm
Location: Manchester, UK
Contact:
M.Steiner wrote:I completely agree with the sharing to social media via the forums & site and this is something we implemented to the launch of the "new look" actually. Posts on the main page itself can be shared to a number of places with the buttons available and for the forum there is a "share on" drop down at the bottom of threads. The forum button may be hard to spot I guess, though this shares the thread itself rather than an individual post. I did consider individual buttons on each post when I was playing about in Photoshop originally but adding (and finding a place to put) several new buttons for Twitter, FB etc would make it look really cluttered I think. Perhaps the "share on" drop down could be linked via posts instead though if that's possible?
Apologies - I simply didn't see that functionality.. but pretty much exactly what I was suggesting so kudos for that. I will make use of it. I do like the option of sharing a single reply rather than the whole thread though as we are a rambling bunch occasionally so sometimes a cool bit of info is located half way through the discussion.. Not the end of the world though if that is a challenge.

Cheers MS
NF

Re: Ideas and ramblings

PostPosted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 4:10 pm

User avatar
NF
Arbiter
Posts: 751
Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 6:51 pm
Location: Manchester, UK
Contact:
Oh btw ref Facebook - i'm happy to take over the reins on that one if you have no objections. Don't need access to the main STR account but if you can make me an admin of the group that would be helpful (Phil Collinson is my FB name) This way I can keep using my own account and the main account still feeds through the twitter.
NF

Re: Ideas and ramblings

PostPosted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 4:34 pm

User avatar
M.Steiner
Posts: 6114
Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 5:57 pm
Location: UK
Contact:
NF wrote:Oh btw ref Facebook - i'm happy to take over the reins on that one if you have no objections. Don't need access to the main STR account but if you can make me an admin of the group that would be helpful (Phil Collinson is my FB name) This way I can keep using my own account and the main account still feeds through the twitter.
I don't use FB as I say but I think Anny holds the main access to it. He'd be the one to PM about that if so (unless he sees your post here first) :thumb:
Incidentally. I've made you a global moderator here on the forums too so you should have a few more tools at your disposal, should you ever need em!
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Re: Ideas and ramblings

PostPosted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 4:38 pm

User avatar
NF
Arbiter
Posts: 751
Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 6:51 pm
Location: Manchester, UK
Contact:
Many thanks for that MS. I'll also hit Anny up when I get home tonight..
NF

Re: Ideas and ramblings

PostPosted: Thu Oct 15, 2015 3:29 pm

User avatar
M.Steiner
Posts: 6114
Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 5:57 pm
Location: UK
Contact:
M.Steiner wrote:I can see what you mean with the carousel images too and like the idea of a dedicated slide per ideal, using different game art for each as well. We could certainly do that if possible. One thing I am wondering about though is whether the carousel would support this as I seem to recall when I provided Anny with the last slide for it, that we picked one of the older slides to remove in its place. I don't know whether that was because there is a 4 slide limit to it (and we have 5 ideals) or by his choice just so as not to be rotating too many images. Anny will know.
Still not sure the answer to this but assuming it's possible or can be modified to use 5, I thought I'd make a start and have done the first 2:
Freedom.jpg
Freedom.jpg (454.89 KiB) Viewed 45220 times
Equality.jpg
Equality.jpg (356.57 KiB) Viewed 45220 times
Anyone wanna provide some text for the Honor, Integrity & Friendship slides? :)
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Re: Ideas and ramblings

PostPosted: Thu Oct 15, 2015 10:53 pm

User avatar
NF
Arbiter
Posts: 751
Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 6:51 pm
Location: Manchester, UK
Contact:
Love them MS, really great work! The words are spot on for a first impression for someone looking for a clan :thumb:

If we can't do 5 its not the end of the world, we could just pick the ones we'd like to showcase... Honor would be my vote to drop, simply because the lack of a "u" has always confused my British brain, lol.

Let me have a ponder and see if I can offer some words up..
NF

Re: Ideas and ramblings

PostPosted: Thu Oct 15, 2015 11:05 pm

User avatar
Anubis
Site Admin
Posts: 4291
Joined: Thu Sep 02, 2004 10:13 pm
Location: The Unholy Realm
Contact:
We can do 5 if we want to, I'd just be concerned about filesize is all. We need to be careful of ending up with a 2MB homepage because we've put so much stuff on there :(

Great designs though MS - fabulous work as ever!
"Perhaps this is what I have always wished for since that day. The loss and destruction of all. That's right, one must destroy before creating. In that case, if my conscience becomes a hindrance to me, then I will simply erase it. I have no other choice but to move forward....therefore!" - Lelouch vi Britannia/Zero, Code Geass: Hangyaku no Lelouch

Forever an eXile and proud of it!

Re: Ideas and ramblings

PostPosted: Thu Oct 15, 2015 11:20 pm

User avatar
NF
Arbiter
Posts: 751
Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 6:51 pm
Location: Manchester, UK
Contact:
First attempt..

Friendship
The strongest gaming groups not only play together but want to play together.
In game or out, we always have each others backs.
No backstabbing. No politics. Just fun.


Integrity
Above all else we treat everyone fairly and with respect.
We work hard to earn the trust of those we meet and then we work harder to make sure we never lose it.
NF

Re: Ideas and ramblings

PostPosted: Fri Oct 16, 2015 1:15 am

User avatar
M.Steiner
Posts: 6114
Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 5:57 pm
Location: UK
Contact:
Will try those descriptions out on the slides I've prepared for them, NF!
Anny - Will keep filesizes in mind and we can see what they all come to when all 5 are done.

Edit: How do these look?
Freedom.jpg
Freedom.jpg (206.75 KiB) Viewed 45200 times
Equality.jpg
Equality.jpg (172.55 KiB) Viewed 45200 times
Honor.jpg
Honor.jpg (190.86 KiB) Viewed 45200 times
Integrity.jpg
Integrity.jpg (186.37 KiB) Viewed 45200 times
Friendship.jpg
Friendship.jpg (209.34 KiB) Viewed 45200 times
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Re: Ideas and ramblings

PostPosted: Fri Oct 16, 2015 12:09 pm

User avatar
NF
Arbiter
Posts: 751
Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 6:51 pm
Location: Manchester, UK
Contact:
Love 'em! :thumb:
NF

Re: Ideas and ramblings

PostPosted: Sat Oct 17, 2015 1:06 am

User avatar
M.Steiner
Posts: 6114
Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 5:57 pm
Location: UK
Contact:
Unless there's anyone here who would like to suggest some changes or additions I think those are ready to go up on the main page in that case!
If so, I shall leave that in Anny's capable hands assuming the filesizes are okay (they're compressed and saved for web so I think they'll be fine?) :thumb:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Re: Ideas and ramblings

PostPosted: Sat Oct 17, 2015 12:37 pm

User avatar
Anubis
Site Admin
Posts: 4291
Joined: Thu Sep 02, 2004 10:13 pm
Location: The Unholy Realm
Contact:
Yeah, I think those sizes are broadly in line with what we have now so I'll look at putting them up later.

Can you just confirm everything I need to do now MS? New carousel images, new logo images, and the Youtube banner etc was it?
"Perhaps this is what I have always wished for since that day. The loss and destruction of all. That's right, one must destroy before creating. In that case, if my conscience becomes a hindrance to me, then I will simply erase it. I have no other choice but to move forward....therefore!" - Lelouch vi Britannia/Zero, Code Geass: Hangyaku no Lelouch

Forever an eXile and proud of it!

Re: Ideas and ramblings

PostPosted: Sat Oct 17, 2015 1:34 pm

User avatar
M.Steiner
Posts: 6114
Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 5:57 pm
Location: UK
Contact:
Let's see...
  • Replace carousel images with the ideal ones above - DONE
  • Replace site banners with the @STRGaming97 ones - DONE
  • The MS twitter is linked to FB whereas the official STR twitter isn't yet. - I'm happy to leave my account linked for the activity btw (or I can remove it if you guys would prefer) though it would be best if there's a way to diffferentiate between the accounts being fed there so it is clear where the posts are coming from. If tweets from both accounts are going to display on FB as "The Shattered Star" then you won't be able to tell and whilst I do try to be careful what I post, I wouldn't want to upset anyone by tweeting something they don't like and have it tagged as The Shattered Star rather than MS.
  • My twitter account is also still linked on the nav & main site feed whereas the STR twitter isn't. I know you were going to look into some of that and feed more than 1 account across though, that's cool. - I'm happy for you to still do that, though we should probably include the twitter names as well as the handles in the feed window assuming that's possible. That way people can tell if a tweet is from our group Twitter, or a personal account of one of our members.
  • Can set a new group YouTube channel up with those bits of art I gave ya (make sure to add BD as a manager to it too, and anyone else who may want) but we can keep the existing channel linked on the site nav until the group one starts getting used as a group. Perhaps name it STR Gaming like the new Twitter? - If you're really busy I can look into doing this. Lemme know :)
  • Add bbcode for embedding Tweets on the forum. - This is a vBulletin board but see here for an example. This would be really handy.
  • Not mentioned above but since we're talking about the site here, it would be a good idea to hook some more people up with main site news access.
  • Forum anti-bot registration Q&A needs updating as it asks what our Twitter handle is and the answer is now wrong. I left it alone for the time being as we still had my account linked and in the banner (and didn't wanna confuse anyone) but don't worry about that one, I'm gonna update the question to something else this afternoon. - DONE
NF had some other suggestions for the site too (besides the carousel images) if you hadn't seen, Anny :thumb:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Re: Ideas and ramblings

PostPosted: Fri Oct 30, 2015 11:24 am

User avatar
M.Steiner
Posts: 6114
Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 5:57 pm
Location: UK
Contact:
Just bumping as a friendly reminder :)

Know you've been busy again but I'm guessing you've forgotten about this too since I know the banner update should take all but 30 seconds for example, and I know I used to have to bug you to update the Christmas/Winter banners each year before they became automated lol. Give us a shout if you need anything mate (should I have forgotten to give you something) or one of us can help in any way! :thumb:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Re: Ideas and ramblings

PostPosted: Sat Oct 31, 2015 2:42 pm

User avatar
Anubis
Site Admin
Posts: 4291
Joined: Thu Sep 02, 2004 10:13 pm
Location: The Unholy Realm
Contact:
Yeah, it keeps falling off my list but I haven't even been at my PC since last Sunday.

Should be around for a little while tomorrow I think, so will do it then. If not, Monday.
"Perhaps this is what I have always wished for since that day. The loss and destruction of all. That's right, one must destroy before creating. In that case, if my conscience becomes a hindrance to me, then I will simply erase it. I have no other choice but to move forward....therefore!" - Lelouch vi Britannia/Zero, Code Geass: Hangyaku no Lelouch

Forever an eXile and proud of it!

Re: Ideas and ramblings

PostPosted: Tue Dec 01, 2015 1:58 am

User avatar
M.Steiner
Posts: 6114
Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 5:57 pm
Location: UK
Contact:
M.Steiner wrote:
  • The MS twitter is linked to FB whereas the official STR twitter isn't yet. - I'm happy to leave my account linked for the activity btw (or I can remove it if you guys would prefer) though it would be best if there's a way to diffferentiate between the accounts being fed there so it is clear where the posts are coming from. If tweets from both accounts are going to display on FB as "The Shattered Star" then you won't be able to tell and whilst I do try to be careful what I post, I wouldn't want to upset anyone by tweeting something they don't like and have it tagged as The Shattered Star rather than MS.
So, I've (supposedly) revoked FB access to my Twitter account but my tweets are still appearing over on FB somehow?
My account is still the only twitter account being fed across by the looks of it and still under "The Shattered Star" name rather than M.Steiner, even though they're not coming from the official STR twitter (though I asked about this on IRC some weeks ago and don't think this can be changed anyway iirc?). If it's gonna be left linked and posts can't be tagged with the twitter account name they're coming from, could we at least link up some other members accounts as well perhaps? So lots of our posts are going there too, not just mine? Most of my tweets are still game related as always but I just felt a little self conscious seeing strings of my X Factor live tweeting appear over there each weekend for example, with no other posts or whatever from anyone else being fed there inbetween. Don't want complaining at is all :)
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Re: Ideas and ramblings

PostPosted: Tue Dec 01, 2015 9:48 pm

User avatar
NF
Arbiter
Posts: 751
Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 6:51 pm
Location: Manchester, UK
Contact:
Strange.. might need to disconnect it from the FB end rather than just from Twitter..

Admittedly a complete guess.
NF

Re: Ideas and ramblings

PostPosted: Sat Dec 12, 2015 8:33 pm

Thunderbird
Posts: 148
Joined: Fri Sep 03, 2004 10:07 pm
Contact:
I'm regularly on FB and could help with things on that end if needed.

Re: Ideas and ramblings

PostPosted: Wed Dec 23, 2015 12:13 am

User avatar
Anubis
Site Admin
Posts: 4291
Joined: Thu Sep 02, 2004 10:13 pm
Location: The Unholy Realm
Contact:
If anyone would like to contribute to running the Facebook page that would be more than welcome. I've no real time to do it myself (as my slow reply here evidences, I'm not around as much as I'd like to be at present), and I've never wanted to run a group Social Media account (I have enough trouble filling my own) - it sort of just fell to me when SL33PY left FB.

It's just sitting there as things stand, and it'd be nice if we could make something of it like MS has the Twitter. But yeah...it's not going to come to anything if it stays sat with me I don't think :(
"Perhaps this is what I have always wished for since that day. The loss and destruction of all. That's right, one must destroy before creating. In that case, if my conscience becomes a hindrance to me, then I will simply erase it. I have no other choice but to move forward....therefore!" - Lelouch vi Britannia/Zero, Code Geass: Hangyaku no Lelouch

Forever an eXile and proud of it!

Return to “Members”