This is a thread giving feedback on the Digital Paint: Paintball2 website... please don't flame this saying stupid stuff like "You're wasting your time" blah blah blah. I don't wanna hear it, this is mainly for jitspoe's eyes and some of the more important people of the community.
In the above picture, there are two rings. The first ring is the one I'd like to talk about more, it's a small-type of advertisement that is hiding away in the top corner. This is a good idea because it promotes a clean and tidy website, and it stays with the original design of the site. However, would it hurt anyone to have a few more advertisements on the "less-important" pages such as Files/Downlands, Contact, IRC, Linkc, etc. Even if it's one of those basic "letter-box" advertisements, it's still generating revenue that'll slowly help support the games development. Ads don't hurt anyone, especially not on the pages listed above.
Ok, so it's only generating like $2 a month, but that's still $2 of extra cash jitspoe has towards the game, isn't it?
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On the second ring, it's highlighting the news header. And underneath is tons of tons of information regarding the technical side of the game. When new players come to this website, and see that, there'll probably be like "wtf?" and they'll think, what is this, what does s_resamplevolume mean? This could potentially put people off. Nowhere in that website, does it tell you the following things:
- What the game is. (FPS, etc)
- Who created it.
- Computer specs.
- Main idea of the game, like to capture the flag etc.
- Screenshots of the actual game, updated ones too.
They are very important things for a first page of a game to have, in my opinion. Having all that information about new tweaks means nothing to me, or to newbies. It means something to people like ViciouZ or XBain, but not me or the average player. Put all that information on a News column, or something similar.
Look at Warsow's website..
"WHAT IS WARSOW"
Simple, easy-to-read and follow and gives a basic introduction to the game. Perhaps something this game could have? Notice the Read More button, too.
"SCREENSHOTS"
A simple link, and also below the "TRAILER" bit, it has several screenshots of the game, and they're upto-date. Perhaps having some simple screenshots at the bottom of the website will do? Also, use some decent maps for the screenshots. Not bombsaway and the other default maps, they're boring and don't show any really cool graphics like discovery.bsp and some of JeeJee's maps do. (No offence)
"TRAILER"
Skitzo, MyeRs and shockwave attempted doing a trailer. We have one too, we have many tutorials and everything done, how about combining them together for a really good trailer? It only has to be 5 minutes long.. take a look at some of the threads made about the trailers and in-game video support.
"GET WARSOW"
"FREE DOWNLOAD"
Simple section of the site, that downloads the latest version of the game with the touch of a button. Why can't we have this feature on our main page? It's so much easier than navigating all the way to the Files/Downloads section. (Perhaps have a little button below the logo saying "Linux users click here")
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The website is the first impression of the game. If the website looks nice and slick, the players will probably think the game is too. I'm sure it'll only take you a day or two to make this happen, so why not take a day not actually coding the game, and make the website look decent and more newbie-friendly. The website is first impressions and needs some more work on to it..
If you want any help in doing the website, I'm sure the community such as myself will be happy to help you.
I hope you appreciate the feedback I'm giving, it's probably a bit repeated, but I hope you get the general idea of what I'm trying to interpret.
Thanks jitspoe.
edit: thread is addressed to anyone who actually cares, including anyone in the community. Not just to jitspoe, sorry for making it sound like it's just for jits.
