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View Full Version : Made a website for people new to online roleplaying and would love your advice/input



McMouse
2012-01-26, 10:51 PM
Hey guys! First off if this is the wrong place for this sort of thing, feel free to move my thread to the right one :smallredface:

So I made a website - LookingForGroup.net (http://lookingforgroup.net) - with the intention of getting together all of the links and information a newbie to online roleplaying would need to find or start a game. My goal was to have a guide and a useful collection of links. So I went ahead and did that, and it came out... okay. This is my first website and I really want to make it something that people would actually come to when curious about online roleplaying.

So... what do you think? What can I do better to make it interesting to you? I know the color scheme isn't great, and I will be doing a general redesign with jQuery as soon as I figure out how to do that :smallbiggrin:

But I would especially like to know how I can make the content better, more appealing, and better organized so that gamers of all experience levels will find it useful.

I appreciate any and all constructive criticism - I'm really doing this to learn and improve, so even if you hate it let me know and I'll do my best to make it better! :smallwink: If you have or know of links I should include, I'll be sure to throw them up there!

Thanks so much!
-McMouse

edit: spelling ><

Banjax
2012-01-27, 05:01 AM
Haven't had the time to do a thorough read through but I do have a couple of initial thoughts;

I know you know this already but the grey on grey colour scheme is just too hard to read, as a rule dark text on a light background for things you want people to be able to read easily, and light text on a dark background if you're being overly dramatic.

You have your individual useful tools listed in your side menu as well as your main panel, is that intentional?

Some ideas:
Under Virtual Tabletops, if you're going to expand that can I suggest you split them into 2 sections, free and paid, if you want to get really fancy you could add in bullet points about what features they have and allow users to submit ratings in terms of features, ease of use, etc.

Character profilers: If there is no better way to categorise them I would personally put your lists in alphabetical order, it makes them easier to read and search when you're trying to find which one you used last time.

Rulesets: again either put these in alphabetical order or divide them by system, for sites that cover multiple systems either pick the main one that they focus on or just put in a second link.

Starting a Game: there's a link at the top that says "finding a game page" id to keep things consistant that should be finding a group.

Under advertising, a good way of finding new groups and players are your local comic/gaming shops many of them allow people to put notices,, you may wish to mention that.

McMouse
2012-01-27, 01:32 PM
This is great input, thanks. I'll be making most of these changes tonight (alphabetization, increasing contrast, wording changes).

EDIT: And the useful tools thing is something I havn't quite decided on yet. I do like the drop down look but it's sorta redundant if I have it displayed all the time - do I even need the "useful tools" page if they're always displayed? Does it add anything to have them hidden initially? At this point I'm strongly leaning towards just ditching useful tools and having each one of them have its own button.

DefKab
2012-01-27, 01:46 PM
This is great!

I'm not a newbie, but I have moved to a new area, and your linkage to game finder websites is amazing...

Whatever you do, keep this up.

Prime32
2012-01-27, 06:37 PM
Could there be problems with the webcomic of the same name (http://www.lfgcomic.com/)?

Also, don't forget to add BG (http://www.minmaxboards.com/) and the FATE RPG resources page (http://www.faterpg.com/resources/).

McMouse
2012-01-29, 03:22 PM
Could there be problems with the webcomic of the same name (http://www.lfgcomic.com/)?

Also, don't forget to add BG (http://www.minmaxboards.com/) and the FATE RPG resources page (http://www.faterpg.com/resources/).

Been away from my computer for a couple nights but I'm adding these right now. Alphabetization and color scheme changes coming tonight!

EDIT: Not sure if Min/Max is quite right for my listing - do they have a place for advertising games or hosting games?

Bagelson
2012-01-29, 03:45 PM
I'd recommend also adding rolz.org (http://rolz.org/) to the dice rollers. It supports several common dice mechanics and allows creation of persistent multi-user dice rooms with logs and custom user names. Haven't tried it fully, but should work well in conjunction with live online tabletops like Google+ Hangouts or Skype.

Prime32
2012-01-29, 04:17 PM
EDIT: Not sure if Min/Max is quite right for my listing - do they have a place for advertising games or hosting games?Yes, at the bottom.

DarkEricDraven
2012-01-29, 04:51 PM
I would feel deceived if I landed on that site while looking for fantasy webcomic Looking For Group.

Spacewolf
2012-01-29, 05:17 PM
maybe a run down of abbreviation i always have to look up abbreviations such as gesalt and HD to find out what they mean and especially what they mean to my character im still not sure how HD effects PCs, and NPCs in a fight for spells such as turn undead

Prime32
2012-01-29, 06:51 PM
maybe a run down of abbreviation i always have to look up abbreviations such as gesalt and HD to find out what they mean and especially what they mean to my character im still not sure how HD effects PCs, and NPCs in a fight for spells such as turn undeadThat... isn't a list of RPG abbreviations (and gestalt isn't an abbreviation in the first place). That's rules for D&D 3.5. Which are already linked to. :smallconfused:

Spacewolf
2012-01-29, 08:45 PM
huh well i didnt know that.

Ive already downloaded one set of the PDF rules and havent seen gestalt yet so i wasnt sure, i didnt think it was an abv but it was just a generalisation of terms that a newbie might not understand and then maybe a short sentence of there uses or a page number or even just what book its in.

Although which book its in probably would be less useful as a newbie is unlike to have the numerous books that things seem to appear from.

Banjax
2012-01-30, 05:07 AM
This is great input, thanks. I'll be making most of these changes tonight (alphabetization, increasing contrast, wording changes).

EDIT: And the useful tools thing is something I havn't quite decided on yet. I do like the drop down look but it's sorta redundant if I have it displayed all the time - do I even need the "useful tools" page if they're always displayed? Does it add anything to have them hidden initially? At this point I'm strongly leaning towards just ditching useful tools and having each one of them have its own button.

If you're aiming the site at complete newbies I'd keep the useful tools as a seperate page and drop them from the side menu that way you can keep the general descriptions of what all the tools are, you and I may already know what Dice Rollers and Virtual Table Tops are but somebody brand new to the game may not.

That also has the advantage of not taking up menu space as the site grows leaving you more room for new sections. If you really want to provide quick access links you could look into either concertina menus, drop down menus and sideways drop menus (you should be able to find javacripts that enable you to do any of those without too much trouble)

McMouse
2012-01-30, 04:45 PM
Yes, at the bottom.

You're so right! Not sure how I missed that - added them to the Communities page.


I'd recommend also adding rolz.org to the dice rollers. It supports several common dice mechanics and allows creation of persistent multi-user dice rooms with logs and custom user names. Haven't tried it fully, but should work well in conjunction with live online tabletops like Google+ Hangouts or Skype.

Added, thanks for the link. Most definitely a great site!


I would feel deceived if I landed on that site while looking for fantasy webcomic Looking For Group.

If you google "LookingForGroup", the comic is the very first result and my humble offering doesn't pop up 'till midway through page 2. I think people will be alright, but do you think it would be worthwhile to add a little "If you're looking for the comic, here's a link"?

EDIT: Upped the font color contrast and hid the drop-down when you're not on the useful tools page. Gonna alphabetize the longer lists of links then start the redesign using jQuery. Hopefully it'll be a little more sleek in a couple of days!

McMouse
2012-02-12, 06:46 PM
Apologies for the double post - just wanted to let everyone know that I released a second version of the website with a lot of visual improvements and some sorting features for the communities page (which I may expand to the other pages if I can figure out good sorting criteria - would love advice on what is meaningful to you when digging through character profilers/rulesets). Anyway, it's up at LookingForGroup.net (http://lookingforgroup.net) if you wanted to check the new version out. As always, let me know what you think, what I can add, and what I should do away with.

suhkkaet
2012-02-13, 11:00 AM
At a glance:
Not sure if this has been said already, but body-text should have serifs. It makes it easier on the eyes.
I would also, as a reader of the online comic Looking For Group, add a link to their site (with a little text saying "looking for the comic Looking For Group?").

I personally do not like fancy moving stuff, so I'd take that out.
Other than that, it looks good. Just make sure to add moar content, and keep it updated.

McMouse
2012-02-13, 02:21 PM
At a glance:
Not sure if this has been said already, but body-text should have serifs. It makes it easier on the eyes.
I would also, as a reader of the online comic Looking For Group, add a link to their site (with a little text saying "looking for the comic Looking For Group?").

I personally do not like fancy moving stuff, so I'd take that out.
Other than that, it looks good. Just make sure to add moar content, and keep it updated.

I'll add the LFG link for sure, that's been mentioned a couple of times. The fancy moving stuff, I'll take out the bump on mouseover but I still rather like the slide effect on page load/when a submenu loads. If people shy away from that, it's easy to take out.

RE the serifs, however, I did a bit of reading and it seems that the consensus is for web-based body-copy, sans serif (such as Verdana/Helvetica seen on this site, Wikipedia, etc) is generally recommended. I do like the font I've chosen but if you find it difficult to read I've got a couple of options that have wider letters which should aid with the reading flow.

I really appreciate the feedback - this is my first time in the whole web design ring and I feel like a baby giraffe just sorta wobbling around trying to get my legs under me :)

EDIT: Added the lfgcomic.com link in the upper right, tweaked the moving animations so they're less attention-grabbing. I couldn't bring myself to do away with them entirely (alternative is to go back to a hover color change) but if people really don't like it I'm open to reverting.

Tyndmyr
2012-02-13, 04:07 PM
Aright, I like detail, so here it comes.

1. Color choices, generally good. High contrast colors is always a plus. Consider incorporating gold into the color combo, as it contrasts well with brown, and would provide more diversity.

2. The font for the title is awkward. The u looks like a v, for example. I would suggest looking into some kind of title graphic that works with the color format.

3. Content is king. I'd expand the ruleset content greatly, though you have a great starter selection. I'd probably have subsections for popular game systems, as you'll likely have a *lot* of resources for things like 3.5.

4. I'd probably toss up an articles subsection. The quick how-to you have looks good, but there's literally no end of helpful advice you could have. Having additional articles added periodically gives the site a lot more reuse value, and is likely to get more recurring visitors.

Looks pretty good overall, and could develop into a very handy master index sort of site, but has some room for growth.

McMouse
2012-02-13, 04:42 PM
Aright, I like detail, so here it comes...
(snip)


Thank you so much for taking the time to give it a look, this is really valuable information for me.

1 + 2: Color scheme took me quite some time and I honestly used this forum as inspiration to make the brown look decent. The title is something of a placeholder, I agree it looks a little awkward (and very aliased). I hadn't thought of gold, but that's a perfect way to jazz up that title graphic now that I think about it. However, it's taking a back seat to getting the content expanded and sorted nicely. Which brings me to..

3: Yes yes yes! This is exactly what I was looking for. I can absolutely sort/subsection the rulesets by system to a certain degree (maybe d20/non d20 to start, then break it down to pathfinder, 3.5, other d20, other systems once I get a few more rulesets in there). A question - in general would you prefer on-page sorting (ala what I have going on the Communities page) or a splash page with sub-menus (ala the Useful Tools)? Either is viable and fairly easy to implement, I'm just curious if you think a short description of the included content is worth the extra click to get to it.

4: As for the articles, I'm currently working on incorporating a blog. In terms of regular updates, that's going to be the easiest way for me to create and store (and for users to search and access) articles, at least the daily/weekly update/spotlight sort of ones. From there I might collapse the finding a game/starting a group pages into an articles subsection if I think I have more to add specifically for people searching for games. I always want the focus to be on the newer player looking to get started in the world of play-by-post/online game finding and if they have to dig too deep to get to the how-to articles I think that might work against my site's purpose.

If this was reddit, I'd buy you a month of Gold - this is exactly the feedback I was looking for. Cheers!

EDIT: Blog is up. Not thrilled with the layout/header colors just yet but it's there.