New AGS Website

[Peder 🚀]

I'll check it out!

[cosmicr]

Here is what I meant:
http://www.agsarchives.com/ags/game.htm

Ah I see. Yeah that looks good!

[Peder 🚀]

Peder, could the viewing of the screenshots be changed into this way:
when clicking on the screenshot: go to next screenshot instead of closing the viewing immediately.

Done!
http://www.agsarchives.com/ags/game.htm

[mätzyboy]

Peder, could the viewing of the screenshots be changed into this way:
when clicking on the screenshot: go to next screenshot instead of closing the viewing immediately.

Done!
http://www.agsarchives.com/ags/game.htm

I think that looks really slick! Exactly how a screenshot gallery should be! Nice idea!

[Ryan Timothy B]

Yes, I agree.  This is excellent.
Although a 1, 2, 3, 4 thing at the bottom would also be nice instead of just previous and next.  But that's just being picky.

[arj0n]

Nice Peder!

[Pumaman]

How about some bar on the side that would be like: People who liked this game, also liked these:

Yes, this is something that's been talked about before. It would be good to add at some point.

Also a BIG 'how did you like this game, Rate it!' image jammed somewhere in the middle of the content.  The easier it is for someone to spot that they can rate games, the better (i'd even rate games more often )

That's a good idea, yeah the voting link is easy to miss on the current site.

Currently Pick of the month is in one column and show case is in another.  What if these were to span both columns.  For  "Pick of the Month" the text would appear in the left column and it's screen shot in the right column.  For "Showcase" there would  be one game in each column with both text and thumbnail.  A crappy example follows:

I like that idea -- I've changed the test page to look like this:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/Newsite/Games.aspx

The bottom of the page could use something. A big "Lucky Dip" button with a touch of air up and down of it?

That might work well, if someone can draw an appropriate button image that would fit the look of the page!

Are we also talking about extra fields for the games DB?

Well, I see this as a two-stage process:

Stage 1 -- convert the existing functionality over to the new site. Ideally I'd like this to be ready so that the new site can launch on the AGS 10th Anniversary, which is in a month's time.

Stage 2 -- build on the new site to add new features that people have been wanting. The things you mention could be done at that point, they're all good ideas.

Though instead of having the option to show other screenshots directly on the page, I would prefer having a box pop up when you press the image for then to be able to go through the whole "gallery".

I like that idea, and your mockup looks really good. This is definitely something that could be done as part of the Stage 2 work to allow more than one screenshot.


Anyway I've updated the game detail page a bit more, the game authors bit is now completed and it now shows you other games that everyone on the team has worked on. This is different to the old site which just displays other games that have the same team name in the Author field -- I hope this way is more useful?
Example here:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/Newsite/Games.aspx/Detail/905/A_Tale_of_Two_Kingdoms

[Mr Flibble]

I'm sure this has been mentioned before but, on the "Download AGS" page it says that people with Windows 95 to ME should just upgrade to XP... and then right below that there's a link for older versions. We could potentially give them a break and point them in that direction? Just a thought.

[Ishmael]

I'm liking the current look alot. Nothing new that stands out bad to me

[RickJ]

Currently Pick of the month is in one column and show case is in another.  What if these were to span both columns.  For  "Pick of the Month" the text would appear in the left column and it's screen shot in the right column.  For "Showcase" there would  be one game in each column with both text and thumbnail.  A crappy example follows:

I like that idea -- I've changed the test page to look like this:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/Newsite/Games.aspx

Yes exactly what I had in mind.  Looks really good.

Games Page - Help & Support Panel
What if this were made to look like the right panel on the home page with the followinf headlines/topics:

* Find Games
* Recent Comments
* Most popular Last Week

Forums Page - Forum Link
How about using a button, similar to the download button on the home page,  to link to the forum instead of a text link.

AGS Page - Help & Support Panel
Needs to be stylized to look a bit more like the panel on the home page.

Home Page

We could potentially give them a break and point them in that direction? Just a thought.

Upgrading to XP is the best advice for nearly everyone. Perhaps there could be a link to info that explains in more detail the pros/cons of upgrading to XP or /not upgrading to XP and using older versions of Ags?

[Pumaman]

I'm sure this has been mentioned before but, on the "Download AGS" page it says that people with Windows 95 to ME should just upgrade to XP... and then right below that there's a link for older versions. We could potentially give them a break and point them in that direction? Just a thought.

Less than 1% of people are still using Windows 98, and it would be very dangerous to have a Win98 machine connected to the internet now that MS are no longer releasing security patches for it. Therefore no, I don't think we should give them a break.

Games Page - Help & Support Panel
What if this were made to look like the right panel on the home page with the followinf headlines/topics:

* Find Games
* Recent Comments
* Most popular Last Week

Forums Page - Forum Link
How about using a button, similar to the download button on the home page,  to link to the forum instead of a text link.

AGS Page - Help & Support Panel
Needs to be stylized to look a bit more like the panel on the home page.

I completely agree with all these points -- what we need is someone to make the necessary graphics.

Would anyone be prepared to do this? I'm not sure how much further we can take the new website without getting the graphical details sorted out.

[Ryan Timothy B]

I had completely forgotten about this thread, and it looks like everyone else has too.
I'm eager to get that website up and running, so I made 2 images that you were missing and some suggestions of what I felt would be better.


This image is needed for the Forums tab, since you have Recent News, in it's place.  Since the one you had on the Home tab had SSH's hands all over it.  That guy has his hands all over Everything!


This is for the Games tab.


This replaces your temp graphics for the AGS tab.  I couldn't think of what to put in here.  I used a magnifying lens, but I fear that people will think it suits "Search" better.  Let me know.




This is a feature I love the most, the ability to check which games everyone in the team has worked on, but once you have some names like SSH or Mods on the list (who have worked on dozens of games) the list becomes quite large and clusterfucked.  

I definitely love the feature, so I don't want to see it disappear.  How about having the >> buttons to show what games that person has worked on (like Nikolas in the example above).  Also the light cell division really helps keep your mind at ease.

Possibly even having the "so-and-so has worked on X other games: >>" on the right of what they were a part of.  But I don't know how to word it without it being too long.  Perhaps just: "Has worked on X other games: >>".




Also this was one thing I didn't really like.  Perhaps instead of "Recent Comments" have "Recently Added" or "Newly Added" games.  Comments are really useless to me compared to recently added.



Also Lucky Dip, perhaps instead of randomizing through EVERY game, have it randomly search through 3 cups or higher games.  Or even "ALL" beside the Lucky Dip.  I don't want to sound rude, but usually when I press that lucky dip, it seems to more than not choose a 1 or 2 cup game.  A game that doesn't look interesting at all and one I wouldn't want to play.  I know it kinda destroys the idea of randomly choosing a game, but the most people I can see using this random feature would be people new to the site.  People who are unsure of what game to play first.  We don't want to scare them away with poorly made games, do we?

Anyway, that pretty much sums it all up.
If you have any other graphics you need, let me know and I'll see if I can help out.


edit: Actually since the other thread was deleted, I completely forgot about my last template idea.  I think I'm gonna resurrect this old buddy and turn it into my own site, with a few modifications obviously.

edit again: I was also thinking about having the ability to search games by user rating.  Which the idea stemmed mostly from the user rating thread in GenGen.  Anyway to make it just the same as the blue cup rating, how does this idea sound?:


That way player rating looks just the same as the panel rating.  Just as professional.  When I look at player rating being 84%, somehow it looks much bigger and better of a rating than 4 cups (which 84% would falls at 4.2 cups--rounding to 4 cups).

[LimpingFish]

In theory, I actually really like this idea of depicting the player rating as red cups.

Rounding the percentages up/down could prove a bit sticky, though. A 69% rating would give you three cups, but a 71% rating would give you four. That's assuming every 20% = 1 cup, with the up/down rounding done within 10% each way.

[Leon]

Why not project the 100% score (devided by 2) over the cups? So 69% would become 3.5 cups. You're not tied to the 1-5 partition, are you?

[SSH]

User ratings could have half-cups or even smaller fractions.

[Dualnames]

In theory, I actually really like this idea of depicting the player rating as red cups.

Rounding the percentages up/down could prove a bit sticky, though. A 69% rating would give you three cups, but a 71% rating would give you four. That's assuming every 20% = 1 cup, with the up/down rounding done within 10% each way.

Seconded, and this would same as the best way to stop the controversy. So you can decide who's opinion is the best, an overated probably crowd's opinion or the commitee's?

[markbilly]

User ratings could have half-cups or even smaller fractions.

Why not then just have a percentage? Which is what there is now?

I like the idea of red cups. But has to be 1-5.

[SSH]

User ratings could have half-cups or even smaller fractions.

Why not then just have a percentage? Which is what there is now?

Because a picture is better than text.

[Scarab]

User ratings could have half-cups or even smaller fractions.

Well the cups are 10 pixels wide each leaving you with a 50 pixel 'status bar' to play with. You could have one column of pixels coloured for every 2% in the user ratings. This way we can have a nice visual representation of the cups without losing the accuracy of a percentage (for what is 1% among friends  )

[Pumaman]

I'm eager to get that website up and running, so I made 2 images that you were missing and some suggestions of what I felt would be better.

Thanks for doing those and getting the ball rolling again! Hopefully now that it's new year I should have more spare time to try and get this new site finished.

This replaces your temp graphics for the AGS tab.  I couldn't think of what to put in here.  I used a magnifying lens, but I fear that people will think it suits "Search" better.  Let me know.

I like it, but yeah maybe some sort of stylised question mark might work better at showing that it's help and not search.

This is a feature I love the most, the ability to check which games everyone in the team has worked on, but once you have some names like SSH or Mods on the list (who have worked on dozens of games) the list becomes quite large and clusterfucked. 
I definitely love the feature, so I don't want to see it disappear.  How about having the >> buttons to show what games that person has worked on (like Nikolas in the example above).

Yes, definitely. That's a good idea and something I will add.

Also this was one thing I didn't really like.  Perhaps instead of "Recent Comments" have "Recently Added" or "Newly Added" games.  Comments are really useless to me compared to recently added.

Also Lucky Dip, perhaps instead of randomizing through EVERY game, have it randomly search through 3 cups or higher games.  Or even "ALL" beside the Lucky Dip.  I don't want to sound rude, but usually when I press that lucky dip, it seems to more than not choose a 1 or 2 cup game.  A game that doesn't look interesting at all and one I wouldn't want to play.  I know it kinda destroys the idea of randomly choosing a game, but the most people I can see using this random feature would be people new to the site.  People who are unsure of what game to play first.  We don't want to scare them away with poorly made games, do we?

Does anyone else have an opinion on these two points?

I was also thinking about having the ability to search games by user rating.

Good idea, this would probably be useful.

Anyway to make it just the same as the blue cup rating, how does this idea sound?:

Red cups? Blasphemy!!

Actually something like that is a good idea, it makes it easier to visually compare the panel and player ratings. I'll certainly think about it.