Updated site layout ready?

[Forboding Angel]

You don't need the bar at the bottom anymore... It's in a div container now.

@warlord,
I already said it is not negotiable. We compromised, now, those others who had a problem get to understand what a compromise means.

My logo's can look however the fuck I want them to look. If it draws attention, then so be it, but you are all overstating it because you want us to have no logos of any kind. My answer rhymes with flo bee.

[Warlord Zsinj]

But, the thing is that I don't understand how we're conflicting. You say I should 'compromise', but that would only make sense if we had differing end goals, which we don't. You want to promote your mod, I want to promote my mod. What I'm trying to get across here is my opinion that doing what you are doing conflicts both of our end aims.

I want to show off my mod just as much as you - but having a bright yellow/orange logo simply makes the site look bad. It makes it revolve around your logo, not the site itself or the picture. That's not fair to the engine itself, in my opinion. But more then that, it reflects badly on the engine, and vicariously reflects badly on your mod, because it makes the site look noob.

Your pictures are sexy, they really don't need a bright logo - it's distracting, and it doesn't look professional. By that I don't mean to imply that your logo is unprofessional looking / crap - I quite like it. I'm talking about the use of the logo in the context of the front page of the website.

Further, none of the above was intended at a jibe at you in particular, or the quality of your art, which is fine. I sure as hell wish I could make effects like yours - I could make it about argh's pure logo, or about noize's BA logo. It's the same issue.

Anyway, I evidently don't have any real power here, and the only decision that is going to be made is going to be via grudging mutual acceptance ( ), so I'm not pontificating, because that would get my aims absolutely nowhere. I'm just putting forward my opinion, which is that bright, attention-grabbing logos actually work against the image and against the site.

[Forboding Angel]

It may have looked like it but I wasn't intending to address you specifically (except in the first paragraph), so pls don't take it that way.

You are asking me to change the color scheme, which is about as close to a slap in the face as you can get, and tbh I take real offense to it. The reason it seems so bright is because it has a dark shadow around it.

And why does everyone keep referring to it as a logo? It's just text. Yes it does conform to the "Logo" standards as far as gradient is concerned, but the font is all wrong and the side logo's aren't even in there (because I honestly didn't feel like figuring out how to make it look good with them).

This particular vein of discussion irritates me greatly.

Look, when it comes to mods, I can't get anywhere close to the pretty units that IW, Gundam, PURE, s44, has, so the only way I can compete is by making effects that just go zaz, and making shit blow up... a lot. But tbh most of my effects are based upon smoth's work, and I can't even really take credit for them as a whole. I suppose I can take credit for spiffying them um and making them fit for what I want in evo, but heck, that's probably just splitting hairs. The point is that gameplay, and "Oooohh, pretty" are the only ways that I have to compete. I can't take close up screens of my units, because while the models are for the most part ok, the textures are simply generic.

The gameplay has some seriously cool stuff going on behind it, but you can't portray fine gameplay details with a screenshot.

*sigh* I had a point when I started writing all of that, now I have no idea what it was. Meh. I'mma go do something that I don't fail at (Grid).

[Warlord Zsinj]

No, I don't want you to change your colours - that wouldn't really be fair.

To be honest, what I want is what I linked earlier in my mockup - I think all mod titles should only be allowed 12 point size, with a standard font throughout (arial or something). However, I realise there's a lot of resistance to this, so I can see that there is no point pushing that line.

As I said earlier:

I doubt I'm going to get anyone to change the colours of their logos - but what I think is a reasonable solution is if people can set their logos to say, 75% opacity, in order to create a slight watermarking. The result of this is to reduce the power of your logo on the visual hierarchy of the website.

All I'm saying is to try reducing the opacity by say, 25% (or more if you can), see if your logo is still acceptably readable, whilst reducing it's impact on the visual hierarchy on the site.

[Hoi]

lol if you watch the ba rockets one carefully you see a crosshair

[ralphie]

The very fact we (you) are having a 6+ page arguement on... banners... seems to me to imply the community isnt "ready" for such a massive amount of responsibilty as placing an image on a webpage.

[Fnordia]

Perhaps this is something that should have been in my very first post, but I did not really anticipate the necessity.

First, the site nyspring.clan-sy.com is basically displaying my working directory. This means that things will change without notice. This also means that if you choose to participate by creating content such as images, that work may ultimately be rendered useless as the conditions for what constitutes acceptable content changes over time. If you find this unacceptable then you should spend your time on other things.

There seem to be about as many differing opinions on what constitues great webpage design as there are people, and that's fine. It would certainly be boring if all pages on the internet looked the same. But the design that is being used for this site is created by Roflcopter, which means that his opinion is the one that has final say.

Must say I can't really predict if this will cause massive ragequits or acceptance, but that's how it is. It is not something that is up for debate. :) But please keep up the good work if you still want!

[clericvash]

In the end someone has to make a decision over change, or things never happen, and i think more than the majority agree the new design is a lot better to the eyes.

[AF]

This is why i stressed the point that makign content and refusing to change ti wont force it onto the site. Roflcopter has already expressed the opinion that eh doesnt like a lot of things about the banners, he just needs to give the thumbs downa nd the thumbs up which he has yet to do.

However I think your all trying to advertise using the main banner to solve a problem as a kludge when really you should have a dedicated 'featured game' box on the front page to serve this purpose.

[Forboding Angel]

notice no one is complaining about the BA banners that are still there using 34pt font. Yet you would think I just killed the polar bears.

[Hoi]

make everything 18px
(links to) sites/wiki pages 12 px

[AF]

Noize said he'd remove the Balanced annihilation text completely, therefore theres no point arguing over the size of the text if hes just getting rid of it all together.

[aGorm]

I give in... you lot are idiots. I leave you in peace.

aGorm

[AF]

I give in... you lot are idiots. I leave you in peace.

aGorm

+1

[Warlord Zsinj]

roflcoptr, could you make a template PSD file for the banner images and the screenshot images that we can use to produce these?

[Forboding Angel]

Do you guys understand what a div container is?

There is little point to a psd with no useful content. Unless I'm missing something here...

[SpikedHelmet]

Rather than try to limit people, just agree that there will be no limits, and thusly everyone will have equal oppurtunities. And then nobody can bitch about anything anyone else does, because they can do whatever they want, too.

Anarchism at it's finest.

[Warlord Zsinj]

Yes, genius spike

anarchy at it's finest:

[Argh]

Rather than try to limit people, just agree that there will be no limits, and thusly everyone will have equal oppurtunities. And then nobody can bitch about anything anyone else does, because they can do whatever they want, too.

Anarchism at it's finest.

This is hardly anarchy.

We're limited in the size and construction of our images, how they're rotated, where the text will appear, etc. Those are the rules.

This should not become an attempt to build a perfect, static work of art, or it will fail to achieve the utilitarian purpose- to help promote games built with Spring, which in turn promotes the Spring engine.

Anything that makes achieving that goal harder is a bad policy- that means freedom to set up how we connect with players is a must-have item.

There is no promotion of Spring as an engine, if the games built with that engine aren't able to be loud and proud. A 12-point font looks shabby, and will not cut the mustard.

I happily invite anybody who disagrees to make theirs with those limits, and see how well that works for them, but I'm not going to, and I will never agree to such limits. If such a visual convention arises because it simply looks better, it's one thing- but an attempt to regulate it by outside parties whose stake in the outcome is not mine is not acceptable.

Anything that further limits this is just a bald attempt to impose a tyranny by a small minority, imo. A small minority who do not yet have their work up on this new 'site, I might add, despite having had more than a week to get something done. It goes completely against the grain of an Open Source project, that the can-do people should be put at the mercy of the non-doing people, and yet we're the ones who have bent over backwards, doing all of the hard work here, changing things to try and appease you- and yet you come back for more, every time. Enough!

I'm not changing anything I've done further, this is the limit. We've negotiated everything else and reached compromises, and the banner's RoflCopter's by fiat, so that's off the table until somebody makes new images that he does not find offensive, I guess- although tbh I think giving anybody that much power over an Open Source initiative is bad policy.

Any further limits, and I'm no longer interested in supporting this initiative- it'd be taking away the things that made this the winner in the first place. Either they stay the way they are, or I'm out. There isn't any more wiggle-room here.

[Hoi]

arch, its not our fault that you had to change your banners, we were discussing about the sizes and stuff but you just made the banners, i agree that 12px is way to less and it should be a min of 18 BOLD, i also agree that its good to advertise the games on the page, becaus it also advertises the engine yes, its ridiculous that a text size on banners is such problem to decide, but sometimes it doesnt work that way, especialy if people like you give ultimatums, just keep your banners as they are, nobody can force you to change them, wait till everyone agrees on the size and the adjust them(if that ever happens)