Spring RTS Engine

the-middleman wrote:Also using flash to display screenshots is hot and from the future. Now we have loading screens when looking at pictures. ftw!

javascript actually :)

The forums are read only right now though, have to set up a method of approving posts. The only limit right now is a 10mb limit for posts, so that should be ok. Guess we'll have to see how it turns out.

Cool, I'll just hold up a bit, just let us know when we can put our images back up.

KingRaptor wrote: I've already taken the liberty of redirecting "Gundam Annihilation" to Gundam RTS. You IW (and S44) bums, fix your pages as well. SWTA hasn't existed for over 9x10^3 years! >_>

actually the version described by the gundam annihilation page was that mod. I have to go and completely revamp the gundam wiki section adding all of the new shit and frankly I just have not had the time.

still no images of any kind on the games page tut tut

still no images of any kind on the games page tut tut

Not bothering, until my Welcome images are back where they belong. Don't see a point otherwise.

I wants porn adverts.

Heh. Make a porn game, then. Find out exactly how far "family friendly" can be stretched

Porn for all ages, sex and species!

Argh wrote:

still no images of any kind on the games page tut tut

Not bothering, until my Welcome images are back where they belong. Don't see a point otherwise.

You take all that time and effort to put an advert in a small banner on the front page yet you totally ignore the shiny page dedicated to advertising games? Even when nobody else has anything on there?!?!?!

So basically what your saying is:

Im not going to put anything on the gigantic billboard so large it can be seen from space because this tiny 5x5cm billboard is closer to passers by and I'm not doing anything until my logo is on the tiny billboard, even though my logo is only on that billboard randomly given x/y chance.

I cant believe your passing up free large hgihly visible advertisement that could even improve the site because you want a tiny logo on the frontpage. You already have tonnes and tonnes of welcome banners you can quickly post up on the game page wrapped in hyperlinks to your moddb page, why shoot yourself in the foot? Your undermining all your points by not doing it. The stench hypocrisy is sickening!

There has been no content on the games page for:

You take all that time and effort to put an advert in a small banner on the front page yet you totally ignore the shiny page dedicated to advertising games?

Yes, because it's the front page. Which is where most people go.

Hello, basic Web dev 101. Most users hit the front page, and will rarely go elsewhere.

I have zero incentive to waste time on a games page when I know that 95% of viewers will never ever go there unless they've seen lots of different games featured on the front page... and are curious.

That's a lot of dev time spent, for 5% of the potential viewers, and things working the way they do, then I'm very lucky if I get 10% of those people- or 0.5% of the total viewers- to even bother downloading the game.

With Spring's average download take, per version, it simply doesn't make a lot of sense to bother, unless I'm there on the front page.

It's simple math, AF. Nothing mysterious about this. Now you understand, hopefully, why I am utterly and completely focused on a front-page presence for Spring games. If you don't believe my numbers, which are probably a little too optimistic, go read up on how Web marketers think about all of this, and their analysis of the numbers. It's quite sobering, tbh.

Lastly... on the Games page, if we all put up images there, nobody will ever bother staying on that page- the download time, etc., will just drain people's connections. So, if you're under some bullshit illusion that we're all going to put up pretty pictures there... no, that's not happening. Do I need to put up 10 P.U.R.E. screens to demonstrate this, or are we all just going to realize that that page is going to pretty much remain a wall of text, and therefore boring?

1 or 2 pics are enough.

Even then, it'd look terrible.

Meh... I'll just go and do it, then everybody will baaaaw, then we're right back to Reality again.

Now, if the Games button took people to some sort of "game browser", where people could see big, pretty pictures, and clicking on one would take you to a game's description... that would be another thing entirely.

The way it currently works, though, I expect the average gamer to fall asleep before getting to the actual game links.

Actually, the first place I went on the new site was the games page. It seems the next logical step from the front page for a new user and I'm pretty sure that's what I'd do if I was a first time visitor.

Argh, the link to moddb is good, keep it that way, its about what the people will see in the end, doesnt matter if it links to a moddb page, or not.

Argh wrote:

You take all that time and effort to put an advert in a small banner on the front page yet you totally ignore the shiny page dedicated to advertising games?

Yes, because it's the front page. Which is where most people go.

This assumes the website is poorly designed, whereas a good website designs to avoid this issue, what youa re referring to can most commonly be referred to as the 'bounce rate' the percentage of users that hit a page and then leave aka 'bounce' off the site.

Since youd otn ahve a website for user to stick to, your relying on a small banner which may or may not show a P.U.R.E image. True marketting dictates you take every opportunity you can get to sell tot he user, you don't focus on a tiny slither of opportunity while ignoring everything else. Companies dotn start TV advert campaigns then wait for the campaign to finish to start the magazine advert campaign then wait till thats done to start billboards, they do it all at once and they do as much as they can to increase their visibility. Right now your trying to optimize a single avenue while ignoring all other avenues.

Argh wrote: Hello, basic Web dev 101. Most users hit the front page, and will rarely go elsewhere.

I have zero incentive to waste time on a games page when I know that 95% of viewers will never ever go there unless they've seen lots of different games featured on the front page... and are curious.

95% of viewers who do go there go yack wall of text and don't bother. Perhaps you could have said this of the old site but now the games page has a menu entry at the top and a prominent link on the front page, its just a visible as the download link.

Argh wrote:
That's a lot of dev time spent, for 5% of the potential viewers, and things working the way they do, then I'm very lucky if I get 10% of those people- or 0.5% of the total viewers- to even bother downloading the game.

With Spring's average download take, per version, it simply doesn't make a lot of sense to bother, unless I'm there on the front page.

Springs average download take is irrelevant because the new site design has only been up for a short time, thus any statistics from the old design do not apply. Its like saying there's 500 calories in this bowl of sugar therefore you cant eat that bowl of salt, the two have nothing to do with each other, utterly flawed logic.

Argh wrote: It's simple math, AF. Nothing mysterious about this. Now you understand, hopefully, why I am utterly and completely focused on a front-page presence for Spring games. If you don't believe my numbers, which are probably a little too optimistic, go read up on how Web marketers think about all of this, and their analysis of the numbers. It's quite sobering, tbh.

I read up on this everyday and I am arguably more attuned than you. I have at least 10 blogs and sites dedicated to this topic in my RSS and a tonne of other web design sites that regularly focus on site design, usability, and the tools to monitor and improve things.

Argh wrote:
Lastly... on the Games page, if we all put up images there, nobody will ever bother staying on that page- the download time, etc., will just drain people's connections. So, if you're under some bullshit illusion that we're all going to put up pretty pictures there... no, that's not happening. Do I need to put up 10 P.U.R.E. screens to demonstrate this, or are we all just going to realize that that page is going to pretty much remain a wall of text, and therefore boring?

The download time argument is flawed because it can be applied to the front page too at which point we have a perfect example in the menu up there of how wrong you are. Is the frontpage draining your connection?

I'm not saying to post 10 megapixel shots of spring at absurd resolutions in full, just perhaps a P.U.R.E logo of a similar size to the front page banner with a link and a bit of text say 20-30 words maximum. It wont break the bank or cause hundreds of megabytes of bandwidth to flow from this site.


Argh you shouldn't even have this issue. You should have a P.U.R.E website by now, I even wrote a html page for you for a coming soon doing all the work for you YOU HAVE NO EXCUSES I HAVE ALREADY MADE YOU THE PAGE ALREADY!!

You cant say you don't have the time because you already have html mock ups you posted in the site design thread. You even have the fully working page I posted in your P.U.R.E thread!!!!!! Yet you've done nothing despite it being handed to you on a silver platter and even doing some of it yourself already.

I can understand your want to put stuff on the frontpage. What I don't understand is why you dismiss all other options without considering them as soon as they're proposed without trying to even garnering reliable statistics through experimentation, especially when the effort required to do it is orders of magnitude smaller than the effort needed to write these posts. The hypocrisy is mind boggling. Its abusrd, its insanity at best!

Really don't want to get involved in another bawl fest, just wanted to note that I think frontpage images should only be allowed to have their text at 12 point, using the same font that is used on the site. Under no circumstances should the mod logo be competing as part of the visual hierarchy of the main site.

That being said, I don't think it would be unfair if the screenshot itself linked to the modpage of the mod being shown.

Warlord Zsinj wrote:Really don't want to get involved in another bawl fest, just wanted to note that I think frontpage images should only be showing off what spring can do, not the content it supports

I agree with the second portion of what you said WZ, but the first part is "bollocks".

why is the spring community so predictable?

a question for the ages!

I knew you were going to ask that.