Design of the Site

[Bolty]

Lurker Lounge 2004™, still in the Coming Soon (phrase copyright 1996-2004 Blizzard Entertainment™) phase, could feature a redesign of the site's structure. Since I'm undecided myself, I'd like to know what you Lurkers do when you surf the front pages. I know some of you are thinking "what front pages?" - you know, those web pages you used to check a lot off of www.lurkerlounge.com - but hear me out. :)

Currently the site's laid out like so: a main page greets you when you go to lurkerlounge.com, and you then break off into the sub-sites for Diablo II and Diablo. When this site covers only 2 games, it's not too big a deal to check both front pages if you want to see if there's any news. But what if we added 1, 2, 3, or 4 new games in coverage (as time goes on)?

There's two ways I can construct the site.

1) Have one mega news page for all covered games. Advantages:

• One place to go, and you get a glimpse of anything and everything going on across the whole site. Ease of navigation the ultimate end due to fewer clicks, and less chance of missing news from the older games that you inevitably wind up checking less often due to fewer updates.
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• Easier for Bolty, since he can concentrate on one site design (layout, colors, graphics) instead of many different ones, one for each game.
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• A greater chance that when you come to the front page, something new to read will be waiting for you due to all games combining their coverage. Avoids the problem that inevitably arises that when a game gets old, its section becomes pretty stagnant. Let's face it, is there really anything new in the Diablo 1 universe? Do we get to a point where we close down a game section? Lemming's done an awesome job on the Diablo content, but there's not much else to go on - so you get a relatively "dead" part of the site as a result.<>
  [st]2) The current system - have a news page for each game. Advantages:
  • If you only come here for one game, you're not bothered by news and content from any of the other games. Just go to your section and bookmark that.
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  • More fun for section admins, since that area becomes their "turf" and they don't have to share it with anyone else. Each section's quality and interest level will live and die by the section admin's level of devotion to providing content, along with the "freshness" of the game covered.
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  • A section can develop a thriving community, as the Diablo and Diablo II sections did, all on its own without feeling diluted by other communities. As time goes on, older communities will have their forums condensed down to just one as the Diablo section has (and Diablo II section will, eventually).<>
    [st]So what it comes down to is - do you tend to click around and see if there's anything new for each section (imagine if the LL covered 5 or 6 games, would you do that?), or do you just stick to one section and ignore the others, preferring it to be isolated?
    
    Your input is valued! Let me know what you think.
    
    -Bolty

[[wcip]Angel]

First off I just wanted to say "Great initiative!" It's good to see you're still looking to improve the site even when it's as good as it is already.

Perhaps I shouldn't have voted (I voted for the second option), seeing as I've bookmarked the Lounge-forum and seldom check the main page. (Sometimes I check to see if there's a new SSTSI, but seeing as I get to the Lounge by the click of 1 button, I rarely get to see if there's been any changes to the main page of the Lounge.)

If this site does decide to involve other games, then I don't see why I would want to check out information on those games, and in that respect, I'd want them all together so I don't have to open several windows, or do a lot of clicking. Like I said: I'm lazy ;)

[Occhidiangela]

Make the front page into 4 quadrants. Each quadrant is the front page excerpted from the 3 front pages, one layer in, and the fourth you reserve for any number of emerging things or funny pictures.

That way, you peel down to a front page, or can look at the latest on all three when entering.

My two Qatari Rials. (about 57 cents.)

Occhi

P.S. Picture of a lovely auburned hair rogue, with green eyes and dressed in a sheer emerald green silk dress with black leather boots up to mid thigh would hardly hurt the redesign of the site . . . but I digress. :)

[pakman]

I'm like [wcip] Angel, I have the forums directly bookmarked in Firefox (I presume) with a button just underneath the address bar. However, it would be nice to see some varied news on the frontpage. Even though I may not play a particular game, I still like to know what is going on with it. By having all the news on the same page, you get a taste of what is going on in the greater gaming world.

[Tal]

I'm a fan of one stop shopping so I vote for one newspage. I'll ignore any news that isn't pertinent to me ;)

[Artega]

I agree with Pakman - just because I don't play a game doesn't mean that I don't find new developments in it/for it interesting. Besides, if it's a lighter workload for you, who cares what we think? :)

[--Pete]

Hi,

I like the idea of one news page. I have both the main site and the fora bookmarked, but only check the main site once every few days. Less when I'm not actively playing D1 or 2 (like now). It would be great to have all the news together so that if something happens with one of the "resting" games, the word would still get out.

And it is exactly this attitude -- "What can I do to make it better now?" -- that makes the Lounge number one on my list. Thanks (again) Bolty.

--Pete

[Munkay]

I also am a fan of a unified newspage. To keep myself from missing anything major, I almost always access the forum through the lurkerlounge main page, and would like to see everything on one page. Similar to the time when you and Griselda split the page into two halves.

Cheers,

Munk

[LochnarITB]

Make the front page into 4 quadrants.&nbsp; Each quadrant is the front page excerpted from the 3 front pages, one layer in, and the fourth you reserve for any number of emerging things or funny pictures.

That was my immediate thought on reading the poll question. I voted for the single page. However, building a front page from excerpts from 3 (or more?) game fronts would be more work than either of the alternatives. I would have a single page that stays very close to the design you have now for the individual front pages. Each game would have its own section of associated links down the left along with the links that apply to the community as a whole. All news would then be combined in one "In The News" section, with the possible addition of an identifying icon(s) prefacing each news item indicating to which game it pertains. A quick scroll down the page then allows one to pick out any individual items they want to follow further. This would seem to be the most efficient means of delivering the news to the lurkers. I don't know how automated you have made the site for the adminstrators and moderators, but it would seem that there could be a facility for adding new items to each game section that would prompt for the headline and blurb to add to the main page and then inserts it at the head of the news.

I also need to echo what others have said. Bolty, thank you for sharing what is obviously a passion for you. The sign of someone truly exceptional is that what most would label "as good as it gets" is not good enough. Keep up the great work. I know it is greatly appreciated by those of us who frequent your establishment.

[Cryptic]

Unify, please! Make it easy on yourself. Ideally, I would like to see one site page, with the latest on Diablo II, World of Warcraft, and Guild Wars. (Hey, I can dream!) It would make it easier to follow what's going on, and it might even encourage some of the OD grognards to check out them new-fangled 21st-century com-pyooter games.
:P

[Leshy]

Why not combine the two ideas to a solution that takes the best of both worlds? There are many options available to you, some slightly more intricate than others :)

One
You've previously had a three column layout for the news page when you and Griselda both posted news items. Why not revert to this, only with a much smaller right side column, possibly the same as the menu column on the left? You would keep all of the news pages seperate, so that people can easily view only news for a certain game if they wish to, and you would peruse the right-hand column to display the last news-entry from the other sections - including a direct link to that news section.

This would mean people can easily navigate between the news pages from the various sections if they wish to do so, and it would be immediately apparent if there was an update on one of the other sections that you are currently not viewing.

Two
Do both. Open the Lurker Lounge with a news page that features all the latest news articles (rather than the current splash page, which I personally kind of dislike), including links to the various sections of the site. If the user follows one of these links, they go to the section they selected, and are presented with the newspage for that section, featuring only articles for that section. Easily doable with PHP/Database :)

The advantage of this solution is that you can get rid of a generic splash page and immediately greet your visitors with meaningful content. If people want to read up on the news for all sections, they can do so - if they do not, they can click the link to their section (graphical links side-by-side in the location where you now have the STSI, for example) and be presented with the news page featuring only articles for that section. The STSI's would still be on the news pages of their respective sections.

Three
The most elaborate suggestion, which requires most work. Hook up the site to the user database from the forums, and allow people to set their preferences for the rest of the site, among which could be selecting sections for which they want to view news articles, and for which they don't.

The greatest advantage to this approach is that people can partially customize the site to their wishes. If they do want to see Diablo II and World of Warcraft news, but no Diablo I news, they could easily do so. Aditionally, you could eventually hook other preferences into the site, such as multiple layouts and such. The obvious downside is the amount of work this would require.


At any rate, there are several ways of taking the best of both worlds, without having to choose rigidly between seperate news pages or a unified one. The only limit is your own imagination, really. Looking forward to the new design - if it's as radical as the shift to the purple one, and then the shift to the brown one, I'm going to dislike it for a week, add negativity to your poll and then think it's the best thing ever ;)


-Leshy
"Reality? That's where you can combine lots of stuff on a Pizza too!"

[LavCat]

I voted for a single page, myself. Each design has merit. I feel that having one news page would help maintain a unified community. Besides, even though I have not played DI in years, I would still like to read about it.

[Guest]

I like all on one page. Some of us might play two of your covered games mm?

[Taem]

I voted one-page. Easier to view all the new contents in one swoop, not to mention I don't think I even bother checking the new pages for D1 or D2 anymore because.... well..... nothing NEW is EVER on them! So if all 3+ games were on one page, then I might find myself checking out the news since there would hopefully be new news to check out ;) .

[Guest]

I like seperate pages.

I like them seperate because I log into the forum first. I think of the "front pages" as a resource. If I need a link or news on specific game I would like to be able to jump there from the forum, I would rather not have to go through all the current happenings in other games just to get what I am looking for.

Thats my perspective.

[bernard shakey]

I voted for 1 page. A quick look at the d2 page shows "news" still hanging on since may . while I don't check the news every day it seems to me theres room on that page for newer stuff from other games. I assume there would still be a link to old news for anyone returning after a long absence.

[Refrigerator]

I voted one news page. Like many others, my reasons are fairly simple: it would be nice to see all the news on one page, rather than clicking around.

Although, I think Leshy's #2 idea would work quite well. :)

[Bolty]

Wow, I'm actually really surprised by these results! Thanks everyone for putting in your 2 cents.

When I put up the poll, I fully expected that the vote would be just the opposite. But I just wanted to check to be sure, and good thing I did. With the one-news-page format, one thing I'll try to do is allow for categorization. Each game's news will fit into that game's category, and if I can swing it, I'll set it up so that users can choose to see only the news for one category (ignoring the others).

Responses:

Occhi - good idea with the quandrants, but not implementable. It's impossible with the content management system I'm moving to. I'm thinking instead that each news item will have a "look" to it, which might just be an icon, to identify what game it's for. Hopefully I can implement colors to news categories as well to make it even easier to see what's what.

Lochnar - that's pretty close to how it'll be, yes. Very well automated and easy to administrate. I can't wait. :) Huge initial set-up time work, but then it'll be set for years to come with just upgrades to worry about. Speaking of upgrades, I'll be upgrading this forum to version 2.0 soon (when it's released, which is very, very soon now)!

Cryptic - the only thing that would prevent the addition of Guild Wars coverage to this site is a lack of Lurker interest. Like WoW, we'll have to evaluate it during beta. I don't want to see anything done half-you-know-what'ed on this site. The Lurker Lounge at one point was THE site to go for strategy news and info on Diablo and Diablo II, PERIOD. We were the best due to the high level of interest by the forumgoers. It was so good, all I had to do for news was to link to posts made here (easy job!). If we can't get that kind of activity for a game, I'd rather not see it covered here. To get that kind of activity, we need a total addict who's ready to put in the time to keep that news page updated on an almost daily basis like it used to be (remember when you'd check that front page all the time?). I believe we have a few that can do it for WoW, and some have already approached me with their thoughts on making the site the ultimate WoW strategy resource. If we get that much interest for Guild Wars, then awesome!

Leshy - good ideas! I also dislike the splash page. :) Point Two you made is probably how it'll turn out. Integrating the system with the forum currently isn't possible, but maybe it can happen in the future if an integrator is coded by someone.

Ghostiger - that's why I'll try my best to have some kind of filter. For example, http://games.slashdot.org simply takes all the games category news and collates it. If I can swing something like that here, it'll be the "best of both worlds" and make everyone happy.


Anyway, if anyone has thoughts on why they'd rather see separate pages, please do voice them. The ideas presented here help me get an idea of what's wanted. I was clearly out of touch, thinking that most everyone would prefer separate pages. So fill me in!

-Bolty

Edit: fixed link.

[WarLocke]

I vote for a single unified news page as well. Maybe you could color code the headlines (or use distinctive border graphics) to distinguish between games. But in any case, I think a single page would be more convenient for more people than 2, 3, 4, or more game-specific pages.

EDIT: I should probably start reading entire threads before replying. Oh well, I'm used to arriving to parties late. :blink:

[Wiccan]

I vote for a single unified news page as well.&nbsp; Maybe you could color code the headlines (or use distinctive border graphics) to distinguish between games.&nbsp; But in any case, I think a single page would be more convenient for more people than 2, 3, 4, or more game-specific pages.

EDIT:&nbsp; I should probably start reading entire threads before replying.&nbsp; Oh well, I'm used to arriving to parties late.&nbsp; :blink:

me 3.... unified