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RE: Our website :)

Arkanon — Tue, 13 May 2008 17:54:21 GMT

Well, I keep looking at other guild's websites and it looks like ours is just a big ol forum. I suppose it does what it does fairly well, although some variety couldn't hurt =]

I guess its more or less my own inner doer just craving to build something. Hehe.

All the important things like member info and kill stats all come from other sites: armory, wowjutsu, etc..

Given our new focus, I suppose a new splash and color set may be in order. Something focusing on Sunwell. Big ol picture of Kil-J up there...that sort of thing.

I do happen to like the look and feel granted by the Drupal CMS. I've got Drupal 6 up and running for my company's corporate intranet, and its really friggin cool to play with.

I guess I just got a hammer and I'm looking for nails :w00t:

Some kinda framework that grants us the ability to update the front page is always a plus.

RE: Our website :)

Delak — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:25:35 GMT

[quote][b]Furikenjahva (4/15/2008)[/b][hr]Leotheras Down delak?!? wow grats dude[/quote]

Look at the date on it!! psh!

RE: Our website :)

Posh — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 16:17:00 GMT

Jebus Zaknif, wtf do you do?! I'm impressed with the professionalism and the attention to detail in trying to create a better site for ourselves. I will try to dispense my UI knowledge and hopefully help created a better site. (Just so I have a little credit, I'm a UI designer, and freelance Web Designer, with a degree in the field)

To start off, people made a lot of good suggestions, but im my opinion seem a little to much. We gotta start by asking a few basic easy questions. With these questions answered, we then can design a site thats fits us.

[i]Who will be using this website?

What benefits do we want to offer to users of this site?

Who is our target audience?

What functionalities do we need and why?

Do those functionalities help your audience and its users? [/i]

I ask these questions because, its what you need to figure out before you do anything. I know you, Zaknif, know this, but i'm trying to have others look at these also, before splutting out un-necessary add-ons.

Nihilum is the highest rank guild in the WORLD. Of course they are going to drive traffic to there site, and with that they need a bad *** site. We are War Storm, a small guild on Dragonmaw. I don't think we need the Death Star of websites. In my opinion, we need only a few things. Forums and Guild Progression/News. Forums will cover everything we need to inform in-guildies of any information they would need or want. Guild Progression/News will inform any visitors of our progression, and any other news we want to dispense to them. I would also add maybe a navigation of some sort to link to forums, guild apps, etc etc.

A fresh design is always nice also, but I can't suggest anything right now. Be cool to have War Storm styled to whatever we want. I can offer my graphic design skills to help out. I've done everything from Logo creation to full site creation. Even font creation.

Anyways, on top of all that above, the BIGGEST problem is well THE GUILD using it. We get like a few new posts a day, so more in guild involvement would be good. I don't think half the people who raid ever use this site. A admin who has time to update and populate the forums would be good. Strats, Stats, whatever. Just get on the forums and post daily.

Thats my 5 cents.
(sorry if anything was bad grammar above)

RE: Our website :)

Posh — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 16:16:30 GMT

RE: Our website :)

Furikenjahva — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:52:10 GMT

Leotheras Down delak?!? wow grats dude

RE: Our website :)

marez — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 20:11:19 GMT

WOW.. forgot to login again. I fail. It was me!

RE: Our website :)

Delak — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:48:58 GMT

Wasn't me, although that post does have good suggestions. I set up and maintained the old Ascension site, which used the Joomla CMS, you could do most of those things by adding in extensions. It's still up if you want to see it: [url=http://www.guildasc.com]www.guildasc.com[/url]

If you did somehow persuade Mousesports to license out their CMS to us (I have little hopes of that, lol) it would be awesome... of course changing the look of it to fit War Storm style ;-) .

I'd be willing to help where I can, whether it be to help maintain the site or the actual creation process.

edit: I'd be talking about Satsu's legs as well, psh

RE: Our website :)

Zaknif — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 23:45:35 GMT

Ty Jmi,

I really want to help make War Storm's online presence exceptional. I like the great feed back from Anon above as well. I recommend everyone post their wish list where leadership can generate a consolidated "statement of work".

I have already made a request to MouseSports (Nihilum's site) to see if they would license their technology to us. If they do not want my first born - I'll take care of that. It's almost always easier to acquire technology then to start from scratch - if the functionality fits our needs. Note they have a media sponsorship rev model, so they might consider the license - more dollars for them. Though we would have to put up with that.

I estimate building what they have from scratch would cost about $150,000 (believe it or not) in man hours so it would be quite an undertaking and probably 6 month phase one dev cycle. We will need to interface with the WOW data pipe - not difficult.

Note, as the creator or Everlore.com (now offline), it took us about a year to build that site. This was a top EverQuest portal site. Some of you long time gamers will remember this site. I had a nice ad rev model until the rev share model drastically changed in 2002.

Now, the wiki technology I mentioned above can be put up quickly can also handle much of the custom content.

Regarding content listed above - well thats the challenge. That takes a major commitment (time). Some one on our team has to maintain that.

Finally - I would like to address Blixxus's comment.

Blixxus, War Storm was your dream from the beginning and with out you, it would not be what it is today. Your sacrifice truly changed peoples lives including mine. You have shouldered the leadership since its inception and I think it a tribute you that you built a successor model to allow the guild to continue and flourish with the new leadership and talented players.

Always sacrificing for others!

Here's to you Blix, thank you for an incredible experience and cheers!!!

RE: Our website :)

Blixxus — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 19:08:58 GMT

Was that post above this posted by Delak? Only hint im going by is the reference to Akaroku's legs. And i also whois'd the ip address and its showing up as a canadian!!!!!

Yeah i guess the banner on the top of the site should say... Blixxus has left =-(

Cheers Blixxus

RE: Our website :)

Jmizius — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 08:51:05 GMT

Zak, i am at a loss for words at the present time of this post. I dont know what to say, you give so much man. It is definitly Zaknif FTW. With that said we can figure something out, maybe after illidan as we transition over to sunwell we can bring it up. Like i said tho, you give alot and i dont want you to have to do the site on top of your RL and your commitments you have already given us.

Our website :)

Zaknif — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 22:27:34 GMT

Guys,

I have recently been hearing rumblings regarding our website. Please know that as the designer and developer of the War Storm site, I take this very seriously and I am a happy to update the site any time. I employ a team of developers and designers that can easily make the changes under my direction.

There are 3 major areas to consider. One is the design and functionality, next is the content and structure of the site, and finally bugs.

The design, color, images can be what ever you wish. Perhaps you want a new header image or vertically shorter header. Or you are simply sick of green and wish a lighter feel to the site. Or maybe a screen shot of us - the team, as the header. All of this I am happy to get done. The site is a standard forum based site developed in Dot.net technology. So other functionality besides forums currently does not exist.

The second area is the content and structure of the site. This is completely customizable by authorized users. Obviously this takes commitment and time but needs no additional development.

The final area are bugs. I am happy to investigate and fix any bug. It just needs to be reported. If you set up a bug reports on the forum and screen shot the bugs I will make every attempt to resolve them. I need to know where this has been posted.

Its important to me that you all feel we have a high quality website. Especially if my signature is on it.

I recommend a guild wide meeting - say 30 minutes to discuss what your priorities are regarding "Design" and "Functionality" and/or create a thread on what everyone would like changed. If we have a meeting, I will take copious notes and if the requests are possible I will have them completed. If your requests are for non-forum custom functionality, that might be a challenge since labor costs could run into literally 10s of thousands of dollars so these requests while possible will need to be addressed by priority and validated as necessary.

Please also note that I have under raps a War Storm Wiki site. I presented it to Blixxus a while ago but the guild was just being reformed and he certainly had his hands full rebuilding War Storm so we really never delved into it. You can have this site if you wish but that will require a huge time commitment regarding content.

Ball is in your court and I stand ready to serve :)

Zak :) :)