Toribash
Original Post
Redesign of Website
for many of the old-school user the website might not be such a problem but I hope studio guys have considered the need of re-design it, we are still running on a obsolete, 10+ (if not 15) yo old design and interface.
Website is not responsive and the navigability is kinda confusing.
In short it's necessary to work on the UI and UX in order to make the community more appealing to the new and potential users.
Think also about implementing a "like/dislike" button for post in the forum.
Originally Posted by Chikin View Post
The point is not about them understanding but it's about make it easier to understand so that people wont get annoyed by the flaws and give up on forum before starting to get into it.
I am saying that the website can be redesigned and restructured to be more inviting to potential new members and to make it easier to new.
if you fail to see or understand that.. I guess it's because you do not work with front end development, communication, media or design.

about the activity of the forum I wish I could see a graph about the new users engagement in forum activity of the last 10 years.
Maybe it's my impression but 5-7 years ago it seemed quite more lively around here.

You can argue as much you can, but please, don't try to sell me or anyone else this crap of "everything is perfect as it is" just because you fail to see the flaws here.

I agree it took me a while to figure out everything in the forums but I honostly think that forums isn't the reason we can't hold onto players... but the game itself can be very challenging for new comers to the game to learn how to play. The physics and mechanics are really unlike any other game which makes this game so hard to learn. I have only been around since 2013 and I still haven't gained as much skill as some of the people that I started the game with. I guess it is really just the kind of person you are that decides whether or not you will try to go above your own understanding and learn something new. A lot of people like fps and simple things like that so no one try's on toribash, and the other fact of the matter is that toribash is a free game and isn't talked about much so that could make people not wanna stay mainly because no one wants to play competitiivley in a dead game.
Originally Posted by Fame View Post
I agree it took me a while to figure out everything in the forums but I honostly think that forums isn't the reason we can't hold onto players... but the game itself can be very challenging for new comers to the game to learn how to play. The physics and mechanics are really unlike any other game which makes this game so hard to learn. I have only been around since 2013 and I still haven't gained as much skill as some of the people that I started the game with. I guess it is really just the kind of person you are that decides whether or not you will try to go above your own understanding and learn something new. A lot of people like fps and simple things like that so no one try's on toribash, and the other fact of the matter is that toribash is a free game and isn't talked about much so that could make people not wanna stay mainly because no one wants to play competitiivley in a dead game.

I agree about the stiff learning curve of the game but other key aspect of it are also the freedom of customization and the clan & community system...
The customization and clan system are directly connected with the forum and website.

When it is not possible to do much about the learning curve of the game, it's possible to compensate in other ways.

The game is challenging by itself let's facilitate the access to the community by make it less challenging to go around the forum for those who are new.
Some of those new people might have enough patience to stick around but maybe 3 out of 10 might be like... "nah, fuck this shit. Not worthy or my time".

Minecraft have been around for fucking ages too, still going pretty strong. and they too have been investing resources in redesigning their website and forum. Did a pretty darn good job too.


Well.. mine is just a suggestion, and I supposed the Nabi fellas will eventually develop something.
I stick around because I like the uniqueness of the game and few of the new features are pretty cool... I think this game is a bomb and with some more professional touch, especially after it got into Steam, it could gain the popularity it deserves.
Growing a stronger community could be the key.

and I say "could", because I don't have access to the data regarding this community, users and website and I can not back up this theories with them. But my expertise and experience suggest that a redesign could be very likely an effective solution.
Originally Posted by Chikin View Post

Minecraft have been around for fucking ages too, still going pretty strong. and they too have been investing resources in redesigning their website and forum. Did a pretty darn good job too.

There are 75 millions active Minecraft player. Plus, their website were really, really terrible.

We occur to get less than 400 active forumers each day, and by forumer I mean most of the time 200-300 guests which went to the forum after a google research such as “toribash walk” or “toribash parkour” -> Mocucha’s tutorial.

The forum isn’t that bad actually. That’s true I had difficulties at the beginning but nothing incredible. I used to study website due to cryptanalysis studies, and I can tell you, this is not a 15yo forum.
[sigpic][/sigpic]
Was zurük bleibt ist erinnerung
Originally Posted by Mercurit View Post
There are 75 millions active Minecraft player. Plus, their website were really, really terrible.

We occur to get less than 400 active forumers each day, and by forumer I mean most of the time 200-300 guests which went to the forum after a google research such as “toribash walk” or “toribash parkour” -> Mocucha’s tutorial.

The forum isn’t that bad actually. That’s true I had difficulties at the beginning but nothing incredible. I used to study website due to cryptanalysis studies, and I can tell you, this is not a 15yo forum.

any of that is irrelevant... who cares about the "forumers" and "by-walkers"
what is important is the percentage of them which get enough intrigued about the game and forum to become a member of it. The first impact is fundamental in this cases.

This UX benefits explanation, should be understandable even for uneducated people (uneducated regarding front end and communication)

I feel this is me chasing my own tail explain shit over and over.... the problem here is that you guys do not understand what I am talking about because you do not work or study front end development and because you gained a certain familiarity with the interface of the website therefore you do not notice and are affected much by the flaws anymore.

You are saying it's not so bad because you are one of those that somehow was intrigued and stuck around.
To put it in a more simple prospective so all of you understand: what my work is about is usually to take who does not stick around, find out the reason they do not stick around and fix the shit so they would stick around.


well.. I am done here. :d
I can agree with the point that current forums are quite hard to navigate for a new user, but that being said, it's not the website that should be redesigned, it's the game.

Having to go on forums to activate an item is plain stupid and that's whole another discussion. That said though, I know for a fact that inventory and many other features are being worked to be enabled in game as well as on forums.

I guess my point is, forums are fine as they are, the main accessibility problem that you seem to be concentrated on is not how forums are designed, it's rather the fact that some in-game features are based on forums. If we move from mentality of "let's make forums better" to "let's make the game better" then there is no need for a better forum design.

Also, no newbie ever found the game appealing because of its website. Nice website is a plus of course, but it is definitely not necessary to keep a player base. Most players won't use forum features for at least first 10 hours of their gameplay, so the forum really isn't deciding factor when it comes to pulling new players. Even so with the forum itself, only players who invested their time in this game would post something, so I don't think it really matters to them at that point how the website looks or navigates.
Last edited by Smaguris; Mar 24, 2018 at 06:45 PM.
You might not see the problem because you don't work with UI and UX and you are not a new user that have to go through the Calvary of learning how to use this forum.

if you fail to see or understand that.. I guess it's because you do not work with front end development, communication, media or design.

Originally Posted by Chikin View Post
But my expertise and experience suggest that a redesign could be very likely an effective solution.

the problem here is that you guys do not understand what I am talking about because you do not work or study front end development.

Please forgive me lord of the Internet, UX Developer of the World and GrandMaster in the art of knowing forum User Interface perfectly !

Seems like you don’t like when a common human say something about this science. So I’ll talk. I’m studying in the cyberdefence Military university Saint Cyr in Paris, France. With cyberdefence comes cryptanalysis, cryptography, web development and network administration. Of course, I’ll state right now (thing you didn’t, King of the Internet), I don’t know everything, but enough for a usual forum.
I don’t have much time since I have now a pretty restricted internet access, even tho i am in permission. Tbh I’ll fully use it especially for you, almost only due to what I quoted above.

I’ll show you a few screens and I’ll add a legend above each one.

Not that big, but still.


I could have take a look at more parts, the shop where every important informations are on the top, the user page where every parts are on blocks so understandable, the posting panel (sorry, but the big red “new reply” “new threads”.... I think they are big enough.

Originally Posted by Chikin View Post
what is important is the percentage of them which get enough intrigued about the game and forum to become a member of it. The first impact is fundamental in this cases.

They will get intrigued by the game, their first impact will be the game, their first talks will be ingame with other peeps. The first impact of the game is fundamental, not the forum. And in this point, yes the first impact is bad, reaally, really bad.

Maybe it's my impression but 5-7 years ago it seemed quite more lively around here.

No way... are you sure about that ? Oh wow this is incredible and unexpected from a 13+ yo game :o I’m so sad.
Originally Posted by Chikin View Post

you can talk how much you want, but this is a 15 years old design

Wrong, a website is constantly evolving while keeping a directive line. The forum changed, he ain’t the same that the 2008, 2010, 2011 and 2012 forum.

You can argue as much you can, but please, don't try to sell me or anyone else this crap of "everything is perfect as it is" just because you fail to see the flaws here.

Sorry to be an asshole, but everything is perfect as it is. Excepting what you said, the few buttons not working, but not the whole page.

well.. I am done here. :d

Me too.


Don’t take this as an injure or something like that. I’m just pointing out how many times you say a lambda user cannot understand the problem since you understand them and not us, non “professional”, but that’s exactly the point. The lambda user won’t have any problems, nor will bother it either.
And of course, giving a new birth to the forum isn’t a bad idea. But in my opinion it’s not necessary, and if I went off was the way you were talking about it and us. Nowadays, nobody is as bad as you think, and atleast know how works a website if he goes on it, even if it’s the first time.
Last edited by Mercurit; Mar 24, 2018 at 08:50 PM.
[sigpic][/sigpic]
Was zurük bleibt ist erinnerung
First of all, it was not my intention to sounds more superior or omniscient I am sure you know some of your shit too in matter. Yet in the trully impressive list of the stuff you study I could not see anything related to technology psychology and UCD or UDD.

Let me debunk couple of your points.

Originally Posted by Mercurit View Post
They will get intrigued by the game, their first impact will be the game, their first talks will be ingame with other peeps. The first impact of the game is fundamental, not the forum. And in this point, yes the first impact is bad, reaally, really bad.

That's some very superficial thinking, you said yourself that a lot of people bump into toribash because they end up in the website through google searches every day.
Now the game is on steam but most of the new and potential users are and will be people that will look for "free games" in google, be redirected to some website like "best 10 free game out there" and then might be interested enough by the review to get more info about the game.

How will they do that?
Through the website.

What in the cases the website makes a shitty impression?
It wont take much time to go back a couple of pages and try the next in that "best 10 list".

extra facts



Originally Posted by Mercurit View Post
No way... are you sure about that ? Oh wow this is incredible and unexpected from a 13+ yo game :o I’m so sad.

12 years and few weeks old actually.
Surely activity is supposed to go down when the game start to become outdated no need for a Lord of internet or a cyber-defender code-nerd for understand that.
Thankfully improvements have been done during the years to kinda keep the fire burning.
It's fortunate that toribash is a quite unique game for its interesting and one of a kind game-mechanics and that's what make it stand out. Yet there are a lot of competitors out there with way worse games that are way more popular that tb ever been just because they are good at "selling" them.

I am a bit confused by your analysis...
What's the point of taking time showing some of the good things of the website? to prove me something?

Just the tip of the shitberg


Sure it works when you press buttons around.

I am not gonna do a full analysis of the website because that's not my job.
I suggested a change and stand for my suggestion (that is already quite some work).

By saying that everything is perfect you stand in in the way of progress, the opportunity of a improvement that the website could face... and now it would be great to improve things around before the release of toribash next.
If I might sound offensive to you when I say you might not understand what I am talking about it's because you kinda proved that through what you wrote... and I do not say it because I feel high and mighty, I am just trying to tell you that I might have noticed things that you do not pay much attention to anymore, things that might negatively affect consciously or subconsciously the decisions taken by the users.

Everything has room for improvement. you just have to localize the problems one by one and think about effective solutions.

Another thing that could be implemented is to allow to paste images directly in the reply textbox of the forum.
Nowdays most of the people find it way too tedious to have to rely on 3rd party image hosts websites or the attachment feature so they can display images on the forum, that gives more incentive to share things mostly via Discord, crippling even more the activity levels of the forum.
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The problem is that this website most probably has been upgraded little by little by different people adding slowly new features... and lack of UCD, that's the cause of the bad structure of the website.
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weird bug happened... I can not edit this last post for some reason... well.. I wanted also to add this image to the other 2

this

Last edited by Chikin; Mar 25, 2018 at 03:22 AM. Reason: <24 hour edit/bump
Originally Posted by Chikin View Post

That's some very superficial thinking, you said yourself that a lot of people bump into toribash because they end up in the website through google searches every day.
Now the game is on steam but most of the new and potential users are and will be people that will look for "free games" in google, be redirected to some website like "best 10 free game out there" and then might be interested enough by the review to get more info about the game.

How will they do that?
Through the website.

What in the cases the website makes a shitty impression?
It wont take much time to go back a couple of pages and try the next in that "best 10 list".

Except the official website is not the forum, but the one which allows them to download the game and a few other options aside from accessing the forum.Oops.

One of the key things that play a huge role as I said previously, is the responsiveness (or flexibility) of the website when accessed on different devices.
In the case of access from a mobile phone the chance that the user will have a negative experience during the usage of the website is extremely high, beside that clearly present issue other key factors that play fundamental roles are the navigability (functionality) and last but not least the aesthetics of it, think that can improved without drastic changed.

I have accesed from Android, Ipod and Ipad this website plenty of times, had no problems to it. Elaborate on this one.


12 years and few weeks old actually.
Surely activity is supposed to go down when the game start to become outdated no need for a Lord of internet or a cyber-defender code-nerd for understand that.
Thankfully improvements have been done during the years to kinda keep the fire burning.
It's fortunate that toribash is a quite unique game for its interesting and one of a kind game-mechanics and that's what make it stand out. Yet there are a lot of competitors out there with way worse games that are way more popular that tb ever been just because they are good at "selling" them.

The forums (Or website, for that matter) arent the problem when it comes to atracting people. Is the lack of proper advertising that has the playerbase like this. I might be going a little off-topic, tho.

I am a bit confused by your analysis...
What's the point of taking time showing some of the good things of the website? to prove me something?

Just the tip of the shitberg


Sure it works when you press buttons around.

It doesnt takes that long to get used to it, you are just making up some excuses here, get a couple of people who dont know about TB, show them the forum, see how they do, THEN you can actually start thinking about "revamping the website"


By saying that everything is perfect you stand in in the way of progress, the opportunity of a improvement that the website could face... and now it would be great to improve things around before the release of toribash next.
If I might sound offensive to you when I say you might not understand what I am talking about it's because you kinda proved that through what you wrote... and I do not say it because I feel high and mighty, I am just trying to tell you that I might have noticed things that you do not pay much attention to anymore, things that might negatively affect consciously or subconsciously the decisions taken by the users.

If there are no problems with the forums and they are functional, then why change it? You just wanna change things for the sake of changing them, pretty much

Everything has room for improvement. you just have to localize the problems one by one and think about effective solutions.

As is said before, if there aint problems, then dont change it. Cant improve upon perfection. When people actually complain about a valid point, then we can actually start thinking about changing the forums.


Another thing that could be implemented is to allow to paste images directly in the reply textbox of the forum.
Nowdays most of the people find it way too tedious to have to rely on 3rd party image hosts websites or the attachment feature so they can display images on the forum, that gives more incentive to share things mostly via Discord, crippling even more the activity levels of the forum.

Pretty much only thing i would agree with. then, again, there are always attachments/thumbnails...so whatever.
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The problem is that this website most probably has been upgraded little by little by different people adding slowly new features... and lack of UCD, that's the cause of the bad structure of the website.

Its not like we need "new features" regardless, most additions are ingame, and there are sub-forums and shit for every kind of topic...as long as it abides by the rules, that is.

Answers in bold.
"I am the White Void, I am the Cold Steel, I am the Just Sword! I am Hakumen, the end has come!!"
I agree that some of the links could be in a bit bigger font size but I don't know if they should be bolded. I sometimes forget where stuff is at after leaving and coming back from toribash so simpler navigation would make things easier and more proficient.
1) I did not say that only forum need to be redesigned... everything should
1.2) I am pretty sure people wind up in the forum as well during their searches you gotta consider any possible scenario (or try to do it as best as you can)

2) What to elaborate on that? you are great! Good for you I am proud of you *clap hands* you just unlocked the #ICANDOIT achievement

3) talking a bit out of your ass now, aren't ya?
please shtap!

4)
EXACTLY!!!! I am very happy someone got the point. (even if partially)
inmmortal8: That's the core essence of UX - UCD you talk right there. you take a (preferably large) sample of different people. from the skilled internet veteran to your grandma that have trouble finding that sneaky button to turn on her smartphone and you let them go around the website giving them perhaps few tasks to complete while observing what they are doing and collecting all possible data, from how their eyes scouts around the page and where they lay their focus to the time they take to find and click any button and their expression while doing everything. Then you also run a survey asking them few questions.

In that way you detect what are called "barriers" and break them down by creating a more accessible and structured website so even the most tech-retarded person can access it.
more people can access it=more chances of growth of the community

It's a bit like having a manual car rental service turned into an automatic car one; Some people think a manual car is the proper car and therefore they would never switch to an automatic because they want to have control over the change of the gear, have to listen after the engine... and without considering the consumption issues.
But it does not take away the fact that the automatic car is easier to drive. People that aren't accustomed with manual gears can drive that too... yet it's not that simple if you only used automatic gears to switch over to the traditional manual gear system.
More accessibility=more costumers=more profit


5) Change things just for the sake of changing them? son... you can't imagine how much work and effort it is, I wont suggest it if I wouldn't find that an smart thing to do and if I thought everyone could benefit from it.
It is even a more tortuous and slow process when there is already an established user base, as there is the risk (when things are not done properly) that by making to many radical changes you confuse those users... taking away the familiarity and bond that the user created with the website.


[B]THE SHOCKING TRUTH[/B]


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Originally Posted by Fame View Post
I agree that some of the links could be in a bit bigger font size but I don't know if they should be bolded. I sometimes forget where stuff is at after leaving and coming back from toribash so simpler navigation would make things easier and more proficient.

I wish more people would approach this suggestion as you Fame, pointing out the issues that they face using the interface instead of trying to convince me or anyone else that no improvement is needed.
Last edited by Chikin; Mar 25, 2018 at 12:47 PM. Reason: <24 hour edit/bump