I'm glad the Webmaster has at least heard our concerns.

Why are we all underlining and being all reverent towards the Webmaster anyway?

You just underlined. Everyone was doing a mailto link.

Then the Lusternian site one should not come back until it no longer bypasses gems of cloaking.

Running joke.

I knoooow. It was supposed to be a joke.

Don't mind me, I'm joke clueless in this thread, apparently.

:hugs:

Small point, but one thing I really liked from the old website were the excerpts of the histories that would appear on the right hand side of the page. They drew me in to reading more of the histories.

Really hope they make a reappearance!

Not a huge fan of the new site. Transparency not working properly in IE8, so I just get a blue bar right through the portal image which looks ugly. Also, no love for the maps? Can't we get something more whizzy than just an image loading? How about something like:

EDIT: HTML5 Panning

(but not necessarily HTML5 as the canvas tag isn't supported at all in IE yet)

I want players online because sometimes I think I want to log in, but I'm not sure so I pull that up to see if there's anyone around I know. I don't use it for much else

EDIT: Pre-Nexus redo I used it to know when Nejii was around

I don't like it. It makes Lusternia look too...Aetolia-ish.

Agreed, I miss being able to see who's online.

This looks terrible beside the old one.

I loved the old one. Clear, concise, pretty filigree and spinning cogs to acquaint me with Lusternia's theme, appealing layout, readable news listing telling me interesting things were happening on a regular basis and that this was an active, well-maintained MUD, well-organised menus with mouseover popouts so I could easily do the first thing I always do when I look at a new game (check the races, classes, and skills).

New one is a sprawling, ugly mess. It makes me think of hacky diku MUD websites, with a spattering of web 2.0. Part of this may be down to issues like font, spacing, and layout that will be fixed in later revisions of the website, but much of it is the blaring content.

When the page first loads, I see a logo, a pretty image, a sign-up button, and a list of FEATURES. But they're the type of features every game seems to boast these days: free, browser, unique, thousands, quests, skills, players, interaction. My mind glazes over. The login button in the top right looks like a paypal donation link. The game info link, which I happen to know is where all the meat about races, guilds, skills, and shiny things can be found, doesn't stand out, when it easily could.

"I can't wait to play LUSTERNIA as (character name). Couriers of the realm can reach me at (e-mail address), but I will need a (password) to protect my things." This is somewhere between campy and condescending.

The big purple transparency down the bottom is too big. The news doesn't stand out from the level/achievement feed.

I miss the clockwork gears, even though I know we don't have them except in Magnagora.

There's still way too much emphasis on character creation (It's on every page's sidebar in the info section, at least?)-- not enough on what makes the world unique. If I want to play the game, and the first link in the navigation bar is 'play now', chances are I'll find the game.

If not, chances are Lusternia is not the game for you.

It really doesn't seem to me like the website is aimed at the target audience. The market for Lusternia is not (I don't think?) the average flash-game player-- it appeals to a more 'nerdy' collection of people. Games without graphics that require a client-side system of Lua-based functions to 'win' does not appeal to the general audience.

To put it simply... The new website, does not appeal at all to this audience. Ushaara's bit about the histories is great-- the history tidbits were a great way of making potential players aware that they were there, and because they were just snippets, you always read them!



Taken directly from the old website. It's targetted at that 'nerdy' group of people-- the average number of syllables is over 2, and the general vocabulary level is high. The new website, on the other hand...



'Mythical creatures and Magic Treasures." "Online Quests". "Exiting online Text Game." as opposed to "...where factions struggle to amass reservoirs..."

The former nearly as well-targetted as the latter. If the intended audience is a more 'normal' slice of the population, then by all means, this is fine and dandy-- but I doubt that Lusternia keeps very many 'normal' people around for very long, and long-standing players are (I am assuming) where most of the revenue comes from.

Essentially: It's the touches that made the game appeal to the slice of people that were likely to stick around that made the old website... Work. It was not too intimidating, not too flashy ("You may want to peruse our New Player Guide or jump right in and Play Now!" is as forceful as the 'you should play now!' stuff goes-- and it points you to relevant information you should know BEFORE you create a character), and it makes you want to learn more.

It's really just stunningly generic. That's the problem with it.

*vomit*

Ok. Now that I said I hated it, I'll decide specifically why-

Our sign up portion needs to be changed. For it to be so big and obnoxious like that... is just blah. You're not appealing to the playerbase that will stick around. We loved the old website because it was clear and concise, and yes the text was small, but we liked it that way. (Well, there was the occasional time when I grabbed my glasses.)

(this website is reminiscent of so many horrible MMORPGs.)

I agree with all the criticism so far.

Can we have the Vote button back?