Front Page Changes
We’ve been reviewing the current format of the Utopia homepage, and we’ve decided the layout could do with some adjustments, mainly to improve functionality and its visual appeal. This will hopefully help attract new players and make the front page more convenient to use for everyone.
We feel that the layout is currently a little confusing for anyone not familiar with the game, and want to give the home page more focus. We would like to display up-to-date information on the games, game changes, and news items, in one convenient place. In conjunction with this, we would like to update some of the graphics for the site, to give it a more unified look.
Some of the current changes/ideas we have in mind are:
- Maintain the current format: menu on the left, banner on top
- Maintain the current width of the home page
- Remove some obsolete links - e.g., the Swirve links, on the top bar.
- Remove the “New to the Game?” box, instead advising new player as they create an account
- Move the account creation option to a more prominent position, and have only one choice - i.e., currently both Gen and WoL have a “Create Account” option
- Allow login to the games via the front page - perhaps with a small login form beneath the menu
- Reduce relative width of the menu, leaving more space for content
- Change aspects of the menu/banner colour scheme - background will still be black, but we may change from grey/white to a darker colour
- Introduce a blog feed/news/information box to the front page
The home page changes will have very little impact on the current in-game interface, as the in-game layout and homepage are very different in terms of both style and function. Initial plans are to make minor in-game adjustments, such as removing some of the frames, reorganising the menu a little - e.g., Send & Receive Message should really be one screen, that sort of thing. We would also like to make other small changes, such as adding acres to the top bar, perhaps clickable locations, and adding fortified ME effects on the Military Advisor page, amongst others. Later we will be making more advanced changes, and adding some useful features that have been much requested.
These are our ideas so far - we’d like to know if there’s anything in particular people would like to see - or not see - on the front page. We would also like to hear from you on suggestions for in-game UI improvements. I’ve already received quite a few good ideas via email and by reading the forums, so now I’d like to encourage people to specifically direct their suggestions toward these sorts of changes. I have created a thread in the B&S forums specifically for this purpose, here.
Generally, we want to ease entry into the game for new players and encourage them to get in touch with their kingdom mates and the rest of the community - hopefully they’ll want to continue to play! Any initial UI changes will try to reflect that sentiment, and we’ll be working toward this goal - making improvements to the game manuals, and making it easier for players to communicate in-game, amongst other things.
We would hope to start making the front page changes over the next week, and then start working on the in-game UI changes that you suggest, afterwards.
Róisín
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I would ask you not to use the blog comments section for game suggestions/improvements. Just use it for personal comments or comments on the blog in general - keep game suggestions in B&S please.
Tags: Game Changes, Utopia
July 29th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
i have a suggestion for utopia home page too
i think if you added a scores page for each server so players could veiw all the islands kingdoms and provinces with out the need to login
maybe even add a feature to the curent the world menu option and include the option to get html code (for selected score charts)that we may add to our homepages/myspace profiles to it so it updates automaticly(when user refreshes or revistits) when the game scores are updated the code could contain a banner or link of some kind to utopia and that could increase the numbers of players
i think the code should show like the top 10 players of the seletcted score chart/s then show the player and say 10-15 players nearby (above and below)
July 30th, 2008 at 12:10 am
Agree about the login form on the front page, it would make things much more convenient and I have no idea why it hasn’t been implemented yet…
July 30th, 2008 at 2:24 am
‘I would ask you not to use the blog comments section for game suggestions/improvements. Just use it for personal comments or comments on the blog in general - keep game suggestions in B&S please.’
dodge = fail
clare = minor fail
So Róisín, you come here often?
July 30th, 2008 at 8:37 am
I believe comments on the topics raised should go in here.
tzar = nub
The front page changes look good, hope it will still feel like home after you’re done with it. Thanks for the blog updates, keep it up!
July 30th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
The changes too the front page sound good. Would be nice to make the home page a bit more eye catching and attractive to new visitors. Will be nice to see the player count going up for a change!
Thanks for the blog, its nice to know whats going through your heads :-)
July 30th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
dodge = fail
clare = minor fail
tzar = EPIC fail
IMO it’s fine. But I’m fine with anything anyway.. BTW, this blog design looks good. Colors are nice.. xP
July 31st, 2008 at 5:36 am
failboats!
July 31st, 2008 at 6:46 am
Another great idea! I will write down (if im not lazy/forgot)my ideas about what to add, tutorial feature, and website layout in Saturday. Clarey please bite me if I’m procrastinating. Hope some can be useful for the community.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:44 am
This is great news! So nice to have this blog to keep us informed. Thanks!
August 2nd, 2008 at 2:25 am
yes sorry about that i reposted the idea in the forums and jolt forums(with a poll) when i noticed the request just after i posted it here funny that huh?
i did not notice it untill i had done it
August 9th, 2008 at 5:21 am
I hate menu boxes…
Can you make it radio selection instead? that way, one click and it is easy.
August 9th, 2008 at 6:20 am
I do not like the red in all the brown. Maybe change the banner color to a brownish color.
August 9th, 2008 at 7:52 am
I think it looks great! Finally a NEW look! :)
August 9th, 2008 at 8:05 am
just 1 question,
How do you get back out of these forums and back into the game?
lol
August 9th, 2008 at 9:25 am
I have to say that I rather like what the new page looks like and I look forward to seeing more changes in the game as well as on the front page. You will have to forgive my utopian friends. The are….odd to say the least but as with all games of this size you grow to view some friends almost as if they were family. Most of those people who have posted I know and they know I just love to talk about nothing so I am going to stop this post soon.
Anyway good luck and I hope these changes along with further ones do indeed bring new blood to the utopia community.
August 9th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
blah now i have to type password every time i log,sucks
August 9th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
There is a CHARACTER LIMIT ON PASSWORDS now. My friend can’t log in because he has one too many a character in his password. Please fix it ASAP…
August 9th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
lol nvm,dont pay attention on my previous post
Great job guys:)
August 9th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
the new website reminds me too much of another game ive played called The Reincarnation.
i will loath to be reminded of it every time i play Utopia :(
now some constructive criticism..
the old website may not have been the most friendly to new users but it had a unique style that ive never seen anywhere else.
instead of remaking all of it, i would strongly siggest to keeping the style but changing the format.
August 9th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
I cant log in…. Even went to password help but still cant log in??
August 10th, 2008 at 12:34 am
I like the login option and glow on hover menu. It also compatible with 8 browsers that I had try.
I’m sorry, I would say the new front page is bad.
First: icons with background doesnt match
What is that? Gothic background with modern buttons/icons?
Second: The background isnt full, instead it cut.
At my browser, I see the background only cover top and left, and cut without mercy. The blank center is ugly.. and the boxes.. pfft..
800×600 browser friendly eh? but nowaday people use at least 1024×768 and the blankness somehow annoying.
Third: The color is somehow ugly
Brown isn’t a good color for a website, especially that brown. Did you read about color psychology? This brown reminds me of dullness, filth, heaviness, poverty, roughness, earth, classic, and depression.
Fourth: Less Interactive
Somehow it get too simple. I have an idea, how about show:
- excerpt of utopia experience with read more link.
- dynamic news, like kd A vs kd B, kd C win against kd D.
- server status
- link to alternative login
Fifth: Less compatibility, might screwed if viewed using gadgets.
Example, you have 73 errors on w3.org css validator. It seems that you use OLD coding while using NEW doctype. Like this:
Line 3, Column 1:
Missing xmlns attribute for element html. The value should be: http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml.
Many Document Types based on XML need a mandatory xmlns=”" on the root element. For example, the root element for XHTML will look like:
Last, please note that I just amateur self-learned web designer– like my website validated in CSS but not XHTML haha.. I also don’t mean to flame and I don’t know if my suggestions would be useful or not.
August 10th, 2008 at 5:01 am
what about earth2025?
August 10th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Just how DOES one sign in if he is already a player??? You have a SIGN IN for new ones, but I can’t seem to get back into the game.
Daxgor2yahoo.com
August 10th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Just how does one sign in to plau Utopia if one is ALREADY a player? I an currently signed in and playing. BUt with your new “opening” I can’t get into Utopia to play…no place to SIGN IN.
Daxgor@Yahoo.com
August 11th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Hey did anyone read todays experience, I want to find his location and raze him so badly….I am going to kill him over and over and teach him a lesson he never got in 11 ages =P
Well, let’s just say that ever since I started playing Utopia a long long time ago I was completely hooked to it. I got into a kingdom as a total noob “Hey, let’s build some Plazas so my people can go shopping, and one bank to store their money” etc. My king back then, King Wolf (who I still talk to) helped me quite a lot learning the game and learning about being a monarch and when he quit, I took over.
After some unfortunate error, I had to restart in an other kingdom, with the stuff Wolf taught me, I became monarch that very same Age and I remained that for 11 Ages straight. I loved the people in my kingdom and vice versa, we never got past 6 million but that didn’t matter to us, we were a team. We cooperated with and talked to everyone from our kingdom, everyone was active and loved the time spent in the kingdom. A select group became close friends and we would wake up in the middle of the night just to be able to talk to each other…
Many of you reading this would think “What’s his point?”. Well, my point is this: If you communicate well and with respect towards your kingdommates, Utopia can be so much more than a game; it becomes a lifestyle.
August 11th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
Dax, look on the left side, under the menu. There’s your login screen. And choose the server from the drop-down menu. I was pretty confused too at first, but looks more .. 21st centurysh tbh. Some changes in the actual game interface would also be welcome, also it’ll be hard work, and impossible for everyone to be satisfied, but compromises must be made in order to progress.
Cheers OMAC team. I like your style and respect for this game. Keep the good work going
August 13th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
The design of the page looks amateurish and I am rather surprised it came from an organization. I don’t think I need to go through the coding issues since rosedragon had gone through it in the earlier post. I will go through the design aspect:
1. Colours are too dull. Brown can be nice if used nicely. Right now, it lacks contrast and ‘The Awakening’ banner stands out too much. I don’t think that banner should be the first to catch a user attention.
2. Various elements of the page are ‘hanging around.’ Lack of depth in layout and graphical elements to frame the page together. It looks like the designer simply get whatever that is necessary and dump them together to make the page.
3. Minor details like sufficient padding are overlooked and what’s that odd cartoon face doing in the bottom right corner?? I believe there are better ways to utilize that empty space than that.
Of course there are redeeming factors like the links are more stream-lined but seems like the bad points outweighed the good points. The old design is still better in a sense that it’s more colorful and eye-catching. Do hope that this design is just temporary.
August 13th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Ok, I’m gonna be totally honest, and you can ignore me or whatever, my griefs aren’t so big they will make me quit playing (esp since I have my login page hotbuttoned on firefox, I never see the main page unless I go there for a reason….)
Ok, about the main page? It looks horrible. It’s downright depressing. You want to know what my wife said when I showed it to her? (she doesn’t play) She said it looked like “a chocolatier used a web-design-for-dummies book to make that”. I’m pretty sure that’s not the reaction you were hoping for, but I gotta say, I’m inclined to agree. Please, just change the color font, add a little contrast, something… Why not green and silver? Or, blue and… actually, I know nothing about web design, I just know ugly when I see it. Just for the love of god, kill the brown and more brown and then some light-brown-for-variety motif, please.
Also, I’m really getting tired of not being able to load KD forum /or/ game forum, I dunno what the solution is there, but it needs to be fixed before you work on improving /anything/ else. Function first, then form will follow. Also, yes, I am perfectly aware that this is not the right venue for bug griping etc, but since the bug is that I can’t get to the forum to complain about the bug…
August 14th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
That is such an ugly front page. That color makes me feel sick.
April 5th, 2009 at 8:33 am
When does new age start?