Long term health of mafiascum

This forum is for discussion related to the game.
User avatar
Quilford
Quilford
Jack of All Trades
User avatar
User avatar
Quilford
Jack of All Trades
Jack of All Trades
Posts: 8438
Joined: March 11, 2011

Post Post #4 (isolation #0) » Thu Dec 04, 2014 10:43 pm

Post by Quilford »

It could also be that mafiascum screams Web 1.0 in a way which communicates neither trustworthiness nor intimacy.
User avatar
Quilford
Quilford
Jack of All Trades
User avatar
User avatar
Quilford
Jack of All Trades
Jack of All Trades
Posts: 8438
Joined: March 11, 2011

Post Post #9 (isolation #1) » Fri Dec 05, 2014 1:59 am

Post by Quilford »

In post 7, chamber wrote:
In post 4, Quilford wrote:It could also be that mafiascum screams Web 1.0 in a way which communicates neither trustworthiness nor intimacy.


Propose a redesign.

No. It's far too time consuming to produce designs for phpBB, and far too frustrating to actually implement them. I'm simply pointing out that to a guest, ms.net looks like a default forum with only a few trivial changes. You can read any article on how to make a website look trustworthy and the key is always to have a good-looking design, because it signals that someone is investing time, effort and energy.
User avatar
Quilford
Quilford
Jack of All Trades
User avatar
User avatar
Quilford
Jack of All Trades
Jack of All Trades
Posts: 8438
Joined: March 11, 2011

Post Post #10 (isolation #2) » Fri Dec 05, 2014 2:01 am

Post by Quilford »

Certainly a start would be making springlullaby's crisp, innovative logo standard issue across all themes/styles/whatever phpBB terms them.
User avatar
Quilford
Quilford
Jack of All Trades
User avatar
User avatar
Quilford
Jack of All Trades
Jack of All Trades
Posts: 8438
Joined: March 11, 2011

Post Post #19 (isolation #3) » Fri Dec 05, 2014 4:03 am

Post by Quilford »

In post 11, chamber wrote:Thoughts on just making mafblack default?

I don't like it. I think it's ugly and cold, with too much grey, and occasionally too high contrast (e.g. everything below 'who is online' on the front page, and coloured mod names, and scum/town colours in dead player lists in games.)

I think it would look a lot nicer if you imbued some red/dark red tones. The furthest I ever got working towards that was this. It was never shown outside of the Art forum, though, and UberNinja started making his own dark theme, so I lost interest after a while. I think it still looks pretty decent, especially as modern UI design trends more and more towards a typography-oriented, flat-colour approach.
User avatar
Quilford
Quilford
Jack of All Trades
User avatar
User avatar
Quilford
Jack of All Trades
Jack of All Trades
Posts: 8438
Joined: March 11, 2011

Post Post #21 (isolation #4) » Fri Dec 05, 2014 4:07 am

Post by Quilford »

In post 20, Bicephalous Bob wrote:White-on-black designs are pretty annoying.

I'd change the entire header to match the spring-quil design, not just the logo. To match the rest of the site, you'd just have to get rid of:

-The tacky white (in MafSilver) dividers in individual posts
-The thick borders around the sections such as "Mafia Games" and "Discussion" on the forum's index page
-All gradients
-All rounded corners

That's exactly the approach I took in the design I linked in #19. If there was support for it, I'd try working towards it again.
User avatar
Quilford
Quilford
Jack of All Trades
User avatar
User avatar
Quilford
Jack of All Trades
Jack of All Trades
Posts: 8438
Joined: March 11, 2011

Post Post #27 (isolation #5) » Fri Dec 05, 2014 4:52 am

Post by Quilford »

In post 23, Bicephalous Bob wrote:I think you have a bigger chance to get your design to be the standard if you start with a black-on-white design.

I literally just inverted the design in #19 to obtain this; is that something you'd prefer?

quadz08 wrote:I will
definitely
say that if we're moving towards a skin redesign (or any other changes of that ilk) we need to get general concepts from the general public, then turn a small group loose on it to actually implement the specifics. If we let the whole site discuss the minutiae of a site visual update, nothing will ever get done.

Yep. It would really be necessary to get a bunch of designers working towards a common goal, because theming for phpBB is deathly tedious.
User avatar
Quilford
Quilford
Jack of All Trades
User avatar
User avatar
Quilford
Jack of All Trades
Jack of All Trades
Posts: 8438
Joined: March 11, 2011

Post Post #29 (isolation #6) » Fri Dec 05, 2014 5:05 am

Post by Quilford »

I'm pretty sure that most colour blind viewers would be able to distinguish the red text from the grey background.
User avatar
Quilford
Quilford
Jack of All Trades
User avatar
User avatar
Quilford
Jack of All Trades
Jack of All Trades
Posts: 8438
Joined: March 11, 2011

Post Post #356 (isolation #7) » Tue Dec 16, 2014 12:38 am

Post by Quilford »

God, I would be all over that.
User avatar
Quilford
Quilford
Jack of All Trades
User avatar
User avatar
Quilford
Jack of All Trades
Jack of All Trades
Posts: 8438
Joined: March 11, 2011

Post Post #357 (isolation #8) » Tue Dec 16, 2014 12:52 am

Post by Quilford »

I think we could do a lot worse than using one of these really nice looking, responsive and mobile-ready phpBB templates, just make a few tiny aesthetic changes like colouring etc to suit ms.net, and you have something that looks super super professional and will stop hundreds of people who visit the site each year and then click off, terrified that they've somehow warped back ten years or something.

Also, they appear to cost $16, because we can get a regular license because the users of this site aren't charged anything, which seems like a massive goddamn bargain.
User avatar
Quilford
Quilford
Jack of All Trades
User avatar
User avatar
Quilford
Jack of All Trades
Jack of All Trades
Posts: 8438
Joined: March 11, 2011

Post Post #361 (isolation #9) » Tue Dec 16, 2014 1:52 am

Post by Quilford »

1. No, I don't think they look ugly. At worst they look super boring, which is actually a positive, because this is a text-heavy site so the focus should not be on having a really eye catching design. Change some of the colours, put the new ms logo on, and it'll be great IMO.

2. Like it or not, that's what modern web design looks like. People look at designs like that and they trust them like they trust a gleaming beautiful new skyscraper, because they share design cues with Facebook, Twitter, news sites etc: sites they visit every day. By comparison, ms.net looks like a freaking crack house. I'm not joking.
User avatar
Quilford
Quilford
Jack of All Trades
User avatar
User avatar
Quilford
Jack of All Trades
Jack of All Trades
Posts: 8438
Joined: March 11, 2011

Post Post #366 (isolation #10) » Tue Dec 16, 2014 2:05 am

Post by Quilford »

re: HorseDetective 362

Yeah, I'm assuming there'd be a fair amount of modification done e.g. doing the mafia-themed buttons etc. Honestly, I don't think anything could be more generic than prosilver, it's literally the default phpBB template.

Some of them certainly don't look as good as others, for example I would definitely not go for Origami, Metro, Coralis or Flato. Charon, Ariki, Marina and Hawiki are all fine if a little boring, but Wide is really quite good imo
User avatar
Quilford
Quilford
Jack of All Trades
User avatar
User avatar
Quilford
Jack of All Trades
Jack of All Trades
Posts: 8438
Joined: March 11, 2011

Post Post #368 (isolation #11) » Tue Dec 16, 2014 2:11 am

Post by Quilford »

Anyway I should really stop derailing this thread with design complaints, when this is really more about our procedures re: actually playing Mafia. I would really be excited to see ms get a facelift is all. Maybe there should be a separate thread for discussing design in Site Ideas or something.
User avatar
Quilford
Quilford
Jack of All Trades
User avatar
User avatar
Quilford
Jack of All Trades
Jack of All Trades
Posts: 8438
Joined: March 11, 2011

Post Post #369 (isolation #12) » Tue Dec 16, 2014 2:11 am

Post by Quilford »

In post 367, chamber wrote:Wide is by far the worst offender imo. Flato looked the most potentially workable.

Oh you monster. I'm getting on AIM.
User avatar
Quilford
Quilford
Jack of All Trades
User avatar
User avatar
Quilford
Jack of All Trades
Jack of All Trades
Posts: 8438
Joined: March 11, 2011

Post Post #371 (isolation #13) » Tue Dec 16, 2014 2:13 am

Post by Quilford »

Yes, I forgot to mention that the side menu version of Wide is definitely not the one to consider.
Post Reply

Return to “Mafia Discussion”