Need your opinions on gaming community sites.

[ADM]

I'm currently developing a game community for an upcoming game for the developer (not 3DR related). It is as yet not know if this site will be the official site (more than likely though) and as such my site would more than likely be the official community site for it with a prominent focus on forums.

What I would like to know is when you go to community sites what are the things you look for? Do you mind if it's purely just forums and the news is posted within the forums? Or do you like some sort of frontpage and features and so on?

Do you want interactivity? Do you like commenting on the new images and so on?

Also do you have any examples of community sites that you like?

I've got quite a bit of time till we launch so I'm just looking for lots of examples now and suggestions before I start developing it.

[Dopefish7590]

Cool looking, easy to navigate to get the info I need. Interactive is nice too... 3D Realms' main page and layout is good, another nice website:

http://www.skillet.com/enter.php - Has an option for high end or low end... High end is flash based and looks really nice.

As for links: Forums, News, Home, Downloads, Info, Help, and Contact info are generally a good thing to have.

[Echo Black]

Company news + forums does it just fine for me.

[Kalki]

A front news page is always looked for with forums alongside to discuss/comment on said news. If it's official, you could host developer blogs on the forums and link them to the main page as news. Image galleries with comments enabled on forum software would be ideal to host screenshots. I also tend to look for FAQs & Download areas with official as well as approved fan contributions.

Good luck!

[Mountain Man]

What I would like to know is when you go to community sites what are the things you look for? Do you mind if it's purely just forums and the news is posted within the forums? Or do you like some sort of frontpage and features and so on?
When I'm looking for a new site to call "home", the first thing I look at is the front page only because I want to know that the site is active and up to date. The second thing I look at is the forums since that's where I spend the majority of my time on any site. Nothing turns me off to a site quicker than a forum with like 5 threads in it with the last activity 3-days ago. But if I see good forum activity with an interesting array of diverse topics then I'll likely stick around a while.

[Sang]

A front news page is always looked for with forums alongside to discuss/comment on said news. If it's official, you could host developer blogs on the forums and link them to the main page as news. Image galleries with comments enabled on forum software would be ideal to host screenshots. I also tend to look for FAQs & Download areas with official as well as approved fan contributions.

Good luck!

I second that :D

[Wamplet]

In agreement with Mountain Man and there should be some easy navigation/links to the site.

[Danule]

i enjoy how this page is layed out, i hate those interactive sites that have movies at the begining. Important to have about a game obviously are Screenshots, videos, news, information about enemies, and weapons. things like that.

[avatar_58]

For the frontpage/website - content. For the forums - members. Thats basically it. If the frontpage is barren and useless, then the forums need to busy and full of fun members. Otherwise what am I doing there? I've seen the most well designed website fail because they forget this.

A nice layout/design can only take a website so far, it's the members and discussion that keep me on the forums and it's the amount of useful content that keeps me reading the front page.

For example - shacknews has both. I can read the front page and get all my gaming news, and the comments forum has just about everything else with great members and discussions.

3DR has forums, with well....you people. ;) However I rarely ever go to the front page. I see no reason because theres no content there that interests me, unless I've been specifically told to check out a news post. So if you want to avoid this type of behavior the frontpage has to be really busy and full of useful info.....which is tough to do unless it's a news website.

Telltale's website manages to keep me coming back because it's always full of new info, content, game news, comics, etc. It changes maybe every week. However their games are episodic and they always have at least something for their fans to do. So it all depends on how much you have to put on there. You can't force people to view your frontpage if theres nothing on there to see.

[Daveman]

As has been said, a frontpage is nice, and it's cool to be able to comment on news items.

And for the love of god, make news updates funny. If news has a bit of humor to it it's always worthwhile reading. A good model to use is halflife2.net

[FireFly]

All I really care about in a community (news) site is how comprehensive it is and how frequently it's updated. If you're going to a community site for information then that's because general news outlets aren't specific enough to your particular game, and may miss out important interviews or pieces of information, so it's important that such a site really catches everything.

Wikis seem to be a great way of managing this, giving you an easy way to see exactly what it is known, at any given time, about the game you're following.

But yeah, I don't think forums are a replacement for a proper front page with stories. If you're looking for news and information, you're going to want the most comprehensive source; if you're looking for a community, you're going to want the one that's most active and most well moderated, so I don't think the two elements really mesh together.

[hanged_man]

i think something like shacknews would be great ...especially the little flash news bar at the top of the page and not to forget the theme of the the site/forums should be interesting but not too fancy and not too flashy

[M-Jay]

I think the community site of quakewars is great:
http://community.enemyterritory.com/

they got a "News" for official things, a "Developers Blog" for more unofficial things and of course a forum.

And in quakewars itself is a link to the community site. So everyone you plays the game is aware of this site.

I think this is a good example of a community site.

[Superczar]

No annoying ads, especially the ones that automatically load up a window and steal focus (I don't know how to really explain it - these ads are some kind of applet and not a windows dialog box or IE page it seems). And the ones that explode onto the page if you just merely roll the mouse pointer over them... :mryuck:

I don't visit many/any gaming news sites, but I've gone through enough forums for one thing or another to know that Joe does these forums right... :)

[Simon Charles]

Things I love :

--Anything with a date so I know the site's not dead (blog entry, message that says "last updated on xyz", etc...)

--A FAQ. Accessible from the front page.

--Screenshots.

--The absence of macroflashmediacrap animations, loading processes or streaming audio/video. If I want to see media, gimme a link so I can choose to go there myself whenever.

[NutWrench]

Avatars must be small, and absolutely NO image signatures allowed!

[ADM]

Yep I'm in agreeance with you there. I absolutely hate image signatures.

What's the biggest the avatars can be? I'm quite fond of the 85wx125h sizing that's here.

[Micki!]

What's the biggest the avatars can be? I'm quite fond of the 85wx125h sizing that's here.

I'm quite fond of the avatar size, so i'd stick with that...
And yes, for gods sake, no Image-signatures...

[TBZ]

And NO animated avatars! Seriously, they are the plague of our age!

[Malgon]

For the frontpage/website - content. For the forums - members. Thats basically it. If the frontpage is barren and useless, then the forums need to busy and full of fun members. Otherwise what am I doing there? I've seen the most well designed website fail because they forget this.

A nice layout/design can only take a website so far, it's the members and discussion that keep me on the forums and it's the amount of useful content that keeps me reading the front page.

For example - shacknews has both. I can read the front page and get all my gaming news, and the comments forum has just about everything else with great members and discussions.

3DR has forums, with well....you people. ;) However I rarely ever go to the front page. I see no reason because theres no content there that interests me, unless I've been specifically told to check out a news post. So if you want to avoid this type of behavior the frontpage has to be really busy and full of useful info.....which is tough to do unless it's a news website.

Telltale's website manages to keep me coming back because it's always full of new info, content, game news, comics, etc. It changes maybe every week. However their games are episodic and they always have at least something for their fans to do. So it all depends on how much you have to put on there. You can't force people to view your frontpage if theres nothing on there to see.

Well put. :)

Avatars must be small, and absolutely NO image signatures allowed!

Image signatures suck imo. :mryuck: Thank God that Joe doesn't allow that shit here. I like that these forums are free of clutter and allow for easy reading. :cool:

What's the biggest the avatars can be? I'm quite fond of the 85wx125h sizing that's here.

The maximum allowed avatar here is 100 x 125. I think it used to be 85 x 125 before the forum changeover.