User talk:Regina Buenaobra/Archive Community and Website/Sept 2008

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Arenanet Blog?!

what happened to that? i know you where looking into it but has there been any update or desion to not do it?75.172.44.33 01:52, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately there are no updates. A decision on the blog depends on a lot of internal decisions about our overall web strategy for the next few years. --Regina Buenaobra 23:42, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Guildwars.com

OK, I give up. I've been searching for this page (or at least its content): http://www.guildwars.com/gallery/video/default.php for a while now. What happened to it? The search tool finds nothing on the non-wiki site for "cinematic" or "trailer" and tons of irrelevant results for "video." Are the old cinematic trailers no longer available on the website? --Nkuvu 14:10, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Added -- never mind. In two clicks I found the page on the European site. Although it would be nice to redesign the American site to be navigable, my question was answered. Carry on. --Nkuvu 14:21, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the gw.com site being kind of a pain to find stuff on; a while I ago I was looking for something lore-related and it was a whole lot of clicks, cries of frustration in my guild's irc channel and a minor headache later before I finally found what I was looking for :/. Simple, elegant, easy to navigate > flashy and bloated. --fraught · (talk) 14:24, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Well it also doesn't help that the American site renders very poorly on my web browsing machine (Firefox 3 on OS X). The European site works out fine, but background images obscure the foreground text on the American site. So that's at least a bit of the frustration. --Nkuvu 16:42, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Lol that's because the code is as fat as us Americans :DDDD Vael Victus 20:28, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

guild wars.com, main page is fine the other pages connected to that page are a mess.75.172.47.227 19:23, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Alternatively, you could use a ftp client to directly connect to ftp://ftp.guildwars.com/ and download the video file from the /movies/ directory there. This site also holds PDF files for the userguides etc. --BramStoker (talk, contribs) 19:53, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Not a bad suggestion, but if I'm trying to convince someone to start playing the game, I'd much rather point them to a web page as opposed to an FTP directory. And as I've said in other places, the cinematic trailer for Prophecies is what got me totally hooked -- it's an effective introduction to the storyline (even though I knew that the graphics in the trailer would far exceed actual gameplay). There's no reason at all the American website should be as complex as it is. --Nkuvu 22:39, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the website could be a little more user-friendly. Do you have any specific ideas for how we could do that? At the moment the web team is pretty tight on resources (and they're looking to hire), so I don't see an overhaul on the cards soon, but that doesn't mean that we can't collect some constructive feedback. And this would probably also be applicable to the GW2 website as well. --Regina Buenaobra 00:13, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I am not a web designer, so take all of my notes with a grain of salt. Or salt lick, whichever is appropriate.

If I was a new player, one of the first things I want to see about the game is how it looks. On the European site, there's a clear link to the gallery -- including images as well as movies. The European site also benefits from the fact that there's only one Flash object. I'm still baffled why the M.O.X. and Fire Imp image on the American site is loaded in Flash. It just bogs down the loading of the main page (yes, I'm on broadband, but Flash on the Mac is very slow -- the progress bar for the M.O.X. image takes about three to four seconds to fill, but on the Windows machine it's barely visible). Why isn't it a simple image with a link to the appropriate page? This also prevents the user from seeing where they're going to be going. Mouse over a normal link and see the address in the address bar. A Flash object could be a link, but where it goes is not obvious (when I hold the mouse over the image of Eve, Nika and the Unnamed Dervish, it's a link... where does it go? Only way to find out is to click).

There's also the "mystery meat" navigation on the primary Flash object -- I just found that I can highlight the boxes for the different chapters. And that was purely accidental. This isn't Myst, I shouldn't need to scrub the page with the mouse to find clickable objects. Also, I know the cover art for the boxes. But that Eye of the North box is tiny and partially obscured -- so if someone that doesn't know the cover art is trying to find the link to the Eye of the North page, I would say they're out of luck. Except maybe with blind clicking.

And on the product pages... look! The galleries I was trying to find this morning. That page I linked to above that's a 404 is merely missing the "products/guildwars" in the URL: http://www.guildwars.com/products/guildwars/gallery/video/default.php

Keep in mind that the Search tool couldn't find this page. If I search for "video," shouldn't the actual video pages be part of the results? I'm not sure why they aren't, don't know enough of the background (random off the cuff guess, no meta keywords for the Google appliance to pick up?). But if I search for gallery (searching only on Guildwars.com because the number of wiki results for "gallery" is huge), then click on the first result... then make a guess and trim off some of the URL so that it's just http://www.guildwars.com/products/factions/gallery/ -- then the search led me to the gallery page. Sort of.

To summarize my ravings: Less Flash (particularly for navigation, so you can see links), more obvious links to things like the different products (I didn't realize that the Products on the menu is a drop-down item for quite some time), and search results that actually correspond to search terms. Having the site work on a Mac would be delicious icing on the cake.

I apologize for the length of this, and hope that something in this mess of a post is somewhat useful. --Nkuvu 06:42, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

like i said before i think the main page is fine. i think its all the other pages that connect to the main page that are a problem. i agree that you should be able to click one link and see screen shots, and promo movies. the other thing i think needs to be added to the main page is a place were its one click to download the client, and get a trial key. i know you guys arent doing any promotions but i think that is a very important part of the game that people should be able to find very easy and i think more people would buy it if they could try a demo. other then that i think more senrgey with the wiki and the main site would be good. and i think once you reach the main page after that the only info you really need from there is facts about game, screen shots, video , a demo, lore, and more indeepth about the professes, also game updates and network stats but that is already there. my only other thought is that when i was a new player the most valuable resoce was and still is the wiki. and i think for the deeper stuff it should be directly linked to this wiki. this has a very nice organization system already in place and probably has more info then anet probably wanted to ever put out on the game. in response to nkuvu last time i checked guildwars isn't officially supported for macs sadly, so asking them to make the site "work" on a mac is something i don't think they will do unless they add mac support. 75.172.47.227 21:18, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

one other thing that poped into my mind is that the in game announcements should also include a link to the latest game updates here on the wiki.75.172.47.227 01:33, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if you'd consider it "intuitive" or not, but on the main www.guildwars.com page, selecting your favoured product from the Products drop-down menu on the bar across the top of the page, takes you to a page for that campaign. At the bottom of each of these pages are links to videos, cinematics (were available), wallpapers & screenshots. The Guild Wars page has the cinematic trailer for Prophecies. --BramStoker (talk, contribs) 09:57, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

In response to 75.172... I know you said you think the main page is fine. I disagree, and think it's the worst page of the whole site. But I've already given my reasons for finding it to be inadequate, so rather than just stating your opinion, could you point out the "strong" points of the main page? And in regards to the website working on a Mac, the European site works fine on my Mac. I see no reason the American site can't -- it just seems like inadequate coding on the part of the American web designer. Further, I first saw the web page on my Mac. I got interested in the game enough to bring my PC up to standards. In short, the cinematic was enough for me to upgrade my PC so I could play Guild Wars. If today I was in the same position, I wouldn't even bother upgrading the PC -- the site is so nonfunctional on the Mac that I wouldn't be able to find the cinematics anyway, and wouldn't have gotten interested in the game.

In response to BramStoker, no, I don't find the drop down very intuitive. I thought that was clear in my earlier post. --Nkuvu 18:24, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

the only difference between the euro site and the American site is that the American site is Flash where the Euro site is old style bread and butter. i see on the safari browser the bottom part of the page dost line up but the site works. so i don't see where your saying it dost work. also you have been playing since 2005 i don't see why you have a problem with how the site is now vers then. i will agree the nav bar on the eruo site is easier to use to find stuff. but what i don't like is that there are a zillion buttons on the euro site and the page requires me to scroll where on the American site i can just scroll over the headlines i want to look at. so i dont know what version of safari your using but the site works. it may not look fantastic but it works. lastly the cinematics have nothing to do with how the game actually plays. yes they look nice but it isnt the game. and i have never bought a game just because it has a shinny cinematic. and a good example of that and why i am glad i didn't buy the game was SupCom. and i think a lot of people would a agree that a good cinematic dost equal good game.75.172.47.227 21:11, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I never said Safari, actually. This is Firefox 3.0.1. For a good example of how the site is broken, take a look at this pic: http://img254.imageshack.us/my.php?image=guildwarscomay6.png As you can see, when I move the mouse over the menu items, they highlight. Otherwise, the background image is in front of the text. Here's another example -- even worse this time, since the text I enter is being obscured as I type (it's hard to demonstrate in a single image, but the text box fades out if I don't move the mouse): http://img136.imageshack.us/my.php?image=guildwarscomuz5.png As far as preference goes between Flash-y shiny pages and "old style bread and butter," I'll choose functional over flashy every time.

The whole point of cinematic trailers is to lure in new players. That's the only point of cinematics, actually. I know that I did buy the game based only on the cinematic, as I mentioned above. I was under no illusion that the game would look the same, but the story interested me (and more than three years later, it's obvious that the game still interests me). The website is advertising the game, these cinematics should be easy to find.

One thing I've also neglected to mention so far. Some of the gameplay information isn't even up to date. Consider the Storage page, for instance. There's even a note on the Vault Box page here: "(outdated with the release of Nightfall)". That's pretty sad, actually. Nightfall has been out for quite some time now, and the web page still has old information. There are other examples (I'm not going to list them all, but Spawning Power is incorrect on the website). So not only is the Flash broken on some web browsers, but the site is broken in that it's... wrong. --Nkuvu 14:01, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Nkuvu: I've read through your comprehensive critiques. I'll summarize them into bullet points and forward them on to the web team. Thanks for taking the time to provide feedback. --Regina Buenaobra 19:10, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the reply. I realize that some of this is personal preference, and some of it applies to a small minority of players, but hopefully something constructive can be gleaned from this. --Nkuvu 21:21, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

On a side note. The main www.guildwars.com site no longer seems to have a link to the european english site at eu.guildwars.com Sadie2k 17:35, 18 September 2008 (UTC)