New Design

Peace Alliance · February 11, 2012, 11:03:53 PM

oh, lol. It's just there until I make an icon for it. Something that feels like a heart though.

Do we have redwally colours?

Holby · February 11, 2012, 11:07:06 PM

Quote from: Peace Alliance on February 11, 2012, 11:03:53 PM
oh, lol. It's just there until I make an icon for it. Something that feels like a heart though.

Do we have redwally colours?

Well, no. But we've always had dark themes, which I think has been fine because we're running vermin hordes.

Adding colour is nice, but the combination of blue and orange doesn't have a vermin or Redwallian feel to it at all. I'm sure from a neutral design point, they're fine.

Peace Alliance · February 11, 2012, 11:18:14 PM

Yeah, I know what you mean.

I want something that sticks in peoples head after/if they leave the page. A gray-scale dark theme as I've done in the past doesn't really stand out from the pack.

I'm trying to keep the whole thing light though. We aren't really going for a serious look like you would on the skyrim or diablo III design. We could do that... but we couldn't pull it off. It's kind of like when you go watch the new trailors for world of warcraft expansions and you're like... wow, it sounds so epic but the graphics look like cartoons.

Firetooth · February 12, 2012, 11:21:53 AM

I actually really like it, though I agree with Holby-why the heart? I think the colors are perhaps not hugely vermin themed, but I do think they make the theme stand out more and be more memorable.

The redwall-themed server names are also a nice touch.

Shadow · February 12, 2012, 11:38:40 AM

I mentioned to you before that if you design the thing to be color independent and then allow people to choose primary and secondary colors of their layout, all the problem go away. Is that hard to do? ie, keep the same layout and design, but allow people to choose their color theme.

In my head it is as simple as defining a color variable which takes user input and just using that instead of actually picking a color, but I don't know how that sort of thing translates into web design.

Sharptooh · February 12, 2012, 12:37:04 PM

Quote from: Shadow on February 12, 2012, 11:38:40 AM
I mentioned to you before that if you design the thing to be color independent and then allow people to choose primary and secondary colors of their layout, all the problem go away. Is that hard to do? ie, keep the same layout and design, but allow people to choose their color theme.

I think that's relatively easy to do, there are a few ways I could think of doing that.

As for the design, looks pretty good to me :) I think going for memorable colours over a "professional vermin theme" is the way to go, I like dark themes personally but there's only so much grey/black a guy can take! Besides this is meant to be a game targeted at a young audience, playful memorable colours will probably endear them more to the game than a grey-scale pallet.

One quick thing though, I've noticed for the index there are no links to the forums, or a contact page, or game guide (besides the various other pages that the current index links to) is this just a small oversight, or do you not plan to include this multitude of links in the new design?

Peace Alliance · February 12, 2012, 01:14:03 PM

Oh right, ya the logged in index will have the global header, I forgot to add that in. There will be 1 header on the top of every page (you can see basically what it will look like on the in-game thing) that will have the links for all the global stuff, like each server, forums, gg, etc. From watching how people travel from page to page I have noticed that a lot of people go from forum, to the index, to login to the game. That could just be 1 step by pressing a "Loamhedge" link at the top.

As for the custom colours, it wouldn't be too hard and I don't mind doing it for the in-game. It wouldn't really be all that necessary for the index's because they are just portals nobody is gonna sit there all day so they can get over it, lol.

Main problem for that is that I would have to create a php file that does all the colours for every element... That would be kind of annoying, because right now you have to realize that the same colour is used in like 500 different locations throughout the CSS file.

Sharptooh · February 12, 2012, 01:31:07 PM

Quote from: Peace Alliance on February 12, 2012, 01:14:03 PM
Main problem for that is that I would have to create a php file that does all the colours for every element... That would be kind of annoying, because right now you have to realize that the same colour is used in like 500 different locations throughout the CSS file.

pppssst, find and replace ;)

Also, the log in page seems to allude to global accounts, is that something we can expect soon? Or were you just wishing for it when you did the design?

Peace Alliance · February 12, 2012, 01:37:05 PM

You cant do it with search and replace because then every player would have their own version of the css, and you wouldn't be able to make global changes. It would make using css rather pointless, heh.

Global abbounts: yes.

Durza · February 12, 2012, 01:41:32 PM

regardless what it takes the new layout is brilliant. Keep up the good work Peace.

Sharptooh · February 12, 2012, 01:54:09 PM

Quote from: Peace Alliance on February 12, 2012, 01:37:05 PM
You cant do it with search and replace because then every player would have their own version of the css, and you wouldn't be able to make global changes. It would make using css rather pointless, heh.

I meant find and replace using a text editor for the CSS file, so instead of #000 you have $user_color or some such like

assign the user defined colour to $user_color before you load the CSS file obviously, and you'd have to set it to a default value if the user hadn't set a value themselves.

Quote from: Peace Alliance on February 12, 2012, 01:37:05 PM
Global abbounts: yes.

So global accounts are definitely coming !?

Peace Alliance · February 12, 2012, 03:23:11 PM

Ya but then the entire css has to be done in PHP, which is fine I guess... I'll think about it.

And ya, Windy has global logins working. It looks like once I move us away from bluehost (yuck) that we'll be able to get it working.

Sharptooh · February 12, 2012, 03:36:24 PM

Quote from: Peace Alliance on February 12, 2012, 03:23:11 PM
And ya, Windy has global logins working. It looks like once I move us away from bluehost (yuck) that we'll be able to get it working.

Awesome!!!!!

Rakefur · February 12, 2012, 04:28:30 PM

What exactly is a global account?

I like the way you don't have to login and stuff.

Firetooth · February 12, 2012, 04:41:31 PM

If I remember right, you have one login, and you can use that to create account for turbo and reg. It keeps track of your results, and -I think- also gives you access to the forums.

I'm basing this off Valhall's global accounts...which disturbingly enough seems to no longer exist. Sadface.