Keep it live
 

Is there any chance of the old site layout coming back? I don't mean the previous green one that primarily promoted Kingdoms, but the one where server admins could post about updates they're making to their respective servers. It was really nice to see news articles being posted by the people working on the game itself.

So I'm wondering, can anything be integrated from the wiki, from the forums, or from any other frequently-updated source? The website seems very detached from the development of the game and its servers, and it would be great to get the look and feel of the old site back. The wiki and forums are nice, but they feel so very third-party right now when you visit the website. You actually have to go through several sets of pages just to access them now. Immediate live feeds of everything going on would be awesome, and I could definitely see it getting done, if the site page weren't making an over-the-top commercialization attempt. No offense. I know there's potential for abuse, but if blogging and the wiki can be moderated just like the forums, little harm could come from enabling users to share their updates right on the front page.

Anyway, it's just a suggestion. I know it takes a lot more work than I give it credit for, but it would definitely give new users an immediate glimpse behind the scenes of how the game works.

The old website was sexy, I don't know why they threw it away.

I liked the old website better myself. Graal is green, not blue.

I agree.

Actually, graal is blue, yellow, green, black, red, white, purple, MOSTLY green.

For anyone coming into this thread clueless, I'm talking about this stuff:

Slightly Busted Version
Updated Version


As you can see, Articles were posted fairly often and included little updates so we all knew what was going on. I could see this coming back into use again if the Projects section could somehow be re-integrated into the old site layout. The current layout is very disjointed, and contains very few tools for new users to become familiar with. (Like the guild control panel, which is now buried fast away under a big splash screen and through a sidebar menu.)

Anyway, I'd like to get more opinions on it.

I don't understand what you mean. People post their server news on the Wiki here, which is published on both the Graal Client and the website in their appropriate sections, such as here. I think that is what you're requesting, unless it's something else and I'm just misinterpreting your posts. There is a whole warehouse full of website issues though, so I posting news on it currently isn't ideal, but it's an option I guess.

That's sort of what I mean, yes. However, there's no place to go for a centralized news source. And there's also a lack of insight on what's going on with playerworlds that are in development. It would be nice to have all the news entries listed on one page instead of four. An RSS feed could even be integrated so users are alerted to changes when they happen. A single unified site would be ideal, and may eliminate some of the clutter the site's navigation has now.

Man, I really miss the old layout.
:frown:

Old site was definitely better... So much easier to navigate.

Yes, I prefer the older site version too.

Definitely.

Same. The graal site from 2003 is the best version of the website of all of them.

I didn't like the old one. I dunno where the idea came from that it promoted anything other than Kingdoms Exclusively, or that the news was updated more often than twice a year...
I'd still like the real website to be Community Neutral. I went there to redownload a month ago, and it was like wtf, where's Classic? My options are Poker, 3D, Kingdoms or Zone? There isn't even an Other tab!

The idea was for it to be the Engine's Website, and link (and leech) like mad to(/from) everyone else's site. graal.com->Maloria->Register an account! (credits the Maloria ledger)...not to advertise every other Cyberjoeuers product and remove everything else...

Now if we're talking have a pooled ticker on it (or, I guess, on the Zone/2D tab now), I'm all up ons.
NEWS:
*Maloria: Updated hats!
*Bomboria: Now with nukes!

I am thinking Graal needs some guy to keep working on and improving the website constantly, instead of updating it once every few years when Unixmad runs into a graphic designer with too much spare time.

I perceive that the problem is that he's tried getting webmasters - they don't have Enough to do to keep themselves busy 40 hours a week, so they wander off (or get fired for not doing anything?)
Maybe we need a webmaster that does other websites? A part time webmaster? A one-day-a-week webmaster?

Yo.

Case in point, let's ask an expert -
if you got tapped to do weekly news updates on the main site, could you do it?
Particularly without completely deleting the previous webmaster's work first? ;-D
Could you keep yourself exactly busy enough that the weekly update isn't either "too much to handle right now" or "not worth getting out of bed for"?

I mean hell, I can sling HTML, but it's not pretty...

The wiki news gets updated fairly often. It's really easy to integrate that part of the wiki with the site.

Before that happens though, I agree that the site layout would have to change...

I think they mean literally updating the website with new features and such.