Post your ideas/feedback for the Charas overhaul

[DragonBlaze]

Hey Charas. As many of you have noticed, Charas has died down and lost it's mojo over the past many years. Rm2k/3 is 10 years old now, and replaced by new makers or simply by user friendly game engines such as XNA. If we want our site to thrive again, we need to update not only the look and feel, but the overall site as well. Instead of just supporting a 10 year old maker, let's offer tools, graphics, and advice for current game developers.

It looks like the powers that be (admins) will allow me to redesign and code up a new charas. This thread is meant to be a brainstorm of what we want the new charas to look like and what features we would like to add. I have a career designing enterprise websites, plus lots of experience with HTML5, CSS3, and webGL, so chances are, if you guys have an awesome idea, we can bring it to life (IE7 and below are exempt, those browsers are evil).

I'll pose my proposed ideas in this post, and I will also try to add all of your ideas (New things to add, Things to change, and things we need to remain the same) to this post as well, so we can easily see everyone's ideas.

-Last updated March 22nd, 1:00pm PST

New Things to Add:

- Support for new makers, as well as for games coded in real languages such as xbox games coded in XNA, flash games, Java games, etc. To support these other makers/engines, we need to add sections to our resources and generators to support more makers as well as custom formats/sizes/etc. Changes to the makers will take a bit of time, but image processing to allow for these extra operations is doable. We can simply start with added sections for graphics and content for other makers/engines.

- Community driven tutorials/support/guides. Wouldn't it be cool if we had an organized and searchable section for tutorials and guides for game development? Let's build a community that will support game makers to help produce the next great indie games.

- Individual Game/Project section on the main site: Wouldn't it be great if we each could create our own page for the games we're developing (in any maker)? This could be in a new section on the hope page called "Community Games". Any registered user could create, update, or delete a page for their game. One the page, their would be separate tabs  for Overview, Characters, Screen Shots, Downloads, and possibly a few more. You could also link this page to a forum thread for discussion as well as have an area to request/offer help for the project. These games could be searched through based on popularity (up/down votes), name, maker, user, date, etc.

- Have some sort of layout skin selector that includes "Classic Charas" as an option, for those of us who are still in love with the ol' blue-on-blue.

-Some advanced user information stuff, like an online/offline indicator next to the user's posts, a friends zone thing to have private group discussions or whatever, and perhaps some kind of system for showing experienced users/friendly folks/sarcastic smartasses/etc. for the less active users to know who to go to for what? If possible, that last part would be something you could vote towards non-staff user badges on their profile page. Enough people think you're the bomb? "The Bomb" badge is now active.

- Main boards for a main branch of game development. A main board for PROGRAMMING (with the above suggested subboards), for ART (Pixel, 3D Modelling, music, sound etc) and perhaps even a board for DESIGN (level, character and world design, how stuff relates to each other as well as story and setting).

- Example projects, this can be part of the tutorial section mentioned before. Deliver the source code so that people can look into it because that really makes people learn new stuff.

- Contests, I always liked the idea of contests and they're a good way to get a community to work.

- Team Projects. I mean, get a team together here and make a game.

- I'd say go as far as make it not a RPG Maker forum with game development on the side, but a Game Developer forum with boards for the major game development environments including and not limited to XNA, Unity, AS3, MonoGame, GameMaker and of coure RPGMaker.


Things to Change:

- The layout/theme: I've been hanging out with my company's experience design folks for too long. Lets be honest, this is the classic chars look, but it is really outdated. We need a refresh of the theme while at the same time keeping true to the good old charas charm. If anyone has ideas for what the theme should look like, feel free to come up with some sort of moch up (image or something else), and I'll be able to code it up. I'll be able to come up with new themes on my own, but I bet the community can come up with something even better

- Profile Options (specifically avatars): Charas probably has the strictest avatars when it comes to size and file type. Let's make this, and a few other things, more user friendly.

- Anything related to game making on the forums (or the site as a whole, why not?) should be divided up based on the program the game is developed with (seems obvious enough, right?).

-A really small thing, but please do something about the broken rank images.



Things to Remove:

- Can we please do something (anything!) about the flood of birthdays? I'm at the point where I'd vote a removal of the birthday tracker entirely based on how crazy it is. / Also, we should probably remove the birthday board, it was big in the past to write birthday threads but we're not using it.

- Those goddamn verifications, do we really need 7? Just do one re-captcha, not the annoying one now but the readable ones. Or hell, add a slider you have to slide from left to right, that keeps the bots out.



General Feedback:

- People are very fond of the classic charas look



BTW: Once we complete the overhaul, or at least make significant changes, I plan to advertise charas on Google and Facebook. Advertising is surprisingly cheap and effective if done right. So we should hopefully see a new flow of members when it's all done.

[Archem]

First thing: Have some sort of layout skin selector that includes "Classic Charas" as an option, for those of us who are still in love with the ol' blue-on-blue.

Second thing: Anything related to game making on the forums (or the site as a whole, why not?) should be divided up based on the program the game is developed with (seems obvious enough, right?).

Third thing: Can we please do something (anything!) about the flood of birthdays? I'm at the point where I'd vote a removal of the birthday tracker entirely based on how crazy it is.

Fourth thing: Some advanced user information stuff, like an online/offline indicator next to the user's posts, a friends zone thing to have private group discussions or whatever, and perhaps some kind of system for showing experienced users/friendly folks/sarcastic smartasses/etc. for the less active users to know who to go to for what? If possible, that last part would be something you could vote towards non-staff user badges on their profile page. Enough people think you're the bomb? "The Bomb" badge is now active.

[Prpl_Mage]

New Things to Add:
- Support for new makers, as well as for games coded in real languages such as xbox games coded in XNA, flash games, Java games, etc. To support these other makers/engines, we need to add sections to our resources and generators to support more makers as well as custom formats/sizes/etc. Changes to the makers will take a bit of time, but image processing to allow for these extra operations is doable. We can simply start with added sections for graphics and content for other makers/engines.

If anyone knows how to accomplish this, I'm on.

- Community driven tutorials/support/guides. Wouldn't it be cool if we had an organized and searchable section for tutorials and guides for game development? Let's build a community that will support game makers to help produce the next great indie games.

Should be divide them into tutorial, support and guides or just mash it all together? I'm thinking that tutorials are pretty straightforward, explaining in detail how to achieve this feature by following it. Support to be more general advice like Sai's "things not to do in boss battles" and that thing about character creation. While guides are more... I donno, the same thing as a tutorial I guess. The one thing I would be looking for when it comes to tutorials would be "How to make RPGM VX/Ace look like RPGM2k3 in graphic and battle style"

- Individual Game/Project section on the main site: Wouldn't it be great if we each could create our own page for the games we're developing (in any maker)? This could be in a new section on the hope page called "Community Games". Any registered user could create, update, or delete a page for their game. One the page, their would be separate tabs  for Overview, Characters, Screen Shots, Downloads, and possibly a few more. You could also link this page to a forum thread for discussion as well as have an area to request/offer help for the project. These games could be searched through based on popularity (up/down votes), name, maker, user, date, etc.

Sounds like a good idea, would it be possible for the forum to link to a random "page" from that section or swap around every day/week? That would be kinda cool

Things to Change:
- The layout/theme: I've been hanging out with my company's experience design folks for too long. Lets be honest, this is the classic chars look, but it is really outdated. We need a refresh of the theme while at the same time keeping true to the good old charas charm. If anyone has ideas for what the theme should look like, feel free to come up with some sort of moch up (image or something else), and I'll be able to code it up. I'll be able to come up with new themes on my own, but I bet the community can come up with something even better

I will always love the classic look, reminds me of a game. Like a NES game or a codec conversation.
Suggestions for another layout.... I'm thinking blue, black and white, perhaps black text, mostly blue background white details. Add some neat looking borders.
Or maybe make it all retro with dramatized pixels at some borders and just go for a really neat old school look.

- Profile Options (specifically avatars): Charas probably has the strictest avatars when it comes to size and file type. Let's make this, and a few other things, more user friendly.

We still have those restriction? I thought they were lost some time back, have a slight memory of telling some newbie to remove or change the avatar.

[Momeka]

A really small thing, but please do something about the broken rank images.

Second thing: Anything related to game making on the forums (or the site as a whole, why not?) should be divided up based on the program the game is developed with (seems obvious enough, right?).

Or just have one project board and we won't have to have a shitload of sub-boards bloating everything. For me at least I'm more interested in the game than what it's being made in.

[Prpl_Mage]

A really small thing, but please do something about the broken rank images.

What broken rank images?

Also, we should probably remove the birthday board, it was big in the past to write birthday threads but we're not using it.

[Momeka]

What broken rank images?

These, or at least I'm assuming it's an image of your rank. Whatever it's suppose to be it's broken though.

Edit: They apparently don't show up in firefox. I'm using chrome.

[Prpl_Mage]

Edit: They apparently don't show up in firefox. I'm using chrome.

That's why I never noticed it then. Using FF

[DragonBlaze]

The list of changes has been updated in first post.

If anyone knows how to accomplish this, I'm on.

I can make the changes to the generators, though that will be one of the more time consuming projects, so it will most likely be in the later stages of the overhaul.

Should be divide them into tutorial, support and guides or just mash it all together? I'm thinking that tutorials are pretty straightforward, explaining in detail how to achieve this feature by following it. Support to be more general advice like Sai's "things not to do in boss battles" and that thing about character creation. While guides are more... I donno, the same thing as a tutorial I guess. The one thing I would be looking for when it comes to tutorials would be "How to make RPGM VX/Ace look like RPGM2k3 in graphic and battle style"

We can play around with the idea, most likely we wouldn't have 3 separate sections for these, support will most likely just be a section in the forums. When I think of tutorials, I think of how-to instructions such as "how to create a custom battle system", when I think of guides, I think of advice instructions such as "Things not to do in boss battles". We could name the sections whatever we want though, and we could separate tutorials and guides if people feel it would be best. 

Sounds like a good idea, would it be possible for the forum to link to a random "page" from that section or swap around every day/week? That would be kinda cool

Great idea! (and yes, it is possible)

We still have those restriction? I thought they were lost some time back, have a slight memory of telling some newbie to remove or change the avatar.

I was having trouble selecting any avatar besides this old one lol, so that's why I brought it up.


When it comes to different sections for different makers and such, I feel that we should separate them, but not a new section for every maker. For example, we could put all rpg maker games in one section, all other makers in another section, and all coded games in a third section, or something along those lines.

It appears that everyone really likes the current charas layout, so I'll have an option to select the classic theme. For a second, new theme, I feel that we need to have a clear separation of posts from other posts, posts from background, and in general just make sure sections are easily distinguishable. It is usually best practice to have either a light theme for the background, or have a dark background with a light themed content boxes. I'll tinker around with charas css style on my local browser to try to make some of these changes, and post screenshots of the results.

[Prpl_Mage]

The old layout was a bit more efficient since every other post came in a different shade of blue. The one used for all posts is the darker version, there used to be a lighter that came inbetween, so there was a clear distinction when a post ended.

I suppose I'm just nostalgic about the colours. If it would be possible to create the same kind of feel with less eyehurt it would probably do wonders.

[drenrin2120]

ill read the whole first post later, on the subject of formatting, i still feel that at most the old layout should be an option. if not possible we need to embrace a newer better format.

[Fisherson]

- The layout/theme: I've been hanging out with my company's experience design folks for too long. Lets be honest, this is the classic chars look, but it is really outdated. We need a refresh of the theme while at the same time keeping true to the good old charas charm.

I must admit I have been confused several times. I keep thinking a posters post was their signiture or vice verse when they get really piled up. ^^; Though keeping that in mind....If any of you even so much as a look the wrong way at that banner I'll destroy you completely. >-< It's the first, as far as I know, banner to have me on it. I'd love to find out who did it and thank them personally. I mean it surprised the heck out of me when I got back. o.o

[Prpl_Mage]

I'd love to find out who did it and thank them personally.

Ed

[DragonBlaze]

I must admit I have been confused several times. I keep thinking a posters post was their signiture or vice verse when they get really piled up. ^^; Though keeping that in mind....If any of you even so much as a look the wrong way at that banner I'll destroy you completely. >-< It's the first, as far as I know, banner to have me on it. I'd love to find out who did it and thank them personally. I mean it surprised the heck out of me when I got back. o.o

What if we create a new banner with you in it as well? Ideally we'd have a not-so-tiny banner lol

[A Forgotten Legend]

Cool.  I would say more but I'm more interested to see what everyone else is thinking.

[DragonBlaze]

Cool.  I would say more but I'm more interested to see what everyone else is thinking.

That's not the idea of a brainstorm!