Post your ideas/feedback for the Charas overhaul

[Grandy]

My (very late) 2 cents

First thing; we must support more than just RPG Maker. JRPGs simply lost popularity in the last few years, and especially 2D ones. I think Charas could get more people if we became a game-making forum in general.


Secondly, we are far too self-centered. It was okay in the past because we already had a huge userbase, but that is not teh case anymore. Look up to our banner, what you see? The banner countins charasets and facesets of our own characters, and worse, of people that do not even fequent anymore. It is sintomatic of a problem we have; we focus too much into being Charas, instead of focusing on what charas should be. As a userbase, we balieve *we* should be Charas, and that is why *we* are on the banner. It is offputting for newcomers, because we seem like a closed group. You'll also notice that a good chunk of signatures, etc, are just in-jokes that newcomers wouldn't get.

The layout, as people said, is really outdated I think we could keep the blue, just not *this* blue. I personally believe that a sky-blue theme would fit. Or maybe it would be too bland, just as this current blue is too bland. I see other backgrounds, for example the minecraft forums;  and you may notice that it is not bland not just because there are different details like the sky on the top and lava on the bottom, but also because instead of being just one tone of grey, it has small variations. Same for http://thatguywiththeglasses.com; even though most of the background *seems* monotonic, there is some shading going around. Same for the steam user forums http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=80, where you can see it starts lighter and goes darker. Charas however is monotonic to the core; there is literaly just one shade of blue all over it, without variations at all.


I also think that visually, we would benefit more for a faux-retro theme, since that is what is associated with indie gaming (and thus with game-making in general). We don't need to go full 8-bit for everything, though, but, you know, have it there somewhere. Perhaps change the bland paper files

Also, notiuce how most of the smileys on the top are not only generic, but also have white adges around them? That just screams anti-professionalism. Same for that black line cutting the charaset on the opening of the page.

The forum layout of our forums is also VERY user-unfriendly; there are many instances of black text on dark background, and I myself always get confused wether the "next" buttom means "next topic" or "next page of this topic", or wether the "quote" buttom is for quoting the person below it or above it, or where the posts end and the signatures begin.

We also could use some actual buttoms that lead to the generators, instead of just text. They were, after all, the reason the forum was created.

Speaking of the generators, know what needs some MASSIVE overhaul? Them.

Look at this;

http://charas-project.net/charas2/index.php

LOOK AT IT


Do you see the question marks animated gifs? Do you SEE that gif? That sort of gif just tells you "I am a website created in the 90s and am stuck in the 90s"

Even if we do not update the generators themselves (which we really should, btw), we should at the very least change their layout.



Now, how can we make all of this better, I really don't know. I have a few friends that are design students, and I can ask them their opinion on it.

[DragonBlaze]

You make a lot of good points Grandy.

The layout, as people said, is really outdated I think we could keep the blue, just not *this* blue. I personally believe that a sky-blue theme would fit. Or maybe it would be too bland, just as this current blue is too bland. I see other backgrounds, for example the minecraft forums;  and you may notice that it is not bland not just because there are different details like the sky on the top and lava on the bottom, but also because instead of being just one tone of grey, it has small variations. Same for http://thatguywiththeglasses.com; even though most of the background *seems* monotonic, there is some shading going around. Same for the steam user forums http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=80, where you can see it starts lighter and goes darker. Charas however is monotonic to the core; there is literaly just one shade of blue all over it, without variations at all.

The layout I'm currently working on still uses the charas dark blue as a background, but instead of using a solid color, I'm designing a graphic-y background image to display. The background image is static and won't scroll with the rest of the page. The actual bulk of content on the page is displayed on semi-transparent white panels. The panel headers, page header, and other items use a similar blue to what we have now, but with a more metallic modern feel. I saw a site that did something a layout like this an it look really slick, I cannot remember which site it was though... Point is that I'm trying to keep the charas feel, but with a user-friendly, sleek, and modern feel.

[Meiscool]

^sounds good to me^

[Razor]

Grandy's right, the banners should just be pictures of me

[Grandy]

Razor's right

[Momeka]

The layout I'm currently working on still uses the charas dark blue as a background, but instead of using a solid color, I'm designing a graphic-y background image to display. The background image is static and won't scroll with the rest of the page. The actual bulk of content on the page is displayed on semi-transparent white panels. The panel headers, page header, and other items use a similar blue to what we have now, but with a more metallic modern feel. I saw a site that did something a layout like this an it look really slick, I cannot remember which site it was though... Point is that I'm trying to keep the charas feel, but with a user-friendly, sleek, and modern feel.

That sounds awesome.

[fruckert]

dees guy made me realize that it's impossible to navigate to the Charas home page from the forums.
That's kinda stupid.

[Moosetroop11]

We didn't get members back in the day by being nice to them. Quite the contrary: When I joined, everyone was a dick to me and I thought "if I can rise up through the ranks so they like me, that'd be awesome!"  Trouble is we don't have the right sort of  authoratative dicks. At the time it was people like Darkfox, Ghostclown and Carmen.

[Archem]

I can be authoritative!

I mean, I'm too busy being more the lenient father figure who lets the kids eat ice cream for dinner and stay up way past their bed times, but I can totally put my foot down!

[Moosetroop11]

I'll do it.

Next new member won't get eaten. They'll get "YOU'RE NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR CHARAASSSSS! *shakes head so cheeks wobble uncontrollably and spit flies everywhere*

[DragonBlaze]

I'll do it.

Next new member won't get eaten. They'll get "YOU'RE NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR CHARAASSSSS! *shakes head so cheeks wobble uncontrollably and spit flies everywhere*

Posts like this make me wish Charas had a "like" feature...

[Cerebus]

We didn't get members back in the day by being nice to them. Quite the contrary: When I joined, everyone was a dick to me and I thought "if I can rise up through the ranks so they like me, that'd be awesome!"  Trouble is we don't have the right sort of  authoratative dicks. At the time it was people like Darkfox, Ghostclown and Carmen.

But we could take it. Can today's youth do?

I could be your authoritative dick. I remember back in the day when drama occurred with staff strictness and such, I seemed to be one of the few who thought staff weren't really strict, and one of the very few who didn't dislike carmen and Ghostclown's strictness.
Many people also disapproved my point of view on post deleting and stuff, since they thought it wasn't a necessary measure and blah blah.
But then again... Back then, we did have a good amount of members and stuff, so more modship was needed. Now, was I to be the fascist mod and stuff, I wouldn't have much of an impact wand would just be ignored, especially considering everyone but me is already a mod...

I miss coloured names, too...

[SaiKar]

We didn't get members back in the day by being nice to them. Quite the contrary: When I joined, everyone was a dick to me and I thought "if I can rise up through the ranks so they like me, that'd be awesome!"  Trouble is we don't have the right sort of  authoratative dicks. At the time it was people like Darkfox, Ghostclown and Carmen.

Considering the near constant stream of people near-begging me to remove Carmen and Ghostclown, I'm not sure your trial by fire stance was very widespread among the user base at the time.

[Alex]

Sorry for jumping in so late, I had been faaaaaar away from home for a couple weeks.
Really I have not much to add now. But surely I have to pay full support to this thread, some posts really reminds the goold old days!

For the time being, the only thing I can do is to keep the hosting up and running. We already have a decent hosting plan which should guarantee some server-power.
Considering our current traffic and ranking, the banners we have around the site are now fully paying for it. But if some extra traffic will start coming in, in future we could reduce banner's presence with no problems, or increase to a more powerful machine if needed.

About updates, a thing I miss here is some kinf of color alternation on forum posts: the username on the left is really the only thing to determine a new post begins, but it's visually so hard to distinguish top post's signature from next post's beginning.
I general I'd say I agree 98% with Grandy's post above.

I agree Generators (and not only) require a full recode, but still I would keep the current ones live somewhere.
Not about being selfish (talking as a Charasian, not as the developer), but remember what the internet world looked like when Charas was released to the big audience (2002/2003).
No Google Maps, no YouTube, almost no dynamic websites at all... by that time this thing was OVER THE TOP for its technology and, evenif far less crowded than in past, I'd say this is the only website that survived mostly "as is" for more than 10 years. Talking Internet, that's an eternity.
So I think that while new things and changes are planned, we should really consider building a sort of "Virtual Museum" to remind it all.
Our History was more than unique, and it's a perfect example to (hopefully?) show new youthies what being passionate and creative means.

All from me for now. My time now is extremely low, but let me know if there's anything I can do to help whenever something will start to move seriously.

All the best!

[HackersTotalMassLaser]

Not about being selfish (talking as a Charasian, not as the developer), but remember what the internet world looked like when Charas was released to the big audience (2002/2003).
No Google Maps, no YouTube, almost no dynamic websites at all... by that time this thing was OVER THE TOP for its technology and, evenif far less crowded than in past, I'd say this is the only website that survived mostly "as is" for more than 10 years. Talking Internet, that's an eternity.

The truest truth ever posted. And i just realized it. Man Im old. Its true though. This place has come a long way.

"Just" fix how everything looks.  Everything else falls into place.