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Spispopd

A personal appraisal of the new forum looks

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I noticed all the divisive comments over on the thread announcing the forum upgrade, and reading through that got me thinking about my own feelings on the change. Since I had a bit more to say than simply whether I loved or hated it, and since I didn't want my thoughts buried on page 6, I decided to put some of my thoughts here where they can be shoved in everyone's faces.

The first thing I want to comment on is the new colors for the menu bar. Wow, did you ever hit the nail on the head. You said you wanted to make the forums more inviting, and the deep, rich red color does just that. While I will miss the old deep blue, the warm overtones are a good place to be. The green color of the highlighted tab and the gold text fit together very nicely; It's difficult to get reds and greens to work well together without ###### the eyes, but you've done a good job at doing so. It looks like a few of the highlights need to be resized or something (they appear to get cut off at the bottom), but that's a trivial matter.

I agree with many of the people who have been saying that the background is a bit too bright. I personally preferred the light text on a dark background, but I've done some reading on the matter and there seems to be no agreement as to which setup (light on dark versus dark on light) causes less eye strain. That said, from an aesthetic perspective, I think a darker, slightly more saturated tone would contrast much less with the dark borders. I really like how we still have the picture of the Wurm landscape baked into the background.

I think my biggest point of contention is the new forum banner. Specifically, it doesn't feel very professional. The idea of using in-world props is one that I think could work, but the current layout of those props really doesn't do it for me.  It's very easy to tell what things were cut and pasted and where the shadows were brushed on. The whole thing is also very low contrast, making it hard to see the details of the table set, and very low scale, making the pans on the wall disappear into the texture of the cobblestone. If I were to give an opinion, I'd say zoom way in on the scene. Instead of trying to make it look like the room of a building, make it look like a closeup of the clutter that accrues around the walls of the buildings in Wurm. Have barrels poking up over the bottom of the banner, with their top third or so showing. Have those frying pans hanging on the wall, but on a much larger scale so we can see what they are. Make the forge face outward (an angled large object on a flat background will always look a bit weird) and scale the door up accordingly. I'd say lose the troll altogether; having an animate object in a still life feels odd, especially when it's in a posture that suggests activity. I also think the overall tone of the top banner should be darker and higher contrast to fit well with the new borders.

The new Wurm logo is interesting. I don't personally like it, but I'm not going to say anything against it, because I'm not sure if I'm just being nostalgic for what I'm used to. It's very easy to instantly hate something just because it's different.

[EDIT] I completely forgot to mention the new font on the main board. It's nice. Kind of bold, which makes it easier to read. Thumbs up.

Don't take this post to mean I am unappreciative of what we've been given. It takes a ton of work to make new skins like this (I know, I used to design them myself), and my nitpicky problems with it are very minor compared to the overall direction I see it going in. I didn't think I'd like a warm theme versus the cool, nighttime skin we're all accustomed to, but this thing has decent potential. I'm also appreciative of the invisible backend stuff that you've done to make the site run more smoothly. Smooth is always a positive thing. This is merely my take on the new look, both the good and the bad. Thanks for all the awesome work.

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Your post has been removed for Trolling.

Continued failure to abide by the forum rules could result in your account being banned.

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I don't really think it was necessary to create a 4th thread on the same topic, just because you want maximum attention for your opinion.

This is a forum, not a chat room  ::)

I wouldn't have read it if he hadn't. Is it really that much of a problem to you that he did start a new thread? If so, why?

I think this was a nice critique.

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I don't really think it was necessary to create a 4th thread on the same topic, just because you want maximum attention for your opinion.

This is a forum, not a chat room  ::)

I'm sorry for the undoubtedly unbearable pain an extra thread title on the forum must have caused you, sir.

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tl;dr

Why do you bother posting then?

Anyway, on topic, I can agree with you on most all your points Spispopd. Though like you, I know I just have a tendency to dislike it because it changed after so long, sure I'll like it more with time. My only real complain is the bit of a lack of contrast, make it's more difficult to read certain things.

But overall great upgrade, I love it.  ;)

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I don't like having the red borders stuck there all of the time, its screen space that is being wasted on things I don't need right in front of me.  I'd rather it scroll with the rest of the page.

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Kudos to Spisp, it's refreshing to hear such a reasonable review of something on the internet. All too often typing our thoughts into text lands up sounding very harsh and polarized. That and it's hard to remember to be constructive in our criticism.

I think it's a great improvement, but can still benefit from work (and you covered most of my irks with it). It's definitely growing on me though. :D

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When I first saw the new forums I was jarred because I wasn't expecting it and took an immediate dislike to it.  I like your response to this. I rarely post on the forums but thought I would give a thumbs up for your efforts.  You helped me ease in the new forums with this critique. I agree its the brightness of the background that bothers me. We have poor lighting in our office and no way to fix that so it burns my eyes if I'm here too long.  Ultimately I've decided I like having the red bar follow me cause I use it to go to Wurm proper, which is normally my next destination after sailing through here for a bit.

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My biggest issue is that the top and bottom bars are always visible. On a widescreen display, especially a smaller laptop display, this leaves very little vertical room for the forum itself and makes it feel cramped.

I feel like I'm using someone else's computer and they have 6 different IE toolbars installed.

I also agree about the top banner. I know it was probably a lot of work but it looks a bit amateurish, the main logo image on the front page of the wurm site looks much nicer:

wurmonline_banner.jpg

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I love the new colour scheme and overall layout. It's always offputting to come face to face with sudden and drastic change, so I can understand why there are so many players disliking it. Overall, it looks much more professional and less geeky than the old layout. My only points on contention are:

1. The stripe effect on the background behind the text you are trying to read is a little strong and distracting.

2. The bottom T&C bar.. is it necessary to have that always fixed there? The links provided in that bar are already contained within the fixed red bar at the top anyway. (wiki, irc, blog etc)

3. Forum navigation (post put in Suggestions forum) - a lack of 'prev' and 'next' on the index pages by the page numbers, and awkwardly positioned 'prev' and 'next' in the thread page itself.

4. Title banner image.. Don't really like the contrast or cut and paste feel to it. Makes an interesting change to see an indoor style view.. kind of fits the forums in that sense.. sitting around inside with time to kill instead of being outdoors repairing and farming. Overall just looks a bit too cheaply thrown together - with mismatched shadows and so on. Not sure the troll really fits in either (except from a graphical weighting point of view)

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1. The stripe effect on the background behind the text you are trying to read is a little strong and distracting.

Maybe a more solid background behind actual posts? The current background is fine for around the edges but something different for post backgrounds would be nice.

Edit: I just changed to the other forum style (the default smf theme) and it's amazing how much better it feels without the floating top and bottom bars.

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I just started using the default smf theme.

Same here.  Although I prefer dark themes.

Whoever is in charge of this stuff please make a dark and simple theme available.  Maybe something like this:

http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=2428

You don't even have to customize it.  I don't care that I don't have the links across the top or whatever else I'm missing.

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Main problem with the smf theme is it isn't inegrated with all the wurm links at the top :(

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The background is WAY too bright in this setup, and it doesn't help that it is textured. We really need a theme with a simple, dark background as an alternative.

Also of some importance: I am just generally colorblind and this background makes it a bit harder to read the text.

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Tbh I prefer dark themes as well.  My reason however is due to I dual monitor and having a bright theme on one, makes it sorta hard to see in wurm on the other during wurm nights. 

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