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The Europa Barbarorum II Website
Hello everyone! Hope all is well!
Ok as I lack Moderator Privileges I can't make this thread a sticky, so I will just have to hope that you guys show enough interest to keep this thread buoyant.
If you like you can consider this my first official EBII task, well the first one that you guys get to read before the release. :clown:
The issue of the EBII website was raised some time ago, however as the thread didn't really get anywhere I have decided to start a new one discussing the issue (forgive me masters!).
This is one of the opportunities where you, the fans, get to play a part in the development of EBII. So please let us know what you think!
What we want is for you to share your thoughts on what should be included. For example the EB website has faction and unit info as well as downloadable content for fans. So if you would like to see more of the same please say. If you have ideas on what else could be included let us know (be realistic though, an annual EBII lottery where you get to win dinner with Moros, for example, is not a realistic idea).
Also how should navigation work? Would you like a format like the EB site or something a bit different?
What we are not really looking for is how the site should look like. Suggestions like these don't really help, we have plenty of talented 2D artists who can figure this out for us.
All suggestions are welcome! So please take the time to share your thoughts!
-Brennus
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Re: The Europa Barbarorum II Website
The factions and units info would be much appreciated...
Maybe a link to the twitter page or its incorporation within the site (like either posting the news there or just a mini screen with twitter)...
I would love an history of the mod: something like a "making of" or "behind the scenes". This of course only if there's time and manpower to do it...
One last thing could be a recruitment page or what help is needed, to get even more publicity about it...
As for the format I have no preferences, always liked the current one, but really that should be the artists' choice ^^
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Brennus
an annual EBII lottery where you get to win dinner with Moros, for example, is not a realistic idea
Ahahahahahah XD
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Re: The Europa Barbarorum II Website
Thanks for your thoughts. I like the Twitter idea and the recruitment page idea, fairly easy to integrate.
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Re: The Europa Barbarorum II Website
People can win a Balgian beer tour with me, but traveling costs aren't included. ~;)
Note I'm horrible company when sober.
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Re: The Europa Barbarorum II Website
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Moros
People can win a Balgian beer tour with me, but traveling costs aren't included. ~;)
Note I'm horrible company when sober.
I am planning to visit Belgium in February with two Irish friends if you are around....
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Re: The Europa Barbarorum II Website
Oh sure always prepared to do a meet up. ~:)
Should have some time around that period as well. (Exams end in January, school usually starts of slowly by half february or something.)
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Re: The Europa Barbarorum II Website
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Brennus
Hello everyone! Hope all is well!
Ok as I lack Moderator Privileges I can't make this thread a sticky, so I will just have to hope that you guys show enough interest to keep this thread buoyant.
If you like you can consider this my first official EBII task, well the first one that you guys get to read before the release. :clown:
The issue of the EBII website was raised some time ago, however as the thread didn't really get anywhere I have decided to start a new one discussing the issue (forgive me masters!).
This is one of the opportunities where you, the fans, get to play a part in the development of EBII. So please let us know what you think!
What we want is for you to share your thoughts on what should be included. For example the EB website has faction and unit info as well as downloadable content for fans. So if you would like to see more of the same please say. If you have ideas on what else could be included let us know (be realistic though, an annual EBII lottery where you get to win dinner with Moros, for example, is not a realistic idea).
Also how should navigation work? Would you like a format like the EB site or something a bit different?
What we are not really looking for is how the site should look like. Suggestions like these don't really help, we have plenty of talented 2D artists who can figure this out for us.
All suggestions are welcome! So please take the time to share your thoughts!
-Brennus
Hi.
I look forward to the site, no matter what the color scheme or the ease of navigation. But I'm a pragmatist (most of the time, anyway). One of my close friends is in informatics and one of the things he (and others in his field) looks at is how user-friendly a site design is before approving it for release. I know this because when his team was researching (and I presume quantifying) this notion of the user-friendliness of a site, I was one of the people he surveyed. The team would link the participant to a prototype design and have them navigate to certain pages and the participant would have to say how he or she was doing this (e.g., "I went to the vertical navbar on the left column and clicked on _____, and proceeded to _____").
One thing to keep in mind, I think, is that "how the site should look like" encompasses notions such as ease of navigation, or user-friendliness more generally. It's part of the package.
Good luck on building the site!
V
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Re: The Europa Barbarorum II Website
How about this for an idea?
Instead of the old form of navigation with pages dedicated to factions and units we develop an interactive EBII map. The factions are displayed on the map as they appear in the game in their starting positions. By clicking on a faction's territory you are then brought to a page which displays the history of the faction, their victory conditions and their unit roster (possibly in the form of 2D icons borrowed from the EBII UI). For example if you click on Latium you are taken to a page with links to the Roman units, history and victory conditions. In this way users get a clearer idea of who is where, what they are expected to do and what units they can use to do it. Resources permitting the building trees of individual factions can also be added, as can screenshots showing the faction thrashing their likely opponents. It would also create a more interactive website than the functional and text heavy form of the EB website.
Thoughts?
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Re: The Europa Barbarorum II Website
Good idea for people who can't recognize the symbol or are too lazy to mouse over :P
But yes a interactive map sounds like a great idea ^^
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Re: The Europa Barbarorum II Website
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Brennus
How about this for an idea?
Instead of the old form of navigation with pages dedicated to factions and units we develop an interactive EBII map. The factions are displayed on the map as they appear in the game in their starting positions. By clicking on a faction's territory you are then brought to a page which displays the history of the faction, their victory conditions and their unit roster (possibly in the form of 2D icons borrowed from the EBII UI). For example if you click on Latium you are taken to a page with links to the Roman units, history and victory conditions. In this way users get a clearer idea of who is where, what they are expected to do and what units they can use to do it. Resources permitting the building trees of individual factions can also be added, as can screenshots showing the faction thrashing their likely opponents. It would also create a more interactive website than the functional and text heavy form of the EB website.
Thoughts?
Actually that's an idea I've been toying with as well but there are a couple of non trivial issues to get right. (Not "being able to do it", but rather being able to do it so it blends in with the rest of the website well and does not depend too heavily on a full, fat desktop browser.)
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Re: The Europa Barbarorum II Website
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Brennus
How about this for an idea?
Instead of the old form of navigation with pages dedicated to factions and units we develop an interactive EBII map. The factions are displayed on the map as they appear in the game in their starting positions. By clicking on a faction's territory you are then brought to a page which displays the history of the faction, their victory conditions and their unit roster (possibly in the form of 2D icons borrowed from the EBII UI). For example if you click on Latium you are taken to a page with links to the Roman units, history and victory conditions. In this way users get a clearer idea of who is where, what they are expected to do and what units they can use to do it. Resources permitting the building trees of individual factions can also be added, as can screenshots showing the faction thrashing their likely opponents. It would also create a more interactive website than the functional and text heavy form of the EB website.
Thoughts?
First off, I will say good luck. I think the original EB site is, by far, the best site for a mod I have encountered, with plenty of information and all pretty easy and straightforward to access.
I like the idea of the interactive map, providing (as Tellos Athenaios talks of) that its not going to throttle my PC...
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Re: The Europa Barbarorum II Website
If you have someone who can make a non-javascript-based interactive map that's lean and mean, then sure. I'm assuming you'd be ruling out users on highly mobile devices, such as phones and tablets (I don't see much incentive to cater, in this particular case). If there's any way you can make the edges blend without horrendously contrasting with the surrounding layout, then I think you have a good shot at this. Pretty much, I would steer away from having it be the elephant in a room of mice.
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Re: The Europa Barbarorum II Website
I'll say that the website is very beautiful and for the most part intuitive. Except that I thought the faction buttons were just background images for about the first 2 years of using this mod. I really like the idea of an integrated map where you can click on it and get taken to the faction info of choice. While I know enough about the time period to get around many many new people have ZERO idea about why there are 2 funny factions in gaul but neither of them is the 'Gauls'. In short, an easy to read but informative map will ease players into this new world.
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Re: The Europa Barbarorum II Website
if you´re going with the map also add in all the information for each area even if it´s non faction related like the garamantine area
i mean there´s no reason why good research should go to waste just because they didn´t made it as a faction (illergettes \0 )
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Re: The Europa Barbarorum II Website
Quote:
Originally Posted by
moonburn
if you´re going with the map also add in all the information for each area even if it´s non faction related like the garamantine area
i mean there´s no reason why good research should go to waste just because they didn´t made it as a faction (illergettes \0 )
Well the research won't be going to waste as it will be available to read when you play EBII.
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Re: The Europa Barbarorum II Website
I think I'd like to see one site for both mods, with a sort of welcome screen where one could choose whether they wanted to go to the EB I site or the EB II site.
The interactive map idea does sound awesome though.
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Re: The Europa Barbarorum II Website
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Callimachus
I think I'd like to see one site for both mods, with a sort of welcome screen where one could choose whether they wanted to go to the EB I site or the EB II site.
The interactive map idea does sound awesome though.
I can't imagine a title page linking the two websites would be too difficult to create. Tellos?
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Re: The Europa Barbarorum II Website
Hardly. The main question is what it should look like and what it should link to (there's probably commonalities between the sites that are better split off). Since we're hosted in Germany, we might have to do an Impressum as well?
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Re: The Europa Barbarorum II Website
well, if a website is in the works, why not implement what I and Herenow proposed earlier?
I attach a version of the idea, as specified by Herenow:
Quote:
Ooh, ooh, I have an idea (and I'm actually being serious here)! Why not arrange those units in order of disappearance, as it were, starting with all the Vanilla units who have no equivalents in EB, moving on to units dropped after 0.7, then the old Sweboz units or the Roman units before they were reskinned or whatever - just arrange them chronologically.
Incidentally, having them all in a box of somekind in the middle of the page with a horizontal scroll bar should give the impression of walking along a museum corridor. Each 'display' could have the unit's picture with a brief description of what the unit is and why it was scrapped at some point (or, in the case of the Vanilla units, never included) underneath.
Er ... unless you guys want to hide all traces of old units, that is.
only we do it so that it shows the changes from EB1's unit roster, to EB2's.
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Re: The Europa Barbarorum II Website
I suppose we could also add when important breakthroughs or events were made, for example at point X in the timeline the Boioi were agreed upon as a faction, at point Y bobbin was arrested for lewd conduct etc.
Any thoughts on what commonalities Tellos mentioned are better split off?
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Re: The Europa Barbarorum II Website
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Brennus
I suppose we could also add when important breakthroughs or events were made, for example at point X in the timeline the Boioi were agreed upon as a faction, at point Y bobbin was arrested for lewd conduct etc.
Well the whole timeline idea is "difficult" for a variety of reasons but the main one is the issue of having your cake and eating it too.
For example:
- A consistent look vs being able to cram in a lot of content.
- Performance (load times) vs graceful degradation.
- Things that don't "have" a timeline.
Quote:
Any thoughts on what commonalities Tellos mentioned are better split off?
Well that would be the meta info such as "news"/"twitter", "about us" etc. Possibly a section on side projects released by the EB2 team (tools, voicemods, anim packs) if we feel we have time on our hands.
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Re: The Europa Barbarorum II Website
The wise one has spoken, gentlemen.
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Re: The Europa Barbarorum II Website
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Brennus
(be realistic though, an annual EBII lottery where you get to win dinner with Moros, for example, is not a realistic idea).
Wow, knowing Moros that dinner would be filled with mind games.
SV: I'm ordering the chicken, you?
Moros: I'll be ordering the beef...or am I?...
SV: *sigh*
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Re: The Europa Barbarorum II Website
i think that is too childish of a mindgame i imagine moros asking how you like your oysters or if you enjoy cheese peanuts seafood and all the top 25 food alergies and then sugesting you something you can´t understand in dutch and you´re there having to choose if you will eat it or not not knowing if you get to see the next day and then he offers you a position of eb official supervisor meaning you get to see all the content if you just eat what he as placed in front of you
but thats just me with a sick mind
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Re: The Europa Barbarorum II Website
Quote:
Originally Posted by
stratigos vasilios
Wow, knowing Moros that dinner would be filled with mind games.
SV: I'm ordering the chicken, you?
Moros: I'll be ordering the beef...or am I?...
SV: *sigh*
Nah, usually I'll just order Steak. I'm quite predictable actually.
Except when ordering drinks when I'm slowly getting drunk. Then my decision making is usually rather unpredictable and rather unwise as well.~:(
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Re: The Europa Barbarorum II Website
gin and you can´t go worng plus the added bonus that the next morning your breath shouldn´t stink
you can add tonic water for the flavour
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Re: The Europa Barbarorum II Website
Not to mention being Belgian he probably has easy access to many fine Belgian beers.
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Re: The Europa Barbarorum II Website
I know I'm quite interesting but lets get back on topic guys. ~:)
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Re: The Europa Barbarorum II Website
Come on lads! Let's hear some ideas.
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Re: The Europa Barbarorum II Website
i just opened a thread with one :| if you mean about the site i have no programing skills so unleass you give me a clearer picture of what it will look like i can´t pitch in except for adding in the recruiter viwers online