Universal Gaming [Review]

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Universal Gaming [Review]
Topic Started: Sep 7 2009, 09:04 AM (102 Views)
Moonface	Sep 7 2009, 09:04 AM Post #1
BB Delta Posts: 213 Group: Members Member #11,380 Joined: April 7, 2009 Mood Relieved	Board URL: http://s10.zetaboards.com/universalgaming/index/ Board Description: We are a small community who began with the forum centered around gaming as a basis, however we discuss pretty much anything. We did start in 06, but due to problems we had to restart on a new forum. Specific things you would like a comment on: Pretty much anything possible. We're planning on doing a proper revamp soon as it didn't work out too good when our conversion happened, so any advice will be greatly considered for it. I know activity isn't great right now, for some unknown reason a few of our most active posters vanished over a month ago and so morale has been kinda going all over the place. Oh, and if I need to do so, I'll open some of the areas to guests. If you wish for any details on anything, feel free to ask for them. prays I did this right
	Explore A Brand New Universe!


HelenaZF	Sep 7 2009, 09:48 AM Post #2
advanced techno-feeb Posts: 6,037 Group: Admin Member #4 Joined: June 2, 2006 Mood Chipper Blog moving day	Since the first five things I clicked into were denied, I've signed up a review account for BB staff. The theme is beautiful, but I personally find it very tiring trying to read the low-contrast text in the posts If the main content text color was brightened a bit, that would make the forum more user friendly. The trend to low contrast themes, sometimes coupled with tiny font sizes seem to be pervasive in the design community. It may be considered cool or sleek, but it doesn't allow for users with bad monitor resolutions, or poor eyesight, and it's a pain to have to highlight text to be able to comfortably read it. Even if a site is targeted to young people only...not all of them find it easy reading either. You may be losing or driving away some users who find it just too much work to view your board. Users may be unconsciously spending less time on a site because of low-contrast text as well. If you can track activity from the time you may have had a brighter theme to levels now, you may even be able to see a trend. It's not something everyone will mention, they will just gradually stop coming and posting. As for revamping.... you may want to consider having some actual games, game threads for members to play. I would think people interested in gaming would actually like playing games, yes? Perhaps expanding your discussion offerings to specific game characters or strategies or bragging topics for high scores achieved in the various popular games your members talk about? It seems to me the only real organized area you have on your actual genre theme is the reviews forum, which seems a bit dry. The consoles forum is more chatty. Perhaps expand that somehow to target popular game stations or games and evolve some contests or short RPGs around them.
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Moonface	Sep 7 2009, 10:41 AM Post #3
BB Delta Posts: 213 Group: Members Member #11,380 Joined: April 7, 2009 Mood Relieved	Thank you Helena. Indeed, the theme has got it's problems, hence I plan to improve it and so I'll take your advice on board for that. With gaming matters, indeed it does need some better focus now you mention it. We used to have a lot of what you stated in 06, but for some reason it dwindled off over time. Might have been from our times we had with a very troublesome member that caused problems in the vibe of the forum, since a lot never was the same since. Hopefully I can get that vibe back again for the revamp. Oh, and should I open up some areas of the forums at all? Seeing the restricted thing makes me curious if it causes a problem to potential members if they can't see anything inside some of the areas.
	Explore A Brand New Universe!


HelenaZF	Sep 7 2009, 10:50 AM Post #4
advanced techno-feeb Posts: 6,037 Group: Admin Member #4 Joined: June 2, 2006 Mood Chipper Blog moving day	People have various reasons for restricting guest viewing, and those should be considered. But on the whole, I find that most people want to look around and get a feel for the how the community relates to one another before they will join into the conversation. If you don't have enough guest viewable forums to do that, then a percentage (and it may be a large one..there's no real way to know) may not make the effort to register and find out. You may be discouraging registrations rather than encouraging them. I would say that if you are trying to grow your community through enticing guests to register, that yes, you should open more forums to guest viewing. Here on BB, we could restrict viewing of our resources to members, or even require post count in order for members to see them. We would probably have much higher post count and member numbers if we did that, because we have some pretty cool resources that people would join to see and use. (And didn't delete the many bot accounts that have managed to join up ) But they would just be statistics, not really meaning anything except to people who are impressed by numbers. Our philosophy has been that people will experience the board, use what they need and then if they choose to join us, it will be because they want some personal interaction with our staff or community. It saves us from a lot of meaningless spam posts and member signups who are really only interested in the resources. So our rationale is why have to deal with spam and uninterested members? Just by-pass that and provide resources. We help many more users that way and we believe we have benefited from the goodwill engendered by that generosity.
	Visit the Planet Nexus page! Download some of my graphic sets HERE


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