TotalCRY site: 1) what you LIKE; 2) what you don´t LIKE; 3) suggestions

[OldMack]

Probably you think this topic is useless but... I will post it.


As you can see, we are working at a NEW layout.

TotalCRY beguns on 03 May 2006 and we have many members here. Many of you are only registered cause you need be a registered member to download files. I am sorry, but we need some kind of content control (otherwise, we will always get BANDWIDTH problems). See: We had 2 servers and right now, both are using 70% of bandwidth limit (even with the registered members control).


I can antecipate you about something we will gonna change or add:

UPDATED:
1) a new staff member will be announced;
2) new IMAGE GALLERY layout;
3) new VIDEO GALLERY layout;
4) new INFO about Crysis and Far Cry will be added;
5) maybe a mIRC channel to substitute our LIVE CHAT;


If you want comment something you: 1) like here; 2) you don´t like here; 3) or if you want give some suggestion about something you would like we could add here, do it! I promiss you will not be BANNED! (unless someone come with stories about stolen screenshots, or difame the site or the staff members...) ...


I hope this site can be so much fun and i hope you enjoy so much here!

[Yorick]

I know it sounds crappy, but what about limiting how much users can download/view in a given day, or depending it on posts? I don't want to be like Crysis-Online and go down all the time.

Actually the other idea I had was to set up a torrent tracker. We'd have torrents for all the video files. We could make it so that only registered users would be able to download the torrents, and it would certainly cut down on our bandwidth.

[imported_Lydia]

Well definatly do something with the image gallery, I remember finding that really irrataing when I looked through. Definatly make the thumbnails bigger.

I'm not a big fan of fixed width layouts but I appreciate that variable width is hard to code for.

Just looking at the homepage, that took a while to load for me. Ok just timing it now (yeah I am odd) it took almost 2 minutes for the homepage to load (using standard broadband). It takes an ok amount of time for the visible part to load but you have so many news articles that all have full size images loading that it takes ages, maybe fewer articles on the homepage and more on the news page.
The 'Who's Online' colunm is bright yellow untill the background loads, I'm guessing that was to help with design but its probably best to change that back to black now.

Now my usual rant, I looked at the HTML and it seems really overly complicated. I'd reccomend fewer tables and more CSS. Just looked again it says the creator is Joomla, I don't know how good that is, but its always worth knowing whats going on in the HTML imho.

[OldMack]

Originally Posted by Yorick

I know it sounds crappy, but what about limiting how much users can download/view in a given day, or depending it on posts? I don't want to be like Crysis-Online and go down all the time.

Actually the other idea I had was to set up a torrent tracker. We'd have torrents for all the video files. We could make it so that only registered users would be able to download the torrents, and it would certainly cut down on our bandwidth.

Man... No way to limit download in a given day. For now, only giving file acess to registered members are a good limit factor but in the future... I don´t know.

About the torrent, how could we restrict the downloads only for registered users?

[OldMack]

Originally Posted by Lydia

Well definatly do something with the image gallery, I remember finding that really irrataing when I looked through. Definatly make the thumbnails bigger.

I'm not a big fan of fixed width layouts but I appreciate that variable width is hard to code for.

Just looking at the homepage, that took a while to load for me. Ok just timing it now (yeah I am odd) it took almost 2 minutes for the homepage to load (using standard broadband). It takes an ok amount of time for the visible part to load but you have so many news articles that all have full size images loading that it takes ages, maybe fewer articles on the homepage and more on the news page.
The 'Who's Online' colunm is bright yellow untill the background loads, I'm guessing that was to help with design but its probably best to change that back to black now.

Now my usual rant, I looked at the HTML and it seems really overly complicated. I'd reccomend fewer tables and more CSS. Just looked again it says the creator is Joomla, I don't know how good that is, but its always worth knowing whats going on in the HTML imho.

Hey Lydia, nice comments! Only a webdesigner like you could make them...

1) Well... You are right about the timing to load all the homepage... I will definitively change it;

2) About the WHO'S ONLINE, that yellow color is only for help me to design ... I will remove that after;

3) Did you see the source coce? ... It's really confused but don´t worry. Everything is templated and more than 90% is CSS. It is really easy for me, which rebuild the template from the base, understand and change the layout (only in some cases i have some trouble to make fine adjustments).

Best regards and thx. for your precious comments!

[Yorick]

Originally Posted by Mack

About the torrent, how could we restrict the downloads only for registered users?

Make a "downloads" page that is only available for registered users and have the links to the torrents there. As for setting up the tracker and whatnot, I don't know, I haven't done it before.

[OldMack]

Originally Posted by Yorick

Make a "downloads" page that is only available for registered users and have the links to the torrents there. As for setting up the tracker and whatnot, I don't know, I haven't done it before.

Uhhh... I understood... Nice solution!

[DooVooMan]

Widen the forums. The current width is way too small in my opinion. Otherwise, love the design.

[OldMack]

Originally Posted by DooVooMan

Widen the forums. The current width is way too small in my opinion. Otherwise, love the design.

Ok... We will increase the forum width... Thx. for your contribution!

[Yorick]

Actually I agree with that. Instead of 750 it should be more like 950. Or you could set it to be like 80% so that it looks good for everyone. I run 1280 so I'm used to forums looking thin.

[imported_Lydia]

Originally Posted by Mack

Hey Lydia, nice comments! Only a webdesigner like you could make them...

3) Did you see the source coce? ... It's really confused but don´t worry. Everything is templated and more than 90% is CSS. It is really easy for me, which rebuild the template from the base, understand and change the layout (only in some cases i have some trouble to make fine adjustments).

Best regards and thx. for your precious comments!

Well not a web designer offically yet, but hopefully if I get a job .

I assumed that was what 2 was for, as long as you change it back when its done thats cool.

I'd say be careful with a fixed width of 950px cause alot of people are still using 800x600 (grr). On my site its 10% on the homepage which is the third most popular, although thats fewer than I thought. Wierd 8 hits from someone using 480x272 .

I'm not really sure what you mean about the source, my main issue is things like this, actually taken from your source:

<td><b><font color='#ffffff'>Forum Thread&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&n bsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbs p;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&n bsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbs p;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&n bsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</font></b></td>

Thats just crazy you know, that is one place where you would be justified in using a table, as it is tabular data or use three fixed width divs.
Has the source changed since yesterday cause it looks better to me or did I just not look at the top before.

[imported_Sloth_Boy]

Originally Posted by Yorick

I know it sounds crappy, but what about limiting how much users can download/view in a given day, or depending it on posts? I don't want to be like Crysis-Online and go down all the time.

Actually the other idea I had was to set up a torrent tracker. We'd have torrents for all the video files. We could make it so that only registered users would be able to download the torrents, and it would certainly cut down on our bandwidth.

Hey Yorick,

The Crysis-Online bandwidth problem has been resolved. During the last few days the site had had heavy traffic and the bandwidth provider got there fiber cut twice in 24 hours. I've purchased another hosting account which is dedicated to the videos so now when they use heaps of bandwidth and reach the limit, atleast the wrest of the site will still be viewable.

As for you mack and totalcry. The front page does take a long time to load becuase you dont make thumbnails for your images. I suggest you create thumbnails for every image. It can be done automatically in photoshop, email me if you want to know how

I like the texture background you've added, looks good. Good luck mack

Cheers!

[OldMack]

Originally Posted by Lydia

Well not a web designer offically yet, but hopefully if I get a job .

I assumed that was what 2 was for, as long as you change it back when its done thats cool.

I'd say be careful with a fixed width of 950px cause alot of people are still using 800x600 (grr). On my site its 10% on the homepage which is the third most popular, although thats fewer than I thought. Wierd 8 hits from someone using 480x272 .

I'm not really sure what you mean about the source, my main issue is things like this, actually taken from your source:

Thats just crazy you know, that is one place where you would be justified in using a table, as it is tabular data or use three fixed width divs.
Has the source changed since yesterday cause it looks better to me or did I just not look at the top before.

We will work for people with 1024 x 768 ... 800 x 600 are so small and i know that most TotalCRY public (gamers, fans, ...) has 1024 x 768.

I don´t remember i added i coded like that (lol). I didn´t change the code yet...

[OldMack]

Originally Posted by Sloth_Boy

Hey Yorick,

The Crysis-Online bandwidth problem has been resolved. During the last few days the site had had heavy traffic and the bandwidth provider got there fiber cut twice in 24 hours. I've purchased another hosting account which is dedicated to the videos so now when they use heaps of bandwidth and reach the limit, atleast the wrest of the site will still be viewable.

As for you mack and totalcry. The front page does take a long time to load becuase you dont make thumbnails for your images. I suggest you create thumbnails for every image. It can be done automatically in photoshop, email me if you want to know how

I like the texture background you've added, looks good. Good luck mack

Cheers!

Hey Tom, congrats for your new server. I think is the best solution for bandwidth issues.

We will make another frontpage which will not have the NEWS in the way it is now man... That background will be changed too (lol)... Everything will.

Best regards m8!

[RTsa]

Originally Posted by Mack

Many of you are only registered cause you need be a registered member to download files. I am sorry, but we need some kind of content control (otherwise, we will always get BANDWIDTH problems).

If you're going to put a torrent download page, you don't need to restrict it to registered users only, since it doesn't drain just about any bandwidth.