GAE Website

[Omega]

GAE does have some nice webhosting courtesy of sourceforge available here. Once upon a time, there was a rather barebones webpage on a different host (which at one point had a shiny intro), but now all we have is merely to a single page containing the GAE logo and two links (the page also redirects to the sourceforge project page after five seconds).

I'd like to propose we take advantage of this useful web space to make a webpage in the same concept that MG has with it's webpage. The webpage would (most importantly) provide a central place stating just what exactly GAE is (let's be honest here, the two sentence description on the project page doesn't give users any real reason to download GAE). As well, the images on the sourceforge project page are not the least bit enticing to players, as they show GAE's debugging abilities, a menu test, and a basic unit particles test. It paints the engine as something for developers and advanced users only, instead of a fully capable game engine easy for new players to dive in.

When practicability is the concern (eg, finding the latest download link), the sourceforge project page is great, but when it comes to showcasing the engine and getting players to download it, GAE falls short. Should we add a proper webpage, it's intent would be more like a poster: it would showcase just what GAE is, with a page describing the engine and its capabilities (we'll leave the documentation of these features for the wiki, which is better suited with its "anyone can edit" abilities), a page showing images of the engine (when downloading games, I tend to place a fair deal of judgement on the screenshots of the game, not necessarily for graphics alone, but since they can show the gameplay), and of course, a page listing the download links for the latest versions.

Should we decide to utilize a website (I for one, think GAE could really benefit from it), I would like to volunteer to design the page, but would need to know what capabilities this free sourceforge hosting has (eg, can PHP or MySQL be used?). I can't see any downsides to having a proper webpage (which again, has the primary function of aesthetics, showing off the product), and the way I see it, the only reason we don't already have a site is simply because there's nobody to make it, which I could remedy easily enough.

[hailstone]

Our target audience is modders though. I'm happy with what we have but if you were to create a promotional website, it would need to reflect that GAE is aimed at developers and take responsibility for maintaining the website. For an example look at the Unreal Engine website.

[Omega]

Our target audience is modders though. I'm happy with what we have but if you were to create a promotional website, it would need to reflect that GAE is aimed at developers and take responsibility for maintaining the website. For an example look at the Unreal Engine website.

I don't even have to check the unreal engine website to know what you mean - having seen their site before, and remembering the way they focused on show casing the features of the engine, that does reflect on how I figured the features page (one of the most important pages) would look. As well, while I haven't planned how the page would look yet (after all, the entire concept of a site hasn't been approved yet), I'd imagine it would be a mixture of a Glest feel and a professional feel.

With that being said though, I don't think the site should be entirely geared at modders though, but at regular players too, as they must make up the bulk of the downloads (we don't have thousands of modders, after all). After all, every player who wants to play a GAE mod would have to download GAE, and this site could form the "starting point" of doing so (obviously the downloads would still be handled by sourceforge's file pages as always, but most "first time" players definitely want to see what the engine looks like and can do, which the board entirely lacks. When we release a new version of GAE, it's entirely geared towards people who already know what GAE is and its capabilities, which I see as a disadvantage. There's no proper starting point for someone new to the game.

[jda]

Oh, heck! Lost the post on preview, test links, close links, wrong tab closed!  :'(

Basic idea was:

Omega would do this equivalent to this Unreal Engine page: http://www.unrealengine.com/
Omega could link to screens of GAE mods' pages such as his own Military or Chuppareaper's Malevolent Rising.

The GAE devs would keep the current sourceforge.net page (the one the "main" site redirects to) in the current format, similar to this other Unreal Engine page: http://udn.epicgames.com/Main/WebHome.html

My 2 cents worth. 

[Omega]

The GAE devs would keep the current sourceforge.net page (the one the "main" site redirects to) in the current format, similar to this other Unreal Engine page: http://udn.epicgames.com/Main/WebHome.html

I don't see any purpose in keeping the old link. I don't think anything links to it (besides my link in this topic) at all, since the only other website GAE had was on an entirely different server (which is long since gone). I found the site only through a manual URL in the format that many other sourceforge hosted projects have for webspace. As a rule of thumb for web designers, the first page the user should see should be as short of a URL as possible (that is, glestae.sourceforge.net). The file named "index.*" will be accessed from that link, which is generally the main page or a redirect/include for the main page.

Omega would do this equivalent to this Unreal Engine page: http://www.unrealengine.com/
Omega could link to screens of GAE mods' pages such as his own Military or Chuppareaper's Malevolent Rising.

I was thinking right along the lines of the unreal engine page, with a large "scroller" with images for some of the most interesting features of GAE (eg, unit particle effects might have a really neat particle effect image). While it would ideally list all the mods for GAE, with links to their webpage/wiki page/forum thread, I wouldn't expect to have a page on the actual site for the mods.

So this would make a (rough) plan something like this:
-Main page would have a short summary of what GAE is, a quick download button redirecting to the downloads page, a header at the top with links and the logo (also a link to the forums, pointed at the GAE category), a slider with images for GAE's biggest features (which link to their corresponding page), and a footer area with links for license information, contact, etc.
-Downloads page would list all the downloads for the most recent versions, have links for installation, compiling, etc (pointed at their corresponding wiki pages), and a link to the sourceforge files page for older downloads.
-An images page with a large gallery (possibly multipage) showcasing images showing GAE's functions, mods, graphics, etc, etc.
-A links page with external resources such as documentation (the wiki)
-A features page listing the features almost exactly like the style of Unreal Engine's features page. That is, a gallery of images which can be clicked for a more expanded explaination. This would be all features of GAE, not just ones improved or expanded from vanilla glest.

Of course, it should be noted I haven't started any work since I'm still waiting for an approval. After all, there's no point going through all the effort if nobody makes use of the work (not to mention the question of whether or not sourceforge hosting allows PHP).

[jda]

Ha, my hastly retyped post didn't work. 

I didn't meant it in such a strict way!

Here's what I was thinking about: Hailstone said GAE is rather aimed at modders, not the actual gamers. And I thought "well, yeah, there are great GAE mods with great webpages pulling he players into GAE"... Only... I think they would pull even more players and possible modders-to-be if GAE had a similar kind of page as well, one like I believe you were talking about...
Hailstone gave the example of the Unreal Engine, so I looked it up. The first page I noticed was that one with the hero standing out in some kind of mysterious mist: typical RPG kinda webpage for players! And I understand, that's not what GAE is aiming at (let's say with an image of a ready army in some kind of reddish swirling sand under some burning hot sun, as GAE is a RTS game, not RPG  ). All pretty typical and most of the time, those images aren't even from the game, they're just artwork somehow related ... Doesn't tell the modders much. 
So I went back to google and clicked the next link on the list: Ha, now that is a site for developpers of a RPG! Quick links to infos on the features and guides on the ropes, right there at the hand of the modder...

And that's all I meant, the example Hailstone himself gave does both: a page for the modders and another for the players. I was left under the impression that was technically possible with the current sourceforge.net hosting, to have two pages: one for players, that you would maintain, and another one for modders, that the GAE devs would maintain.
The reference to your Military, or the Malevolent Rising or Constellus are just finished (or at least promising) mods that can showcase GAE's possibilities in an alluring way (they have their own imagery done and all) for both players and modders alike. Completelly true, not all modders will be pulled in by the kind of allure you can create with an end-public audience but surelly some might.
I'll put it the other way around: You have a site that shows you the menus and the units standing on a white matrix and it's all cool but the prospective modder might ask: "Ok, but, erm, did anyone get to do anything with this engine yet?" This kind of prospective modder would have his answer already if he went through an end-user's perspective first.
The target audience is still the same: the modders; "we"'re just diversifying the means through which they get here. Visibility: we don't all see the same.

Now the particular way the two pages would be made... well that's not up to me! I'm just trying to inspire openness, not tell either of you guys how to do the stuff. 

[Omega]

And that's all I meant, the example Hailstone himself gave does both: a page for the modders and another for the players. I was left under the impression that was technically possible with the current sourceforge.net hosting, to have two pages: one for players, that you would maintain, and another one for modders, that the GAE devs would maintain.
The reference to your Military, or the Malevolent Rising or Constellus are just finished (or at least promising) mods that can showcase GAE's possibilities in an alluring way (they have their own imagery done and all) for both players and modders alike. Completelly true, not all modders will be pulled in by the kind of allure you can create with an end-public audience but surelly some might.

First of all, using UE as a basis still (that seems to be our principal comparison, in terms of the web design), UE is entirely for programmers. The engine can be used to create games, but has no use at all to players. They can know their favorite game was made with UE, but they have no real use for UE itself (not to mention we're looking at a price tag in the thousands to even millions). The examples in UE's slider? Games to entice developers to use their engine (after all, everyone knows Mass Effect 3 is going to be a great game).

GAE, on the other hand, is playable without any mods (you can't even download it without the modified Magitech -- and rightfully so, as the engine is useless without at least a single techtree, of which removal would just confuse new players). Thus, the engine's website should be meant to show the engine to both modders and regular players (after all, 99% of GAE's downloads must be from regular players, since, as mentioned, we don't have thousands of modders).

It's really not hard to appeal to both modders and players at the same time. When I see a page like this, I can only dream of the potent the engine has. As a player, I'm thinking of the potent of the mods that use the engine. As a modder, I'm thinking of the ways I could use these features. It's the same thing, but it appeals to both sides. The catch: GAE has NO website, based at either modders or players. Looking at the sourceforge page, we got some ugly images mostly showing debugging information and such, nothing really above Glest's capabilities for mods.

A while back, I was looking for some tinkering in 3D engines, and had found a few nice looking ones, such as Irrlitch and OGRE. The two main pages I looked for on the websites of these engines were screenshots  showcasing the capabilities of the engines and feature pages listing these abilities. GAE lacks both. Sure, there should be a basic description of GAE in a sticky thread here, but there's no list of features (and I don't mean just what is new from vanilla Glest, but the features of the game entirely. GAE's best feature is that mods are XML based!), there's no screenshots, period, and there's no centralized resource for GAE. At the best, the wiki has the download links, all the documentation, and whatnot, but for a game engine, I'd be expecting more than a forum board or wiki making up the entire site.

Not to mention the bottom line: A webpage has plenty of pros, but not a single con. Sure, we can list ways to perfect it forever, but having any kind of site, whether for modders and players alike or not, is better than nothing.

[jda]

K, deal, I'll buy it! 

[Ishmaru]

You could probally showcase gae capeabilities better with video than simple images. You could either have trailers for the best gae mods, and or a gae demoreel showcaseing its features as they are used in various mods. Screenshots help but can't show things such as transports well.

[Yggdrasil]

I don't know how our website should look like. Any content is better than just a redirect. Feel free to do what you like. I'm ok with the ideas floating around in this thread.

Why do you want PHP and MySQL? The only useful thing i can think of is supporting different languages. Nothing else needs server side scripting. We don't need an account system or whatever. Keep it simple.

[silnarm]

We also have this now.

If you're willing to make some content for it Omega, go for it!

[Omega]

We also have this now.

If you're willing to make some content for it Omega, go for it!

Ooh, that's new (to me, anyway). And the placeholder on that site is quite similar to what I had in mind for a design. A picture of the menu model (the full colour version as seen at the default camera position would be preferable, though - more on that in a moment) with a partially transparent "content box". The base design would be similar to a past work of mine here (an old site I made a year or so back for a physics final project). To be specific, a background image of the GAE main menu, a partially transparent "content box" (using an image background for a detailed effect), a logo at the top (presumably this one), a drop down links bar, and another partially transparent box at the bottom with links for licensing information, contact link, etc.

This would reflect well on GAE, I would think, since the background image is the menu model from the game, one of the sights which players will get to know the best (this would also be a fixed position background, meaning it would scroll with the player). The partially transparent "content box" would be very similar to the UI of GAE, which makes heavy use of partially transparent boxes. The location of the physics image on the old physics site of mine would be where the image slider would be (3 wide images which cycle with Javascript, each linking to a page describing the image, which would presumably be about features, mods, etc). In fact, that old site could make a pretty fair template for the GAE website...

Of course, there's always a catch. A while ago, Silnarm mentioned (I don't remember why) that if we needed, he would be able to (somehow) get an image of the GAE main menu background as seen in game without the interface (presumably by temporarily hiding it). Would it be possible to do that (it would provide a much more detailed and much better quality background image than using the sepia-toned one that we see on loading screens, if larger in filesize (more alike colours = better compression)). Of course, if that's too much trouble, we could easily just use the sepia loading screen image (resizing it to proportion, of course. The 1024x512 resolution of the image is compacted to fit into a power of 2 image, and should actually be a 4:3 ratio).

EDIT: Ah, I managed to find a way to snag that background myself. I blanked the button textures, modified the menu XML to hide the INI, and replaced the fonts with blank fonts. The result? Fantastic! Of course, that's the high quality image, reducing it to a more appropriate size (we'll fade the edges so it still looks good on bigger monitors) and a more appropriate compression rate, the filesize is 125 KB while still being big enough to cover the entire background and be of suitable quality. If the image looks slightly different, it's because the fog is reduced. Without the obscuring buttons, the greys seemed overwhelming and didn't look so good.

[Omega]

Well, I've finished the main page, which pretty much sums up the design. Looks pretty darn good, if you ask me. I was going to upload it, but the glest guide servers have been having problems, so that's an unfortunate no go at the moment. Instead, just download this 7z, extract it anywhere and open "index.html" if you want to see the result in full action, or just feast your eyes on the screenshot below.


[small](Click for full size)[/small]

[big]Download[/big]

[Psychedelic_hands]

No offense to who made those logos, ( I think it was Sir mod man?) But I'm not much a fan of it. It's like three different styles thrown into one haha.

Are you going to implement some of the features that the Megaglest website has? it's got a bunch of them and it sure is purdy too.
http://megaglest.org/

[Omega]

No offense to who made those logos, ( I think it was Sir mod man?) But I'm not much a fan of it. It's like three different styles thrown into one haha.

Yes, it was modman, but to be equally honest, I like those logos. Not only are they pretty much the only logos we have (before we just wrote "advanced engine" underneath the Glest logo - boooring), but I feel that they represent the more advanced tone of the game. They keep Glest's medieval fantasy theme, and mix it with a (slightly) futuristic, abstract theme (which is reflected by the fact that GAE has two mods with a futuristic setting, AD and Constellus, as well as the partially transparent GUI styles). Not to mention they're the official logos seen in game. The icon is the same as the game uses for its executable (and will also be used for the site's favicon). The logo is the same as seen in game.

Are you going to implement some of the features that the Megaglest website has? it's got a bunch of them and it sure is purdy too.
http://megaglest.org/

I'm not sure what you mean by features. Looking at the page, there's a news section (dunno about that, I had more in mind with a low maintenance site, keeping the news on the forum, I don't have access to the server to frequent updates anyway). It looks like they've since scrapped their "latest forum posts" section, that wouldn't really be so necessary here, anyway, I would think. Latest servers? We don't (yet) have a master server, so I don't have plans yet. When we get our masterful multiplayer expanded and stable, we'll go back to that. Since the demo I posted above, I've added two other elements to the links bar, a link to the forum board (which links to the GAE section) and an external links drop down menu (with links to the most useful wiki pages, the megaglest site (after all, they link to GAE), and vanilla glest's site).

Is there any other features on the page, besides the animated GIFs? (GIF is terrible for pictures of a game anyway, even at such small sizes, the small colour pallet is very noticeable. Using javascript to switch the images would have been much better).

[will]

The logo is nice.

It would be worth comparing a sans-serif font compared to that serif font and seeing if that looks better.

[Omega]

It would be worth comparing a sans-serif font compared to that serif font and seeing if that looks better.

Good idea, I'll try a comparison of some popular web-safe fonts and see how they look.


12 January: On a side note, I haven't forgotten about this, but am currently strapped for time (Final exams and several semester end projects), so expect it to wait until February.