Desolation City | Zombie RPG | 2 Reviews

[Mollie]

Hi there!

I'm looking for opinions on my forum in order to help me maximise the appeal of it, since we get plenty of guests but hardly any sign ups, what am I doing wrong? Please feel free to give me your opinions

The Basics:

• It is a post-apocalyptic Zombie RPG set in a city that fell 5 years before the current settlers arrived
• It is in-part inspired by The Walking Dead
• It's still relatively new so please be nice!

So go ahead, let me know what you think!


URL: desolationcity.freeforums.net/

[Mollie]

Anyone?

[:~:Sarapha:~:]

Hello Mollie, I am Sarapha, a friendly reviewer of forums. The way that I review a board is that I look it over as a guest, and write down what I see, in the order I see it. Then, I take another look, and see what details can be tweaked. I have 8+ years of experience with Proboards and its glory. Let us start

First Glance
The main banner does tell me that it is most likely a post-apocalyptic site, though not much else from that. Could be nuclear fall out, could be a site where a specific animal has risen to the dominance, could be simply that humans ceased to exist, could be a zombie one. The banner and the name don't exactly tell me that much.

Scrolling down, I have a huge sense of blankness. Whether it be the lack of borders, the lack of real color... I'm not sure, but it's not visually pleasing. The Category titles are also a tad on the brighter side, which clashes heavily with the solid white background.

Scrolling down all of the way to the bottom, there really isn't a whole lot, visually, that would captivate me until I got to the affiliates section, in which it really is just the other sites and how their colorful, bright banners pop out. This board is in desperate need of either a small bit of color, or on/off buttons that complement the theme, but also add a bit of something visually to the board. Otherwise, scrolling down, the whole thing really just looks the same (not including text, of course).

The Boards
There are a lot of empty boards throughout the whole of the main page. Most people will judge you forum based on activity through the boards, and a lot of empty space translates into a lot of inactivity to many. I'd definitely suggest even one thread per board, something to make people like, "Hey, I want to jump into that story!"

Rules and Information
This one is just a suggestion, but perhaps combining the Rule and the Important Information boards? Since the Rules themselves are essentially just one thread, the board itself looks quite empty, and I think the Rules of the site definitely count as a bit of Important Information.

The Rules
The only complaint that I have in the rules is that it all focuses on Out of Character aspects. There isn't much explained as far as Zombies, whether or not there can be non-approved attacks (which is very important in an apocalyptic site. You will find that members get really mad if they've created a character, and within seconds, a zombie character comes and kills them without their consent). You also have stated in the side table that Zombies are capable of procreation, but you may want to clarify that the actual posting of the act is against Proboards TOS. Again, you'll be so surprised how fast that gets violated if you don't automatically state it.

The Plot
Just a clarification, the part of the brain that you refer to in the plot doesn't exist. The whole region that you describe is called the Frontal Lobe, specifically, the Prefrontal Cortex. Otherwise, I actually really like how the Plot is set up, and I very much enjoyed reading it.

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All in all, it really looks like a fun, exciting site that would be amazing to join if I wasn't already tied to other obligations. The main page, though, just looks very bland.

[Mollie]

Thank you very much, I've actually tweaked the site a lot today, feel free to check it out! Thanks for your feedback

[Mollie]

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[Mollie]

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[Mollie]

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[Mollie]

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[Mollie]

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[Tiffy-Bean]

I like the look of your board, but it is a lot to take in all at once. Perhaps you might want to have some kind of cover page or something for guests that gives the short synopsis of the story line so they know whether or not its the type of story line people are looking for. I mean reading through, it sounds like an awesome story line but I feel like there was nothing that's an attention-grabber for potential new players. Especially since message board story lines are very time consuming. We all know that, so I feel like you need something eye catching to convince people to stay and sign up.

[Mollie]

Jul 30, 2015 20:11:18 GMT -8 Tiffy-Bean said:

I like the look of your board, but it is a lot to take in all at once. Perhaps you might want to have some kind of cover page or something for guests that gives the short synopsis of the story line so they know whether or not its the type of story line people are looking for. I mean reading through, it sounds like an awesome story line but I feel like there was nothing that's an attention-grabber for potential new players. Especially since message board story lines are very time consuming. We all know that, so I feel like you need something eye catching to convince people to stay and sign up.

Will fiddle about with some things to see how this looks and how my users feel