Igohida | Realistic Wolves RPG | 1 Rate/1 Opinion

[LINDSEY]

Hello,

My name is ArmyWife/Lindsey and I am looking for rates on my newest forum, Igohida.

It is a wolf RPG with it's own creation story and world. I would love some thoughts and opinion to help us getting going.

WHAT WOULD I LIKE RATES? Well, I would love to know thoughts on the layout and appearance. Any ideas to help make it better and cleaner. I am interested in getting thoughts on the information of the board. I want to know what guest think when they read it and if any sudden questions come to mind when one is getting the information.

RATINGS: If you would like to give it a rating, please just do a 1-10, with 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest.

igohidawolves.boards.net

[Night]

Good evening!

Before I get into the review/opinion, I'd like to preface that I have been doing rping on ProBoards for the past 10ish years, so I have a little background. The other is that, like any review, this is my personal opinion, so please feel free to disregard anything! I'll be breaking my review into parts because it helps me to focus on what to look at. I'll be using the 1-10 scale that you requested while giving both pros and cons, and maybe suggestions if I have any.

Theme
Rating: 9
Pro: Normally, I am a stickler for themes. I like the fancy ones that look different, but for some reason, I find myself quite impressed with what you have done. It is a simple edit that gets everything across. While it is not what I am used to, it is really well done and visually pleasing to the eyes.
Con: The only thing I can see with the theme is the fact that it is not as fancy looking as what some people might be looking for. While I like the look, I don't know if a lot of potential members (specifically younger perhaps) would overlook your site based on the theme. I do wish to reiterate, I really like the way your theme looks.

Administrative Content (Rules, etc.)
Rating: 8
Pros: The Member/Guest Rules are fantastic. Well written and kept simple for all to understand. The Character Rules go in-depth for the world, making sure that everything is understood.
Cons: I felt as though some of the mechanics could be abused, namely the Force Breed and Steal. I did not see anything to make sure that that action can only occur if both roleplayers were okay with the event. I just saw, tag the proper people. I can just see this being abused because one person can start taking over/screwing over other characters which is no fun. If I misunderstood something, or more is posted elsewhere, then please disregard this and bump the rating up to 10.
Suggestions: In the Member/Guest Rules you mention a shoutbox at the bottom of the page, there is no shoutbox there, but in the sidebar. I saw two places to edit sentences, I make the same mistakes all the time when typing quickly. My edits are in capital letters. In the Character Guidelines, there is the line: If you are not finished with your APPLICATION, please post it in the Work in Progress Board and when done, we will move it to the Pending Board. The other is: This isn't to slow anyone down, but it helps us be able to focus on other members who are also posting applicationS.

Content (Story/Roleplay Information)
Rating: 10
Pros: I really only saw the creation story, and everything else had already been explained elsewhere or in the board descriptions.
Cons: I didn't really think of any.

Overall Rating: 10
I think it is a pretty solid site, has everything that is needed without all the bells and whistles. If I were planning on joining most of my questions are already answered by what is provided. I don't know what more you are looking for, but Igohida looks like a good place to be.

[LINDSEY]

Night,

First I want to say Thank You very much for your rates and opinions. I take all outside help can get, so any suggestions are taken very seriously and I try to use them if I can. So again, thank you very much!

THEME: It was probably the hardest choice I had to make when it came to finding the right look I wanted for the launch of the forum. It was between this and a possible desert like theme, which I think I will try for my next theme once we continue in on any future plots. I hope to get your opinion on that theme as well one day. I wanted to keep it simple, mostly because I am AWFUL at themes and not very good at coding. I can do very simple things, but my knowledge of making the forum any fancier is limited. I have lots of ideas, but don't know how to put them into action because I don't have the knowledge to do it without possibly messing it up. I seriously hope that one day, a designer takes pity on me and joins and volunteers their time to help me either learn or just become our full time designer.

ADMINISTRATIVE CONTENT: Thank you for the compliment on the rules and guides. It helps to know that they are understood by an outsider checking us out and I didn't royal screw them up. As for the Force Breed and Steal, I think the whole randomness of the thought was what propelled me to place it in the site. But, knowing that people are going to want to combat those actions, was why I put in the "Roll Dice" system, to allow members a chance to protect their characters in the event of someone trying to Force Breed or Steal their characters. I also put a time-limit that would mean their character wouldn't have to stay in their situation longer than 30 days. But thank you for bring it up, because that brings to my knowledge that I could put a disclaimer stating it would be beneficial to talk to the player prior and putting a 30-60 safety time frame so that people won't steal the character back right away. So, again Thank You very much for that. Those errors you saw have been corrected, so thank you for that as well.

CONTECT: At the moment, the only "history" for the site is in the creation story. I am hoping as we grow to add more history to the site, maybe even get ideas from our members, that way we can have loads of fun together. Thank you so much for taking the time to check it out.

OVERALL: Thank You for Everything! I am hoping to one day add some of those 'bells and whistles', but I certainly didn't want to overload the forum to quickly and early on. I am happy to know it is pleasing and seems to have good content. I was worried for a bit as I didn't get much activity at the beginning, but I am hoping to see it grow.

[LINDSEY]

Bump

[LINDSEY]

Bump

[ᴘʀɪɴᴄᴇ ᴄᴜᴘɪᴅ]

Hello LINDSEY, I am an experienced roleplayer, forum admin, and theme designer/creator! Reiterating what night said, this is all my opinion and I mean no offense!

theme:

Overall, it is a fairly simplistic dark theme with a nice colour scheme and consistent fonts. I'll go through each thing I notice as I browse (I'll try to keep it short).

    So the first thing I notice when I enter the forum is the dimensions of the skin + the borders. Now I don't know if this is intentional or just a sizing issue that differs per screen size, but for me there are two pale grey bars on either side of the skin. Not a problem, but interesting that the background image doesn't stretch. The banner is also interesting to me, because it is rather dim and almost looks like the transparency has been changed on it? I can understand from a stylistic point of view but it does seem odd upon first glance. Also with the banner, I can't help but notice the very bright and obvious credit in the top corner which is of course great, but not very subtle and jumps out. I would recommend making it a little paler, or finding creative commons images that don't require credit.

    Now the mini-profiles are interesting, since from what I can see most members do not have the right size hover image and have not changed the actual profile picture. Plus there is a lot of empty space underneath the hover image that doesn't seem to be serving any purpose. I would recommend changing the mini-profile to be smaller, or adding some site-relevant sections to it.

rules + info:

The rules seem fairly clear, if a little blunt at times. From experience, I don't think you need to threaten members with account deletion over the one account per member rule, as long as you make it clear most users will see and understand. Personally I have never had a problem with people thinking sites are account per character when they are not.

    The layout of the rules is a little complicated with blocks of text containing rules rather than a bulleted list, which is much easier to scan and viewers are less likely to get lost reading it. I would also recommend changing the order so the most important rules are first, since the setting isn't exactly a rule and doesn't seem as important as one account per person or pg-13.

    Your character guidelines are formatted a little better with the bulleted list, but still contain a lot of text. Now I have never done a wolf roleplay and cannot judge, but from a quick glance it does seem like there are a lot of character rules, but that could just be because of the phrasing which makes it all seem very long. Guests tend to have a very short attention span, and will glance over to see if there is anything they are used to/can quickly understand. Maybe change the phrasing and organisation so, once again, the most important things come first.

structure:

On my forums and the ones I design I am generally very picky about the structuring, but yours seems to be very good. You have placed the most important boards first, and have named everything clearly.

    Yet there are a few names that I am not a fan of. First of all there is the 'suggestions and complaints' board which seems very negative. I'm not sure I've ever seen a board that actively asks members to complain about things. Maybe change it to something more positive, such as 'help + suggestions'? There are also two archives boards, one for character things and one for general threads. This could get confusing for you and future staff members, so I would definitely say combine them into one board with sub-sections.

    I also couldn't help but notice there are a lot of roleplaying boards. This may not be a good idea for a small and fairly new forum, since when guests are browsing they will see many of the boards have no posts. Personally, if I am browsing a forum and there are only a few roleplaying boards yet all of them are full of posts, the place will at a glance seem more active and less cluttered.

overall:

I would say it is a nice forum that looks inviting and would make one more curious about joining. The rules are simple if you have the time to browse through them all, and it seems that there have been a lot of considerations put into the story and functioning. I'd give the site a 7/10 total. If you ever need any help with the skin/structuring let me know and I'd be happy to help.

[LINDSEY]

ᴘʀɪɴᴄᴇ ᴄᴜᴘɪᴅ ,

First I want to say Thank You very much for your rates and opinions. I take all outside help can get, so any suggestions are taken very seriously and I try to use them if I can. So again, thank you very much! And no, I don't take offense to any helpful thoughts or opinions, your tips and opinions were helpful, so I will attempt in my spare time to implement some of them.

THEME: I actual did not intend to do that, but on my computer(and yes I understand on others people's computer it may look different) there were two gray strips on both sides and it ended up looking really cool(in my opinion). I'd love to see a screenshot from your prospective. I kept having upload issues when the background was over a certain size and finally found the exact size it would upload, but that is what it did. On my end, it looks pretty cool centered with two strips to both sides, but if there is a different on others, it might need to be changed. I will find that background again and redo it. The banner was done intentionally. I was using one of the color codes to give it a slight hue over-top of it because it didn't quite look right with just a plain image. But, I could change it and with the credit at the top, it does look off and I'll have to redo the image to move it. Again, something I will have to do when I have a little more time. The skin/theme is VERY new, so not all my members have change their stuff. I have tried to change some of mine to get as close as possible until I find something I really like. I actual added some stuff, but for some reason, it didn't all show up. I will go back and see what is going on.

RULES & INFORMATION: Ah, I didn't think about some of it being blunt. Thank You. I will go ahead and fix that one part you pointed out and rework the rules as well over time. Maybe one thing at a time. I did move the forum setting to the bottom of the rules, because I did want that somewhere they can see it for sure in the information. I will see about making some of the information smaller, but I do know that with some animal RPGS, things do need to be explained, but I will try and reword some stuff throughout the next few months before I go on a little hiatus to have my little one. I tried to separate the character information as much as possible so they could come back and check out certain things like "Challenging" information is something they could come back to later.

STRUCTURE: I am happy the structure looks good I will change the suggestions and complaints to help & suggestions. I didn't think about that when I made it. Thank You for pointing that out. I moved the character archives to a subboard in the archive board at the bottom. I wanted each region to have some boards, but I will make a thread or two in the region without any threads. Out of 13 rp boards, we have 7 boards being posted in, so not too bad. But I do see your point. I will also talk to my members, as a few have a few new characters coming out soon.

OVERALL: Thank you again so very much for all the input and I will start working on some of it. I'd love help with any skin/structure aspect. I am really not very good at it and simple things are my best option when it comes to making sites. I just don't have the knowledge to make a good skin/images.

[JD]

Hey LINDSEY,

Good Points:

Clear layout, well thought through - didn't have any difficulty finding anything. It was all where I expected it to be.

Colours are nice and easy to read, no headaches, no issues.

All the information seems to make sense. I've never rped on a wolf board so I have no idea what roleplayers of that kind would be expecting but it seemed to all be logical to me. Little interested as to why there's only one mother and two fathers in the great spirits but I'm sure that's explained somewhere... (functioning on very few hours sleep at the moment lol).


Points for Improvement:

Give yourself a favicon - personally, I always think a bad one is always better than none at all, and it gets rid of your Proboards default icon in the browser tabs. For me, I just feel like the default icon screams newcomer...

Your font is all the basic default font too. Sometimes just the tiniest change - maybe Lato or Open Sans? - can make a board look 100 times more professional/unique than the standard Proboards font.

Your member accounts message in the rule thread reads a little... threatening? Kinda "change it or we will!" I would mention that 90% of roleplay forums (at least the ones that I've seen) are account per character, not account per member, so I would go a little easy on the people who might be nervous about getting their login right... Your tone might not help with that...

I know you said that your forum is for the members and that you aren't imposing strict posting rules with regards to Activity but I encourage you to consider putting in some kind of general idea. A couple of posts every few weeks maybe? Only, at the moment - when you say it could be every day, you may be scaring off those who post slower and when you say it could be every month or longer, you may be putting off the people who want to roleplay more rapidly and don't want to wait. What I'm saying is, by having no posting activity rules at all, you might be turning off both types of roleplayers. Putting something a little flexible but at least specific, might stop this from happening...

In your creation story - you need to put another linebreak in before each of the first sub-headings. At the moment, they're squished up against the intro paragraph and I actually missed them the first skim read through that I did, and it was quite confusing. I would pop in a new line break so that each of the sub paragraphs are clear.

On the main page, I would advise creating a separate advertising board that is actually called advertising. One of your best ways to get more people to the site is through those who come to advertise their own and, when you're a hardcore admin with a hardcore advertising policy, you don't have time to faff about looking for the appropriate board - you'll just skip that site. And then you'll potentially miss out on the affiliation and the link backs.

The sides of the forum look very blank. Perhaps you could put a faded background image in them or something? Only, at the moment, it looks like my screen had been weird and readjusted the forum to be skinny and had just left these two bars of blank greyness. If you were to make them faded grey trees or something like that? This would work better. Just to clarify - don't make your forum wider - it looks good the way it is and looks nice and organised and snug against the boards. But I personally would definitely put something in those grey areas...

I would highly recommend choosing a logo image that doesn't have an obvious copyright tag across the top. If you have to credit an artist, I would put it at the bottom of the forum with any other credits you have - not splashed across the top of your logo. A forum is often judged by how much effort there appears to have been put into it and - while I'm sure this is not the case - having a copyright over an image just makes it look like you couldn't be bothered to go and find one that is free for use... If it helps, pixabay.com is a great site for copyright free high-res images

With regards to images... the boards are a little.... boring. While I like their layout and you don't have to put images into each and every board, might I suggest some images for each of your categories? This would break up the site at particular points, make it look less "samey" and give your members a visual idea of what each of the areas look like. This would be particularly useful to a newcomer to wolf rps who doesn't really know what their doing and might be nervous about getting descriptions wrong. A picture to reference would be helpful to them.


I think that's all I can come up with at the moment... Like I said, not much sleep going on here... Sorry if any of this sounds harsh, as I do think your site is very good... I'm just not the kind of person to list all the things someone doesn't have to change because they're great. I'd rather just focus on areas of improvement because that's why we're all here right?

Like your site, like your content, would like it even more if the above changes were made to make it seem that little bit more original

Hope this helps!