Ryzom

We are currently working on an engine update of the Ryzom.com website.
This will bring a number of new features, which I discuss below. Most of it is still work in progress, but at least you'll know where we are aiming at.

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I] What's new?
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a) New Engine

The look&feel of Ryzom.com is kept as is, but the engine behind it changes completely for something more robust and extensible. We use Plone, a content management framework (http://plone.org/), which is already used on the Ring website.

b) Presentation of the Game for New Players

Currently, new players have to really search a lot on the website to know what Ryzom is about. We address this by refactoring the home page to display the key strenghts of the game on top of the news, linked to a features page made more readable and more complete. A small video is also included on the front page, to make it more attractive and entertaining.

c) Community news & content

You will be able to submit your own news and content (videos, tutorials, reports, screenshots, etc.). The content will only be visible once it has been moderated by us, and be published under the FDL (texts) and the Ryzom Fan Art license (others, like screenshots, movies, etc.).

e) Integrated comments

Instead of creating a dedicated feedback thread by hand on the forum every time we publish a news, we'll have comments directly on the news.

f) Open-sourced development

To benefit from open source qualities (external contributions, better integration of the users' needs), we'll use a open-sourced development method; which means:

- The modifications to the Plone engine will be released under the GPL and available from the public CVS
- The development site (nightly build) is open to all
- The developers' bugtracker is open to all

g) Chronicles

The Chronicles articles are moving to Ryzom.com, to make them more easily accessible to everyone, and a fourth section is added.

f) Other features

- Search engine (and LiveSearch)
- Calendar
- News icons
- RSS feeds


II] Development & Tests
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We are approaching the end of the development phase, but what remains is a lot of polishing, tests and debug. That's where we'll need your help!
You can have a look at the current development version of the website:

And whenever you see a bug or have a suggestion, enter it in the public bugtracker (if it's not already in there):

You will need to create an account there if you do not already have one.
Btw, this bugtracker is also used by the web development team to track its progress, you might thus find its content interesting to you too.

Comments welcomed!

--
Xavier.

Niiiiiiiice

Will have a closer look

Edit: Allready found a small Bug. My did Comment appear in doubble.
And some Buttons are to small for their texts.
But where´s the Tracker?

Acridiel

So is this gunna be part of a new really big advertisement push?
If not, pretty and shiney as it is, looks like a big waste of time to me. >_>

Edit: Page loading is now laaame, gotta lose that .gif movie dudes, its horrific!
Try flash maybe. http://www.ryzom.com/forum/images/smilies/tongue.gif

OMG! It's so NICE

Xavier, the new site looks very good. There is one feature I miss though: integration with in-game guild forum.

the link to the ring is nicely done, but needs to be emphasized, perhaps by putting real tab borders around it and the ryzom log?
also it needs a counterpart on the ring-site that leads back or it'll be pretty pointless.

next gripe: resolution! the page is 91 pixels too wide for a proper 1024x768 screen (+(20-50) for the scrollbar) and thus forces vertical scrolling. (get some older monitors there, not everyone has as much cash as you do, yo! )

about the video: add a play button that, when clicked, triggers a javascript that sets the image source to the url of the actual gif, much nicer on people with old/slow systems/browsers and/or bandwidth restrictions.

graphics: it's nice to have shiny and funky graphics, but i think it's bad practise to use enhanced or specially generated graphics as advertising, even tho such graphics can never be seen in the actual game. (especially so, when the game graphics are already quite nice...)

the news, chronicles, and what's up(o_O) blocks on the side could use some inner borders, they look pretty cheap now.

could you hide the "+ADD" buttons for accoutns that do not have access rights?

using opera the fonts in the left menu are pretty ... tiny

please please please go without totally empty borders on the left and right side of the website this time, the are completely pointless and only make the user scroll more than actually necessary. some of us don't have gobs and gobs of free screen space to spare.

the section titles (presentation, news) could use a bump up in font-size, they are easily overlooked as it is now.

i think the email and print page buttons at the top are pretty pointless(hands up everyone who has EVER used such buttons to email or print a full webpage! ) and the language switches would look nicer, when integrated into the top banner.

the white search text-field looks a bit out of place, perhaps give it a frame or something? =)

some of the german buttons don't quite fit the images.

are we going to be able to log in on that site with our normal game/forum accounts?

where are the rss feeds? i've been waiting on that for ages!

ok, enough griping from me now, props for moving towards a dynamic system!

Edit: Page loading is now laaame, gotta lose that .gif movie dudes, its horrific!
Try flash maybe.

I like the GIF...no sound.

In any case, doesn't a GIF animation finish loading last?

xenofur wrote:the link to the ring is nicely done, but needs to be emphasized, perhaps by putting real tab borders around it and the ryzom log?
also it needs a counterpart on the ring-site that leads back or it'll be pretty pointless.

-snip lots of interresting comments-

Thanks - could I ask you you enter these points as tickets in the bugtracker ? It's easier to follow this way, and you'll get updates when we review them or work on them.

--
Xavier.

right, shoulda been a bit more attentive, sorry ^^;

edit: added them, leaves the last three points of my post above as actual questions/comments