The Ryzom website gets a makeover!

[Yumeroh]

Ryzom announces today's launch of its new website http://www.ryzom.com :

• A new design, more suitable for the world of Ryzom
• New graphics
• Faster loading
• Better readability

Come discover it now at http://www.ryzom.com and tell us what you think about it !

[ajsuk]

[katriell]

Not bad. I can finally hand out the ryzom.com link without feeling ashamed.


But please fix the title...

"Ryzom MMORPG - RPG - Is the best FRENCH 3D role-play and role playing PC game playable online."
What? ...What?
Who cares that it's French.
Why did you use both "MMORPG" and "RPG"? "Role-play" and "role playing"? Search engine optimization? Leave that to the meta tags. This clutter reeks of unprofessionalism.

My suggestion for a better title:
"Ryzom | the 3D science-fantasy MMORPG | freedom and roleplaying"
Not much shorter, but more succinct and descriptive.

Ryzom is the best French Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. Ryzom is an MMORPG set 30.000 years in the future, on a living, evolving world: beautiful Atys!

This would benefit from a little rewording, like so:

Ryzom is the best French "sandbox"-style Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. It is set 30,000 years in the future on a living, evolving world: beautiful Atys...

And the next three paragraphs, to flow better and portray things more accurately, should also be changed:

BUT BEWARE!
Although seemingly calm and serene, Atys is an untamed and dangerous world. Among its perils are the Kitin: gigantic mutated insects who once destroyed civilization...

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!
Two powerful, opposed and mysterious forces:
The Kami - Mystical spirits safeguarding nature
The Karavan - Technologically advanced soldiers from outer space
They struggle for domination of the living planet and vie for the loyalty of its denizens. To whom will you give your loyalty, if anyone?

JOIN THE SAGA
Come and discover the hidden mysteries of this world. Be careful, however; your choices can impact not only you, but the rest of the world as well!

Never use more than one exclamation mark, by the way.

FREE Download of our MMORPG & 21 day FREE trial, no credit card needed, sign up in less than 60 seconds! Enjoy...

This would benefit from a little rewording, like so:

FREE download of our MMORPG and 21 day FREE trial, no credit card needed! Sign up in less than 60 seconds and enjoy...

Download & Register
21-day free trial,
Sign up in 60 seconds!

You know the drill...

Download & Register
21-day free trial
Sign up quickly and easily!

Navigation menu ought to be less wordy and more logically organised. Here you go:

Home
Download
System Requirements
Features
Create: Ryzom Ring
Game Manual
Support
Subscription Options
Account Login
Goodies
RP Center
Web Applications
Forums
Developer Blog
Ryzom on Facebook
Ryzom on Twitter

And that's all this nitpicker has to say about the homepage.

[final60]

There are some issues with the site :S

9 css errors, 101 html errors!

Theres something unoriginal about the design. It is too basic i think..
Perhaps change the brown background to the original starry night one?
Why not a flash menu on the side like this one. The contents sits flat on the background. Why not incorporate the new ui theme into the site?
You could have encorporated alot of api functions into the site, especially the front page..there is too much text.

Its dissapointing, you should have asked for help, I would have done this for free.

[katriell]

Agreed, they should have at least asked for feedback on a mockup before finalising and implementing the design.

I'm curious what you mean about incorporating API functions, Final. It's not as if Ryzom has much that could be translated into that form for tracking and showing off. Maybe outpost ownership, but that's neither important enough nor very dynamic. So...?

[cdruzin]

The text in nearly every part of the site is too close to its container's edge, so it looks crowded and a bit cluttered. The main river of content has no real structure or thought put into it on sub-pages like Features. Things are just "slopped" in there.

Overall it's much better than the older site, but still needs some tweaking to be top notch imo.

[cielchan]

I suggest to scrap this page aswell and take a clean and simple layout e.g. the one from the chronicle pages. It didn't get better imho.

[gcaldani]

LOL, Raph Koster was really right: no matter what you do, players will never be happy.

Well, the new site is better than the previous and this is enough for me to grats the devs.

[phazer]

amateurhaftig wuerde guenter netzer sagen...

[cdruzin]

Originally Posted by gcaldani

LOL, Raph Koster was really right: no matter what you do, players will never be happy.

It's not a matter of pleasing everyone, it's a matter of good design and layout. Content flow and management. It's the little things, the details that separate a decent design from a good design.

Using the game features sub-page as an example:

1. Right/left align some of those pictures that are just floating in the middle with huge empty gaps around them.

2. Move the "Overview of our MMORPG" list into it's own column next to the 3 blocks of text above it. So a 2-column layout for that section that shows the same amount of information, but doesn't look as spread out and empty.

3. Add more padding around items. When text is too close to it's container element's border, it looks sloppy and crowded.

4. The code behind it all can be cleaned up. There is a ul inside a table for no apparent reason. Way too many br tags. And so on.

Those a just a few things you could do to that page to spiff it up and make it look more professional. That would take maybe 15 minutes to do all that. With a little more time you could make even more tweaks to that page alone.

I'm not saying all this to complain. I love that they updated the site. And I'm not talking out my butt. I've been a Web developer for 14+ years. I just want the site to be as professional as possible. I love this game and want more people to discover how awesome it is. The Web site is THE place to make a good first impression on potential new players. If it looks half-baked, that will not be an accurate representation of the game itself.