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A massively brutal critique of Camelot Unchained's website
Hokibukisa
Member Posts: 185
A massive critique on camelotunchained.com
I'll try to keep this short and let the pictures do the talking. This critique is brutal and unforgiving, but I promise to leave positive suggestions later on tonight.
Your website is very important. (VERY) Before someone will pledge you can bet they will come to your website looking for information.
Most important (and bare minimum of expectations) information to provide:
1) What the game is about.
2) Features of the game, why be interested in this one over all the rest.
3) Media, screenshots, concept art, teasers, interviews.
Let us take a journey of an interested person that visits your website.
I scan the page looking for something interesting. Finding nothing of interest, I more than likely press the back button, but lets pretend I click the "Features" tab.
Clicking on the features tab brings me to page that isn't about features, but might as well have been named "Stuff".
The things most interesting on the page are the media ones, videos and concept art.
I click on videos and watch the animated/slideshow teaser. That is literally the extent of the media to be found on the website.
Underwhelmed and unimpressed, I go back looking for more. The only other potentially interesting thing being the "Foundation Principles".
This is actually a more digestible view than the actual foundation principles page. Assuming there are a finite amount of principles, they need not be displayed in a news feed fashion.
Assuming I am a fanboy, I might actually click on these and read them despite the headline. But because I'm roleplaying a normal human being right now, I will look at the picture and headline and that will decide if I read the article. Actually I don't know if these are articles or features yet. I'm still hopeful that they are features. Realizing that the images have nothing to do with the captions, I scan the captions, attractive images first, to see if theres anything that sounds interesting.
Because most of the headlines read like the beginnings of a rant or hashing out the beginnings of an idea (which is what they are), as a normal human being I more than likely close the tab at this point. But if I'm just the stubbornest web user in the world, determined to find information about some fucking game thats trying to raise $2 million, I click one of the FP's and read it.
Ok so the FP's is the last chance you get on your website to get the attention of the user and get them excited about the project. Most people don't click the news tab, thats why the latest news is usually put on THE FRONT PAGE of websites.
So I'm met with a wall of text. Again as a normal user, I click the back button at a wall of text. I just wanted some bullet points on a feature. If that interests me, I'll read your goddamn wall of text. Ok so lets pretend that the user has literally nothing else to do so they read the wall.
Ok. Great. Mark Jacobs doesn't like gold sellers. Granted not all of the FP's are this uninteresting, you mixed the good ones in with stuff that nobody cares about. God forbid they read that first, if they do, they are gone and not looking back. Though it is highly unlikely they even made it to the FP's in the first place.
I'd have some super quick and awesome ways to help you fix this website and kickstarter if you actually had some content to provide written down somewhere, but you don't. Its sprinkled across the FP's and hours of interviews.
I shit you not MJ/CSE, your kickstarter would have already hit $2 million if you were prepared. Yes I is mad bro, frustrated with how unprepared you are.
Even if you have an ace up your sleeve to present at $1 million, with the state of your public website as such a shoddy clusterfuck and lack of information about the game I am surprised we made it to $1 million in retrospect.
Should have been a $3 million to $5 million KS.
Comments
Nanulak
....Being Banned from MMORPG's forums since 2010, for Trolling the Trolls!!!
Literally takes about 3 seconds to figure out it is a wordpress site with a theme called smartstart that has been modified.
I personally have nothing against wordpress in general, I use it for some of my own clients who have very little knowledge about anything web related or very little time/money to spend so discounting a site on that basis alone is not really fair. My guess is they went that route to concentrate their clearly limited resources (related to this project at least) on things that make sense in the short term. While it doesn't have the pop that many imagine it should, one must remember what stage their process is actually at.
It's good to press some tough love but isn't this sort of thing to be expected with a small company? Maybe once the kickstarter is funded, they will get it done professionally.
(though I do think your critique is very much needed for potential backers)
Wordpress is fine, there is nothing wrong with a canned solution, its what I recommend to friends because $money$.
And I know MJ and CSE aren't web developers or marketers its not their thing.
But you can't overlook not having any content. Theres no content, no concept art, boring teaser, the interviews aren't there.
If you ask someone else for money, be it interviewing for a job or funding a project, you need to sell your idea. The biggest problem is the idea is a chore to find on CU.com. And CU's idea is pretty vague and sparse if you even know the details. But the details are spread out through 13 essays and hours of interviews.
They can fix their website. Its not hard. Thats why we critique, so that change can be made based on the critique.
If there is any doubt to how important your website is when you're trying to sell an idea, let there be no doubt.
If mistakes are made, better to voice it now, when there is plenty of time to fix the problem, than wait to the end of the KS and have a whiney retrospect.
Lets point out the problems now, I think there is plenty of time left. Yeah it could have been a $3 - $5 million KS if things were prepared correctly, but theres still time to patch things up for a $2 million KS.
Have to agree with most of the OP. The whole bottom of the first page, with the whirling scrolling banners, should be information people search through once they've decided they want to learn more.
Take that out, give a succint description of the game, what you want it to be, and why it should be Kickstarted.
Put all the rest of that stuff under the Feature tab, but maybe rename it DESIGN PHILOSOPHIES.
The home, or landing page, should entice people to learn more and excite them enough to keep clicking.
Such a shame none of you people that are telling this company what to do actually work for that company. I mean with all your ideas everything is bound to work out, right?
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!
If you get a bad piece of meat at a restaurant, would you go to the chef and say, "This is rancid, but I'm not gonna tell you that, cuz I don't work here?"
Once again peopel confusing how investments and projects work.
This is not a website for a developing game. This is a website for a game seeking funding for development. They're not going to waste money and resources creating videos and screenshots and art assets for a game that may not get developed.
All the information you need to make your decision is contained within the foundational principles. If you're too lazy, ignorant, or stupid to read it, thats not their problem, and as you can see from kickstarter, they're clearly not having issues with funding.
So guess what that makes you.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
...point is they SHOULD of had thier own website or design for the game by now.......I mean I can come up with some great concepts and ideas and say if i get funded ill hire some great designers and artist......see the point yet?
....Being Banned from MMORPG's forums since 2010, for Trolling the Trolls!!!
You are correct......to a degree...
45 minutes spent laying out he site properly using existing content could mean a world of difference!
also home page should scream what the game is about and what everyone is missing without it being published
Yup. That Massively review is so irrelevant to me rigth now.
(¯`v?¯) Sophie Breca (?.?¯`?.*?¯`*
`*.?.*? Streamer at MMORPG.com
(\__/)?.?.* DAoC PC Staff?)?.*?)
(="."=) (?.? twitter.com/SophieBreca (?.?
(")_(")youtube.com/user/sophiebreca
facebook.com/user/eaderbreca
I'm a backer, so, not sure what that makes me except...a backer.
The point was for people who know nothing at all about the game. The website should invite them in and be easy to use. You don't need much more than what they have, they just need to organize it a little.
Also, the funding is good so far, but it looks to be all hard core people making high pledges. The number of backers is low for as much money as they've pledged, which leaves a huge hole on the bottom tiers. If a bunch of people change their minds and lower their pledges, it could pull the rug right out from this thing. It would be much better to get the number of backers up and have lower pledges. That's why you need people who just learned of the game to pledge. They'll throw in 25 bucks or so if it's something they are quickly turned on by.
Thanks for the ad hominem attack, though.
Appreciate the free publicity!
"The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about."
and this high handed atitude is where the real issue is.
the problem here is the difficulty for average people to get iinformation wwho arnt already intrested in the game, because until you become intrested in it you wont do research on it, so unless someone gets you intrested you wont ever become that.
saying that thats its not thier problem is just wrong because it is, by not putting on clear concise information for non fan boys to understand you are cutting off huge amount off possable intrest and more backers.
ANY person looking to get someone to invest in thier project would have out togther a good portfolio before presenting it, why should the gameing community as a whole not get the same respect.
F2P may be the way of the future, but ya know they dont make them like they used to
Proper Grammer & spelling are extra, corrections will be LOL at.
I was thinking that if the FPs had bullet points or better summaries they would be much easier to read and might attract more attention.
This is exactly the kind of fan service that will see this game unfunded. You're your own worst enemy and you don't even see it.
1) Creating a compelling presentation is step one. It isn't wasting money. A basic about and features page should have come before foundation principles because its more important. There is already concept art, its just a bunch of dragons and characters of the team.
2) It isn't enough information because there are plenty of people waiting for more information.
3) Oh yes it is CSE's problem, it is precisely their problem if people aren't reading the FP's. Did that sound cool in your head when you were thinking it? Cause you couldn't have made a more incorrect statement.
4) 1 million in a week might seem like this is a guaranteed success but the interested parties already blew their load, and pledges aren't coming in fast enough now. But their is plenty of time to recover, so I don't see why people like you are so resistant to any and all suggestions. Hope over strategy?
Most here would do it for free even.
Website clearly illustrates artists / engineers are not marketing people and don't understand selling something occurs in the first 30 seconds.
I've had the same issue at both my companies... artists / engineers forget the operations people actually need to make products and sell / move products out the door. They spend soooo much time "tweaking" things and don't understand how their paycheck is created.
Because there cannot be a portfolio without backing first. That's what we're here for.
If someone wants information to get interested in the game, all that should attract the right community is there.
Not convinced? Then CU is not for you, move on and get out.
Criticizing the website at such an advanced stage is childish net picking.
(¯`v?¯) Sophie Breca (?.?¯`?.*?¯`*
`*.?.*? Streamer at MMORPG.com
(\__/)?.?.* DAoC PC Staff?)?.*?)
(="."=) (?.? twitter.com/SophieBreca (?.?
(")_(")youtube.com/user/sophiebreca
facebook.com/user/eaderbreca
umm no in pretty much any bussness a portfolio come before production because starting production without knowing what the hell your makeing first is silly.
and once agian HOW CAN YOU WANT INFORMATION FOR SOMETHING BEFORE INTREST
this is the kind of high handed thinking that is rileing me, why cant people understand this,
F2P may be the way of the future, but ya know they dont make them like they used to
Proper Grammer & spelling are extra, corrections will be LOL at.
I considered offering to see if I could come up with something better. but im pulling a 12 hour shift tomorrow and have network+ classss the rest of the week.