Updates to the website of wesnoth?
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Updates to the website of wesnoth?
The website of Wesnoth can be found here:
https://www.wesnoth.org/
In general I think the website is nice. The layout is visually appealing, people will quickly find what
they want (if it exists), or quickly be able to download the game, possibly also on mobile (I use oldschool desktop computers, so my monitor is not really width-constrained that much). On the bottom of the homepage we have the visual designer for the homepage mentioned:
Iris Morelle and Iris is a very good designer. You can see that on her blog as well - check out the
sprite creation GUI too: https://irydacea.me/projects/wespal/ - the sprites are neat. I don't know how
easy it is to use (I am lousy at visual design, including sprites; my mind is more adjusted to try to
get the computer to create art for me instead)
Anyway.
Most of my time in regards to wesnoth relates to campaigns, to add-ons in particular. There are
many REALLY great add-ons. Playing them is great - in general I recommend to any newcomer
to Wesnoth, after having played the core game (mainline), to also try out the add-ons. There is
content to be found for many playing sessions, in my opinion.
Having said that, if you have this as a background (objective), e. g. "what awesome add-ons
exist", then the homepage currently does not offer anything here. That is, if you want to know
more about add-ons, the website does not have a link or anything like that about it.
There are some workarounds to this of course:
- Play the game and download/search add-ons. This is what I usually do.
- Check the forum and read up on stuff. This is probably the variant that may be better, if you
have time to do the research; you'll eventually have a list of hopeful-addons and scenarios
to give it a try. Only drawback is that it takes time, and when you have to work 24/7, time is
becoming a very limited resource.
I would like to thus propose two changes in the long term for the homepage. I am not sure if anyone
may read this, but perhaps a few may do eventually, and if at some later point in time, months or a
few years from now on, someone may consider updates to the homepage, perhaps these two items
could be considered.
----------------------------------------------------
(1) Statistics
One link I'd love to see is statistics.
With statistics I mean anything that could be of interest to players. E. g. "total number of
campaigns: 153; currently maintained: 101".
Hall of Fame: Top Ten developers. (Note: I understand this may lead to competition and
perhaps not everyone is ok with that; I could understand that. But even then I think it
would be nice to know which folks create the most. This could be opt-in only, meaning,
for a campaign creator to be shown, that creator has to specifically click on a button or
so and only then would he be shown on the additional tab on the homepage. It does
not need to be called "Top Ten" either, it could simply be like a "pub" or "tavern" and
then people click on the name and see all add-ons of that developer, if the opt-in
was agreed. In other words, only if a campaign developer is ok with it, would there
be a link to the campaigns. This leads me to (2) the more important request.)
(2) I'd love to have some kind of link such as "Add-Ons" or campaigns, where all
campaigns are listed, with sublinks, and then "sub-homepage", briefly describing
the campaign. Here, the download starts could also be shown; I know this is shown
in the GUI of the game itself, but I'd love to explore this via the browser too, as the
browser is so much faster. You could also extend this new add-on section too,
but for the purpose of this suggestion, I would like to keep it simple, that is, simply
a subpage with links to the add-ons. Perhaps also sorted alphabetically by default
and/or a sort function, just like the in-game sorting works.
Anyway, I hope someone can give this a bit of thought. Right now the homepage
mentions campaign only twice in the text, and no add-on links or anything is shown,
which I think is also unfortunate because add-ons are, in my opinion, one area where
wesnoth really shines - just the sheer creativity or unique stories that can be found,
as well as unique things (e. g. unique progression paths of some hero-units, which
I think is great, reminds me a bit of e. g. diablo 2 or so). Hopefully someone can
consider this in the long run.
https://www.wesnoth.org/
In general I think the website is nice. The layout is visually appealing, people will quickly find what
they want (if it exists), or quickly be able to download the game, possibly also on mobile (I use oldschool desktop computers, so my monitor is not really width-constrained that much). On the bottom of the homepage we have the visual designer for the homepage mentioned:
Iris Morelle and Iris is a very good designer. You can see that on her blog as well - check out the
sprite creation GUI too: https://irydacea.me/projects/wespal/ - the sprites are neat. I don't know how
easy it is to use (I am lousy at visual design, including sprites; my mind is more adjusted to try to
get the computer to create art for me instead)
Anyway.
Most of my time in regards to wesnoth relates to campaigns, to add-ons in particular. There are
many REALLY great add-ons. Playing them is great - in general I recommend to any newcomer
to Wesnoth, after having played the core game (mainline), to also try out the add-ons. There is
content to be found for many playing sessions, in my opinion.
Having said that, if you have this as a background (objective), e. g. "what awesome add-ons
exist", then the homepage currently does not offer anything here. That is, if you want to know
more about add-ons, the website does not have a link or anything like that about it.
There are some workarounds to this of course:
- Play the game and download/search add-ons. This is what I usually do.
- Check the forum and read up on stuff. This is probably the variant that may be better, if you
have time to do the research; you'll eventually have a list of hopeful-addons and scenarios
to give it a try. Only drawback is that it takes time, and when you have to work 24/7, time is
becoming a very limited resource.
I would like to thus propose two changes in the long term for the homepage. I am not sure if anyone
may read this, but perhaps a few may do eventually, and if at some later point in time, months or a
few years from now on, someone may consider updates to the homepage, perhaps these two items
could be considered.
----------------------------------------------------
(1) Statistics
One link I'd love to see is statistics.
With statistics I mean anything that could be of interest to players. E. g. "total number of
campaigns: 153; currently maintained: 101".
Hall of Fame: Top Ten developers. (Note: I understand this may lead to competition and
perhaps not everyone is ok with that; I could understand that. But even then I think it
would be nice to know which folks create the most. This could be opt-in only, meaning,
for a campaign creator to be shown, that creator has to specifically click on a button or
so and only then would he be shown on the additional tab on the homepage. It does
not need to be called "Top Ten" either, it could simply be like a "pub" or "tavern" and
then people click on the name and see all add-ons of that developer, if the opt-in
was agreed. In other words, only if a campaign developer is ok with it, would there
be a link to the campaigns. This leads me to (2) the more important request.)
(2) I'd love to have some kind of link such as "Add-Ons" or campaigns, where all
campaigns are listed, with sublinks, and then "sub-homepage", briefly describing
the campaign. Here, the download starts could also be shown; I know this is shown
in the GUI of the game itself, but I'd love to explore this via the browser too, as the
browser is so much faster. You could also extend this new add-on section too,
but for the purpose of this suggestion, I would like to keep it simple, that is, simply
a subpage with links to the add-ons. Perhaps also sorted alphabetically by default
and/or a sort function, just like the in-game sorting works.
Anyway, I hope someone can give this a bit of thought. Right now the homepage
mentions campaign only twice in the text, and no add-on links or anything is shown,
which I think is also unfortunate because add-ons are, in my opinion, one area where
wesnoth really shines - just the sheer creativity or unique stories that can be found,
as well as unique things (e. g. unique progression paths of some hero-units, which
I think is great, reminds me a bit of e. g. diablo 2 or so). Hopefully someone can
consider this in the long run.
- Atreides
- Posts: 1227
- Joined: March 30th, 2019, 10:38 pm
- Location: On the 2nd story of the centre village of Merwuerdigliebe turning the lights on and off
Re: Updates to the website of wesnoth?
The main page does have this:
"Tons of player-made content available from the official add-ons server (*): new campaigns, factions, and multiplayer maps with new and unique mechanics and artwork."
Maybe a link to addons.wesnoth.org could be inserted (*) here. In fact it almost screams out for it. It's HTML, it should have lotsa links... <grin>
I know, this page is meant as a welcome mat for people searching and they won't need that link per se but it might fascinate a fraction of them if they can immediately see how much of this "bonus material" exists. Can't hurt anyways. : )
"Tons of player-made content available from the official add-ons server (*): new campaigns, factions, and multiplayer maps with new and unique mechanics and artwork."
Maybe a link to addons.wesnoth.org could be inserted (*) here. In fact it almost screams out for it. It's HTML, it should have lotsa links... <grin>
I know, this page is meant as a welcome mat for people searching and they won't need that link per se but it might fascinate a fraction of them if they can immediately see how much of this "bonus material" exists. Can't hurt anyways. : )
- lhybrideur
- Posts: 434
- Joined: July 9th, 2019, 1:46 pm
Re: Updates to the website of wesnoth?
Adding a link to addons.wesnoth.org for the current version would be a great idea indeed.