The main thing is Clear and Quick Information at a glance. You're not really making a full introduction to your server, you're just giving them enough information to let them know if they would want to know more.
Animation, while annoying, is really much more effective. The average time someone spends on a page is less than 3 seconds sometimes. You don't want to bombard them with seizure inducing flashing banners but getting their attention is good.
I agree. Animation is an excellent device, but must be timed almost perfectly. Too fast and it'll make people dizzy, too slow and it'll just be ignored altogether.
Despite what Rekenber says, I still believe banners are incredibly important to recruiting players. The more an advert can grab attention/impress the better the chances of nabbing some d00d whos just browsing. Maybe not so much a searcher who has a determined criteria in his mind of the server he wants.
bright neon colors, super flashy images, excessive bragging (like we have 5000+ bla bla bla and super incredible bla bla bla), too cluttered, or too plain, and the fact that some banners simply just copy and paste one image, then do some effects, and slap on some fancy text
those are all the things i hate about banners XD
Flashy images ftl, but the bragging is completely necessary. Personally, I prefer banners with just the name and rates, but having some 5000 players is certainly something I want to get known. No one wants to play in a server with 2 people after all : P
#1 is pretty stylin'. I don't like the eyes much, but the cool background makes up for it.
#2 Average. Not really bad, but it doesn't exactly grab my attention either.
#3 Spams text. It's annoying and not something that I will ever read. Next.
#4 This one has good potential, but the juxtaposition of colors is a bit odd. That gaped-mouth chick is also unappealing. Too dark, too.
#5 Good but the text is too damned small! I don't have a clue what the animation is for either. 6/10
#6 is a good example of what you shouldn't do in an animation. Little useless lines of information at a slow pace makes for poor banners. Add that to the annoying, pink background and you have a craptastic banner.
#7 Scantily-clad chick ftw. Too bad I can't read the name of the server.
#8 That guy pisses me off. And the text is too slow and big.
#9 Blinking pisses me off; its going too fast. Background is messy and tangled-i can't make out anything. This fails.
#10 I completely ignored the flashing uber-fast text, not even gonna try. I can make out some sort of graphic at the right, but I dunno what it is. Fail.
#11 Good use of animation-its discreet. Needs more color and the text suxx0r.
#12 Interesting. Caught my attention at least, but I don't like the dark colors and the drawing in front is lacking. Another example of good animation too.
#13. The first slide with the chick is ok, but the second one totally screws it over.
