Server website appearance question

Started by MaybeImWrong, Jan 26, 2022, 09:05 PM

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When you are searching for a server, how important are the looks and functionality of said server website

Very Important
15 (65.2%)
Somewhat Important
6 (26.1%)
Not Important
0 (0%)
Other (Post your thoughts in comments)
2 (8.7%)

Total Members Voted: 23

MaybeImWrong

I just wanted to get some thoughts on how players make decisions specifically around a server website and its functionality.

yC

I think it is very important. 

As I check the RMS listed servers, I often see many servers using out of the box template without even fixing/removing/replacing the template text and links.  Like those facebook.com/<change me> and default RO information text, default video link ... just to name a few. 

How are players going to have confident playing a server with a rushed website, what's with all the hurry if the server is meant to be up for a long time? 

Oathkeeper

I think this is very important. Even if you're not a wizard with Javascript and HTML5 or PHP, you should try your best to either make (or hire someone who can make) good wireframes for your site that allows a user to get core information they need and a call to action.

You should without scrolling or interacting be able to scrape the following information:

  • What kind of server is it?
  • What makes this server worth playing or unique?
  • How do I download the server and join the community?

The professionalism of the staff will be judged the moment your webpage is loaded, sloppy presentation will turn people off real quickly and they will likely adopt the hypothesis that the staff is not up to running a server. You could have the fastest, strongest horse in the race, but if it looks like this, I don't think people are going to flock to it or trust it:

PokemonAscension

I agree in the importance of a good website. It shows the quality and effort put into the actual server itself. If you have a good website, often times the effort shows when you login the server and see all the work/customizations that were done.
99/70 | 1000+ Pokemon | Gym Leaders | Daily Instances | Random Options (All Items)

Neffletics

Yes, it's very important. The most important and critical aspect is the content; it must be substantial and correct. Many members of our community (SolaceRO) specifically mentioned 'grammar' when deciding whether or not to join a server. They do not consider joining the server if the owner cannot write properly in English. Those who can't write properly, according to their experience, make terrible community managers.
solacero rip

mrfizi

Quote from: yC on Jan 27, 2022, 05:52 PM
I think it is very important. 

As I check the RMS listed servers, I often see many servers using out of the box template without even fixing/removing/replacing the template text and links.  Like those facebook.com/<change me> and default RO information text, default video link ... just to name a few. 

How are players going to have confident playing a server with a rushed website, what's with all the hurry if the server is meant to be up for a long time?

Agreed. I have checked on new server on listing. It's okay if they use the free web template, but don't know why the link on each button/text is default. Only info, download and donation page is update  /hmm . If I'm the new player, the first step for choosing the server is the website is 100% function.

So, yes! This is the most important thing to do.
Ragna Tales: https://ragnatales.com - x10 x10 x5 [Renewal]

MaybeImWrong

Thank you all for the inputs, to add to the question, what are some features that you find should be a must in a server website, this is not including registration page and all the features that go along with that.

loki266

I think it's somewhat important. Sure it's nice to have a nice and unique website and those basic RO Pservers are awful, but the most important thing is to easily provide info of the server's features, preferably listing all custom content if it does have, skills changes, @commands, NPCs, and so on. I've skipped a dozen of servers with nice websites because it didn't provide enough info for me to decide if it's worth downloading it or not.

PokemonAscension

Quote from: MaybeImWrong on Jan 31, 2022, 03:06 PM
Thank you all for the inputs, to add to the question, what are some features that you find should be a must in a server website, this is not including registration page and all the features that go along with that.

Promotional Video on your website is an excellent way to showcase the highlights of your server features. Players can click and just watch a short 1-2 minutes video to get an idea of what they might be getting into.

Rankings is also a good idea to have, it showcases competition amongst the server and with the data always being updated, its a good indicator of the activity levels on the server
99/70 | 1000+ Pokemon | Gym Leaders | Daily Instances | Random Options (All Items)

Terpsichore

Looks are nice to have but functionality is more important.

It's easy to end in the pitfall of "modern" web design with fancy looking but slow and barely functional sites full of hovering popups and infinite scrolling, where finding the basic information and functions you need is a pain.

woero

Quote from: MaybeImWrong on Jan 26, 2022, 09:05 PM
I just wanted to get some thoughts on how players specifically decide on a server website and its functionality.

As a dev with 12+ years of experience, if not less (sorry for pushing you by "floating reputation factor").
I can say the following things:
1.) website design DOES NOT become important.
2.) how good your server DOES NOT essential.
3.) you can have a crappy bugged s*** emulator, tons of XSS, sqlinj, and main admin user/pass on the front page of your website for a hacker, without any anti-cheat, and so on and so on -> and this DOES NOT MATTER TOO.


It's your own will, trust me or not, but I verified every single experiment above by doing massive social, and not only experiments for my own research purposes.
Nothing changed since the beginning of the RO when websites were a set of marquee tags + built on green tables with a black background and white text.


There is no "success secret." Or "secret" at all.
The only important thing is - people players.


And about them (people interaction between each other, groups, cooperations, and so on) created thousands of books with research, tons of movies, tons of different pattern behavior analysis, marketing etc.
Humanity knows how people interact and can segment each player/person by his role/character and probably what he will do next. But this is a different discussion with professionally educated guys.
But in the RO world, all of that s*** does not matter at all.



Just if you started ->, keep doing. The only thing that I realize is working. It's "luck."
If you have good karma or call it whatever you want, and or if you have a community behind your back, and you have some "brand."
Only this s*** will work.



Again, I helped to organize a massive experiment many years ago.
Where were built PIECE OF s*** RO server, and the server with full of bugs, with tons of exploits, with tons of issues, lags, downtimes, and so on, and the server for the 2016 year WAS successful in the terminology of that time.


So returning to your question:

Quote
"I just wanted to get some thoughts on how players make decisions specifically around a server website and its functionality."

Some, of course, will. But most of them will not care because the only thing that matters is ONLINE.
Fake/not fake does not matter, people even will NOT check it in the game, they see numbers +3000 ONLINE, their minds are closed, blocked, and they run to try the s***.


They login to the empty prontera, play a month, and after a month, they say:
"you know what, at first i thought that players hiding from me on different dungeons, maps around main cities, and so on, but after 1 MONTH, i realize that these numbers are fake, and i will not continue to play".


And such experiment I with cooperation with some kind people did too, and results were damn crazy.
So if you go further related to your question in terms of "server owner" and plan to open the game server.
(just for a minute, thinking that you were planning to open RO server).

Just my small recommendations: do like you feel to do, and do not overthink. Everything like that in the RO market because there are "reasons" for that.

Brands and big bosses from big RO servers always will drain online because of the brand name from small servers. Small servers without brand and reputation have no chance to survive in 99% of cases. Plus, RMT players who are constantly searching for RO servers were to corrupt the server and sell goods in the game for real money because the RO is no longer a game for them. It's an 8/5/365 workplace with a salary, like a taxi driver.
Sorry for my wall of text. cheers. /kis

MaybeImWrong

Thank you, I am actually in the process of getting a server preped and I just wanted to gather all the information I can to help guide me as to what is a good starting ground for web functionality.

ac195

Definitely extremely important. For me, too many servers just make their websites insanely overcrowded. I made sure to make mine more simplistic and modern. Thats just preference I guess.

InsomniacTV

I would say very important. It's how you present the server to the world.

Playtester

Since you include functionality, I would say very important.

I usually tend to check a lot of data on the website first and only would even try to the server when I'm happy about it. If the data I'm looking for isn't even there that's an automatic loss.

Design I personally don't care too much, but I know others do, so if the server owner can't make a proper website design, I will have my doubts there were will ever be enough players on it.