Much of what (limited) I know about CSS comes from raiding the w3schools website for learning how to do stuff... plus reading the base stylesheets as to what bit changes what. Some of it was just experimenting to see what works... I had hoped to do torn edges for the paper pieces in the sidebar, but that looked a bit complicated to add into the stylesheet... or at least in terms of my own abilities are.
Thanks for the feedback so far. Much of it is derivative, the only thing that's "original" in a sense are the maps that I'm using. Even though they are part of the Nentir Vale, I decided to redraw the maps in Pete Fenlon's style from the old MERP game. That's more my style, and something my guys played back in the day... so it feels more "at home" for us, plus I can have an unlabeled map where only the markers will tell you what/where something is. My only wish on that front is that the map feature had more zoom levels available to it. :)
I would like to whore out my campaign that I will be running in a week or so. It's
called THE EDGE OF NIGHT and can be found here:
http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/the-edge-of-night
Welcome back Nightstorm! I understand the creepy effect you are going for, but an 11 minute video is just too long....
ImmortalDM- Really glad to see you on the review page- I will do a review of your site within the week- but I highly recommend the rest of you to check out "Myth Realm:Legacy":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/myyth-realm-legacy It is pretty awesome!
killervp
"A God...Rebuilt":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/a-god-rebuilt
"Duskreign's First Ever COTM":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/wyrmshadow/wiki_pages/112011
"OP's COTM April 2012":http://blog.obsidianportal.com/a-god-rebuilt-aprils-cotm/
The Good:
The wiki is organized very well, and I love the sidebar - it's simple, but it fits perfectly. The Icons keep it looking very clean and interesting. I would suggest moving house rules out of your campaign information, and maybe making the campaign information more prevalent to see the and flavor of your world more prominently than the rules of it.
The calendar is a great functionality, the only change I would suggest would be wiki linking to the events mentioned in it.
Character sheets are consistent with formatting as well, which I know, especially if your players edit them, is difficult to do lol.
The Bad:
i wouldn't really say any of this wiki is "bad" per say, bu I'll note a couple things I noticed might be able to be improved though
Readability: the black text and red link text can be difficult to read against the very top of the page background you use
art: there is very little 'world' art - tons of wiki art, but very little to draw you into your world and make easy to feel what the setting is like. I'd suggest throwing some more relevant pictures on many of the pages.
background: that metal chest background looks like its zoomed in or low res, if you have a higher res version thats too big for OP you can upload it to an image hosting service like imgur
Overall: its a great looking wiki and looks like a very interesting campaign, great job!
I have only just had a cursory glance but it looks stunning. I think I would agree with saethone's comments on the House Rules. I read them with great interest but in the end, they are not as stimulating as words that give a flavour to the campaign. Design is fantastic though!
twiggyleaf
"Shimring - The Faces of Divinity":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/shimring
(a multiplanar 3.5 D&D campaign)
"Campaign of the Month - August 2012":http://blog.obsidianportal.com/shimring-augusts-cotm/
"I met a traveller from an antique land....."
CotM May 2016: Mysteria: set in Wolfgang Baur’s MIDGARD.
Previous CotM Aug 2012: Shimring: High Level Multiplanar Campaign
Wow, no need for my comments, except to echo. Good review Saethone. Good site ImmortalDM- just needs a little tweaking.
killervp
"A God...Rebuilt":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/a-god-rebuilt
"Duskreign's First Ever COTM":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/wyrmshadow/wiki_pages/112011
"OP's COTM April 2012":http://blog.obsidianportal.com/a-god-rebuilt-aprils-cotm/
Really nice work. I like it. Makes me want to bone up on CSS. I love the clarity and elegance of your links.
I guess my only suggestion is this. I see that you have some cool world info, and I'd like to see more. Also, I would love to see links to that info more prominently placed. As it is, you have the links to that info bunched into "Campaign Materials", which also has rules and crunchy bits. I'd love to see a button on your Vault page dedicated to the world. Also, you could replace your House Rules icon on the sidebar with a button to this info, if you were of a mind to do so.
As a guy who loves lots of art, I second Saethone regarding the artwork. The icons are friggin awesome, though. And the look and layout are smooth.
Thanks you Twiggy, Killer, and Phoenix for taking the time to review our site (sounds like some weird superhero team). I'll be discussing all the feedback with MdBLimited.
Your adventures are surely fantastic, but the "review my campaign" thread is more about the visual aspect and the hard work put into the making of your wiki...
At first, insert images (for each NPC & items, in each section of your wiki... etc.), then work on your text (font, justify, blanks... etc.), and finally think of the arrangement of the wiki.
They are a lot wonderful campaigns on OP, take a tour! You can look at the "2012 featured campaigns of the month":http://forums.obsidianportal.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=2855&page=1#Item_1 at first, but they are many many others!
Feel free to pm me if you want advices.
-Pils
"Dark Sun -- La Décade des Héros":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/dark-sun-a-trova: Face the Fire of the Dark Sun... a World ravaged by Sorcery!
"Al-Qadim -- Golden Voyages":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/aq-golden-voyages: Who Among you Dares to Challenge the High Seas?
I have just started a new campaign. "Rise of the Dead":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/rise-of-the-dead is a zombie Apocalypse game. We have completed 3 sessions so far and the game is going great. My players are very active on the wiki and have posted backgrounds and journal entries. Some of the player even wrote pre-game journals.
I would love for the community to review my site and give me advice on how to improve what we have.
Thank you in advance. This is a great community.
Kettle
"Rise of the Dead":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/rise-of-the-dead
I Guess I'll step up considering my previous posting regarding the background/navigation.
*Campaign:* "Rise of the Runelords":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/runelords-of-lord-ao
*GM:* "Lord_AO":http://www.obsidianportal.com/profile/Lord_AO
~~~
*Theme/Navigation:* The inclusion of the seven point star in various aspects of the campaign (background, wiki menu, wax seal, etc..) helps to carry the theme fairly consistently throughout the site, and the grey and blue colors contrast well with the gold of the star. I do feel that the lesser symbols between the star's points are underutilized, and could serve as "section icons" or the like. This would also make your star based wiki menu stronger.
*Adventure Logs:* I like the use of wiki pages to house the complete writeup for each entry in the adventure log, and the click-to-view graphics in the standard adventure log are a nice concept. My only issue is that the click-to-view nature of the images isn't immediately apparent given the natural tendency of site users to click the log title to read the entry. I think you need to expand on those graphics a bit, adding some manner of "click to read" wording on there somewhere. Myself, I'd consider putting the entire thing into some sort of frame or box and make it a more involved graphic. Might also be an opportunity to have links to other things, characters or the like. The entries themselves could stand to have a few more hyperlinks to characters and such, but otherwise the entries are solid.
*Wiki:* The home page comes off looking like there is a lot of dead white space on it. The image beneath the star menu is so light that it's barely noticeable, leaving the resulting "placement" of the menu looking off kilter and oddly far down the page. Some of the white space at the top of the image needs to be removed so that it brings the whole thing up a little bit. I'd also either punch up the visibility of the under-image so it stands out as a part of the page, OR remove it and center up the star menu. I also noticed that the back button system was left off of some pages here and there, so some double checking is in order to fix that.
*Characters/Items:* Not much to say here, the usual gripes I suppose. Some entries are more filled in than others, Bios appear to be fewer and more far between than they should be, the basic draw-in issues that most campaigns have (mine included).
*Maps:* Having the Maps page blank is a minor issue, though one that is easily rectified.
~~~
If someone has time, I would love to get a review of my "Rise of the Dead":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/rise-of-the-dead. I would love to get some advice on what works, what doesn't work and how to improve the site.
Thank you,
Kettle
"Rise of the Dead":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/rise-of-the-dead
Kettle, I'll take a stab at this. Not sure how much advice I have to give, but for what it's worth:
I like the overall design, but the places where you have the dark red text on black background is a little hard to read. The hover effects on your navigation is great and very eye catching, bit I think I'd try a slightly lighter red for the default text. Either that or experiment with a larger font size (if you have't already)
Adventure Log: The layout for the chapter looks great! Nicely organized and easily readable. Again, the dark red text for the journals is a bit hard to read, though. The red border around the log titles is a bit... odd. It works a bit better at the top, around the Adventure Log text (great font, by the way!), but falls apart a bit farther down where there's less content (for the individual sessions). There's a bit too much empty space and then the actual log text is kinda close to the border. It's not ugly, or difficult to parse, but it looks a bit strange. The logs' content is excellent. Kudos there!
Wiki: Wow! This is a really fun page! I like the graphic and the stakes are fantastic. The NPCs page seems very useful and easy to navigate. It's always handy to have that kind of information in a well organized place for reference. On a whole the wiki is well organized and broken up into easily understandable segments. The graphics are fun and eye catching.
That's all I have time for at the moment, I'm afraid! I'll try to look at the rest soon. It's a great looking page and fun to poke around on, I can tell you that much!
Thanks Madartiste- good review!
Also thanks very much Kallak!
Both of you did great jobs- I appreciate it, as do the ones getting reviews!
This is a great community!
killervp
"A God...Rebuilt":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/a-god-rebuilt
"OP's COTM April 2012":http://blog.obsidianportal.com/a-god-rebuilt-aprils-cotm/
Kettle, I's agree with everything madartiste wrote. Your campaign looks fantastic and I've no problem reading the red on black at all (did you change it already?). I especially loved how you've tabled your vehicles in the wiki and may just steal that for Edgerunners.
Thank you. I have updated my adventure log page, but have not changed the other pages yet. I have a few ideas, but I want to think about it more before I change some of the other pages.
I am glad you like the vehicle page. I still need to finish the side links to allow you to jump to certain makes and models. The vehicle page and the vehicles in the items tab happened because I needed a project and was bored. I have some random charts to determine what types of vehicles are in a parking lot. Once the characters get off the ship, I should be able to use it more.
Anyways, thanks. I am always looking for ways to improve the site and Madartiste gave a great review. If anyone has additional advice, I would love to hear it.
Kettle
"Rise of the Dead":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/rise-of-the-dead
Kettle, I like the changes to the adventure log quite a lot! The highlighting on hover of the row for the sessions under the chapter heading is an excellent idea. It does look a little strange to have the whole row highlighted for the character journals, though. Maybe you could change it to just highlighting the individual cells that case? It's a great idea, though, and makes navigating very easy. The new background for the session logs is nice. The green color is great. It's hard to put red and green together without ending up with "Christmas Tree" but you picked shades that look more menacing than jolly. Very cool.
If I was to offer any advice for that, might I suggest giving yourself a little bit more padding at the top? Maybe 10 pixels would just give it a bit more visual room. The left and bottom look perfect, but the text is a bit too close to the top of the background -- though that might just be my own tastes coming through. Take it with a grain of salt. :)
Also, I hadn't noticed the "kill counter" wiki page. Awesome idea!
So, I've made the conversion to CSS and retained the overall look of my site. It's been a long time since I asked for a review. I've still got more stuff to do, but i'd really appreciate some other eyeballs. If you've got a pair to spare, roll em on over to Violent Skies. All critique is welcome...up or down! Thanks!
Comments
Excellent looking campaign. I've been teaching myself codeing and copying code from other people and then BAM! your site is on-scene and looking good.
Makes me jealous, but I will see if I have any inputs after I finish grumbling....
Unconquered Kingdoms, July 2016 CotM
Thanks for the feedback so far. Much of it is derivative, the only thing that's "original" in a sense are the maps that I'm using. Even though they are part of the Nentir Vale, I decided to redraw the maps in Pete Fenlon's style from the old MERP game. That's more my style, and something my guys played back in the day... so it feels more "at home" for us, plus I can have an unlabeled map where only the markers will tell you what/where something is. My only wish on that front is that the map feature had more zoom levels available to it. :)
called THE EDGE OF NIGHT and can be found here:
http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/the-edge-of-night
"Myyth Realm: Legacy":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/myyth-realm-legacy
Thanks in advance for any feedback.
Immortal DM
ImmortalDM- Really glad to see you on the review page- I will do a review of your site within the week- but I highly recommend the rest of you to check out "Myth Realm:Legacy":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/myyth-realm-legacy It is pretty awesome!
killervp
"A God...Rebuilt":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/a-god-rebuilt
"Duskreign's First Ever COTM":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/wyrmshadow/wiki_pages/112011
"OP's COTM April 2012":http://blog.obsidianportal.com/a-god-rebuilt-aprils-cotm/
Just trying to help out.
The Good:
The wiki is organized very well, and I love the sidebar - it's simple, but it fits perfectly. The Icons keep it looking very clean and interesting. I would suggest moving house rules out of your campaign information, and maybe making the campaign information more prevalent to see the and flavor of your world more prominently than the rules of it.
The calendar is a great functionality, the only change I would suggest would be wiki linking to the events mentioned in it.
Character sheets are consistent with formatting as well, which I know, especially if your players edit them, is difficult to do lol.
The Bad:
i wouldn't really say any of this wiki is "bad" per say, bu I'll note a couple things I noticed might be able to be improved though
Readability: the black text and red link text can be difficult to read against the very top of the page background you use
art: there is very little 'world' art - tons of wiki art, but very little to draw you into your world and make easy to feel what the setting is like. I'd suggest throwing some more relevant pictures on many of the pages.
background: that metal chest background looks like its zoomed in or low res, if you have a higher res version thats too big for OP you can upload it to an image hosting service like imgur
Overall: its a great looking wiki and looks like a very interesting campaign, great job!
Age of the Dragons - Homebrew Fantasy | Edurance of Hope - Age of Rebellion
Nominate a Campaign for Campaign of the Month!
I have only just had a cursory glance but it looks stunning. I think I would agree with saethone's comments on the House Rules. I read them with great interest but in the end, they are not as stimulating as words that give a flavour to the campaign. Design is fantastic though!
twiggyleaf
"Shimring - The Faces of Divinity":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/shimring
(a multiplanar 3.5 D&D campaign)
"Campaign of the Month - August 2012":http://blog.obsidianportal.com/shimring-augusts-cotm/
"I met a traveller from an antique land....."
CotM May 2016: Mysteria: set in Wolfgang Baur’s MIDGARD.
Previous CotM Aug 2012: Shimring: High Level Multiplanar Campaign
Inner Council Member
killervp
"A God...Rebuilt":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/a-god-rebuilt
"Duskreign's First Ever COTM":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/wyrmshadow/wiki_pages/112011
"OP's COTM April 2012":http://blog.obsidianportal.com/a-god-rebuilt-aprils-cotm/
Just trying to help out.
Really nice work. I like it. Makes me want to bone up on CSS. I love the clarity and elegance of your links.
I guess my only suggestion is this. I see that you have some cool world info, and I'd like to see more. Also, I would love to see links to that info more prominently placed. As it is, you have the links to that info bunched into "Campaign Materials", which also has rules and crunchy bits. I'd love to see a button on your Vault page dedicated to the world. Also, you could replace your House Rules icon on the sidebar with a button to this info, if you were of a mind to do so.
As a guy who loves lots of art, I second Saethone regarding the artwork. The icons are friggin awesome, though. And the look and layout are smooth.
Keep it up!
*PhoenixMark*
"Crimson Skies":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/crimson-skies
"Shimmering Kingdoms":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/shimmering-kingdoms
"Sactown Blues":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/sactown-blues
ImmortalDM
"Myyth Realm: Legacy":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/myyth-realm-legacy
Two are currently being played
One has been completed
one is in planning
http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/ultimate-super-heroes
http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/life-in-the-shadows
http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/galaxy-far-far-away
http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/a-grand-republic
Your adventures are surely fantastic, but the "review my campaign" thread is more about the visual aspect and the hard work put into the making of your wiki...
At first, insert images (for each NPC & items, in each section of your wiki... etc.), then work on your text (font, justify, blanks... etc.), and finally think of the arrangement of the wiki.
They are a lot wonderful campaigns on OP, take a tour! You can look at the "2012 featured campaigns of the month":http://forums.obsidianportal.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=2855&page=1#Item_1 at first, but they are many many others!
Feel free to pm me if you want advices.
-Pils
"Dark Sun -- La Décade des Héros":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/dark-sun-a-trova: Face the Fire of the Dark Sun... a World ravaged by Sorcery!
"Al-Qadim -- Golden Voyages":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/aq-golden-voyages: Who Among you Dares to Challenge the High Seas?
-Pils
Dark Sun ● La Décade des Héros : Face the Fire of the Dark Sun... a World ravaged by Sorcery! (CotM - Dec 2012)
Les Royaumes Oubliés : A D&D 5e old school style Forgotten Realms campaign!
(And I'm so soooorry for my poor english...)
I have just started a new campaign. "Rise of the Dead":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/rise-of-the-dead is a zombie Apocalypse game. We have completed 3 sessions so far and the game is going great. My players are very active on the wiki and have posted backgrounds and journal entries. Some of the player even wrote pre-game journals.
I would love for the community to review my site and give me advice on how to improve what we have.
Thank you in advance. This is a great community.
Kettle
"Rise of the Dead":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/rise-of-the-dead
Just looking for any feedback on style/layout/organization or general feel of my newer campaign. Any tips or suggestions is great appreciated.
"Rise of the Runelords":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/runelords-of-lord-ao
Just trying to help out.
"Rise of the Runelords":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/runelords-of-lord-ao
Just trying to help out.
*Campaign:* "Rise of the Runelords":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/runelords-of-lord-ao
*GM:* "Lord_AO":http://www.obsidianportal.com/profile/Lord_AO
~~~
*Theme/Navigation:* The inclusion of the seven point star in various aspects of the campaign (background, wiki menu, wax seal, etc..) helps to carry the theme fairly consistently throughout the site, and the grey and blue colors contrast well with the gold of the star. I do feel that the lesser symbols between the star's points are underutilized, and could serve as "section icons" or the like. This would also make your star based wiki menu stronger.
*Adventure Logs:* I like the use of wiki pages to house the complete writeup for each entry in the adventure log, and the click-to-view graphics in the standard adventure log are a nice concept. My only issue is that the click-to-view nature of the images isn't immediately apparent given the natural tendency of site users to click the log title to read the entry. I think you need to expand on those graphics a bit, adding some manner of "click to read" wording on there somewhere. Myself, I'd consider putting the entire thing into some sort of frame or box and make it a more involved graphic. Might also be an opportunity to have links to other things, characters or the like. The entries themselves could stand to have a few more hyperlinks to characters and such, but otherwise the entries are solid.
*Wiki:* The home page comes off looking like there is a lot of dead white space on it. The image beneath the star menu is so light that it's barely noticeable, leaving the resulting "placement" of the menu looking off kilter and oddly far down the page. Some of the white space at the top of the image needs to be removed so that it brings the whole thing up a little bit. I'd also either punch up the visibility of the under-image so it stands out as a part of the page, OR remove it and center up the star menu. I also noticed that the back button system was left off of some pages here and there, so some double checking is in order to fix that.
*Characters/Items:* Not much to say here, the usual gripes I suppose. Some entries are more filled in than others, Bios appear to be fewer and more far between than they should be, the basic draw-in issues that most campaigns have (mine included).
*Maps:* Having the Maps page blank is a minor issue, though one that is easily rectified.
~~~
Hope this helps.
- Kallak
If someone has time, I would love to get a review of my "Rise of the Dead":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/rise-of-the-dead. I would love to get some advice on what works, what doesn't work and how to improve the site.
Thank you,
Kettle
"Rise of the Dead":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/rise-of-the-dead
I like the overall design, but the places where you have the dark red text on black background is a little hard to read. The hover effects on your navigation is great and very eye catching, bit I think I'd try a slightly lighter red for the default text. Either that or experiment with a larger font size (if you have't already)
Adventure Log: The layout for the chapter looks great! Nicely organized and easily readable. Again, the dark red text for the journals is a bit hard to read, though. The red border around the log titles is a bit... odd. It works a bit better at the top, around the Adventure Log text (great font, by the way!), but falls apart a bit farther down where there's less content (for the individual sessions). There's a bit too much empty space and then the actual log text is kinda close to the border. It's not ugly, or difficult to parse, but it looks a bit strange. The logs' content is excellent. Kudos there!
Wiki: Wow! This is a really fun page! I like the graphic and the stakes are fantastic. The NPCs page seems very useful and easy to navigate. It's always handy to have that kind of information in a well organized place for reference. On a whole the wiki is well organized and broken up into easily understandable segments. The graphics are fun and eye catching.
That's all I have time for at the moment, I'm afraid! I'll try to look at the rest soon. It's a great looking page and fun to poke around on, I can tell you that much!
Thank you,
Kettle
"Rise of the Dead":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/rise-of-the-dead
Also thanks very much Kallak!
Both of you did great jobs- I appreciate it, as do the ones getting reviews!
This is a great community!
killervp
"A God...Rebuilt":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/a-god-rebuilt
"OP's COTM April 2012":http://blog.obsidianportal.com/a-god-rebuilt-aprils-cotm/
Just trying to help out.
Thank you. I have updated my adventure log page, but have not changed the other pages yet. I have a few ideas, but I want to think about it more before I change some of the other pages.
I am glad you like the vehicle page. I still need to finish the side links to allow you to jump to certain makes and models. The vehicle page and the vehicles in the items tab happened because I needed a project and was bored. I have some random charts to determine what types of vehicles are in a parking lot. Once the characters get off the ship, I should be able to use it more.
Anyways, thanks. I am always looking for ways to improve the site and Madartiste gave a great review. If anyone has additional advice, I would love to hear it.
Kettle
"Rise of the Dead":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/rise-of-the-dead
If I was to offer any advice for that, might I suggest giving yourself a little bit more padding at the top? Maybe 10 pixels would just give it a bit more visual room. The left and bottom look perfect, but the text is a bit too close to the top of the background -- though that might just be my own tastes coming through. Take it with a grain of salt. :)
Also, I hadn't noticed the "kill counter" wiki page. Awesome idea!
So, I've made the conversion to CSS and retained the overall look of my site. It's been a long time since I asked for a review. I've still got more stuff to do, but i'd really appreciate some other eyeballs. If you've got a pair to spare, roll em on over to Violent Skies. All critique is welcome...up or down! Thanks!
Dlaporte
"violent skies":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/violent-skies