Advanced Review of Art of War Gaming
Review by Allenafaith
First Impressions: (4 out of 10)
To be completely honest with you, I wasn't very impressed when I opened the page. I don't like the logo that much and I didn't really like the red/orange on the theme. The only thing that I really like so far is how easy it is to find things on the website.
Number of Posts & Members: (2 out of 10)
Personally, I think you should have WAY more members and posts than you have now. You opened in 2013, it's 2016 now and you still only have 30 members, most of which aren't active, and 79 topics and 309 posts. That is not good at all for a site that's been open as long as this one has been. I also noticed that the off-topic section has more posts than the on-topic section. You should really try to get the forums that are actually based off the niche to a higher thread count. When I see the off-topic sections having more posts, I usually think that no one really cares about the niche. It's not good for members/guests to think that.
Activity Level: (4 out of 10)
The activity level of the site doesn't look that good to me. On the members list, as I was saying above, most of the members aren't active. I'm sure there are a couple of things you can do to get more active members. Maybe try to run a contest? If you don't do this already, send out mass PMs once a month or every two months about new things or the most popular topics of that month. Small things like that will help a lot with getting the activity up as well.
Site Structure: (20 out of 20)
I like the site structure. Everything seems to be pretty organized, and it isn't hard to find anything. I didn't have trouble finding the forums, and it's easy to find the important things such as the "Contact Us" page. I really don't have anything else to say in this section so we are moving on to the next.
Design Quality: (13 out of 20)
I am really not fond of the overall design of the site. As I was saying above, I don't like the red/orange at the top of the theme where the logo is and as Teg said in her comment, the logo shouldn't be at the top and bottom of the page. I really see no need for that. Yes, it is easy to navigate through, but the look needs to be appealing as well.
Originality: (7 out of 15)
In all honesty, I don't think the site is very original. I have seen A LOT of gaming forums out there. It's really hard to make yourself different from the rest, too. I see the same things on yours as all of the others. Is there anything that you can think of that you could do to make it different? If you think of things, I suggest making a list, and then talking them out with your staff members. Pick one or two that you all like the most and set a poll and have the members vote on what they'd like to see. I personally love it when administrators let the members chose what they want because they are the ones using it the most.
Spelling, Grammar & Professionalism: (10 out of 15)
From what I can tell, you don't have any grammar issues on your site. I did notice one thing, though. The forum descriptions aren't very long. Have you thought about making them any longer? Maybe something along the lines of "In this section you will find all of Art of War Gaming Site's News, updates, and feedback." That will make it a little more appealing. It might not matter to some people, I just think it looks a lot better.
Thing you liked best about forum: What I liked best about the forum was how easy it was to navigate through things.
Thing you liked least about forum: The thing I liked least about the forum was the red/orange colors on the theme. I am not a fan of it.
Overall Mark: (60 out of 100)
I really hope you are going to take some of my ideas into consideration. I wish you lots of luck in the future! 🙂
