Art of War Gaming
Review by Teapot
First Impressions
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Upon opening your site, I immediately saw a very simplistic design. You are using a simple red theme that flows perfectly with both the blog portion of your site and the forum aspect of things. You have a nice large logo that is clear and consice. The forum theme is also very cool in my opinion. It's not overwhelming at all. It actually seems as if you removed all of the excess details to keep it down to the point. This is a really cool design method that you took advantage of. Overall, I think you did a great job with the site thus far. It's very appealing to the eyes and not stuffed with information.
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Good
Design Quality
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As I had touched earlier in the First Impressions, I am a pretty big fan of the design you have going. I think what's really neat is the way you have your forum set up. It doesn't look like most forums you would see on a gaming site which is a big plus. It's simple, and to the point. This definitely adds originality and personality to our site as a whole. One tiny detail that I noticed is the forum avatars. Each avatar has a white circle around it, which is cool. However, depending on the size of the avatar, the circle resizes to fit the size of the uploaded avatar. It looks very tacky because members with thinner dimensioned avatars get an oddly shaped circle around their avatar. I think by fixing this to the point where every circle is the same size it will really help create a better flow through the threads. It will also make the forum look a lot neater, too.
I ran into a small issue on your blog. When you scroll down the image with each article 'hops' up and then back down. In my case, it is delayed. I will scroll to the article and then the image will 'hop' after I reach it. While this is indeed a very neat feature and design add on, it does look a little weird with how slow it seems to be responding.
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Good
Site Statistics
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On your forum, you have a total of 91 members registered. To go with this, you have 597 posts made in a total of 290 threads. This isn't bad, but it definitely isn't the best. With 97 members, the total amount of posts could be a little higher. I do, however, realize that you may be facing some inactive members. The forums look very active for the most part so It shouldn't present too much of an issue. You also have two very active staff members which is always a great sight to see. Active staff members are a key factor in growing a site. Maybe with a little more promotion and exposure you could definitely expect and increase in site activity. You have a lot of potential to thrive.
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Good
Final Remarks
Art of War Gaming is a very well-designed hot spot for gaming news and discussions. They feature a active blog and thriving forum community. Art of War Gaming has a lot of potential ahead of it and I can't wait to see it grow.
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