Hi.
Has your forum been having an issue with load time recently? I ask because it has been inconsistent to me; i.e., it took nearly a minute to load your index page, and a few subsequent page loads, but would sometimes also be fast.
On your navigation bar, I noticed you have "Messages" and "UserCP" listed even though I am not logged in. Also, when I click on those options, the index page simply reloads. In any case, as those options would not be of concern to guests, I would suggest removing them from guest view.
When I move my eyes from your navigation bar towards your forum listing, I notice the shoutbox. I do not hate shoutboxes, and I even use one at my forum, but there are a few suggestions I want to make. It is my experience—as a fellow forum administrator and someone who frequents webmaster forums—that a great many people believe that the shoutbox takes away activity and encourages spam, if it isn't also responsible for several other less than flattering consequences. Whether true or not, that is beside the point, which is this: it's not going to do much to convince guests to register, and so it would probably be best placed near the bottom.
While I'm on the subject of shoutboxes, I've got one more suggestion to make: just as each category box in the forum listing has a button on the top-right to minimize the forums in it, perhaps you can add one on the top-right of the shoutbox to give members who do not care for the shoutbox the option to minimize it.
Moving on, I notice your empty "Random Box 2" on the sidebar to the left of your forum index. Perhaps you can use this box for your welcome message, and move it up above the other boxes. (This box, of course, would only be visible to guests.) Or maybe you can move that box above the forum listing to take the place of the shoutbox. In either case, I think it would be nice to have the welcome message be one of the first things your guest sees.
As for what your welcome message would contain, I recall you said in your post that yours is "a general gaming discussion forum." For the first sentence of your welcome message, then, perhaps you can say, "Welcome to PEGaming.NET, a general gaming discussion forum." After that sentence, you can add one or more about why you started your forum, or maybe you can link to a few noteworthy topics (e.g., a staff list, rules, history of the forum, and etc).
Now, I'm looking at your SOTW box, which is another added feature which takes up a lot of vertical space. To me, this feature seems of more concern to members, especially those already involving themselves with topics about graphics design. As for the guest, though, I think there is information that should be of more pressing concern to the guest, such as the welcome message I suggested, and the forum listing. If the shoutbox and SOTW were moved near the bottom, the guest would nearly immediately see the welcome message followed immediately by the forum listing. He would see, in other words, the straight facts and points of interest about your forum, followed by the forum itself.
Lastly, I'm wondering if members are permitted avatars on your forum, but guests simply can't see them, as I haven't seen a member with one yet. The only reason I would bring this up, in any case, is because the user information area, which is aligned above the post, already presents the reader with a lot of occupied vertical space to get through (due to the experience bars and the achievements box) before seeing the contents of the post itself. I am not sure what you may do about this, but posts look most odd when they take up only one line and are crushed between all the stuff in the user information area and (in some cases) an equally tall signature. This issue is compounded, furthermore, by the user information area and the post area sharing the same color.
Anyways, there is so much more I can talk about, but I hope what I said above is of enough use for now. As well, I noticed one of the members already mentioned your massive forum listing, which is overkill at this early a stage. If you must keep these forums, you may hide the ones that aren't gaining much (if any) activity at the moment, and re-add them when there's enough relevant content to move to those forums. In the mean time, you may generalize some of your other forums. That said, two of several reasons it may be helpful to cut down on the amount of forums are as follows. First, less forums means that you can more effectively focus on and keep fresh new content flowing into the forums that are left. Another reason is that your forum will do a better job at looking active to the guest and member.
Before I end, I want to assure you that I do not mean to give the impression that all I think of your forum is negative; rather, it occurred to me that focusing on the areas you may need help on, or that you may improve on, would make for a more helpful post.
