Quick Review

cyimking

Up-and-Coming Sensation
Joined
Jul 15, 2013
Messages
313
Reaction score
0
FP$
54
Name of Site: MvPxC Gaming Central
Site Genre:Gaming
Site URL:www.mvpxc.com
Type of Review (Full/Quick/Questionnaire): Quick
Opening Date: May 25, 2013
Additional Notes: We are currently working on adding in the awards and updated the group ranks.
#FourthofJuly

For Questionnaire, write up to three questions for the reviewers:
1)
2)
3)
 


Review Accepted!



Thank you for requesting a Forum Promotion review. You will have your review completed in 48 hours. If you have any questions regarding your review, feel free to ask me. While you are waiting on your review, why don't you take a look around the forum? After your review is finished, please rate your reviewer on how they did here.



Thank you for using the Forum Promotion Review Service,
Review Team
 
Sorry if I made some typos. I'm not using my computer.



MvPxC Gaming Central
Quick Review by Kaynil


Analysis:

mostliked.webp Strengths:
  1. Fitting Layout
    Having a custom made layer is a good idea to stand out. The layout is simple but it works nicely for your website. Furthermore it seems like you guys are happy to keep investing time to tweak it and get it closer to your needs. The simple background mosaic of controllers is a simple touch that really helps to bring out more the idea of an open-minded gaming community.

    The thing with your layout is the category headers. I honestly think it'd look better if you stuck to the same blue colour styled one. It just gets very distracting have green at the bottom and gray at the right. Keeping it blue will give more uniformity and users won't be distracted wondering what each colour mean.

    I've just had a quick idea that I think wouldn't hurt to voice, it is not something that I would consider a requirement at all: Have you considered displaying random mottos under the logo? Your users would see exactly the same banner except the motto under the logo could be different every time I loaded the page. Being a gaming community probably you could know some inside jokes or references that could spark more personality. You'd need probably a java script that helps you load from a directory of headers.

  2. A bit for everyone!
    Your place offers videos, articles, a blog for your users and a community full of different areas to discuss to their hearts' content. I like that. I also like your landing page to have a bit from the forums and articles. I suppose it is understandable you don't want to display blogs for visitors but how about registered members? Can they see some of the latest blogs as well?

    I've noticed something: when your top highlight is updated, it just seems repetitive when with a half a scroll we soon find the same news. Perhaps if there was another module in between them, like say a videos plugin to show the latest shared or the most commented/better rated one, that'd create a gap to avoid that feeling of seeing the same thing in a row.

    You could also use that home page to showcase other things that may be overlooked. For example, things from the forum like best video or thread of the week, current ongoing contests, information on premium subscriptions, etc. Personally I'm inclined to the idea of involving your members contribution as this will show a stronger sense of community and could entice more quality participation to grab a spot in the highlight area.

disliked.webp Weaknesses:
  1. Not Inclusive enough
    Your site is not very user friendly or as intuitive as it could be, it puts a lot of faith that your visitors are well used to forums and webs and understand the reasoning behind vague errors displays and know what to do with little guidance. There is no effort to help the clueless people or have the first time visitors learning about your place. Customizing some templates, making sure to use to your advantage simple things like naming a page is something that takes little time. All this little details by themselves may not be bad but often they pile and complicate things unnecessarily for your visitors. I will do my best to show some of the ones I noticed.

    For starters: What does MvPxC stands for? You're alienating from the very beginning the visitors that won't know the answer even if they are curious to learn because there is no where in the landing area an easy to access link that explains about it, about who you are and what is what you offer. Why not adding an about us type of page to the navigation quick links? This way it won't be too intrusive and you will have another opportunity to persuade your potential members that they have arrived at the right place.

    You have a blog link proudly displayed in your menu, but not logged users will just see a generic "not permission" page. This is really frustrating because I just pressed a link and learned nothing. I still don't know what was with the blogs, why should I care or how to gain this 'permission'. I don't feel compelled to explore more I feel alienated and will probably lose desire to explore further. To avoid this I can think of two approaches:
    A) Make it so that guests don't see that link at all. It is useless for us. If you feel that leaves the navigation menu too short, you can always have a guest-only targetted page/tab to compensate.
    B)Customize the permission template. Add a simple text that explain what are blogs, why are they restricted and what do they need to do in order to have access to the zone. If you can provide links and prompt them to take action, like registering to your forum.

    I noticed the Introductions are buried to a middle category. I can see that it makes sense where they are located, but maybe it is a good idea through a welcome PM, if you don't do it already, to pass them links to the rules, FAQ threads and introduction.

    Premium... What is it and why do I care enough to give you my money for it?
    It was when i hit registering that saw the premium option, at this point I didn't know anything and it seemed that no link to answer those questions was readily available at all. Not with the form, not in the top navigation and not even the bottom help link. What? Do you want me to go and hunt it in your forums? Not everyone will go that extra mile. You're the one interested in them grabbing premium so you should make it easy for them to know what they will get out of it while they are being tempted. It seems that not even your own members understand what will be gained by it.

    I took a screenshot to show you the first 3 things that jumped to mind when seeing your website.
    Header.png

    Hosted by postimage.org
    (1) Your landing address.
    Your landing address is confusing. I do understand that this is because of the mod creating pages inside the forum but still, do we have to see it?
    I'm not particularly knowledgeable in this area but I think there must be ways around that.
    A) Force the url to be displayed as "mvpxc.com/". I think it requires manual edit of the settings page of your forums through the cpanel, something you shouldn't tamper with unless you know what you're doing.
    B) Create a subdomain in your panel that points to ..*MVPXCFILES*/index.php/Pages/ so when your users land to your place it becomes subdomain.mvpxc.com/index.html and point the main url towards it.

    (2) Title won't say what site I am visiting, not big deal, you just want to have the pages plugin to add to the title the "MvPxC - " prefix so when people change tabs or is a long title, they will have this reference along with the favicon.

    (3) Searchbox.
    Me nitpicking, I'll try to be brief. I like the search bar design a good amount, it is very professional looking. The first part is a dropbox that allows me to filter by areas (3A), which is great. The advanced search button (3B) sends the person to a new page with retaining what was typed previously. It'd be great if you can make it retain the searchbox content, otherwise I suggest the black of the "go" part to be turned in a blue hue. This way the text-box, filter and magnifier glass are all visually related with the blue tones while the clog icon will jump out and thus convey better the idea of something unrelated to the search at hand. I don't know if how that might intrude the aesthetics of your header and search-bar altogether which already looks nice but might be worth a shot.

  2. Errors: small deterrents

    I won't dwell in the blog link error again because I think that was more fitting for the past category, however I feel the need to point out that the "Members" and "Shoutbox" links present the same situation to the user. That's three 'broken' links in one visit and can be annoying when as I explained before they are just a vague not-permission message with no further explanation. If the no permission error template appearing in those three pages try at least to word a general explanation about the restriction. Forget being technical and try to word it in a way that even a child can understand the gist of what happened and how to fix it. Being a gaming community you could even use the chance to crack a small gaming joke and/or put a funny image. Anything to minimize the frustration.

    The more included people feel with the link they pressed, even when things don't go as expected, the better. If you must include a link try as much as possible to make sure it has something relevant to display to everyone.

    I made the attempt to join your forums, at some point it asks me to read the Terms of Service. The Link is an anchor to the same registration page so it leads me nowhere. If I try the quick links for the "site's Rules" it will tell me it couldn't find the announcement.

    There could be other errors lingering but those were the ones I noticed during my visit.



Final Remarks:
Your place is very attractive, I like the first minute impression of your place, the layout is clean and you can see the effort and ambition is there. It is going the right direction. I recommend you to grab a book like The Yahoo! Style guide, it can help heaps to understand what to do connect better with your audience. I had a lot of fun inspecting your place and I'm looking forward to seeing it become better and better.

After reading your review, please click here to rate your review.
 
Review Complete!


Thank you for using the Forum Promotion Review Service. Since you requested during Fourth of July event, no FP cash will be deducted. If you would like to give feedback on our services after reading your review, you may do so by clicking here!
You can make a new review request again on 22 July 2014.



23kc11t.webp
 
Back
Top Bottom