DCemu branding and identity issues.

[diceone]

as usual; Kaiser, with the smooth moves... thanks for the support.
I think it's great to see what people think in forums when its on topic and useful.

And the new portals are a lot cleaner with the ad's more well placed.
I'm glad that one 460w ad was moved into the header, like a mini leaderboard ad.

Out of the people I had stop by the forums, most of them commented on how outdated the girl holding a dreamcast controller looked.
the second most common remark about the forums was that the brand image did not reflect the modern diversity in the content of the forums.

While it is a familiar image, it does kind of scream "dreamcast forum" and not so much "lots of different consoles and platforms forums".

you guys have a hard time already with your domain name being dcemu.co.uk representing the potential diversity and immense usefulness of this site.
you guys ever talk about that?

If it's possible, I'd like to do some work here.
it does sound like you have a pretty full staff too though.
so, we'll see.

I thin I am just gonna make some screens and post them and we'll just see what happens.

[Kaiser]

Yeah a lot of the things you just mentioned are being worked on.

As for the mascot, well she came in much later, well after we established ourselves as a diverse site covering many consoles. She represents our sites roots by holding that DC controller.

[bandit]

I appreciate your criticism and none taken personally. Its always good to hear what users have to say. I do agree that the sub-sites are flooded with ads.

Although DCEmu hosts my site, I run and maintain my webpage. It has the same look to all other DCEmu sites. The color needs to change though since its the same as the Wii site. I'll get to that when I have the time. I would like to hear what you have to say.

I am also a full-time graphic artist in the real work field.

[Junixx]

I think it would be easier to find games and things if they were put into more specific categories, like as in homebrew apps and games, like the "Lua games" section is in the PSP section, It would be quite alot of work for some parts of DCEmu, but it might help

[diceone]

good stuff guys.

I appreciate your criticism and none taken personally. Its always good to hear what users have to say. I do agree that the sub-sites are flooded with ads.

Although DCEmu hosts my site, I run and maintain my webpage. It has the same look to all other DCEmu sites. The color needs to change though since its the same as the Wii site. I'll get to that when I have the time. I would like to hear what you have to say.

I am also a full-time graphic artist in the real work field.

ok. cool, I'll check it out.
I also noticed that the apple/ipod/os x forums are under The Alternative Handheld & Retro Forums

apple / os X should be its own thing like PC.
I didn't even know there was mac stuff on here until I was just looking around and saw it in the mix.

I think it would be easier to find games and things if they were put into more specific categories, like as in homebrew apps and games, like the "Lua games" section is in the PSP section, It would be quite alot of work for some parts of DCEmu, but it might help

yeah i think there needs to be some usability assessments.

but like Kaiser said... a lot of growth = a lot of work.
so, as I was hoping, maybe this thread can begin to address issues and sort them out into attainable tasks.

[t_j]

Thats wierd why did some one give me +rep in this thread when i said a real rude thing? >< confusing!

[Tetris999]

very good points i agree with you 100%

[b8a]

I agree that this site has got some organizational/appearance issues, but things are generally getting much better, and if I'm not mistaken, there isn't a single person who works on this site full time.

When I first started coming here, this was the most confusing, bass-ackward site around. The only reason I kept coming back was because it generally had the most thorough, up-to-date news, decent load times, and a very decent community. Since then, the look has improved ten-fold, and they've been talking about further, more extensive updates for a long time now, so I have full confidence that they're both aware of and doing what they can to address the issues.

I have a few pet peeves related to the technical side of this site, but my current biggest issue with the site's appearance is that mascot gal. No offense to anyone, but she's just not drawn well and looks very cheesy. Really takes away from the otherwise professional graphics on some pages.

The ads are annoying, but (other then the google ads) at least they're relevant to the site content -- which is a lot more then can be said about most similar sites.

[souLLy]

Hey all, only just noticed this thread there's definitely some excellent points here, I think most of them we're semi-aware of anyway but it's a good opportunity to discuss them.

The new site designs (PSP, Wii, XBox360 etc.) are going to be transitioning in for most/all the sites soon. It's not perfect but it's miles better to how things used to be. The new layouts are also table-free, so they should load a lot faster than the old layouts. The sites can be a bit link/info heavy, but it's all to get rankings on sites like google (which is probably how you got here right, so it can't be all bad). Wraggster's our SEO expert so he can probably tell you more about that.

A lot of the ads our host has asked us to put on here and with the thousands of hits we get a day it's definitely a good deal. Rarely does the site ever slow down or stop working. I know there are some rules the site does break in terms of what you should and shouldn't do in web design, but I think most of them are forgivable with the pro-points of the site.

The site logo I completely agree with, I've sent a reply to your PM diceone, I took the liberty of looking at your portfolio weblink... I think you'd be able to come up with something great for this.

[ExcruciationX]

I 100% agree with diceone.

I think all of the sites need to go under a certain theme.