View Full Version : New Forum Layout on HCRealms
Over the past week we've unveiled a number of changes on HCRealms all in the hopes of making the site more user friendly and to answer a number of user requests to clean up the forums and make them more structured.
After much discussion we felt it was best to combine all of the different Universe Discussion Forums into a Heroclix General Section. Under the old system the majority of all Heroclix discussion was being placed into the Marvel Forum by default which left the DC and Indy Forums with little traffic.
Another drawback to having seperate area's for each Universe was quite often the same topic would get discussed in both the Marvel and the DC forums concurrently. This happened heavily in the Rules Forum and the changes also alleviate the questions about where to place a thread discussing using a Marvel & DC Character together.
The new layout may take some getting used to but please follow these guidelines when posting to ensure that your post ends up in the proper forum.
Heroclix: General
General Discussion: The place for all generic Heroclix discussion.
Rules of Battle: The place for any Heroclix rules questions, discussions, etc.
Strategy/Tactics: This is the forum to discuss the uses of a figure, particular strategies, team work that involve all universes of HeroClix.
Combat Formations: Rate & Review: Post your completed mixed Clix armies for discussion & review.
HeroClix: Strategy & Team Buliding:
Marvel: Discussing Marvel vs Marvel strategy, Marvel only armies, Marvel Strategies and other Marvel only Clix strategy.
DC: Discussing DC vs DC strategy, DC only armies, DC Strategies and other DC only Clix strategy.
Indy: Discussing Indy vs Indy strategy, Indy only armies, Indy Strategies and other Indy only Clix strategy.
In addition to these new layouts we've also added a Dreams & Desires Forum. The purpose of this Forum is for users to post all of thier custom created figures into this forum rather than the GD Forum. If you do create a Custom Clix figure and post it in the GD Forum and then lose track of it please look in the Dreams & Desires as we may have moved it for you.
If you could please look before posting it will save both the users time in finding what they're looking for and save us the trouble of moving threads to the proper forums.
If you have any questions please feel free to ask.
Everything you said about the forum change makes sense and, although it will take some getting used to, will suffice for it's purpose just fine.
Now how about doing something about the performance? It has just been absolutely terrible since the redesign.
And is there any chance that the colors will be lightened up? It's been commented on by lots of people, but nothing has been said by "the powers that be".
Melkoloran
03/26/2003, 23:08
Personally, I could really have done without both the redesign and the forum change. Just more posts to ignore now.
Hair, there have been a number of reports of bad performance and we're looking into them.
Melkoloran, sorry you feel that way.
Melkoloran
03/26/2003, 23:39
If only that were enough to matter ;)
Druss, i don't like the new search, it takes a long time and has limited to waht i can search for. I like being able to search for posts by user (i.e. me) and i like being able to search for terms in specific forums (i.e. if i want to find a mojo in the trading forum, i don't have to go through all the strategy pages) The warrior search is also weird. You can't just enter a cost, you have to enter a cost and then limit it by somethign else, slowing the search down dramatically
Beezly, I honestly hadn't tried the search feature and I can see your point, the search I prefer is like the one on MKRealms where you can search a specific Forum, by Username, etc, lots of options.
I'll pass this info along as well.
Originally posted by beezly
Druss, i don't like the new search, it takes a long time and has limited to waht i can search for. I like being able to search for posts by user (i.e. me) and i like being able to search for terms in specific forums (i.e. if i want to find a mojo in the trading forum, i don't have to go through all the strategy pages) The warrior search is also weird. You can't just enter a cost, you have to enter a cost and then limit it by somethign else, slowing the search down dramatically
Yeah, these two things are big irritations of mine too. The unit search I can deal with (I just put in a movement of 1), but the search bar at the top is completely worthless for what I need it to do. I pretty much use it the same was beezly does (or rather, did use the search).
We're going to be doing additional changes, and add the "Advanced Search" back into the line up. The performance issues that everyone is experiencing has nothing to do with the redesign, but more of poor planning on our part. We are currently upgrading our primary webserver, and have temporarli moved ALL RealmWorx sites on our Secondary webserver. Once we're completely withthe server upgrade, we'll redestribute the sites across both machines. That should bring us back to the performance everyone was used to.
I like the new layout design of the site, it's really nice. One problem I have is that my browser(mozilla) and IE both make it very difficult to see black on dark grey. Maybe I just have bad eyes. But the front page is very dark to me, and I think either the grey should be toned down a bit or something done to the text to make it less difficult to read. An example of the difficult text is the Welcome to Hcrealms.com button on the upper right corner of your banner. The rest of the black text on darkish grey background of the front page is readable, but a little straining after a while, but i guess that's just personal preferences.
Another thing i've been noticing is that I can't go back with my browser anymore. This isn't really a problem with the new layout, but i don't know where else to point it out. An example that will cause this problem is, I'll go to a forum, search for something, click on one of the posts, then when i click back, it gives me an error saying that folder doesn't exist.
The Stinger
03/27/2003, 03:10
I agree with the color issue. Man this makes for some SERIOUS eye strain. Im usually on the PC late at night, and trying to read the stuff at an hour when Im a little tired makes it that much worse.
My normal visiting time is cut down because of this, I have to take a break and check out some other sites, because the black on gray is killing my eyes.
Other than that, everything seems to be in good order, and more organised than before.
The Stinger
03/27/2003, 03:19
Oh yeah, also, why can we not edit our posts anymore?
I always get the "You do not have permission to access this page." Pretty frustrating when you make a mistake or forget to add something.
The ability to edit posts will be back shortly. With the forum additions and changes to the layout some settings had to be changed and it seems the wrong one was changed, it should be back to normal before too long.
I agree with the comments about colour and editing.
On a general point, part of the joy of the site under the "old" system was that a subject might start with, eg, a team selection issue (rate my 300 pt team etc), go into the Firelord-is- Borken disscussion (Hello Bakija), thence into the "no dupes ex generics" (me, Doomtoy, et al.), and then end up with a discusion on the rights and wrongs of particular judging decisions (hello Tsanik).
Then somebody might reply to an aside or a "signiture" qoute, and away it would go...
Makes re-filing somewhat difficult...
All the Best
Noman
Psylockeslover
03/27/2003, 11:58
I was just wondering, what happened to the spiffy colored bar that was over my name for donating money to the site?
Not really a big deal, but it sure was cool to have...
Mayberry Bat
03/27/2003, 12:49
I don't necessarily mind the forum merge, but it's pretty obvious that more people post Marvel than DC. I like both and used to check both regularly. But I've already noticed that I may have to go to the second page if some interesting DC subject is up. I gotta admit I think I liked it better the other way.
Originally posted by Mayberry Bat
I don't necessarily mind the forum merge, but it's pretty obvious that more people post Marvel than DC. I like both and used to check both regularly. But I've already noticed that I may have to go to the second page if some interesting DC subject is up. I gotta admit I think I liked it better the other way.
I am pleased they have merged myself.
The only reasons I think Marvel was getting more posts was a.) Marvel has more expansions, which always drum up talk, and b.) the Marvel forums were right on top.
CyberVenom
03/27/2003, 13:10
I'm still gonna stick around the site as much as I always have, but I think the whole revamp is not that good. Originally, it was pretty good, but has quickly gotten more and more tiresome, unfortunately. I don't have a problem with the merged idea, but we are starting to have too many forums for too many things.
Mayberry Bat
03/27/2003, 13:25
I didn't want to make anyone think I was leaving. I enjoy the Marvel topics as well. I just don't want to have to search for a long time to find an interesting DC thread. Maybe when Cosmic Justice comes out in full force the general area forum will get a little more DC to it.
The biggest problem with the old Marvel Forum is it was becoming the catch-all for the whole Forum. It was the first Forum created and was at the top so it started to attract all sorts of posts, including a lot of DC stuff.
Where-as the DC forum which came later and was below Marvel got very little traffic in comparison.
That and with so much Marvel + DC together talk it seemed like a good idea to just put everything in one big melting pot.
As for stuff going off quick, we're working on that. Once we get everything posted in the proper forum rather than just in GD it should be better.
Keep the feedback coming!
Since I've last looked at this thread there are new posts by Typhoon and Druss.... and still no comment on changing the color although many people have said something about it! What's up with that? Keep quiet and hope the bothersome noise goes away? Will it be changed? Is it something that's even being discussed? How 'bout a little info on questions that have already been asked over and over again? You seem to do a really good job of responding to some questions while totally ignoring others!
shin-goji
03/27/2003, 19:40
This will take some time to get used to, but i do think it is a change in a positive way. I do have to agree the performance is slower now.
I can't answer questions on the color as thats a Typhon issue, he'll need to respond to that one.
I'll get around to lightening things this weekend, but the scheme will still stay the same. It's not a high priority item on our list at the moment. Look for a lot of tweaks this weekend. We're trying to get things right before we start converting the rest of our sites.
theZehrung
03/30/2003, 15:13
sorry to say that, but I HATE it! it's alienating me away from the forum because of DC and Marvel forum combined into one...I miss the old system because it s so convenient - Me obviously a DC diehard...I tend to read DC only...I collect DC only. oh well..:cry:
I don't mind the merge. I collect and play both Marvel and DC. I really don't like the new look as I think it is too dark. I also haven't been able to edit any of my posts lately. What's up with that?
djensen47
04/10/2003, 15:21
The details about the figures does not work on Netscape 7.x. Netscape 7 is a up-to-date fully standards compliant browser. This implies that some non standard CSS or scripting is being used on this pages. Please fix soon because if AOL (about 50% of the internet) ever switches to the Netscape browser your site will be screwed.
Just a friendly suggestion. :)
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