New Website Bugs/Feedback

I understand the drive to have low bandwidth items and to get the fastest response time out of a website. It has clearly huge advantages, and it pleases a lot of surfers.

But if a user has issues loading a <4 MB website in a few ms in 2023, then he will likely have network problems with that game anyway.

An action packed, crisp presentation - that makes the random surfer to want to play this game - A short gif/video that is showcasing such action sequences is the only thing to get the itchy "I want to play this now"-effect.

If people do not like autoplay videos in the background, then abandon the idea. If we need a test video in the first place, then I am sure here in FAF are many talented people who have some video editing skills.

To load MBs in milliseconds you need gigabit speed. Only a handful of people will have this.
We could embed a YouTube video in the website if you feel we need a video. I think this would have more opportunity to "sell" the game as well as the graphics are not revolutionary or anything compared to modern standards. So I doubt that a few tanks exploding will automatically create the emotional effect you want to have.

Some ideas for the faction description:


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Raw text:

UEF

The United Earth Federation is a powerful human faction aiming to unify a splintered empire through conventional weapons. They pack a powerful punch when it comes to damaging structures with their artillery, supported by satellites. Or defending outposts with their unique Tier 3 rotating Gatling gun as point defense.

Cybran

Cybran units are often insect-like in appearance. They use laser, stealth and cloaking technology more than any other faction. Their stealth bombers are powerful and if their naval has killed everything on sea, some ships can simply walk on land to carry out even more destruction.

Aeon

Humans who follow the philosophy of the aliens. Their experimental unit Paragon can generate nearly limitless resources, but if it explodes it causes a nuclear strike. They use hover technology and can nullify shields or use guided missiles which are fragile, but do very high damage on impact.

Seraphim

Religious aliens who came with superior technologies to cleanse the galaxy. They have multipurpose units, the strongest shields and a gigantic experimental Bomber. The experimental building Yolona Oss creates the most damaging and devastating strategic missiles ever seen.

I somewhat like the current faction description we have:

Seraphim
Chicken ACU, chicken assault bots and chicken experimental. You want a balanced army of chickens.

It shows that we are not treating everything so seriously.

While you might like it as a current player the reality is that those blurbs are supposed to be interesting to new players, not the current ones.

@blackyps said in New Website Bugs/Feedback:

To load MBs in milliseconds you need gigabit speed. Only a handful of people will have this.
We could embed a YouTube video in the website if you feel we need a video. I think this would have more opportunity to "sell" the game as well as the graphics are not revolutionary or anything compared to modern standards. So I doubt that a few tanks exploding will automatically create the emotional effect you want to have.

Video's are actually streamed so it doesn't hold the page load up. Use a <video> tag.

Since we use Cloudflare now this should be a non-issue and it's worth experimenting with at least.

EA did it with an 8MB 30 second or so clip for C&C classic that worked quite well.

Javi - the page is looking great!

Former Board Member - March 2021 - March 2022

This is just lame. Kindergartener design and wording. If I didn't know what SupCom was, I would not want to download it after reading this.
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HI i find the text in the news to large and i cant 'TAB' the news in my browser.
Keep up the good work .

@melanol said in New Website Bugs/Feedback:

This is just lame. Kindergartener design and wording. If I didn't know what SupCom was, I would not want to download it after reading this.
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@Javi Waaaait, these weren't the texts that were on the latest versions while the new page was pre-release, were they?

@fichom wdym? they've always been those. At some point I need to switch those for a mix of what @magge wrote above. I'm just busy tinkering with the backend, it's not very exciting to change some text xdxd. Plus when I come back to this, I'll re-do it so its more interactable/has images of each faction, maybe even a factions page.

FAF Website Developer

Order - The United Earth Federation was once the only government in the galaxy. Its durable armies are designed to take and hold territory to restore the empire.
Freedom - The Cybran Nation began as a cyborg conspiracy to liberate workers enslaved by the UEF. Cybran armies are fast, stealthy, and versatile.
Truth - The Aeon Illuminate is a religious order. Its followers are zealous and single-minded missionaries. Aeon units tend to excel at only one single purpose.
Revenge - The Seraphim were a peaceful alien race that was mostly genocided by the UEF. The Seraphim returned, using terrible weapons to carry out acts of overwhelming destruction.

the seraphim weren't genocided by the UEF but by the earth empire, UEF only started existing after brackman left the chat and aeon formed which was way after

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@ftxcommando

you are forgetting this is about informing new players that don't know about the story, telling them UEF existed since before the infinite war as a faction without changing at all when it is just not the case, if you want to show them as related it should at least be explained as such rather than them being mentioned as the exact same thing, something like "after the collapse of the earth empire, the remnants reformed into the united earth federation, to bring back peace to the galaxy by uniting all of humanity under one banner, by force if necessary", this is even explained in intro video

also didn't notice it at first for some reason, but yes, the UEF faction description is also wrong for that reason, and the UEF aren't trying to restore the empire because the empire no longer exists, and the seraphim weren't "mostly" wiped out either, one of their colonies was completely wiped out (critical point because that is the reason aeon exist and idolize/romanticize the seraphim and don't understand their technology properly (because there are no seraphim left alive to explain it)), the rest of the seraphim exist far from the human space completely fine, even after FA story, the seraphim that were defeated were merely 1 tiny task force sent to avenge the colony

@eternal said in New Website Bugs/Feedback:

Is this even a website feedback topic

the feedback is about the descriptions of factions on website and what should be on them, because it is the first thing new players will see, so you don't want to make mistakes in it

I think that emphasizing the ideology of each faction is more important than a detailed history of their lore for the purposes of attracting new players imo. But yes, the UEF are LARPing revanchists, the fact that they are not the Earth Empire and the fact that they want to restore it without really understanding why it fell apart are both equally important aspects.

put the xbox units in the game pls u_u

Should we make an own thread about the 'factions text on the website' (and link it in the first post) to discuss how we should address the introduction text, or do you want it all in one place here? @Javi

If the discussion pursues more intensely about that topic, it deservers its own thread, I suppose, otherwise the original intention about Bugs/Feedback is harder to track if two separate discussions are at the same time. Especially if people come up with lore and stuff to underline their arguments, which I really like, but generates a lot of text not related to bug/feedback.

I just threw together some text, if it's not consistent with the lore, it could be tweaked to be consistent. The point is to describe the ideology, aesthetic, and theme of the faction as quickly as possible in a way that makes them sound interesting to play.

Edit: and I want it to come across that each faction's history, ideology, aesthetic, and functions are consistent in a way that gives each faction its own personality. The consistency shows that the game design has thematic integrity. If people think the game is well-designed that would make them more interested to try it.