Groups is a good idea, the page serves its purpose, just about but browsing it is horrid. I don't mean the bandwidth issues the site is currently suffering, no doubt they'll pass.
Firstly, why can I only view 10 per page. Given that there is currently a few hundred groups, and this is somewhat day one, perusing groups en masse to see if there is something interesting is painfully tedius. The frame seems to have a width limit at what, 640px at a guess. I just did a quick full-screen on my mac, 1440*900 for the record, and its still unhappily at its maximum width. This leaves lots of stacked descriptions, especially if the viewable number is increased with a word width of only c. 10 words. A wider frame would at least thin the verticle of each entry. It really should be dynamic to the browser width much like the main Bioware site.
Secondly, Filters. On first page view I'm hit with 10 random groups. I'm not entirely sure what is the decider for them to appear. Is it 10 latest? 10 random? (refreshing says thats not true). Personally, 10 most popular would be a good choice. People attract people, and also the larger groups are more likely to contain useful information to the mass, given that each is a small subforum with slightly more specific content and discussions. I can't say I'd be an advocate of 10 latest, mostly because it'll just be giving me a page of 10 "one man" groups with the vague hopes I'd be interested. 10 Random based on games I have registered to my bioware account is also nice, mind you. I could see the justification there. Either way it is currently 10 useless.
Still same topic, next point. I'd like to be able to select multiple TRUE filters, rather than single TRUE filters. What I mean by this is: I would like to be able to browse the following search criteria of the groups list.
-- Dragon Age Builder Groups
-- Builder Groups
-- Sort by: Most Popular (most users? most posts? - needs defining)
-- Number per page: N (10/25/50/100? - just, more than 10)
Maybe a few more criteria, as given just, Number per page, minimum/max? number of users are just two examples I can think of. I'd say minimum users because of the sheer ammount of 1 man groups that will appear will flood the system with, shall we say, junk. See EvEs 1 man corps, or wow's 1 man guilds. As much as they Might fledge into something good, most of them are just space wasters. Promote them, get a few more users and views will bypass that "issue" for those critical of such ideas.
No doubt a few others may wish to add to that point.
Search Groups: Why is there not this functionality? Every major subset of the site should have a localised search. It'll lift a little overhead off the search system if it doesn't have to search Everything when all I want is Voice Acting group somewhere in Groups. Admittedly the search system in the corner does return results, but it returns everything, and seems to have a depth limit of 200 (at least on the characters, I bet the groups depth is 200 too). A specific search could have a larger depth but no width. (read, searches Groups only, but more results, over searching all site areas with less results).
Question: Why when searching "Voice" does the algorithm return Group: Paragon's Paradox as its first (top?) search term? It seems they have "seeking help - voice acting" in their listing but to be honest surely the algorithm's first port of call should be Title, then subsections. Admittedly Voice Acting Guild does not have "seeking help - voice acting" listed inside their group. Perhaps that would raise their search ranking. This is more a penickty thing, as it did return my results, they're just in a bit of a "funny" order. When you've got thousands more results to trawl through, more advanced filtering may be a nicety
I'm also not entirely sure why I Need a massive avatar picture up the corner, or even why every **** topic on the forums needs one on the topics page. I like lean smooth forums, don't mind avatars on the topic view itself but on the page that has all the subjects, its a bit of an eyesore.
Like groups, Projects page needs a little more refining too, to allow for better searching and browsing for content. 10 per page limit also bites the site in the bum too. Sorry. Also "no photo available" would be better with No Icon Shown personally. Its like writing " Do Not Read This Sign" everywhere. Its annoying.
I like the featured frame. Nice way to publicise good content. I guess they're manually featured by your site staff. Nothing wrong there. Perhaps a Recently Updated frame beneath would be a good way of showing content in the works that is actively being worked on. In addition, a way of displaying release-level content and pre-release content as module developers work or want testers etc would be nice.
For instance, I want to sit down and play a mod, right now I get the logical choice of "End User Modules". Whilst in theory this should return what I want, it actually firstly gives me too much information and unwanted results. I would much prefer:
--Completed Modules, maybe with some sub-categories to lower results further, such as Levelling mods, campaign, one off etc etc.
-- Unfinished Modules - testable. Things I can sit down and try if the builder so wishes. Good for builder feedback, version tracking and so on, and also wide audience testing.
-- Planned modules?
What I don't want, which is what I have now, is contentless pages of placeholders for people who's modules are in the planning mixed in with legitimate content I do want to see. Right now there's XGroups Module A Pt1 placeholder page, followed by XGroups Module A Pt2 placeholder and so on. Its annoying, and a little frustrating. In some ways I honestly don't care what people are planning. If there's nothing uploaded, should there really be a page in projects, or should it be a group?
I think that needs some thought.
Anyway, here's to feedback
Good effort so far. Keep it up. Fish.
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