What Games/Entertainment Websites do you Visit and Why?

[Pete]

Not that I'm fishing for ideas or anything like that, but I am

 

I realise that our homepage (that's www.strategycore.co.uk for the 50%+ of you that arrive directly here on the forums every day) could be more engaging, so what other sites do you visit that have interesting features on their homepages?

 

For me, the main things that are missing/could be changed are:

• Lots of daily news to give people a reason to check in daily (surely there's at least ONE piece of strategy-related news every day?)
  
• More features on the homepage - featured articles/files with accompanying graphics
  
• Possibly more of an emphasis on user content, so reduce the big long column of news a bit into short headlines and give things like latest forum discussions, featured files/articles etc a bit more prominence
  

There's plenty I'd like to do, and that first bullet point would require a drive for either more actual site staff or more submissions from regular forum-goers who are interested in submitting news (and on that topic, would non-staff-members consider posting news more frequently if there was a spot on the StrategyCore team than they would as a regular member?).

 

Since the last major site update in July, we've now got a good solid system that's pretty easy to update so we just need ideas and help to get the content flowing.

 

So basically, what nice sites do you visit and why, and what suggestions do you have for getting the site more regularly updated?

[Pete]

Wow, so you all come to StrategyCore and ONLY StrategyCore?

[Space Voyager]

No but all the other sites that I visit are either pretty to the point and therefore empty of the content you speak of or are all about daily news.

 

I agree that the things you wrote about would spice things up. Although I like it that news have a pic or two. I don't like the wall of text that happens when you only post a line for each news.

 

Than again, if we're talking about A LOT of news that may be the only option. Are we talking about A LOT of news?

[Pete]

I'm thinkng about least one news item a day (two at the outside) preferably or the homepage wouldn't change often enough for people to be interested in it.

 

I don't want anything as busy as this: https://www.gamesradar.com/uk as I much prefer the simplicity of this: https://www.gog.com/en/frontpage/ (but without quite so big a feature area at the top). In fact, I really like that game scroller idea on GOG.com just above the news area - we could have something similar for each game we've got in our databank and simply weight the order they appear in by number of pages in that section (so X-COM/UFO/SS/SotS games would be first on the list, with HoI and then E3 stuff (Disciples etc) coming next.

 

Just something that grabs people a bit more that's also useful.

 

I mean, I really like the idea of a top feature area (IGN's is a bit smaller than GOG's: https://uk.ign.com) as long as it's done well, and in the IGN version I like the overlaid article title and intro text that sits on top of the image. I've recently worked on a script that potentially means staff members could add features themselves, uploading a picture, cropping it via their web browser to the correct dimensions, adding the text and having it auto-generate something as neat as IGN's top section without any coding/image editing knowledge required which, whilst only a prototype at present, would make it simple to do stuff like that.

 

I'm also leaning towards the idea of news items having one image like GOG and potentially having the first X words used as an intro and then have a link to click through to the full article. This would be something that would be best suited to a news area that has daily updates, as presently one long article could puch things down the page and out of site.

 

Another thing I'd like to do is make submitting news even easier. It's not hard now if you're on the forums or if you're on the site and know to go to the contact page, but on the homepage it would be nice to have a Submit News button that simply pops up and overlay window with a form for name, subject, comments and a link to another site if that's where the article was seen. I'm not suggesting people are lazy, but on the internet, the simpler you make something then the more likely it is that it'll be used.

 

Another thing I've talked about elsewhere before is keeping up with offers from places like GOG and GamersGate. I'm subscribed to their Twitter feeds so I was planning on making an area where staff can see those feeds and automatically re-post them at the click of a button so they appear in a Latest Offers section on the homepage, in our own Twitter feed and, possibly if you guys think it's worth it, in it's own subforum in the General Gaming News forum jsut so it's easy to spot no matter where visitors arrive on the site - things like 60% off Hearts of Iron 3 and 50% off Multiwinia but all collected in one place no matter whether they're on GOG, Gamersgate, Steam or elsewhere. It is a form of advertising I know, but these are the types of adverts I feel visitorsw would actually be interested in knowing about - one title had something silly like 75% off a while ago, though many of these offers last only a day, so they're worth knowing about if you're tempted to buy a game if only it weren't for the price tag.

 

So yeah, I'm planning big again with some wild ideas, but it needs doing along with a call for people - all you lurkers out there included - who might be interested in posting news items you think might be interesting to other strategy gamers, and not just games we've mainly covered on the site in the past either.

[FullAuto]

I only visit other sites haphazardly, I simply can't sustain the effort to keep up with what's coming out in any medium any more.

 

Eurogamer is one I do visit regularly. In contrast, I avoid IGN, Gamespot, etc like the plague.

 

Metacritic is a decent quick reference to see a game's reviews.

 

Rising Star, to see what they're bringing in from Japland.

 

That's about it. I usually find out about new games/films while editing Wikipedia! Usually months after they come out.

 

While I like GOG, they make several elementary design errors on their site. Take the catalogue, for instance. If I click on (for instance) strategy, it doesn't take me to the strategy games. It just shows you this week's highest rated strategy games. And the bestsellers (not strategy bestsellers, just the bestsellers), and the pointless 'recommended for you' at the bottom.

 

It makes me want to punch them, because often all I want to do is browse a list of the new strategy games, which, being new, may not be a bestseller, or particularly well rated. You have to browse the full list of games and then choose the strategy filter. Which is laborious because I never remember it at first. I always think you get there by clicking on 'strategy'.

[Bomb Bloke]

The only sites I follow these days that aren't wikis or forums would be web comics. If I do go to a site regulary, I find the specific page that causes me to go there, then bookmark/favourite that - I'm not one for front pages which cover any more then whatever it is I specifically want at the time, and my usual internet speed of 64/64kbps enforces that.

[Azrael Strife]

I just tend to visit IGN for any PC / Wii related news; besides, they have some entertaining articles in the style of "The history of Nintendo" or "Top 100 NES games of all times", so I'm pretty much satisfied with that.

[NKF]

Depends what sort of sites you want to capture I guess. I don't know if any of the ones I frequent would fit in to the theme of this site as they are either on-line shops like Amazon.com, eBay or my local auction site. There are also websites/webforums that are relevant to my other hobby. That is, robot toys and plastic model kits. Photobucket I frequent semi-regularly, but only to maintain my own gallery of aforementioned hobby. Don't have an endless list of on-line comics that I frequent any more - which has dwindled down to just two.

 

Man, when I boil it down to that, my internet life is actually really boring these days!

 

- NKF

[Pete]

NKF - I think a lot of us ar with you at this point

 

I remember back in the early days of X-COM.co.uk when I had the timje and inclination to go trawling through something like 10 websites on a daily basis. Now I visit sites that are mostly work-related, which fortunately still keeps me up to speed on the latest web technologies and has helped me rebuild the site as it stands now.

 

Thanks all for your suggestions. Don't hold out on just gaming sites though if you do have more - any where the design is particularly pleasing or there are great gadgets that make you stop and think "wow, that's cool" are all good.

[Thorondor]

(...) or there are great gadgets that make you stop and think "wow, that's cool"

You mean like this? *turn on your audio*

 

::

 

[Pete]

I'm not sure the budget stretches that far

[FullAuto]

I think Eurogamer's front page is horrible. I only ever look at the top quarter of it.

[Pete]

I'm appalled at how much advertising there is on the majority of these sites, as I am in

day job when I'm hunting for help with some code on various forums and have to scroll through 10 ads just to get to the first post!

 

I do wonder if IGN is under new management though as their sites seem pretty clean nowadays.

[Space Voyager]

That doesn't help with the general "we got paid to rate this high" feeling.

 

Although I was pleasantly surprised to see Avatar get 6.8 at IGN, which is very bad for IGN standards. I was expecting it to be rated high no matter what.

[Matri]

Personally, I look at the game site's rating as a "base", then at the player/reader reviews as being more accurate.

 

Someone who paid good money to review it would probably be a bit more honest than someone being paid to review it, wouldn't you say?

 

On an unrelated note, how about that piracy, eh?

[FullAuto]

I hear all the cool kids are doing it.

 

A great example of IGN's nuttiness here.

 

God Hand, BTW, is a hardcore beat 'em up that's hard to master but brilliant and mental. I've not played Imagine Party Babyz, but...