Recommendations for improving the Daily Click Site
A few simple idea's to improve the Daily Click. I'd also like to give a big shout out to the Daily Click Admin team who are do a fantastic job maintaining the site.
Site Appearance:
First things first, the default skin is unattractive and some what dated. I would recommend simple making the Black skin the default setting as the HTML and graphics already exist this should be a straight forward transformation and makes a considerable difference to the site.
Example 1:
New Mascot/Character:
The site needs a new modern Mascot/Character which represents the DC community and Click products in a friendly visual way. Quite simply the Admin team should launch a competition with-in the community to create the next Mascot for the Daily Click. Quick example is the Pixel Prospector at http://www.pixelprospector.com/ which fits its purpose very well.
Example 2:
Daily news feeds:
I've touched on this topic in my last forum post but just to reiterate. The front page seems very stagnant in regards to news and posts. Adding daily news posts should be priority and I think including video feeds would be a welcome addition! If the Admin team haven't got the time to do this on a daily basis maybe hiring some new admins might be the salutation, I'm sure there's plenty of clickers out there who would jump at the chance. A Good example for a video post would be Blue66 the creator of Gun Girl 2 recently released a YouTube video demonstration of his new upcoming title Super Panda Adventures on his project blog. This is the sort of stuff I'd personally like to see on the front page!
Example 3:
Just want to say I'm not criticizing the Daily Click I just feel a few simple changes could dramatically improve the site for the better and hopefully increase the site visitors because lets face it the DC is an excellent resource for game making.
A proper devlog feed on the front page would be great. Wouldn't require admin activity. Lots of developers are putting up great stuff regularly, and I don't reckon it's reaching a very big audience.
Originally Posted by Duncan A proper devlog feed on the front page would be great. Wouldn't require admin activity. Lots of developers are putting up great stuff regularly, and I don't reckon it's reaching a very big audience.
Also, Slate theme 4ever!
I would love that, if it means I could post youtube vids of my games and hopefully get them more attention.
The theme switch doesn't make much sense, as you're never going to get everybody to agree on a single skin or theme. If anything, I'd say throw out the skin options and redesign the default skin so the site doesn't look like it time traveled from 2001. Neat little boxes for every type of displayed site content makes navigation easy, but web design in general has moved away from completely sectioned layouts to blog-like single-page designs.
Adding the ability for mods to embed videos into the home page is a very good idea. There's no reason why tDC should lack a feature like that in 2012, even if it's not utilized in every news update.
Get rid of GotW and opt for GotM and GotY. TDC needs more active and participating users that are willing to review games before contemplating running a weekly contest again.
Get rid of the star rating system. Make users actually review the games they would otherwise simply rate. Comments and reviews are far more telling of a game's quality than a 1-5 star rating system, and it requires existing users be a little more involved in the site itself.
The Articles section should be changed into a Tutorials section, and new tutorials should be approved before posting to the site. There are too many "opinion" threads in the articles section that would likely be a bit more successful if they were simply forum posts.
The forum should be condensed. The staff forums shouldn't be visible to non-staff members, and the V.I.P. forums don't get enough activity to keep around. The remaining forums should be split into better categories. For instance, the site support forums should probably be it's own section.
Site Support:
- Daily Click
- The Daily Click Arcade
- KlikCast
Help and Assistance:
- Click Coding Help
- Non-Click Coding Help
- General Chat
Community:
- Competitions
- Team Projects
- Digital Works
- Misc Chat
I would imagine that most new users come to tDC to find tutorials, resources, and help making games; but if I were to pretend that I didn't understand the site sections or navigation, there's nothing that screams "click here for help". The Articles section doesn't say "Tutorials", the Downloads section is mostly for downloading games, not example files, the Projects section isn't of any use to a new user looking for help... the last remaining section is the forums. So, honestly; the only two nav sections that are any help to new users are the forums and tDC's search feature.
I think tDC should add a "Resources" section. It'd compliment a "Tutorials" section by offering graphics, audio, artwork, extensions, widgets, shaders, defunct and abandonware projects, and links to utilities and tools. TDC obviously doesn't have the server space to host all that, but the section could be set up kinda like the Articles section; linking to externally hosted files on sites like skydrive.
I don't know if there's any point to this post since Clickteam now owns tDC's domain rights, and suggesting that tDC improve to surpass Clickteam's official site in user support is kinda ludicrous and would work against Clickteam's interests.
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Cut the fat and represent the good stuff in the best possible way I think is the general consensus, and what we're hoping to aim for, I do really like the idea of streaming project log updates onto the front page though, will have to look into that
I agree with most of what GrimFusion is saying too. Although I don't understand the logic in not using the Black skin as the default backround? Its the only skin that looks professional and modern, I also suggested this option to save a lot of time & work for ClubSoft.
I think the Arcade section should be scrapped as well, I'd imagine it requires a lot of data and space to run when it really isn't necessary. Not to sound to mean but the games are really amateur looking and don't have the depth required for Replay value in my opinion. If I'm going to play some arcade games I'd use Xbox Arcade or goes else ware to play better flash games. Of course there should always be a place for indie arcade games at the Daily Click but it certainly doesn't need its own section.
A noob or how to section would be nice. It could contain all articles and tutorial downloads. There could even be an area to post tutorial videos links from youtube.
I will miss the game of the week or month award. It always made me try a little harder to make my games better. I understand that no one was voting but I hope there will be a place for those who make the exceptional games. Maybe a TDC recommended or DC picks section instead of the GOTW.
The articles section should become more like the downloads section, with each article being categorized and able to be favorited so you can go back and read later.
Get someone to do a monthly videocast/podcast, which is similar to the Klikcast.
I don't know about the star system in the downloads section. Many sites have just gone with the likes system instead, but either is good.
Eventually, someonne could possibly revive that Daily Click World thing, y' know, where you could build a house and stuff.
I will miss the game of the week or month award. It always made me try a little harder to make my games better. I understand that no one was voting but I hope there will be a place for those who make the exceptional games. Maybe a TDC recommended or DC picks section instead of the GOTW.
Maybe instead of GOTW or GOTM there should be a list on the front page of the best games of the year. That way really good games won't get over looked. I'm sure this would save pressures time for the Admin staff too.
Originally Posted by Clubsoft Cut the fat and represent the good stuff in the best possible way I think is the general consensus, and what we're hoping to aim for, I do really like the idea of streaming project log updates onto the front page though, will have to look into that
Is it possible Club to implement a feature so only approved members projects will be streamed on the front page to stop trolls and less appealing projects appearing on page 1? As I wouldn't want to miss top billed projects and the latest news!
Just a small suggestion. If someone favorites my game or project, I would like to be able to easily see WHO favorited it. Without discovering their profile by luck, that is.
I find the current layout to be fairly congested. It's squished in on my big 21" widescreen monitor and I think it needs to be redesigned with different screen resolutions in mind.
I think a retro-but-modern approach to a new design would be splendid. Considering "clicking" originated with K&P and we have now migrated into the powerful platform of MMF2.. there's lots to be derived from both ends for a great representation of the click community.
Other then that, I'll definitely be around more that's for sure. There's one improvement I can at least offer on my own, haha. I'll start with posting up the current project I'm working on.
The site is fine. We all know there aren't any problems with the structure of the site. There is no way to upgrade it. Nothing needs to be "streamlined" or removed. Clickteam just needs to hurry up and release something revolutionary, like MMF3D.
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Marky - From an economic standpoint, I'd have to disagree. Now that Clickteam is going to pay for the site's upkeep, it would be worthwhile to keep our bandwidth as low as possible. Removing antiquated features would free up some of our bandwidth for other things, so I think it'll be worth it to think carefully about which features are no longer used and clear them out. There's nothing saying that we can't bring them back later in a better form if interest comes back.
Anyway, as for new recommendations, I'll just copypaste what I said in my latest newspost:
One of the ideas that I proposed to the other admins was that we add the ability to view all games that have received a Daily Click Recommended or Daily Click Highly Recommended tag. I'm surprised there isn't a way to do this already, and it would give newcomers easy access to the best of the best. It does, however, have a downside in that it's only up to the admins to decide which games are deserving.
Another possibility would be to replace Game of the Week with a Game of the Year roundup. Since the number of nominees for a yearly award would be much larger, I'd imagine that we could select the top 3 games or so to all be 1st place winners, the next 5 to be second place, and so on. It's just a rough idea, but hey, it's a thought.
Originally Posted by Strife Clickteam is going to pay for the site's upkeep
Is this true? First I've heard of it. AFAIK they're paying for the annual renewal of the domain name, which is loose change compared to the hosting. That would be really nice of them if it turns out to be true, though.
Originally Posted by Strife One of the ideas that I proposed to the other admins was that we add the ability to view all games that have received a Daily Click Recommended or Daily Click Highly Recommended tag. I'm surprised there isn't a way to do this already, and it would give newcomers easy access to the best of the best. It does, however, have a downside in that it's only up to the admins to decide which games are deserving.
Absolutely terrible idea. The "downside" that you slipped into the last sentence is actually a major issue that goes against the entire purpose of a community-driven site. The Recommended Stars were never needed and no one requested them, they just appeared one day and were inconsistent from the beginning. Here's something to read: http://www.create-games.com/forum_post.asp?id=235490&show=all
Originally Posted by nim AFAIK they're paying for the annual renewal of the domain name, which is loose change compared to the hosting. That would be really nice of them if it turns out to be true, though.
I'm not sure if it's true or not - probably isn't. ; Regardless of who's paying for hosting, though, it would still be a good idea to lower the bandwidth strain as much as possible.
As for the Recommended tags, I wasn't around when that debate cropped up, so I had no idea that there's been strong opposition to it. I think it can still work, though, if we're just a little smarter about how the tags are tossed around. One could argue that the Game of the Week tags are far more suitable, but the fate of GOTW is uncertain right now, and if it's scrapped or replaced with a rarer trophy (i.e. Game of the Year), there should still be a way to let visitors know quickly what they ought to try out from the newer downloads.
What if we automated the tags so that games with a certain number of faves automatically receive them?
Originally Posted by Strife One of the ideas that I proposed to the other admins was that we add the ability to view all games that have received a Daily Click Recommended or Daily Click Highly Recommended tag. I'm surprised there isn't a way to do this already, and it would give newcomers easy access to the best of the best. It does, however, have a downside in that it's only up to the admins to decide which games are deserving.
This isn't any different to what the iTunes App Store and Android Market do. Helps discovery of games (in this case) that otherwise go unnoticed by those with their own opinions of which developers to follow (assuming the admins don't always choose the same developers or types of games).
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Edited by Va1entine
Apocalyptic Coders - 
; Regardless of who's paying for hosting, though, it would still be a good idea to lower the bandwidth strain as much as possible.
