Sacred Seal discussion · Legacy archive
Dungeon Master's Guild
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Dungeon Master's Guild
#1Dungeon Master's Guild
Site Title: Dungeon Master's Guild
Web Address: http://dmg.dfxwebs.com
Review the site and feel free to post your comments.
Description: The Dungeon Master's Guild is a Community website dedicated to gathering resources for D&D players and DMs from across the Web. DMG is a community both for developers of resources and for users. What is a Resource: to me, a resource is anything that helps you make your D&D game a better place. this includes links to websites with cool stuff, articles that can help your game, programs and forms and spreadsheets and maps you can use in-game. For developers, creators, and innovators, we are happy to host your files, post news articles about your resource, link to your files, online generator or download page. Basically, anything to spread the word about what you have done for the D&D community. Whether user or developer, we're dedicated to making this site a better place for all D&D players, so let me know if you have any suggestions for making the site a better place. Our goal is to create a great community for all 3E fans to come and enjoy and to give you a place to voice your opinion, whatever it may be. We take submissions for original material be it new races, classes, monsters or just helpful files as well as stories, poetry and art. We want to be more than just a storehouse of material, we want to be YOUR home for 3E on the net.
Home to the Dungeon Room Netbook, Archive of over 500+ files and growing everyday, a Message Forum devoted to the D&D DM/Player and also the newest project Realms End Tavern, LARP over the net. -
Dungeon Master's Guild
#2I have adopted a loose grade sheet mentality for reviewing sites and I think it works well for me so I will continue.
OVERVIEW
Splash screen = tiny bad. What are they for? Show me the content.
Best viewed = tiny bad. Should be resolution independent.
Main Page = Huge Good. Describes the page and tells us what we need to know about it.
Layout = Huge Good. Excellent easy to navigate, easy to read, easy to look at.
Links = Sort of weird how visited links get an underline and unvisited links are not. Should choose one and stick with it and let us remember what we visited.
Update List = Good. I think I need something like that!
Visitory Number = bad. Especially since it looks made up. Put it at the bottom at least, it is only an ego thing and doesn’t serve much of a purpose besides that.
Window Spawn = bad. Don’t like opening more windows for the forum and guestbook. Provide links back to the site instead. Definitely fine for the links outside your pages, but don’t just open more windows of your own pages.
Email submission. Works fine, but even better is a generic form that we can fill out. The less work we have to do (like opening an email client is hard or browsing to the forum) the better.
MENU
D&D test = Could be a Huge Good. Now just a tiny good. Should just call it alignment test as the link. There is enough room. Fun questions, although there are a couple that force you to be bad no matter what you would normally do. If there is anyway to go to a different page and have the results in a text format, I would do that. It is fun to see it but besides writing them down there is no way to save them. This is the type of thing you can get hits for. People say on their forum “Go here and do this test.� Then they like to come back and post their results and share. With the pop up, you can’t do that so it doesn’t have much community value. I suggest that highly!
Links = Good start (;-) but definitely need to share with us the sites you like to visit. Don’t wait for people to ask, you have value if you provide good resources by default.
Realms End Tavern = Sounds good. I am not clientelle, and you shouldn’t be staff. Trying to promote community then treat us as you would friends.
About us is sort of sparse, if you aren’t going to tell us anything about you then may be better to just not have it. The main page already tells us what you said here. Definitely combine this page with the Contact us page! And call it about us.
ARCHIVE
Feats = May want to split it up into a couple pages. That would be a long download for those on 56k modems. Almost 200KB. Also, the mailto: links. If you are anti-spammers then doing this is sort of a freebie for spammers to harvest email addresses with their automated programs. May want to think of an alternative to give credit. You do ask people if they want their email shown I would guess.
Everything else = I always like text vs. a zip file. If you did that for me I would give them all a HUGE IMMENSE GOOD. Right now I am only going with Big Good.
I am not going to comment on the rest of your content because is it outstanding and doesn’t need any comments. I obviously didn’t download everything, but from what I saw it was all original content submitted to you and not rehashed stuff off of other sites.
DUNGEON ROOM NETBOOK
The Dungeon Room Netbook= a HUGE IMMENSE GOOD. Is one of the better netbooks I have seen. It is an excellent idea and there are A LOT of great ideas in it! On my list of things to contribute to!
TOP TEN SURVEYS
I always frown on non original content even if it is approved. I do very much like how you did it and even though I have a personal rule against it, I liked it. Good. Plus the site it came from I couldn't even find where you got it from so your setup is nice and easy to read and preferable.
DICE TALES
Must be new. Haven’t seen it on my other visits to your site. Big Good. Good stories. They may become too cumbersome to have a menu item for each one, but right now they are just fine! Good idea with the link at the bottom that walks you through them.
MAIN PAGE (didn’t want this to be the first thing read)
Realms End Tavern. Why is it roll play instead of role play? AND Don't call me a client. I don't want to be a client, I want to be a fellow gamer.
Dice Tails. “I'm sure you have had occasions where one of your Players either did something so stupid that it was funny.� Either did something funny or…..? Left us hanging.
Submissions: “This site will be dedicated to…� will be? IS
You use the phrase “stupid� a few times. Is there a better way to say that perhaps? Nobody likes to be called stupid, even if it is meant in a lighthearted way.
I can’t find any comments I have made that could make me not give you the Sacred Seal. Most of the negatives are petty and picky whereas what your site content shows is that you have a great solid site with a lot of content, the ability for submissions, a forum to let you grow a community, and a great design. I got the warm fuzzy I need and it is a site I have already been visiting fairly regularly. The continued growth was a main reason and even if it slows down, you already have enough that it will take many visits to get all I can out of the site.
I like it and I say yes. :D
Will see what the others have to say. -
DMG
#3Told the webmaster of the DMG to take a look at the review, he has re did his site, removing the splash screen, giving Dice Tales its own section, removing the Top 10 Survyes and then he set it up where the DMG Forum or Guestbook does not open in a new window. Also corrected spelling errors on the page. :D You can now submit items using the forum instead of your email program.
The counter has also been reset. The total prevsiouly up there was the real deal, the site orginally opened in November 18, 1998 and the counter was carried on from then.
Thanks for the great review, hope you like the changes. -
Dungeon Master's Guild Update
#4The DMG has been re-designed. I would appricate some feedback and apply for your award.
GuildMaster
http://dmg.dfxwebs.com -
Dungeon Master's Guild
#5Darkness arrived.
It looks nice and all, its just... too dark. I mean, both the background and the letters, too little contrast!
May be just the old monitor I currently sit behind, but I have a bit problem to read the text, which is not so good. -
Dungeon Master's Guild
#6Must agree with Manfred here: the monochromatic theme is good and very atmospheric, but maybe the text needs brightening to a lighter shade of grey or even white. I'm also not entirely sure what the picture at the top of each page depicts, and can only barely read the text over that...
eph! -
Thanks
#7Thanks for the advice, I will have a chance to update the pages over the weekend and plan on working on the contrast problem. Check back in a day or so and you should see the change.
Thanks again.
Guild Master
http://dmg.dfxwebs.com -
Dungeon Master's Guild
#8:oops: Just revisited the site and realised I couldn't see the picture because I needed to maximise the window. Doh! How silly of me. It's a very nice picture!
eph! -
Dungeon Master's Guild
#9In general, I like the site. It seems very easy to navigate. I would have to agree with Manfred’s comments on the text.
I like you alignment test. However, the popup has a typo in the last sentence (“wo� instead of “two�)
if (confirm("\t\tYou rate as a "+l_c+" "+g_e+" "+clas+".\n\nYour personality tendencies are:\n\n\t -->\t"+(50+good-evil)+"\t\t"+(50+law-chaos)+"\t\t"+(100-horiz)+"\t\t"+vert+"\t -
Dungeon Master's Guild
#10I must admit, I REALLY liked the last format and am slightly dissappointed by the new one and noticed it little bit ago. The menu, when you have visited a link you cannot read the link with the grey box and white lettering, need more contrast again there.
Also DR Netbook just doesn't do it justice and I am certain people may skip it without understanding what it is. If it has to go to two rows of text to link it, so be it, I think it needs to be said, or make it "Dungeon Room NB" instead of abbreviated the meat of what it is. That is a highlight of your pages and shouldn't be breezed over.
I do like the picture, sort of scary in a mysterious type way. Blair Witchy and unsettling. I like it. Not sure if it promotes the whole DM Guild purpose of the site but cool for a horror ghost type site.
Will try to spend some more time on it later. These are just surface observations. -
DMG
#11I would like to thank everyone who has provided me with feedback, One of the hardest things about being a webmaster for me is getting visitors to make comments about your site. Thanks!
I have changed the text around, made it a bit brighter, but something does both me. Strolen mention the there are problems with the menus, once visited they grey out and you can't read them no more. Is anybody else having that problem?
Thanks again -
Dungeon Master's Guild
#12I should probably mention that I get the white text box and white links on visited links while using Opera. It is actually the lightest gray box with white links.
I noticed in IE that the gray is much darker, are you using hex or color names? Just curious and wondering if it interprets names different. The visited link doesn't stay in IE either so I am guessing it is an Opera interpretation of something. -
Style.css
#13It uses a style sheet to define link colors and such. I use IE and everything seems fine on my side. hmmm
-------Style.css------------------------------------------
color: #fff;
font-size: 12px;
font-weight: bold;
text-decoration: none;
padding: 5px;
display: block;
}
.menu a:hover, .menu a:visited:hover, .menu a:active {
color: #000;
font-size: 12px;
font-weight: bold;
text-decoration: none;
padding: 5px;
background-color: #eee;
display: block;
}
.header {
padding-left: 5px;
border: 1px solid #fff;
-moz-opacity: 0.5;
filter:alpha(Opacity=50);
}
.headerf{
color: #fff;
font-family: Arial;
font-size: 24px;
font-weight: bold;
text-decoration: none;
}
.fheader{
font-family: verdana;
font-size: 24px;
color: #7c7c7e;
}
.content {
padding: 5px;
border: 1px solid #7c7c7e;
color: #7c7c7e;
font-family: verdana;
font-size: 12px;
text-align: left;
}
.location_logo{
bottom: 10px;
left: 10px;
position: absolute;
-moz-opacity: 0.5;
filter:alpha(Opacity=50);
}
.pad{ padding-top: 5px; padding-left: 5px; }
.padm{ padding-top: 5px; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px;}
----end----- -
Dungeon Master's Guild
#14Not that it explains it, but IE is better at handling errors then Opera. Opera is more "by the book" then the rest so has a lower thresh hold then the others perhaps.
Right off the bat, the hex code you use for colors really needs to be 5 alphanumeric characters unless the browser assumes 0 for all undefined. I messed around with it a little but couldn't figure anything out quickly. Would have to get a few pages to check the visited links.
Besides the hex number perhaps this line
.menu a:hover, .menu a:visited:hover, .menu a:active
hover is defined twice and maybe it ruins the visited one and it gets wierd. That is just a wierd selector that is written.
try this, does the same thing without the extra. Not sure if it will do anything but hey.
.menu a:hover:visited:active -
Dungeon Master's Guild
#15Re-visited, see more contrast! :)
About menu's: if you leave via the browser's Back button, the last link in the menu stays 'selected', until you choose another link. Not directly an error, may be acceptable for showing what you visited last.
Nice forum, too. -
Dungeon Master's Guild
#16Man, they change their design almost from day to day.
Different again, and yet again, not bad. :wink: -
Hehe
#17Hopefully this will be the last time I change the design. I think I am finally happy with the new look. -
Dungeon Master's Guild
#18Now we are talking. It is an awesome look!
The backgrounds are black as it loads, might want to change that to a lighter color so the content is more immediately accessible. Love the layout. Really sharp and appeals to my personal tastes. -
DMG
#19Just checking on the status for Dungeon Master's Guild? -
Dungeon Master's Guild
#20We are letting it sit for a little bit because of the state of flux it has been in....at least I am. Plus, finals are next week so will be at least till then before another serious look is taken by me at least.
"You are a contender baby, hang in there!!!" -
On a personal note....
#21Most of the community, as seen in their forums and some of their documents, take a very adversarial relationship between player and GM, as players are people to outrick, outsmart, and defeat. I personally find the point of view off putting, but perhaps that is just me.
((I knew this opinion would come back once dungeons came back into vogue, but I was not expected to be as bad as it was. )) -
Dungeon Master's Guild
#22Depends on the severity of it and I think it hinges on the DM. If the DM is out to get the players and plays that way then it becomes an unfair competition and not a game. If there is an occasional "I got you" then that isn't so bad, as long as it is good natured and fun.
It is fun to read about anyway :-) -
Dungeon Master's Guild
#23Still too much commotion and changing going on over there to seriously consider it. Just waiting for the dust to settle especially its new association with the other site that seems to be forcing some major changes. -
Website Review
#24I have made a lot of new changes to the DMG, added a lot of new features and hopefully made the site user friendly. And no, I did not change the look itself..grin
http://dmg.dfxwebs.com
Would like some feedback.
The only Major update still in affect is, Adnd downloads and myself will be sharing one forum, alone with another D&D website...can't recall the name at this time.
Thanks -
Dungeon Master's Guild
#25The coolest part was the Dungeon Room that I loved just looking at a couple at a time. But now it is in pdf format and I honestly don't really like pdfs. I want to look at the stuff, not have to download it and then have to deal with yet another file on my computer. Bring back the web pages of Dungeon Room.
Book of Shadows is hidden. I submitted a couple things but it is hard to submit blindly when you don't know what is already done. There could be a lot of needless duplication by forcing people to submit and then 'maybe' they will be able to see it.
Dice tales were cool too, now annoying pdf.
Getting to the stuff is too much work. At least they are not pdfs in a zip file because that would cause me to write it off completely.
Oh, the days when the webpage was a webpage and not a fileserver. -
DMG
#26I'm sorry you feel that way about PDFs. They can be a pain, however there are many advantages to using PDF compared to other Documents. PDF offers security options that other word processors do not, like security. I had a lot of request and it also makes it easier for me to update.
The Book of Shadows is back online. -
Dungeon Master's Guild
#27I am all for alternate forms of distribution, some people do like that, but not to totally replace the standard web interface of click and look. Easy to update is good for the webmaster, easy to view is good for the visitors.
I am not anti-pdf, I may get there eventually myself, but as an addition to what I already have, not a replacement.
One question about the security.
Why?
I see that you disallow copy and paste and who knows what else, but...why? -
Dungeon Master's Guild
#28I totaly agree with Strolen, a webpage that you put up there for look and see should never be a pdf.
Plain HTML or any other directly visible type of display is the only thing I want to use.
At the office I don't mind too much to download a PDF, if I know the conent is what I look for. Back home?? Never. On my 28k8 modem that is going to take forever.
I don't know whatever security you are talking about. Even from a pdf you can do copy paste. If you are only mildly skilled in computer use, you can easily copy into a worddocument and change to your own desire.
Besides that, I have already seen "cracked" versions of pdf files purchased at Amazon as well, so..... security.....
Yours, Ylorea -
PDF Issues
#29There is an option in the PDF Format to secure the document where you cannot cut and paste, and yes I am aware of cracks out there that can do the job, nothing is hack proof. However, it does make it more a pain in the a$$ to do so and this way is much better than putting a word document that can be copied and paste with a simple "click" I don't know how many times I have put something in the archive and then 2-4 days later it ends up at every other website, written by this person or that person.
I checked the orginal file with some of the PDF fomats and there was not really that much of a size difference.
The DMG uses the PDF format because of feedback from visitors, it seems they prefer it this way. However, I do take all feedback into consideration and will put up a new poll asking vistors how they feel about the PDF Format and will take it from there. -
Dungeon Master's Guild
#30I don't really mind pdfs, but then, I almost obsessively collect roleplaying resources.