DIGITAL_DEVIL_DATABASE Community Forum

Here is a preview of an avatar layout for pages :goodnight:

The height of the bubble would realistically be more than that (pushing the page text down) at that small of a width, but you can get the idea.

Some one can download/host this image if you wanna.

I just noticed if you click on the image (not the link) it sometimes becomes full sized. I noticed Google Chrome was doing that before, but I thought it was a feature. I couldn't reliably get Firefox to do it at the time, but it seems to be working better now.

Wow, that looks soooooo cool!  :dazed:  Clips over the banner in kind of a weird spot though.

Still, NEAT.  :biggrin:

Yeah, well it's just a preview. I'm going to move the search box to the top, so the avatars will have something flat under them. That might make things flow better. I'm also gonna widen the sidebar (the content margins seem to be excessively large) ...I could then maybe scoot the avatars back some. When I just put him over the sidebar it seemed like he was too far away from the page content to visually associate with it.


I could make the avatars align with the bottom of the banner, but the banner would have to be taller... however I don't like this idea, because it makes them look like they are the banner, and also I think the layering effect would be lost, and that subtracts from the physical presence of the avatar.


As for the banner itself being forced into the background, I've no problem with this. The banner is the most redundant aspect of the website. As long as the main wording is visible I don't think anything is lost. This is why I suggested before the banner should be more background like. It already takes up enough of the top of the screen, adding an avatar in that space without overlapping it would be virtually an entire screen devoid of content for most readers.

Btw, I gotta admit I was surprised how the word bubble came out. I'd no idea what I was gonna do when I started experimenting. It didn't take long to get there. That is probably as good as could be done in the bubble format in the current theme. I could've also gone with a more traditional video game style text dialog, but I really didn't want to.

You know... this might be a good time to ask what the avatars should have to say??

I figure in the first part of a top-level section (in the pages) they should say Welcome as briefly as possible. Then on other pages they could offer basic advice.

Instead of moving the search bar up maybe there could be an Ask drop down bar under the avatar instead, for FAQs. Then the answer would appear in the word bubble.

The bottom part is reserved for Google style ads of course.

I attached a new screenshot with a FAQ drop down box.

I'm also thinking the Welcome message should include, "My name is Igor," in this case.

Had I known this was your intention with the banner I would've had an entirely different approach.  I figured these would be used in conjunction with news items.   :doh:

If it's not too difficult we could provide a few different options with each.  A brief introductory of course like you said, for Igor:

"I am Igor.  How can I help you?"

-Persona series	-Related articles/Latest news
-FAQs & Guides	-Front page

I always explained how they'd work :rolleyes:

They will appear at the top of the news category pages, and probably offer access to subcategories in the drop down box. I will eventually try to put a smaller graphic by the news items if it's possible to fit it in.

Basically he'll introduce himself in the word bubble. The drop down box is so you can interact. I could eventually work out a counter for the most used options and sort them higher. But they'll basically be simple FAQ questions with answers that can fit into the word bubble. Probably some "Take me to X" options for jumping to a special page. Other options a user might otherwise not notice through normal navigation. All the pages are still listed underneath as "Further Reading."

I like "Further Reading" but it isn't logically applicable to some kinds of pages. I'm not sure if I'll hack in a distinction or not.

I might take out "Igor: " and just let that be a question too, which an avatar would reply you know, "click on our sponsors / donate / lend a hand," and so on.

Basically you select questions from the menu, and the response goes in the word bubble of the page you're on or the page you're taken to.

 :sweatdrop: I guess what I meant was that at least four options to select from would be ideal.

Maybe if there was some way to interject something immediately after asking the question, stuff like, "Of course," "One moment please," but generally keeping with the avatar's personality.

There could be a very long list of options available as items are continually added. Anything can be loaded into the word bubble. Which is generally where you'd see the response. I'm sure there is a way to delay things, but unless it was because the new page was loading in the background, it would just be wasting peoples time for the sake of flash appeal.


edited: Basically it isn't a mini-game... it's a cover for ads, navigation for dummies, and a way to personalize the pages. And of course the responses should be in character, to whatever extent anyone can claim to know these character's character :wink:

PS: It occurred to me maybe you're confused from when I said "FAQs".  A real FAQ page is supposed to be a list of Q&A itemes listed from the most asked to the least asked (though all frequently asked)

At any rate, we won't be calling anything a FAQ that isn't a FAQ.

The trouble with that idea though is who exactly is frequently asking these questions?  I rarely find documents such as those helpful in any case.  I guess I did mean FAQ in the gameFAQs sense but we don't have to call them that.

Generally they're asked by all means until someone gets sick of answering them and draws up a FAQ document so they don't have to deal with questions anymore.

Btw, it is way off topic. But I think another major driver for the website might be trying to get a team together that could work on converting text files into hypertext guides -- published here exclusively. The whole premise of Gamefaqs drives me nuts anymore. It's the 21st century... Gamefaqs shouldn't even permit text "faqs" anymore much less seem to encourage them by apparently not making it easy (or even possible?) to publish hypertext.

I've always found Shuukan Fool-est to be like the most insanely helpful video game guide website I've ever used.  It makes so much sense to just list things.  Walkthroughs seem pretty superfluous these days anyway.


For the games themselves though I'd say they're unnecessary.  Frequently Asked Questions are definitely something I'm going to write up once I work out how to migrate pages for example.

I never suggested Q&A about games. But you probably could write up some short Q&A faqs about the games and series. Generally these focus on trivia and common misconceptions. Or in more gratuitous cases things you wouldn't normally see in a guide like, "Why the hell do I wanna play this game?" or, "Will I go to hell if I play this?" for example -- though those are probably poor examples.

PS: I don't mind walkthrus... sometimes it's much easier than actually playing a game :tongue:

I'll just be damned if I can't click on link to skip past them.

edited: In fact walkthrus with copious screenshots and graphics would be awesome. Whether you've never played the game, are thinking about, or just wanna take a stroll down memory lane... it's a lot easier than actually playing the game, and intellectually the experience is not a whole lot different.

Thought some of you all might like to know we're in the process of bringing the page avatar system online...

There is a more or less ideal preview attached to the bottom of this post. Some of the avatars are already up as we work out compatibility with all the standard browsers. The current public theme is a compromise across all browsers and is still a work in progress until we determine how we will address cross browser compatibility issues. We apologize if the avatars look bad on your favorite browser, but we really need them public to properly test them (there is no need to let us know if browser X is having problems -- we're aiming to support all post-beta Firefox releases, Google Chrome, and IE to whatever extent possible)

We're also rolling out a number of new ad spots in the hope of generating revenue in order to compensate contributors as much as possible.

Enjoy :smokin:

The avatars seem to be good on all versions of of Firefox and Google Chrome now. The code is ridiculous, but it works. The bubble will actually automatically expand to any width/height which is pretty freaking amazing. IE is still posing problems, but they can wait.

The images can use some touching up, but the html seems solid :sweatdrop:

Awesome! It looks really cool!   :cheesy: