To be honest, I don't want to try to make extra work for any other administrator. I know when things feel disjointed, but I also know that it is a terrible deal of work to make this kind of device, and the rest of the forum, feel integrated.
I would pass on the feeling, that the whole 'modern' interface, pulling away from a forum/bbs format, is just a pain to me. I prefer the forum format, for discussions, over the Twitter format; which would explain why I don't use Twitter. I like plain, readable flowing text, in hierarchical formats, relating to subjective topics.
I can see your point, in placing 'Feed' first, but I think this should be a cookie setting for the user. The reality is, that a description for a project is as much an advertisement, as a finished game, and the human mind will latch onto something via descriptions, and visuals. The Update feed as an initial view is a distraction, and makes the interface itself look a bit wrong. People who click on Quest Projects also see only the game titles; which doesn't help to promote the area.
If the quest projects list display included a 'short description' of a game, along with the title, and one screenshot, it would make it not only easier to use, but also a more viable feature for both veteran, and for new users. As it is, the list doesn't provide any insight, and it takes multiple page loads just to find out what a game is about, assuming that the title was interesting to the viewer to make them want to load the quest page, then load the description page.
You assume that people will load every quest page, but really, they don't. (This applies equally to the Quests Database page.)
People will rely entirely on ratings, and for quests that have received one bad rating, and no other ratinga; this can be quite cruel, as anyone can rate a game badly, for whatever reason they desire; and from that point onward, no-one will bother to load the database entry, as they will anticipate that it is a bad, or a broken game. I've run into quite a few under-rated games, that I have truly enjoyed, and into games that have exceptionally high ratings, that I absolutely detested.
A more descriptive view of DB entries would be helpful overall, as a future feature. Allowing the questmaker to permit open discussions, would also be useful. The problem with this confined to the 'Updates' page, is that only the questmaker can create a new thread. That creates a feeling of closed-ness--dear me, I have to invent words now--as opposed to the open feeling of the forum, where people can discuss anything, and create topics.
Placing this kind of function on the quests directly, would allow people to reach out to the questmakers, or other developers, in a manner that will be noticed, without the questmaker needing to specifically create topics. It also allows people to create hint guides, quest help topics, and such, within the database pages, which make them much cleaner in the end.
Obviously, if a questmaker doesn't want to permit this, then the could be able to tick a box 'Do not alllow new topics', or something along those lines, for preferences; however, if you are going to allow that kind of liberty and control over quest (standard, and project) database entries, then you should also permit questmakers to disallow both reviews, and ratings, or any other interaction.
I personally prefer the ability to allow people to create topics on my projects. Keep in mind, that some of these will never be genuine games: They are intended as tools to allow others to understand how to use ZQ. That means, that it would be useful for people to be able to post about them, making new topics, that are easy for other people to view.
That is the biggest drawback of all though: How visible anything is on the QPDB or QDB: The forums have much higher visibility and that isn't likely to change, no matter how many bells and whistles you add. In the end, a simple interface is usually best. The more clutter you add, the harder it is for people to notice anything. web interface design is sort of a Zen thing, and the more fancy stuff you cram into it, the more it turns into a hideous abomination that can't decide it if is a forum, a Twitter clone, a YouTube clone, GoogleGigaSlave, Qin Shi Huang, or a monstrous combination of all of these.
You are handling two different generations of users: Forum people, and Twitter people, and you need to draw a line, to decide which way you want to direct your website. I can tell you, that the more you push toward the Twitter style, the more past-users you will lose due to interface corruption. You may gain new users from this, but in the end, you may also be better off making an entirely different website using that kind of model, and keeping both the old users, with the format that they wish, and attracting new users, in the new format. That makes a community rift, but that can be preferable to a community collapse.
You have to be very careful when you decide to walk the line between the old way, and the new way of doing this sort of thing, as some of us stubborn old buggers aren't going to adapt.
Edited by ZoriaRPG, 28 March 2014 - 06:59 PM.
It'll also add a little bit more of that openness. I think this is a good compromise.
Do you think you guys are doing yourselves a favor for screaming and shouting that you deserve respect? That's like a little kid demanding everyone to be his friend because he said so. 
