Call for Content! Webpage Project

[VyoletRose]

Hello hello! So I've been working on the webpage layout for the following projects:

Advertising Campaign
Banner Ads
Information Center

Here is a mockup of the layout.

I really think we can get this off the ground! As of now, we have a design concept and I have built the bones of the webpage with html and css. It would be great to have something out there that tells our story, is visually impacting, and showcases the greatness of our game. It was suggested in one of the above threads to have this page show up under the SaveCoH.com domain - but I don't know who maintains that page and whatnot.

So while the page hosting stuff gets worked out, we can focus on the bulk of the content.

My idea was to have a long continuous page, broken up into sections. We'll work each section at a time. Think of it as a vertical timeline with chapters. Think comic book, or better yet, graphic novel.

Lets get started!


Section Chapters: An Outline


Our Story                                       
Chapter Points:

• Takes place on August 31, 2012.
• The Heroes of Paragon City are just waking up, excited about the weekend.
• For some, it's an extended holiday weekend celebrating Labor Day.
• New toons have been made.
• Two new powers just came out a month before.
• Paragon City was buzzing with excitement for the upcoming Issue 24! (link to overview)
• Was this the weekend it would launch?

but then......

NCSoft Shutdown Announcement                                       

The Reaction                                       
Chapter Points:

• What was your initial reaction?
• Other than the obvious "WHY?" - what questions were you thinking at the time?
• - Is this a joke?
• - Is this really happening?
• - What about Issue 24?
• News coverage! Gather together links from the Thank the Media thread. List articles covering the shutdown notice.
• How many articles covered this?
• Article quotes!
• Player quotes!

Our Response
Unity Rally
Dev Dinner
Issue 24 Synapsis (& News Coverage)
Plan Z Projects: A Quick Overview
What's Next for CoH?
The Superhero Genre - how popular is it?
Costume Creator
Could it Happen Again?

Our Legacy                                       
Chapter Points:

• Game launched before WoW
• List awards
• List articles about the game from 2002 to August of 2012.

What other Section Chapters are needed?
What other Chapter Points should we include?
What would be a dictionary definition of Altitis? :P


Disclaimer: Lets try to keep the focus away from bashing NC$oft. Yes we are upset still. Sure, some of us (myself included) probably won't buy another title under their ownership - but this page wouldn't be the place to advertise that.

Try to look at the page from the perspective of a prospective buyer of the IP - or just an interested gamer wanting to know what we're all about.


Yes, this looks like a huge undertaking. I'm sure we'll be working on these page(s) for sometime, but that's okay.

Lets start by just covering what happened on the day of August 31, 2012 and the Reaction that occurred directly afterwards..... Discuss!

[VyoletRose]

Oh! Forgot to mention there is also a call for screenshots for this purpose. If you have any that will work, please submit, but only on this thread.

I'll try to draw up mockups of each section as we go along....

[MaidMercury]

Looks nice, and looks like a lot of work went into it. Thank you for creating this.

I only have screenshots with either my char flying, standing,chatting with other(s).
I didn't think to create shots where no character was in it...hard to do,
always some hero traveling through the game.  8)

safehouse23 has a nice panoramic of Atlas park.
See his post in City of Heroes, stickie: 'I miss just being able to log into the city'.

[OzonePrime]

Can't forget the Real Hero auction/fundraiser that went ahead, despite our closing!

[VyoletRose]

Hi Everyone! I got the first installment of the webpage mockup ready for review. Yes, there are blank spots for images. If you have an image just perfect for this page, post it here! or email to me at vyoletweb@gmail.com.

Anyhoo, here is the mockup:

https://i773.photobucket.com/albums/yy19/VyoletRose/Webpage-DESIGN-OurStory.jpg

Questions:

What links to include in the header?

• Titan Network
• Paragon Wiki
• Others?

I'm also not too hip to the whole social media thing. I've poked around in FB, but honestly haven't check my page in ages. But which Facebook do we link to? Are there multiple Facebooks for our game? We could always do a drop down menu. (Same questions for Twitter).

The sidebar will have a Current News content slider.

We should also have a poll or two going. I figure the first poll should show how little advertised CoH actually was - and how the fanbase word-of-mouth has kept it successful for all these years.

Could we open the petition again? Wonder if we could embed it on the page.

I need your help with some of these questions. Post your ideas!
Thanks!

[saipaman]

Good idea or bad idea to link to the rived CoH website in Canada?

[Tanklet]

I really think we should link to the 7 min CoH vid. I mean, yeah it's 7 minutes, but I think after seeing the page, people might be interested enough in listening to it. People will disagree with this idea, veto it, and my ideas are rarely heard, but IMO that vid is the most succinct and 'to the point' story of our tale.

Current news (or another link) should be the interview with Posi.
Can there also be, towards the bottom maybe, next to the sunset chat bubble, another chat bubble text like:
"NCSoft - five games shut down in 5 years. At what point do we say "enough is enough?"
Call it fear mongering, call it what you want. But it's hard facts. It's the truth, and it needs to be said.

As for the screenshots, you can get a lot of them through a Google search. Not being snarky or anything, just being efficient. It will take you less time to find them there, then corralling them from players.

EDIT: I also think there's a CoH Videos page, for videos made centering around the shutdown ... maybe even more. I think that'd be a good thing to link to. Or maybe specific videos instead. You can find lots if you search youtube for City of Heroes (CoH) videos.

EDIT EDIT: VV did an article for the Korean Times, called "Unethical Shutdown" ... THAT would be a great link!

[Tanklet]

Good idea or bad idea to link to the rived CoH website in Canada?

Only reason I think it's a bad idea, is because there's a lot of NC$oft branding. For lots of reasons, we don't want that.

[eabrace]

I don't really have much to add, but it looks awesome.  :)

[Tubbius]

I just looked through all my screenshots to see if I had anything worth donating.  I don't, really, but now I'm sitting here this close to crying again, all teared up.  :(

Here's hoping we can get this up and rolling and get some very positive results!

[VyoletRose]

Overall, great ideas Tanklet.

I really think we should link to the 7 min CoH vid. I mean, yeah it's 7 minutes, but I think after seeing the page, people might be interested enough in listening to it. People will disagree with this idea, veto it, and my ideas are rarely heard, but IMO that vid is the most succinct and 'to the point' story of our tale.

Yes, definitely. Would probably be best posted above current news. It's a great synopsis of what happened and what we are all about.

Current news (or another link) should be the interview with Posi.

Yes again. The current news portion will be a content slider. So news like this will be featured in the same area, people can click back and forth between stores and such.

As for the screenshots, you can get a lot of them through a Google search. Not being snarky or anything, just being efficient. It will take you less time to find them there, then corralling them from players.

Yeah, I know I should just jump out there and grab screenshots, it would be quicker - but I'm afraid to use images that I don't have permission to use. I really should read up on the demo record stuff so I can learn to get those certain shots that the site needs. But I also have a call for screenshots and I know we have some very talented people still visiting these threads who can help. Each screenshot used will have the author's name popup, to show the website is a community effort.

The format of the site would allow for articles to be here and there too. Not just lists of articles from other websites, but articles actually written by players.

Thanks for the feedback. I will be certain to try and incorporate most of it. I hope that when we look at it, once it's put together and complete, we can feel proud again.

[Tanklet]

Yeah, I know I should just jump out there and grab screenshots, it would be quicker - but I'm afraid to use images that I don't have permission to use. I really should read up on the demo record stuff so I can learn to get those certain shots that the site needs. But I also have a call for screenshots and I know we have some very talented people still visiting these threads who can help. Each screenshot used will have the author's name popup, to show the website is a community effort.

I totally see where you're coming from.
My rule of thumb with the internet is, as long as it doesn't say "copyright" or has watermarks on it, I use it.
OR, because lots of internet blogs publish game screenshots too ... if you stumble upon one of those, clearly noting where you got it from. Heck, you can note that anyway.

Videos are easier, so you won't have to muddle through demo record. I believe Samuraiko allows people to post her stuff, and of course everyone gives author credit for her having made it. She's made AWESOME vids. Leandro also.

[eabrace]

In fact, I believe Leandro has a whole index of CoH videos up that you could just link to.

[TimtheEnchanter]

In fact, I believe Leandro has a whole index of CoH videos up that you could just link to.

cohtube.blogspot.com

[eabrace]

That's the one.  Thanks, Tim.

[Blondeshell]

If you want a link for all officially-oriented videos, here's my YouTube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/CoHVideoArchive

[eabrace]

Silly me.  I totally forgot you had your own channel set up!

[Taceus Jiwede]

If you want a link for all officially-oriented videos, here's my YouTube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/CoHVideoArchive

Ahhhh man.....now I really miss CoH after watching all those videos.

Thanks for putting them up though Blondeshell was nice to see the game again.

[LadyVamp]

VyoletRose, I emailed to your gmail account an aerial view of Atlas Park overlooking the main plaza and one of WWs.  Sorry about the invisible toon in the WW but the distortion is minimal.  I have a closer shot of the world on Atlas's back, entrance to city hall both inside and outside along with about 200 other captures.  Hopefully, you can use them but if you let me know what you're looking for I might have it.  Took a lot of screenshots the last few days.  Action shots are the one thing I don't have much of if anything.  Mostly zone signs, buildings, toons, and certain monsters like hami.

[VyoletRose]

Sorry for the delay on getting everyone a website update. It seemed every time I drew up a list of things I needed help on, or that needed to be mentioned in this thread, I was able to either find it or figure it out. Good news, the website is coming along nicely so far!

Just to give you an idea on the progress. I have the webpage broken up into pretty much 6 sections. I've finished the first 2 sections and am working on the 3rd section. As was mentioned in another thread, I'm guesstimating to be finished within 2 or 3 weeks.

I do have a couple of requests that I definitely need help with:


Screenshot of Water Blast.

Unfortunately, neither I nor my hubby got to make one of these characters. We were saving that chance for when i24 came out. But! You might have one! eh? eh? *hopes* If you have a screenshots of this power in action, or have the sentinel of your water blast character, you can either post it here or email it to me.

Next -


Issue 24 Beta Demo Records / Screenshots

Were any of you able to get a screenie of the new power pool color customization? Would love to use a Super Speed color screenshot.
How about demo files or screenshots for Martial Combat or Martial Assault?

Next -


Character Grieving

Need a shot to show a character defeated or grieving. It's for the "Reaction" section to show how we all felt "punched in the gut" when we first heard the news. I know I sure felt that way.

Anyhoo - that's it for now. If you have something that's not listed here, but you think will be good for the website, post here or email it to me :) My email is vyoletweb@gmail.com.
Thanks!