Imagine you're stumbling on to this site from some other source. Imagine that you
haven't been told "It's a fan site!" prior to landing here. Or worse, imagine some confused friend told you that the game was back and pointed you here.
http://www.cityofheroes.ca/"Nature Affinity - Get it now on the Paragon Market!"
"Play Free Now!"
"Refer a Friend - Receive Free Game Time"
Yes, there is stuff on the page that says it's a fan site. But it looks very much like the live site and it has a LOT of language that makes it appear it's linked to a working game.
Clicking "Play For Free" takes you to...
http://www.cityofheroes.ca/freedom/signup.html"Create a City of Heroes Game Account"
"Sign up to receive the NCsoft newsletter, beta announcements, and other exclusive offers."
"Sign up with your current NCsoft Master Account"
I have no idea what happens when you submit that form, but everything else about the page makes it appear like this is an official NCsoft sign up page.
This
looks like a clever scam. I can trust that it's not, but even still, it's potentially very confusing and misleading to anyone who might stumble onto it.
There are tons of working links that tie into NCsoft's actual sites (such as "Account Management"). That's something scammers do all the time for a reason: it helps confuse people into thinking that your site is part of the legitimate company's family of websites.
The fact that you're mixing posting new updates in the news feed confuses it even further, because it makes it seem like a live, current site. Once you have enough news updates to push "This is a fan site" stuff off the front page, it'll be even worse.
As it stands, it's very likely people are going to stumble onto this randomly eventually and think the game is back and have a moment of soaring hope... and then have that come crashing down when they finally figure out that's not true.
It's also likely some people are going to think it's a scam and avoid it. If I had encountered it without the context given here, I would've been convinced it was a scam. I might have even reported it to NCsoft or to its web hosting company.
I recommend you do one of two things:
If you're looking to archive the site as it was at closure, then put a banner across the top of every page that says very clearly that this is an archive. Then get rid of your updates, because they don't belong. The news that was on the site at closure is what should be there instead.
If you're looking to preserve the look and feel of the site as a portal to a fan site, then nuke all the stuff that makes it appear to be linked to a working game or to NCsoft.
Making it both a portal to a fan site and an archive is confusing; they're purposes at odds with one another. If you insist on keeping it that way though, then at the very least put the banner across the top.
