08/13/2008    |    Devlog    |    ktatroe    |    Discuss

Things have been a little quiet in the web site recently. A few months ago, we introduced a new User Content system to (eventual) rave review, but most of the work that’s been done since has been behind the scenes (Aether’s had us all write so many devlogs recently that the devlog admin got a much needed overhaul, for example), with little to show on the outside.

But that’s all going to change soon: We’ve been working on a complete overhaul of the Pirates of the Burning Sea website.

The existing site is reasonably okay at what it does. It keeps you informed of the goings-on, it’s got some great community features (the forums, the fansite and community links, etc.), and it’s got a lot of really nice information about the state of the game… at launch. It’s a great launch-day site. Not so much a “live MMO” site.

It hasn’t served us well in the continuing evolution of the game, and it does an inadequate job of teaching players how to play Pirates of the Burning Sea. The entire Explore section, including the Ship Guide is not only woefully out of date, but doesn’t talk directly about how to use that information in game.

In addition, while the site’s design served its original purpose of containing a handful of static informational pages well, the site’s outgrown that—it’s neither a small handful of pages, and includes a number of dynamic pages, including the aforementioned User Content system.

We like to solve things, and solve them, we have! The web team, Aether, our usability Fraxl, and our artists have been hard at work collaborating on a new version of the site designed to better deliver information relevant to you—whether you’re a sea-worn captain or a green recruit. To that end, we’ve come up with a new design that’s more spacious; provides more and more customizable information; is significantly more usable; and, in some ways most importantly, isn’t light text on a dark background; our Taskmaster General, Misha, may let me live a while longer yet.

I won’t bore you with discussions of 960-pixel wide, 24-column grids with 10 pixel gutters, nor with that we’ve built the CSS from the ground up to allow infinitely more flexible ways of presenting each page’s content, or with the beautiful new design our artists have cooked up… well, I’d love to bore you with the latter, but that’ll have to wait for another day.

In the next couple of weeks, we’ll post a preview of the new website for your feedback, so be on the lookout for that. We look forward to hearing what you think!

08/13/2008    |    Devlog    |    ktatroe    |    Discuss