arsheesh
The faces and names of the Obsidian Portal forums community have changed somewhat over the years as older members have retired their campaigns and gone on to other projects and new members have come on board to carry the torch. However one name that some of those of you who are newer to the Portal (and looking for inspiration) should get to know better is "Duskreign":http://www.obsidianportal.com/profile/Duskreign. You may have already seen Dusk's legendary "Wyrmshadow's Campaign":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/wyrmshadow , which is ranked fairly high in popularity over in the campaigns tab, and which got last year's campaign of the year award. However Dusk has also authored a few other sites that have been truly innovative in their use of HTML as well as in their graphical layout.
Due to certain responsibilities Dusk has not been as active at the OP over the last year or so, but I'm writing this "OP Editorial" of sorts to draw the forum community's attention to a new campaign site that Dusk is currently launching called the "Duskreign Prophecy":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/duskreignprophecy. Now again, this site is still in the initial stages, with many pages yet to be created. But what immediately struck me about the site was it's cleanness and simplicity of design. Allot of campaign pages I've seen tend to be fairly "busy" and for that reason, distracting. However in his new site Dusk has created a very simple and elegant interface and has been parsimonious in his use of images and text, selecting only those objects that fit well within his overall design. Dusk has even implemented his own unique "character sheet":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/duskreignprophecy/wikis/drogyn-martok which preserves the aesthetic of the overall site. All in all, this is one of the freshest and most innovative sites that I've seen come out of the Obsidian Portal for some time and I hope that is serves as a source of inspiration for those of you searching for inspiration in creating or refining your own sites.
Cheers,
-Arsheesh
Comments
Thank you, Arsheesh. Folks like you, DarkMagus, Rase Cidraen, Sandman, and so very, very many others were what made my time away from Obsidian Portal so difficult to bear.
"Duskreign":http://www.obsidianportal.com/profile/Duskreign
"Wyrmshadow:The Duskreign Prophecy":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/duskreignprophecy
"Wyrmshadow Campaign Setting":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/wyrmshadow
"Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/star-wars-knights-of-the-old-republic
"The System":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/system
Duskreign, I wish I had half the know how for making a page look good. Great formatting and content as well. I was already a big fan of the Star Wars Campaign of which I plan to reuse some of your ideas in my Star Trek Campaign. So let me say, welcome back and this time I hope you can stick around and not get caught up in too much RL stuff.
killervp
"A God...Rebuilt":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/a-god-rebuilt
Just trying to help out.
It really helps when people like you put in that effort, take a little time, and let me know that you like what you saw there. I am more flattered and humbled by a genuine compliment about my writing than I've ever been about a passing 'that's nice' about something I drew.
Thanks again, man. I'm pretty proud of what I've got going on on this page so far. I did some work on the "history pages":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/duskreignprophecy/wikis/history-creation last night, messed with the timeline navigation (something I was never satisfied with in the other wikis), and tonight, I'm determined to get closer to finishing all the NPC profiles.
You guys are the best. I love Obsidian Portal, and I'm so glad to be back doing what I most enjoy.
- Mike
Cheers,
-Arsheesh
I am contemplating switching up the layout of the actual information that flows from beneath the timeline buttons. I want to make the information more palatable, while not skimping on any pertinent details. Also, the images I use... I am tempted to continue the 'red-black-and-white" theme, potentially by dropping some of the images to grayscale and highlighting certain elements in red for emphasis.
What do you think? Any ideas you could share for building the rest of the page would be most welcome.
Also, we have already run a substantial amount of backstory sessions, though the official campaign has not yet started. I was considering writing the backstory sessions up as logs under the 'prologue' heading. I want there to be something on every page that is worth checking out.
- Mike
-Steve
- Mike
You'll have to tweak the absolute positioning and change the images themselves to suit your needs, and each page of the timeline would have to have the hyperlinks tweaked to suit the purpose of that particular page. Alternatively, you could use the
I will play with it and see what we can come up with. My players will be psyched.
DarkMagus
Cheers,
-Arsheesh
- Mike
Just trying to help out.
Thanks, KillerVP!
- Mike
Thanks for all your encouragement and input!
- Mike
Cheers,
-Arsheesh
EDIT: "Something like this?":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/duskreignprophecy/wiki_pages/cultures-nations-civilizations
It's all about how you want to define the space. To use an architectural analogy, before your site was operating on sort of an "open floor plan"; there weren't allot of dividing walls so when you first walked through the door the site felt like it was wide open and spacious. Now, by creating a more prominent navigation menu, and moreover, by placing this in between the site banner and the main window, you've now erected a dividing wall that clearly defines the two sections of your house. As I mentioned earlier, there is absolutely nothing wrong with such a partition: it's up to you how you want to define the space of your site. But good layouts are well thought out, and purposeful in their use of space (both negative and positive); there is usually some end goal in mind. So rather than telling you what you should do (which I have no business doing), I'd just recommend considering what kind of look and feel you are going for, and whether or not an "open" floor plan or a more traditional "walled" floor plan is better suited to that end.
Cheers,
-Arsheesh
Here is the data I intend to place on this wiki (or that I have already)
*Home Page*
*Introduction Page (introduces people unfamiliar with Wyrmshadow to the game)*
*Characters*
* PC's
* NPC's
*Chronicles*
* Previously... (a synopsis of all the story that took place prior to the beginning of the last chapter (each chapter is going to be a 3-4 session story arc). It will act as an archive of the older sessions in order to keep the fresh stuff up front while preventing the older stuff from being buried behind too many pages of more recent sessions)
* Our Recent Exploits... (the most recent 1-4 sessions, i.e the chapter of the game that is currently being run)
*Geography & Cosmology*
* An Interactive Atlas of Wyrmshadow (a full map of the world, which I am currently working on. Every place name will be clickable to display a region map with a list of pertinent data below it)
* The Cosmos (essentially the same as "this page":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/wyrmshadow/wikis/wyrmshadow-cosmology on my main Wyrmshadow wiki, but with data more pertinent to the current campaign)
Cultures, Nations, & Civilizations
* Races (you can already see that this is meant for)
* Cultures (The Emerald Order, the Luminati, the Imperian Armored Forces, the Kunai Clan, the Ebon League, etc... Essentially a place to see the different cultures that have a stake in the current story)
* Civilizations (The Kingdoms of the Undertide, the Northern Prairie-folk, etc... A description of mostly the innocent bystanders in the whole mess, those who are unaffiliated or have no ruling class, so aren't technically 'nations' per se... though an argument could be made for making this section a part of the Cultures or Nations, wherever appropriate)
* Nations (Imperia, Freel, Shidima, Quae Elfien, etc... this section could be migrated to the Geography section, as I think of it now.)
* Religions (The Elder Gods, the Lesser Gods, the Gnostics, the Animists, etc... Pretty self-explanatory, and I think pretty necessary.)
*History & Chronology*
* Timeline of Events (Scrapped this in favor of a navigation scheme at the top of the page)
* Separate Eras: 0-50 years ago, 50-100, 100-500, 500-1000, etc...)
I can certainly simplify this a bit to make it more of an open set-up, but I don't know how to do that while preventing information from being jumbled together. I suppose I could re-think my top banner, add a few more choices there to diminish the secondary layer of navigation on the Cultures, Nations, & Civilizations page.
Incidentally, you most certainly do have business telling me what I _should_ do. When you make a suggestion, anyone here would be a fool not to at least give it some serious consideration.
- Mike
"If I made this my banner, it might resolve all the conflicting concerns you and I both had.":http://cdn.obsidianportal.com/assets/76376/DRPWIKICHRONICLESv2.png
What do you think?
- Mike
Just trying to help out.
I am considering making a link to leave comments, but I might just do that as an image at the bottom of every page of the wiki. The problem I have with the comments page is that I can't use my custom banner for that page, so I may just forgo the whole thing.
Anything else you think would work well on the site?
- Mike
PS - Thanks, KillerVP!
*EDIT* - "Here is a test page I made of a new version of the home page using the new banner.":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/duskreignprophecy/wikis/test-page I think this might be the best solution to satisfy every need...
*RE-EDIT* - I made up my mind. I'm -keepin ma baybay- going with the new banner.
*RE-RE-RE-EDIT* - When you guys get a chance, "check this out":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/duskreignprophecy and let me know what you think. I am pretty happy with the compromise, and I like that the campaign's logo is centered instead of justified to the left.