So I was bored and wanted to try something a bit different. Made with Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. We should get a splash page...
I re-did it a bit to include some icy fog and a few touch-ups. Perhaps ill make a wallpaper out of this. Man I am so fucking cool...get it?
what would the point of a splash screen be? I know you have wanted one in the past, but doesn't it just add extra clicks for a user to go through when they come to our site? What would the benefit be?
eye candy is always a plus for recruitment IMO. Although your right about the extra clicking. People enjoy things that are appealing which is why we have graphics designers in the first place. A splash screen serves the same purpose as graphics in general. To provide a general summary of a site before you even need to enter. The splash screen when you look at one is often flashy and very eye appealing and is made to convince people that they are going to enter and see much more eye appealing things. Also, people associated good with good, much like how people associate good looking with a nice personality etc. So basically its like dangling a steak in front of a starving wolf. Its made to entice the user to continue foward and get them much more interested in the site. While I would eventually enjoy a splash page, its not by any means necessary. I was just messing around with a few things and managed to create something that looked badass. I will post up a wallpaper for it soon enough that changes Splash to Gaming.
Kyoji is absolutely right, eye candy will always recruit people. People that look at a sight that is more than forums, like the old XoO website had - I mean its like, these people got this shit down. A splash page is an awesome idea, though I dont really like the one kyoji posted cuz I think its to umm..flamboyant, but the idea is awesome.
can you all track down some sites that use them, and even other sites that do not use them that you like the front pages on... sites that you feel are eye candy sites for example. I would like to see how some other sites use them, and what other sites do for their front pages
and no offence, but I don't care much for that one you posted either It's the least fav of any of your work I have seen so far Not sure what puts me off on it, but it doens't feel XoO to me I guess.
I agree with Jeb. I don't really associate something like that with XoO. It reminds me more of carebears or something. It's just fluffy looking I haven't seen too many sites with splash screens. I, personally, find them extremely annoying. But I have the homepage bookmarked so it wouldn't have any effect on me.
like Dmaw? if we had some sort of flash based splash screen with clips of our supported games, now that could be pretty cool
See id rather have that as a side page that people can check out if they want to... Or maybe if there was a way to do it so it only came up if you were not logged into the forums or something. I wouldn't want to have to hit that every time
this is the only one i know of off the top of my head that ive seen, this is a guildwars group that does a great job with there website. There theme is awesome too, maybe a bit much but lots of eye candy and they are very big guildwars guild in the PvE department. http://forever-knights.com/
We had a Xen Arcade a loooooong time ago. Fikusan hacked though, we knew he did, he was always at the top of the list in all of the games lol. Speaking of Xen Arcade and ancient history, I miss the old Xen site.
I like splash pages. But I LOVE flash intro's =) If you're worried about too many clicks you can always rig the splash page with a cookie. So once you see it, you get a cookie and never see it again =P splash pages are always nice IMHO, but it has to be really flashy and catchy for it to be useful.
Splash screens are utterly pointless. If you want to add eye candy, then add it to the site by improving the CSS styles (they are good for now, just saying for sake of argument), logo header and layout. the best recruitment tool is to have a functional website, updated content (looking at you, front page) and good community(forums, good leadership and game communities). if the content of a website sucks or has accessibility issues (splash screen, unorganized, too many clicks), lack of content updates and bad community then that will make some people not want to return.