New Name - New Websites - etc

Published December 09, 2009
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In prep for BETA release #2 of my vehicle combat game ( previously known as Warbots Online ) - I decided to change the name to something a bit better - just about every domain .com is taken for anything close to what I want. So I decided to go with Armored Warfare in lue of Warbots Online. I registered www.ArmoredWarfare.com and www.ArmouredWarfare.com so you foreignars dun get confuzed :-p

I was thinking about having a name-contest for the game, with a prize of a $5 gift-certificate to Wendy's for a bacon and cheese sandwich - Ok, I could probably spring for a cooler prize if somebody can come up with sick name.

Well...what's a new name without a logo, I spent probably 4 hours working on this today. I'm pretty happy with it. My plan was to draft up a bunch of logos, but IMO this one is pretty good - read, good enough to be done with it lol. EDIT - It looks a better on a black background.

Clicky & scope the front page ( the rest is temp on this site ) -
www.ArmoredWarfare.com and www.ArmouredWarfare.com



I was going for a multiple-scene-in-one feel for this image/banner ... the left bottom shows some soldiers running from a giagantorz mech, the bottom right shows a tank flying across some open terrain, and in the top right of the screen there are some drop ship transport thaaaangs rollin' in. I added some grunge and wear/tear to the logo, and all the usual stuff. Pretty neat how the two Rs line up in the middle of the logo as well.

As usual feedback is always appreciated. On the logo, and I could also use some feedback on the layout / setup of the Armored Warfare website. I was going for a basic php thingy, I moved away from a Drupal based CMS for the Warbots Online website, and unified on my own php based framework, I just find it easier to work with... I only use newspro for updates on the front page, and I also use a thumbnail library for the gallerys on both Armored & Urban homepages.

Urban Empires Website updated with actual content!
Speaking of Urban Empires... guess what... I also updated that website while I was at it. The homepage for my gangster RTS/Action multiplayer game had ONE screenshot in the gallery ... for like 2 years. So I fixed that, straightned up a bunch of stuff, and overall I think people can get a good impression of the project by simply viewing the front page.

Try it out ....
www.UrbanEmpires.com and www.Urban-Empires.com



Summary
I think both the homepages for Urban Empires and Armored Warfare should give a pretty much instant feel each game, there are 5+ videos on each, and a sh*t ton of images. So this should also help people get a quick feel for for the games.

Yay time to sleeeeep, after a 20 hour work day on web-stuff! I'll finish the websites 2morrow and then get back to coding and preparing the 4-5 new HD Videos for the release of Armored Warfare BETA 2.0 , which shows all the new stuff I've added since August.
0 likes 8 comments

Comments

hungryhippo5000
The header looks really good, I wouldn't change it either. My only criticisms are:

1. Your page has too many boarders. I would remove the white boarders around the menu and the content area.
2. I think there is too much content on the main page, it reminds me of a my space page. On the main page I would have a small description of the game with some highlights, maybe a few thumbnails which open in a pop-up or Lightbox and finally a trailer of the game. Move everything else under screen shots/media.
3. I might be nitpicking but I think the header's right bottom corner looks too angular, I think it would look nicer if it blends in with the black.

I uploaded a Gimped screen shot of the site bellow of how I think the site would look nicer. Keep up the good work man, I really think you are doing a great job.

http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/3364/homepagep.png
December 09, 2009 12:26 PM
dgreen02
Quote:Original post by hungryhippo5000
The header looks really good, I wouldn't change it either. My only criticisms are:

1. Your page has too many boarders. I would remove the white boarders around the menu and the content area.
2. I think there is too much content on the main page, it reminds me of a my space page. On the main page I would have a small description of the game with some highlights, maybe a few thumbnails which open in a pop-up or Lightbox and finally a trailer of the game. Move everything else under screen shots/media.
3. I might be nitpicking but I think the header's right bottom corner looks too angular, I think it would look nicer if it blends in with the black.

I uploaded a Gimped screen shot of the site bellow of how I think the site would look nicer. Keep up the good work man, I really think you are doing a great job.

http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/3364/homepagep.png


Hey,

Thanks a lot for the feedback, I pretty much agree with you. I can try to make things smoother and with less borders - I was going to kill the whiteness of the boarders which I think is causing that. At the moment it's the exact same .css as the Urban Empires website. Once I sleep on it, I'll wake up and see things better since I've only spent one day on the whole name-change/logo/website :-o

I also can see that I slacked off on the right corner smoke - lol I've been eying it thinking I should darken/smooth it up, the corner looks much better in your edit...except I think the illusion of smoke coming out the back of the tank is sort of lost ;-/ ya know ?

- Dan

*Edit and now that I'm looking at it, I think the orange might be a bit too colorful - arggg I hate this I can never decide lol.
December 09, 2009 01:09 PM
dgreen02
Like this one - less orange-ish ... :-o

December 09, 2009 01:36 PM
hungryhippo5000
I think the original colors were fine. Looked a little like vintage images:

http://www.doglegs.net/cclovett/Machine%20Gun%20Firing.jpg
December 09, 2009 02:16 PM
LachlanL
Hey, great looking stuff as always.

Sorry if this is a bit personal. Feel free to totally ignore/kick my butt, but how are you still able to develop full-time? I just mean that these projects have been going for a long time and I'm under the impression that you're working on them pretty much full-time. You said "when I pitch" regarding UE, so you don't currently have a publisher on-board? How are you paying the bills?
December 09, 2009 07:14 PM
dgreen02
Quote:Original post by LachlanL
Hey, great looking stuff as always.

Sorry if this is a bit personal. Feel free to totally ignore/kick my butt, but how are you still able to develop full-time? I just mean that these projects have been going for a long time and I'm under the impression that you're working on them pretty much full-time. You said "when I pitch" regarding UE, so you don't currently have a publisher on-board? How are you paying the bills?


Sorry I should have been clearer, I have a signed world-wide publishing contract for Urban Empires, that's the reason I stopped school and went full-time in 2005. Armored Warfare is the one I'm currently pitching / concerned with at this particular moment.

They both use shared technology, and the lack of proper technology was what was stopping me from releasing Urban Empires a year or two ago, particlarly a solid physics solution ( even more particular solid vehicles ), Havok solved all my problems. I could go down the laundry list of unique-show-stoppers I had with full integration of ODE, Newton, Tokamak, Ageia (v2.5ish), etc - I spent years massaging some of those libraries - Havok and their Intel buy-out saved my ass. Plus I still didn't know "how to do some things" - I've cracked every nut in the development of Armored Warfare, and I now have years worth of technology that I've developed and will hopefully be artwork-creation limited in regards of time/$, on my future projects. The best part is that I'm not dependent on some middleware game engine - I can do anything myself now in native c++ code that I know in my sleep, for free, every time. It's a huge front-loaded gamble to do what I'm doing, but it's the only way I'd want things to be.

I've detailed my little story soooo many times I get tired of repeating it, but I basically have investors (independent of a publisher) who are funding the work [ for % of all profits obviously ], all of the projects are paid for and artwork complete, I just need living expenses, and server costs [ which I've been bleeding for 2 years now ]. Anyways, living expenses are trivial compared to the $100,000s I've spent on the artwork and other development related expenses [ hardware cough ] - So I've got waaaay too much skin "into the game" to stop until they are both released.

It's getting thin, basically instead of spinning my tires solving all the technical issues with Urban Empires, I created the vehicle combat game as a test-case for the resolved physics, and tech issues - IMO it will still be a fun little game - but Urban Empires is what I've been chasing this whole time.

- Dan

*I edited the journal entry and made those last 2 paragraphs in their own section, also reworded it to be less ambiguious.
December 09, 2009 09:23 PM
LachlanL
Wow, thanks for the clarification! Yeah, I was under the impression that you already had funding for UE, which was why I was confused.

Interesting stuff to read! Sorry to make you repeat yourself. I do remember all of those posts about physics engine woes, I didn't realise that the new game was an elaborate test-case for it! A nice outcome all 'round I guess. [smile]
December 14, 2009 08:42 PM
LachlanL
Wow, thanks for the clarification! Yeah, I was under the impression that you already had funding for UE, which was why I was confused.

Interesting stuff to read! Sorry to make you repeat yourself. I do remember all of those posts about physics engine woes, I didn't realise that the new game was an elaborate test-case for it! A nice outcome all 'round I guess. [smile]
December 14, 2009 08:43 PM
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