About what engine to use:

I have already written it into both the FAQ and the "how to send me your map/guide" that those who send me maps can tell me exactly what engine they would like me to use to review their maps/mods, so I don't get it why you are still complaining about this. Perhaps I should update the FAQ to make this even more clear?

About how maps are reviewed:

I have just added an entire new page where I explain it in detail how my review system works and how maps/mods are given scores. You guys might want to check it out.

And as for there not being enough new Quake projects: I am aware of the fact that new maps don't get released as often as for games such as Doom. This is ok, because I also intend to review maps/mods that have already been released in the past. Though I guess I should probably mention this in the FAQ now that I think about it. Yea I will am going to do that right after finishing this post. 

I just posted my first review on the site! Perhaps I will post some more reviews later this weekend :) 

I like the honours system, it's fairly straight to the point. A couple more screenshots would be nice. Maybe one large screenshot at the top, and a couple of smaller ones in the text to help break it up. One on the left, and lower down one on the right, perhaps. With text wrapped around. Gives a break to the reader for line-length.

The second-last paragraph - watch the spelling of length, and one instance of 'the level' should probably be replaced with 'it' or 'this map', the phrase is repeated one time too many.

Overall I think it's a good review.

I would give it a solid 7 :) 

Interesting, keep up the good work. The more sites the better.

About the maps, i have some maps that i never released and about 200 DM maps i got somewhere back in 1997-1998. But more than see them reviewed, i want to get comments to improve them. I am currently bug-fixing them and adding some things, taking advantage of that WC 3.3 has vertex editor (yes, the last editor i used was WC 1.2 and a very old Quark, i came back to Quake 1-2 years ago).

And lastly don't ever say that epsilon is an engine :D. It's just a compilation of mods that someone choose to bundle and put on the net, put on Darkplaces engine. Ther's lots of people, in fact I am one of them even though i use Quakespasm mostly, with their own choose of mods for Darkplaces or other engines that support them, that compilation is one of many others you could do by yourself if you get modifications on your quake engine. By the way i am still perplexed when i see how weird some maps look when you use RTWorld in Darkplaces, for example, with marcher_kinn. What kind of lights are the ones that make so a weird effect on RTWorld? It would be nice if i could adapt my maps to work with RTWorld too. 

bring down the console and enter:

r_drawviewmodel 0

notarget

fov 70

I like low fov settings for screenshots. High fov can be fun too. (try anything from about 50 to 150 to experiment, you'll see what I mean).

Notarget stops the monsters from attacking you unless you hurt them first.

r_drawviewmodel 0 removes the player weapon from the view.

Also you can increase the size of the viewport to remove the HUD bar at the bottom. 

It was a good review, but i think that the text is a bit homogeneous and big, maybe giving an space between the main text and the rest and reducing 1-2 points the font size of the main text would be better for readability. 

Will you be fixing the mobile version? It's currently just some placeholder atm. 

Thanks for your replies guys. I have corrected some spelling errors on the site, and also added a link to the map being reviewed (I was going to do so in the first place, but forgot).

I guys make some nice points about the screenshots, but I think the text is fine as it is for the most part. Also, I did as Cocerello suggested and replaced "Epsilon" with "Darkplaces". 

Will look into that right now. Will get back at you soon... 

I edited the site to make it look cooler on mobile devices.

Note that I don't personally own a mobile device so its hard for me to know just how good the site is on a mobile device. 

768p screen I think.

Looks OK now - you can see the pic and see all of the text in the article. Navigation works and is accessible. The style looks 'OK'.

The one thing I would change for mobile devices is the paragraphs of text. The main text for the review for example has the lighter orange colour, but there is a light grey background. This is not a good combo. Whilst I can read it, I have no colourblindness, and to me it's still a bit of a strain to read.

So - if possible - change the background to a darker colour, or change the font to a darker colour. I do web dev a bit, and this is achievable with CSS or JS, but I don't know how easy it would be to edit with your setup.

As it is though, it's passable :) 

I have messed more with the mobile version.

The background is now black and the text yellow orange on most places. For some reason though I just can't seem to find a way to change the background color on the review pages. That's a shame. But at least the mobile version as far as I know looks mostly fine now. 

Looks better :) 

I don't see much progress, as much as what's described in the posts (above). All I see is that the top menu has slightly been altered. So, I will comment on that:

I would recommend that you remove links "HOW REVIEW SCORES WORK" and "HOW TO SEND ME YOUR MOD/MAP", and move those to the FAQ page.

I would also recommend you rename "SITES TO CHECK OUT!" to "LINKS"

Remove "MORE", because no one knows what that means and it's probably not of interest to anyone anyways, so, just remove it.

Remove "MEMBERS" link, because no one will care about that either. Links like those should be in the footer of your website. 

I am not sure on what grounds you claim that nobody will care about all of the stuff that you claim should be removed. I also don't see any reason to remove any of those pages. I like the setup the way it currently is. 

I set my logo to be a kodiak bear, real mean looking one with a fish in its mouth, then some guy set his to what looks like a cartoon fat bear with a thong on and its arse out. It's kinda curious to have a members area on something like this, because of the way the community is.

Links being links is a bit of a no-brainer though, just for SEO purposes really.

I think that the HOW TO SEND ME YOUR MOD/MAP is OK, it lets viewers know instantly that if they send him a map he might review it. That's not such a bad thing.

How review scores work would actually go quite well near the top of the FAQs I guess.

The grey background on mobile devices is a bit of a pain still, but I dont know how this site is constructed. Is it a 'webs.com CMS'? Or other MVC/CMS? The mobile markup is actually quite good other than the background issue. 

Well, I'm not going to click "Reviews" so that I can see reviews. Since your site is a reviews site, I would expect reviews to be right there, on the homepage.

Your homepage right now is pretty much an "About" page, and that should be in the "About" section, like I've already said.

So, if you aren't going listen to me, then I'm not going to bother with it anymore.

Good day, and good luck with that. 

I think it does make sense to have reviews on the home page. Really.

But don't be so quick to throw your toys man. 

 

Look, I was going to ignore this thread entirely.

I only posted, because I felt bad that no one else did. But, I really didn't want to, nor did I care.

So, my patience is quite thin already, and I'm done now.

Bye. 

You can give someone advice but they aren't obligated to listen to you. Just FYI. 

He listened, but that isn't the same as accepting what he said and actually doing it. 

I really don't get it why deqer finds it so terrible having to spend 3 seconds clicking a whole button to access the reviews.

I also doubt he is someone who is worth listening to if he is the type of person who subscribes to the "do as I say or I am out of here" kind of reasoning.

As for reviews being on the front page, that isn't possible as far as I can tell. Because of limitations with the site's editing tools, the front page can pretty much only serve as a sort of a "about" page. I still fail to see how any of this is a problem though, seeing as making a single click on the review button isn't exactly difficult.

If people cannot stand the idea of having to press the review button every time they enter the site, they can always just bookmark the review section.

Ricky makes a fair point of how the "how review scores work" should be next to the FAQ though. I will change that.

About some peoples ideas about merging the FAQ with the "how review scores work": No.

I personally feel that putting all of the information from both pages on a single page would make the FAQ page too long. I think it is better to have 2 separate pages. 1 FAQ page for FAQ about the site in general, and 1 FAQ ("how review scores work") for how the scoring system works. 

Also, I changed the "Sites to check out" to "Links to check out" to appease some of you who wanted that page re-named to just Links. 

Just looked at the site for the first time. My first impression:

Very dark looking.

Lots of orange text on the front page, but no review.

Lots of links across the top.

If it is a review page, then a review should really be the first thing anyone sees.

"This is where cool Quake maps are reviewed!" Yeah, OK, but where's the actual reviews? Hidden among those multiple links at the top? Their grey colour makes them almost blend in with the background and thus hard to read. The word "Review" needs to jump out somewhere, it needs to be the first thing anyone sees. Besides that giant quake logo, that is. Put your content front and center. I visit web sites for content.

Hope that helps. Don't get me wrong, it's cool to see someone start a new game related website.