So you’ve all been very patient and continued to visit despite the overall fug-ugliness of the site and its general substance-over-style presentation. Well there’s a few things we’ve got planned to make the site a nicer place to relax in. Hopefully we can make it less of a guilty, student bedsit hovel and more of a relaxing, sophisticated wood panelled lounge with brandy, cigars and slippers kind of a place. Maybe….
Here’s the top 5 things I’ll be trying to bring to the site to make it nicer for all of you.
5. A proper site banner
Sorry you guys have had to look at whatever the fuck this site banner thing actually is. Every time someone comes to the site for the first time they think it’s got something to do with sweeping. As soon as I can I’ll have a nice banner for the top of the page, hopefully something bright, cartoonish and calming.
4. More work on the pages
If you’ve ever bothered to visit anything but the posts or the home page of the site, you’ll have realised there’s not much point. The podcast secion has a nice logo, but the other pages serve little purpose at the moment. The content is bare (except for the podcast) and there’s not much to see beyond some place holder images. Hopefully some more creative portraits will be along soon, even if it involves artfully obfuscated photos or line drawings by me in the style of XKCD.
3. A new theme
The current theme of the site is fine, but with a new banner and logo I’d like to look at re-skinning the whole site in suitable colours. This will follow on from a proper CalmDownTom logo, so it might be the furthest off improvement. Also, having a rogues gallery of pictures of each of us would be cool.
2. More podcast guests, more regular podcasts
Without doubt the most fun part of the site, but also the most time consuming is the podcasts. We’ve been doing really well with these and I hope to keep them regular at one every two weeks for the foreseeable future. If things keep going well, we may even split off and do some audio reviews as well. The people we’ve brought in as guests have been great, so we hope to have more in the future too. With a bunch of different people to bring on for relevant subjects we should have people passionate about whatever we discuss that week.
1. Some video content
With most popular gaming or review fan sites, the video content is what gets people to visit your site and all the other stuff makes them stay. In that vein, I’m keen to think of ways to include more video content that would be a real driving force for people to visit and to attract new visitors. Video reviews, top 10’s and even playthroughs all would seem viable options, but I’ll have to think of how to do them, both technically (the software/hardware) and logistically (how am I going to find time?). I’ll keep you posted on how we do!
Alright, I hope that’s all positive for you. Even better than my musings would be suggestions from you guys who visit. Hit up the comments and let me know what you think!