New FG Landing page

[Mgrancey]

Hehehehe. True that i haven't tried Castle and Crusades yet, but I agree that is much better than previous page. Problems is that I can't look at that without knowing what FG is capable so its hard for me to say whether that would be better or not for the uninitiated. BUT I am going to a gaming convention, I will show it them, experienced gamers but so far as I know none use any VTT of any sort, lucky bastards, and will get their opinion and comprehension (that took a couple of trys). You just want a summary or would you like their actual comments"?

[ddavison]

Hey, I did use Castles & Crusades for a few of my videos today. I thought it would be perfect to show the tables from the Castle Keeper's Guide there. My big problem is that I still haven't ever played a game of C&C. You'll have to invite me into a game some time so I can check it out. I did back the kickstarter so I could get all 3 of the core books in glorious full-color hardcover. I plan to sit down and read through them all together after I get all three. I spoke with Steve Chenault during set up this year at Gen Con. He said he would have hooked me up with everything for free -- but you have to support the folks that support you, after all.

As for the sound quality issues, was that related to breathing in the mic or just low/poor quality over all? I noticed some of that during one of the playbacks but I was hoping it wasn't too significant or frequent enough to cause a disruption. The export module video was the last one I did for the day and I may not have been been as diligent about avoiding that as I was in the earlier videos. Is it the same in the 3D dice rolling video?

[damned]

As for the sound quality issues, was that related to breathing in the mic or just low/poor quality over all? I noticed some of that during one of the playbacks but I was hoping it wasn't too significant or frequent enough to cause a disruption. The export module video was the last one I did for the day and I may not have been been as diligent about avoiding that as I was in the earlier videos. Is it the same in the 3D dice rolling video?

Static mostly. Quite a bit of it.

No time to watch the other videos just now!

[damned]

dice video sound quality is fine.
i think *maybe* you could have expanded on 2 things -
mixing dice /die 1d10+1d4
and stacking modifiers -2 injured, +1 flanking, etc and all the descriptions show in the chat window

perhaps instead of embedding video direct on page you could display a good looking graphic - but somewhat smaller - and you use a popup youtube player like this one:
https://lab.abhinayrathore.com/jquery_youtube/ click on demo
many other examples out there...

[hangarflying]

I like the second one.

I think it's important to have access to the videos. I don't have a problem with the embedded videos because they are right there to supplement the description that they are attached to.

[damned]

just to clarify - i dont mind the embedded videos but they make the page so much bigger... im only suggesting that when you click on it it plays in layer above the screen.

[OTG_Wraith]

I don't know why you are getting the static in the other videos, it could be a number of reasons, but there does seem to be some proportional static introduced by the actions you are taking on screen which might indicate the video capture device or software. However, the hum you're getting in the dice video is probably from background noise and setting your recording levels too high which then get amplified during post. Also, when I ripped the audio from the youtube video I noticed it was severely clipped.

Here's the original.

Here's the first part of that same audio track with the hum removed, but of course that introduced a slight high-end resonance. Let it play, I used the long intro to compare a no signal baseline to the removed hum.

Shut off the computer fan, TV (even if it is muted), air conditioning, etc and then turn your source recording levels down a bit and then in post only amplify that signal to about -1 or -2 dB from peak. You'll get an unclipped sine wave as a start and then you can amplify it up to about +5 dB past peak without a noticeable loss of fidelity. Still sounds loud to a normal YouTube volume setting but doesn't introduce that low-end distortion or nearly as much clipping.

Here's how the above instructions should sound.

[levinth]

I'm not sure I see this as a landing page yet... The second one is a definite improvement on the first though.

I've done a bit of copywriting before, although I'm very new to web design, but I think the principle of writing anything to do with advertising is to keep it short and positive. People are, sadly, lazy and the quicker you can convey to them what they need to know, the better. That includes text/ pictures/ links etc.

Bearing that in mind, where the roll 20 website gets it right is at the very top of the landing page (ignoring the menu/ wordpress bar etc) there are basically three things you see in the blue box. Just three. A very simple outline of what the software is and does, a video introducing it and a link to try it yourself. I know there are other links and information, but my eye is drawn to those three things, and really thats what I need to start with.

How that would apply to the landing page for FG is simple. I haven't got time to do a web page design right now, but I can describe what should be visible at the top of the page when you get there.

Where it says "try a demo now or choose a version below", you could put: "Play tabletop RPGs online" Or something similar. Maybe a tag line for the product that says in essence, "you can use this to play tabletop rpgs online". You get the gist. It should be instantly clear what the product is, currently it's a bit murky...

Then stick the trailor in somewhere. Left, right aligned, I don't know, probably doesn't matter! But I'm curious as to whether the trailor is finished? It seemed to end abruptly (although I really liked it otherwise!).

Then maybe at the other side a couple more lines explaining what is special about FG compared to other VTTs or more detail about what the product is, but without using too much terminology. I've used some of the text that was already there, but removed what should be written elsewhere:
"Fantasy Grounds replicates what you would traditionally do around a physical table, such as rolling dice, managing character sheets, campaign notes, sharing handouts and images with players and moving tokens or figures around on a map. "

Then finally, have a button shaped link (not a text based one as these are easy to mistake for highlighting) letting you download the demo.

In essence that is copying roll 20, I know, but they have got it spot on. It is easy enough to put a FG spin on the layout or the fonts etc and make it look exactly how you want, but the content and info that you first see is there.

I have a bit of time over the next few weeks and I'd be happy to do some copywriting for the site if the devs would find that useful?

P.s. sorry if it sounded very critical, it wasn't meant to...

[Griogre]

Looks much better, Doug. As someone else mentioned, I would split the current page up. For the actual landing page just do your videos and Text besides them. Then at the bottom you want three large buttons. LARGE buttons, think banner size across the page with very large text, stacked vertically.

Button one: "Explore Fantasy Ground's Complete List of Features" - link to a page that has just that feature list.

Button two: "Compare Fantasy Grounds Licenses" - link to a page that only compares all the different license types in a table. I'd pull all you license comparisons out of your feature list to here. Do a real thorough list with nothing combined, but don't put prices here.

Button three: "Buy Fantasy Grounds Now!" Don't **** around with a price list, just link them directly to the store or some place they can buy. I'd suggest a special store page that lists each license name and a summary lifted exactly from your license comparison page so there is absolutely no question which license is which.

At the bottom of each of these three pages you want a list of three large buttons horizontally across that link back to each of the other pages including the landing page which I'd call something like "Introduction to Fantasy Grounds". You want them to be able to flip back and forth easily from page to page.

One final thought, and once again all this stuff is YMMV, you landing page doesn't outright proclaim FG's greatest features: "Play Roleplaying Games Online With Your Friends." and "Fantasy Grounds Has an Established Community of Players and Game Masters From Around the World." To a lot of your new buyers, FG's biggest selling point is - 1) its a VTT with 2) a well established community.

[ddavison]

Thanks guys.

I'll need to re-record the exporting video when I get a quiet enough environment. Yesterday ended up working really well - and I'll have to look out for the humming noise before posting the final product. I'm guessing something with the capture may have messed up or possibly I accidentally yanked my mic plug out a little -- it happens. Thankfully that was a pretty short video and is relatively easy to replicate.