Darkness - The Dusk of a New Skin

[Schot 407]

Well I'd say "dawn" but seemed more appropriate to say "dusk" somehow... ^^ Welcome all and I hope you'll enjoy your stay in this new shnazzy look of ours.

 

As you're all no doubt well aware, our little Christmas skin was in danger of bringing in the NEXT Christmas. Me and gogo were, that's for sure! The need to change to a new skin has been a great source of both excitement AND worry. As some of you may know I'm in no condition to design a skin and so gogo and I have been desperately seeking out a new skin that could live up to our standards and entertain everyone here at DarkMatters. It was a very difficult search at that! In fact we've been searching every since we upgraded the forum in December. Finding a skin for our forum version is hard to come by because our forum version is so new. A lot of things were changed in our forum by the upgrade which made skinning very hard for long time skinners. Only recently did we discover this gem of a skin and what a joy it was. A lot of detail has been put into this skin. Really impressive work and I must say it's something of an inspiration for me. I can't wait to be able to get back to the drawing board! Until I do though we'll have this great skin to enjoy.

 

In the meantime I'll be working on tidying some things on the skin. Just the essentials and then back to wiki work for me and then map work and then new skin and then... ^^

 

Happy Darkness everyone!

[dreeft 9]

Looks excellent Schot

 

incredibly detailed theme.

[cider_steve 26]

Nice work guys. Loving the new look.

 

Steve.

[wolfie2kX 528]

Well.. I'll be honest... I'm finding the new one a shock to the system. By no means is it as bad as your reactions to the moo juice - but close.. Seems there's such a thing as "too dark" - especially after the bright and cheerful Christmas theme. Gray on dark gray makes it a bit difficult to read. Eh.. I suppose I'll get over it.

 

Too bad we can't be using the old theme from the previous version.

 

In the meantime... Are there any plans to shoehorn in the old ad banner - the one advertising the various Sacred 2 kits available on DLGamer?

[Dobri 55]

I love the new skin. In my honest opinion, it has a wonderful gothic/fantasy look. I was truly astonished and even stopped in awe for a sec. A nice way to start the day, thumbs up

[Rotluchs 82]

Hi there

 

well, I have to say I kinda like the new skin,

 

especially since my TFT has a problem with contrast if background was plain white (or close to)

 

although it's grey text on grey background, I for one can read it just fine

(the skins from Sacred Ice&Blood on the official SIF board were worse, regarding this)

 

..it kinda fits to the Ice and Blood theme, or the 2 'new' skins on SIF, imho.

 

But most important isnt the simple 'look' , to me its functionality..

 

and as long as I won't find out that I'll be missing stuff and features from the previous forum version or skins, then almost everything is okay with me

 

btw: there's no proper menu bar on the top of the board, or is it just me who can't see it?

[Stormwing 40]

Stopped me too for a while. In a good way. Looking good, really. Me likey. ^^ It surely is something fresh, as the xmas season is gone and all.

for me too, the fuctionality is the key. Also, seems that those frames make an illusion of moving. At least for my eyes. Wicked.

[Knuckles 904]

I got to say I like it Just one thing - is there any way to stretch the skin? I got these huge blank spaces to either side

[Rotluchs 82]

I got to say I like it Just one thing - is there any way to stretch the skin? I got these huge blank spaces to either side

 

hehe, yeah, now that you mention it even with my bookmarks sidebar opened, theres still plenty of room on my 16:10 TFT ...

 

like that dark and gothic like style.. even tho it's fresh, it kinda looks 'retro' as well, it reminds me of Sacred 1.. if tuned a little, overview should be very good, like it better than the old ones,

 

might even skip using the IP.Board default skin, which was my favourite until now..

[Antitrust 32]

I like this skin Nice find.

 

However,

 

I got to say I like it Just one thing - is there any way to stretch the skin? I got these huge blank spaces to either side

 

That is the ... trend of "modern" web-design. Some --- has decided that narrow web-pages look cool, so now everyone is making their pages narrow.

 

edited by gogoblender: Please be careful of tone/words

[wolfie2kX 528]

... screens being offered these days are W I D E S C R E E N! Trying to find a new 4:3 aspect screen these days is no longer as easy as it used to be.

 

What's next? Maybe pages being served up one character wide? Yeah... That's the ticket - Matrix style. Gods help us!

 

edited by gogoblender: Quote edited

[Little Faith 24]

I'm not a fan of the new scheme either.

 

Fistly: The design just screams "BLIZZARD!" at the top of it's lungs. Which is odd, as this is not a WoW or Diablo 3 fan-site.

 

Secondly: The "slimline" design does nothing for the usability of the site. It just makes it harder to read. Usability concerns should always trump aesthetic concerns.

[dreeft 9]

Sumply put, widescreen monitors are not the norm. 1024x768 is only just becoming the base level.

 

A design maximized for a wide monitor will look terrible on a smaller one but the reverse is not so traumatic for the user.

 

I do agree that a variable width layout generally works better on a forum, but it wouldn't be possibly with this design.

[Timotheus 416]

Cool skin guys. Hope you'll be able to find the time to create a custom DM skin again

[essjayehm 58]

I like the new skin, and I don't all the same. Not a fan of black backgrounds, but at least the writing isn't white. All was OK until I say a "quote", which was white/off-white background and it looked out of place / a little tacky.

 

Given the fact that there aren't a lot of skins out there for the new software, I'd say this is pretty darn good - at least it's not hot pink

[locolagarto 15]

What a surprise indeed.

 

Nice find guys.

[wade-newb 8]

The new skin is awesome The dark look suits the name I guess . I agree that the only thing I would change if anything is the narrow design, but it's not too big of a deal.

 

Nice job

[Stormwing 40]

Browsing around for awhile it sure does look a bit weird with a widescreen. Maybe an alternate version of the same design for widescreen users or such?

[Furian67 15]

ack, think I sent gogo an email. Love the looks of the skin but I had a huge issue signing into the forum, had to use the tab button to guess at where the sign in button is. Also when I sent gogo an email only the first line showed, Think the rest was grayed out.

[gogoblender 3,070]

Hi everyone!

Yeah, the skin is wonderfully dark, but oh so skinny ^^ Took me a while to get used to a fixed skin...but here's something that can help and when I found it I was finally able to go aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah... sigh of relief...

If you are finding the skin too skinny and there is a box showing up at the right which is showing the most active posts...you can get rid of the box which will instantly make your view of the forums get larger. Look for the small (too small! ) arrow pointing left to the right and above the first forum at the top on the index screen.

 

So, again, make sure you are on the index main page. Then at the right corner just above the first forum look for that arrow pointing left...click on it and it will remove the small box that is squeezing the forum.

 

Bingo, wider forum. Though not as wide as if it were fluid screen...but still closer to what we were used to.

 

Like SChot said, having to come up with something that could compete with Sterling was a big problem, as the Wiki, and all the coding he'd have had to do with his injuries was a setback. We finally opted to go the way of purchasing a professional fantasy skin until he has some time to begin the real work of a custom DarkMatters skin. This one is pretty sharp, the detailing on it is exquisite, and since this is our first dark skin ever, the contrast is probably a cool surprise.

 

A little later on, we'll make a default available with a lighter background, and those two will hold us over till Schot begins to release his custom work.

 

 

gogo

[cider_steve 26]

Been using this all day now, and really do like it.

 

Hopefully folk will get used to it with time. We couldn't stay Christmassy all year now, could we..............? Hmmm * Thinks about turkey dinner * Oh no, I'm hungry again !

 

Steve.

[Barristan 14]

Heya,

 

cool!

 

Looks a bit like a game I used to play, but I cannot remember the name.

 

Was a bit like Warcraft, with Ogres and Knights, and an awesome starting movie

 

Anyways, thumbs up!

 

Greetz

[Stormwing 40]

Gogo: Found that tiny one. Surely puts some "meat around the boards" so to say.

 

Surely this'll be a great alternative till Schot gets the job done. Will be rooting for him. ^^

[wolfie2kX 528]

Sumply put, widescreen monitors are not the norm. 1024x768 is only just becoming the base level.

 

A design maximized for a wide monitor will look terrible on a smaller one but the reverse is not so traumatic for the user.

 

I do agree that a variable width layout generally works better on a forum, but it wouldn't be possibly with this design.

 

I beg to differ. Widescreen IS the norm.

 

Try checking out www.newegg.com - a popular web based retailer for computer hardware.

 

They currently offer 71 monitors that do not fit the "widescreen" description - I.e. 4:3 aspect.

 

At the same time they have 306 widescreen monitors for sale. That's a whopping ~81% of their inventory. I think it's pretty safe to call that the "standard" by a long shot.

 

No one I know runs at "base" level anyhow. Most want that HD goodness. That's at least 720 lines of res. 1024x762 barely cuts it. And even then it's not 16:9 or 16:10 ratio.

 

I'm sure that there are other web sites you can also check - and the story there will likely be similar.

 

 

So, again, make sure you are on the index main page. Then at the right corner just above the first forum look for that arrow pointing left...click on it and it will remove the small box that is squeezing the forum.

 

Bingo, wider forum. Though not as wide as if it were fluid screen...but still closer to what we were used to.

 

Like SChot said, having to come up with something that could compete with Sterling was a big problem, as the Wiki, and all the coding he'd have had to do with his injuries was a setback. We finally opted to go the way of a professional fantasy skin until he has some time to begin the real work of a custom DarkMatters skin. This one is pretty sharp, the detailing on it is exquisite, and since this is our first dark skin ever, the contrast is probably a cool surprise.

 

A little later on, we'll make a default available with a lighter background, and those two will hold us over till Schot begins to release his custom work.

 

 

Uh.. Gogo, that only seems to affect the main page and pages like that. It doesn't do anything for actual threads - where the real action is... There's about 2" of wasted space on either side of my monitor (and no, it's not a widescreen model). And that's with the magnification set to 125%... At 100% it's even worse - about 7" total wasted space on either side - and for my 45+ eyes, pretty much unreadable.

[gogoblender 3,070]

Wolfie, have you tried going to the default skin? It's fluid and so should give you the style you are accustomed to.

 

 

gogo