Yes, the sidebar is messy right now. I will need to format that better and get it more coherent.

The menu are the three links at the top of the page - Games, Miniatures and Library. This is the main navigation for the site content, and will allow users to navigate to any area of the site covering a variety of games and miniature lines. This takes you to the main NetEA page, which is the one I linked before.

There is still formatting that needs to be done. This is not the final page layout.



All of which is entirely possible. The text was added in ten minutes to make it clear what we were looking at. The main NetEA page can look like anything we want and formatting will likely go through a couple of evolutions to try out a few things, and will even evolve over time.

Again, the purpose initially was to get the Compendium page added. The main NetEA page was then drafted to give it context. That is all at this point.

If people want to suggest text to add in to this page, feel free.

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https://www.cybershadow.ninja - A brief look into my twisted world, including wargames and beyond.
https://www.net-armageddon.org - The official NetEA (Epic Armageddon) site and resource.

That is not how it looks, main nav is not normally placed on top right (normally placed under logo/name on left, center or left column). Both of the main navs up currently are approximately visually equal, but one is occupying the 'under the header logo on left' expected nav area.

I appreciate that it can all change, sorry if that was too much.

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AFK with real life, still checking PMs

Frankly, I don't think it needs menus or logins or anything of that nature, at least initially. A brief paragraph explaining the NetEA, a link to the compendium and a link to TacComms'd really seem to do it.

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The Apocrypha of Skaros 1.1
Rogue Trader Expedition 0.4
The Horus Heresy 0.5
Night Lords 0.1
My Trade Thread

And a link to the FAQ.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

I see no reason why your plans can't satisfy the needs of the NetEA community for ongoing development, hosting documents etc. But here is the risk as I see it:

For me, the main bit that's missing in the status quo is a clear focal point for what NetEA is and the state of Epic gaming in general. Something that is clearly identifiable for prospective players as "the main Epic website". This really has nothing to do with technology (CMS vs pure HTML, flexible site structure, etc), it is about perception and branding (*shudder*, I just died a little inside). Something that they can Google for, and when they see it listed in the Google results, will know instantly as the home of Epic (because it's called netepicarmageddon.com or some such). And when they get there, they have to instantly know they've reached the right place, instantly recognise it as "official" and be told all the important information at the very beginning without being passed to lots of different sites.

Not all, but many new players are used to the Games Workshop world (as opposed to "the tactical wargames community") and expect a similarly clear message. Web users are notoriously impatient and intolerant, and will definitely not click around a site and sift amongst the other games to find the one they're interested in.

This site definitely has a clear track record for being the de facto home of Epic, but the fact is new players don't know that, and as you have stated recently the site has a far wider scope than just Epic. If this wasn't true, we wouldn't need a NetEA website. Being cynical, a new user looking for Epic info may well hit the front page of this website and not realise they've come to the right place. That is something that reskinning or rearranging menus can't change, it's purely because they will see a third party website which might have some information about Epic amongst a bunch of other games (like many other myriad blogs) and they won't stay to find out any different. It may seem a minor detail, but in my experience there is a world of difference between "productname.com" and "lotsofproducts.com/productname".

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Kyrt's Battle Result Tracker (forum post is here)
Kyrt's trade list

OK. So, aside from the content, layout, navigation, menus, site name, web address and side bars...... everything else is fine then?

What I do here is going to need to be a compromise. This site has existed for around a decade now, and for the last couple of years has been at this address, called this name, and membership has continued to increase gradually. It is my sincere belief that if this site is solely focussed on Epic and nothing else, it will atrophe. In addition, any use of protected terms in the URL or name is likely to incure the wrath of GW sooner or later.

The bottom line is that we cannot provide an air of official status and have to make it clear that we are an 'unofficial fan community', that being such while focussing exclusively on Epic alone is not sustainable, and that in certain ways we simple have to work with what we have got - this site at this address. I would hope that the name of the site carries a little weight and reputation and that people who want to find Epic, will find us. There are issues of SEO and marketting (I just died a little inside too!) to optimise what we have, but www.tacticalwargames.net/netea is about as good as we are going to get for a recognisable address - beyond setting up a mask that redirects there anyway.

My aim is to balance the needs of the Epic community with the growth and promotion of the site. In my opinion, having a dedicated sub-section with a clear web address is the 'best' solution to this.

As for the other issues - side bar messiness, NetEA landing page layout, etc - it is probably best if I give this a bit more work and see what I can come up with.

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https://www.cybershadow.ninja - A brief look into my twisted world, including wargames and beyond.
https://www.net-armageddon.org - The official NetEA (Epic Armageddon) site and resource.

The address is fine.

The only problem I see is that you're looking to provide loads of bells and whistles to what as far as I see only needs to be a single page with a bunch of download links on it (compendium, FAQ, and any completed supplements).

I don't really think it needs articles, or a complex update system, or a news function, etc. Just a page that says what the NetEa project aims to provide, and some download links, and a link to the forums.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

I agree the URL is a definite risk with IP, although it has not proved a problem for http://epicarmageddon.com/ so far That said, it does not necessarily need to infringe IP. If netea.com were available we might be having a different discussion. But if there is no appetite from the community for separating the interests of NetEA from those of TacWarNet then I am perfectly happy to acquiesce.

Perhaps try to sort out the TacCmd CMS theme first and come back to us when things are clearer. Mainly, fix the broken styles, get the navigation and UX as good as it can be, and preferably get a less 90s logo and nice colour scheme/font (sorry!). As I've said in the past, I'm happy to help if you want it, as I'm sure others are too. I would not be surprised if we had a graphic designer or web designer (as opposed to a developer, which is more my bag) in our midst.

As far as content, the one thing I did have on my demo site was a *draft* of an orientation page for new users:
http://netea.redsilico.com/page/about-netea

The idea being the first part of this is shown on the frontpage:
http://netea.redsilico.com/

Maybe this could be useful? (Yes, my demo site has a big fat derivative image on every page, it's not a real site so please don't get too worked up over it!)

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Kyrt's Battle Result Tracker (forum post is here)
Kyrt's trade list

Kyrt : I really like the look of your "draft" website!

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Well, uh, thanks! It actually took an embarassing amount of fiddling to get the army list/army book stuff working the way I wanted, but I did it so I could really delve into the innards of the Drupal CMS (including patching bugs in some of the modules and writing new ones when I hit their limits).

Even after streamlining it a bit, entering all the lists for the compendium still took a while though.

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Kyrt's Battle Result Tracker (forum post is here)
Kyrt's trade list

epicarmageddon.net appears to still be available. As is netepic.com (perhaps a trade with epicarmageddon.com).

I do think an independent website is important for various reasons. Among other things, an independent website gives a distinctness from TacComms that is good for both. I like Kyrt's mockup, though I'd just have the whole Compendium - less to update. Though that searching thing is cool. Very cool.

Honestly, I'd put Kyrt's up at a logical address that is available and maybe muck with his front page a little so it's a bit more introductory.

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The Apocrypha of Skaros 1.1
Rogue Trader Expedition 0.4
The Horus Heresy 0.5
Night Lords 0.1
My Trade Thread

http://www.netea.co.cc/ is available.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Guys, no offence, but this is all getting a little crazy. We have gone from 'we need somewhere to host the Compendium', to 'the NetEA page needs context', to 'navigation isnt good', to 'we need to start from the ground up and build a seperate site'.

It's not the web address that makes the site, it is the people discussing and putting it together, and while I definately want to push Epic as much as I can, this site has always survived by word of mouth and people finding it. Splitting a seperate resources site off creates a seperation between where the 'community' is and development is happening, and where the documents are, and that is likely to cause more confusion than anything.

I am very happy to discuss how this will work and even take criticism on the best way forwards, but it needs to be constructive. For example, if we could have something like Kyrts embedded in the site here, would that work? It is possible for the NetEA site here to be pretty much any format we want but current discussion is in danger of fracturing what we currently have. Also, whatever we do from here, it is going to involve some development, and that is after I get some major issues sorted out behind the scenes here over the next 2-3 weeks.

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https://www.cybershadow.ninja - A brief look into my twisted world, including wargames and beyond.
https://www.net-armageddon.org - The official NetEA (Epic Armageddon) site and resource.

I'm happy to help on image creation, theming, SEO and copy generation. basically CS - if you say 'I need 500 words on orks and ork lists' i can do that no problem. If it's I need an Orky banner and paragrpah trimmer, again, no problem.



incidentally, taccoms is scorng much higher on google searches for epic armageddon now.

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My shifting projects

CS, if TacComms is supposed to be about more than Epic, having an independent website helps demonstrate that that's the case.

Development would still happen in the community - the website would hold the 'permanent' documents. This'd actually be convenient, because it'd be a lot easier to tell what the current 'official' rules were. They'd be the ones on the website.

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The Apocrypha of Skaros 1.1
Rogue Trader Expedition 0.4
The Horus Heresy 0.5
Night Lords 0.1
My Trade Thread