Would anyone be interested in a Gaming review site geared toward people like us? (1 Viewer)

[Bergan Peters]

I would write for the site. I have a PS2 and an Xbox.

 

[Romier S]

I'd also have guest reviews, but no web board (they usually just get clogged up with fanboys.0

No web board! Agreed. That what we have the HTF for. Minus the fanboys.
I'm going to register the domain tommorow morning. I'm looking to register it with godaddy.com. I have a professional web design friend who uses them exclusively and has allot of good things to say about them.
Bergan,
Send me an email on what you would like to write. You can do reviews, editorials...Let me know. Also include what kind of genres you usually play and your HT equipment.

 

[Jake Gove]

I could help with web design/programming as well as reviews. Do you want the site to have a database backend?

 

[Camp]

How about this for reviews:

Devise a system whereby several people can "post" reviews of hardware and software. Then average the score from each reviewer into a final review score. The BBS software ought to be able to handle this.

It would allow for each reviewer to leave his/her personal thoughts on the game/hardware as well as a 1 to 10 score. It would certainly make it easier to obtain a lot of content in a short time period.

Reviews could be submitted in one of two ways:

Everyone visiting the site could throw in their two cents

-or-

only "members" of the site could leave a review

Using the "members" method would reduce the number of bogus reviews and probably give a more true average score.

Maybe you become a "member" by invitation from Romier?

What do you think?

 

[Romier S]

Ok guys,
Eric Nees from the forum has sent me several logo designs which he worked on for the site last night and they are fantastic! I wanted to give a special thanks to him for taking the time to do this so quickly. If any othe member want to come up with Logo design for the site please send them to me and I will compile them all and post them here for you all to give feedback on.
Jake,
I will be sending you an email shortly.
Camp,
I like your review ideas allot and I will more than likely implement this on the site. I am in the process now of creating a review template that will be posted on the site for people to use when they review a game. I want guest reviews to be a big part of the site.
As for membership I will have to think of a way to, as you said lower the amount of bogus reviews without alienating people. The membership idea sounds good and I'll have to think of a way of implementing it so its friendly.
I also just wanted to say thank you to all of you for the ideas. You have all been a tremendous help.

 

[Kelley_B]

I don't know how I could have skipped over this thread, but I do have a site and we do have a sponsor, currently we have been working on applying the feedback we got from the users that have seen it. Trust me I don't think you really know how much work you are getting into??? Or maybe you do, but be prepared to do very little sleeping and very little actual game playing as you are constantly working on the site. I am willing to do a cross team idea maybe create a HTGaming network??? But the thing is you are targeting a very narrow market, most gamers out there only have a 19" TV that their parents handed down to them when they were 14.......also with the way the web market is now, don't expect to make any money. And lets say the site gets hugely popular, are you willing to shell out tons of your own cash for bandwith, servers, and the loss of your social life? I hate to get negative about it, but these have been things that I have been thinking about a lot lately as I pour a lot of my free time into my site. And the hardest part about all this is the lack of good dependable people who will work for free, shocking I know.

Now for my personal opinion, I think it would make a great site, theres not another site out there like it.

BTW - we plan to relaunch our site in mid-Feb!

 

[Andrew Grall]

Sounds great folks! I would definitely use such a site. It would be especially cool if you could get your hands on preview copies of games from publishers... so that we have an idea of what is coming out.

 

[Romier S]

Kelley,
Believe me I have thought about allot of things that you have mentioned and I know the work that needs to be put into this. As for sleep..I dont I honestly run on 4-5 hours a night and spend allot of time gaming as it is.
I honestly am not aiming this site as being huge or an alternative to the big sites. Its more of a service to our membership on the forum and maybe later it will branch out. I think it will be nice to have a place to read reviews that have the information that we all want.
As for dependable people I know exactly what you mean and
I'm hoping the people I have contacted so far come through with some good content. In the coming week or two I'm gonna start to try and get reviews from those I have talked too so that I can get some content to put up when the site launches.
The HT gaming network sounds good and once the site is done and up we can definitely work that out.
Also if you have any tips on getting a sponsor or anything else...I would really appreciate it. The more help the better.
Quick update: I have just finished registering the domain.
www.htgaming.com it is.

 

[Bergan Peters]

Mark me down as someone that is a laid off webmaster as is willing to do some HTML grunt work. Like maybe each reviewer could have their own page that they got to work on. I dunno, Ill do whatever.

 

[Ike]

Camp,

There is already a review site like that. I still think there should be straight write ups-I wouldn't trust site vistors reviews.

 

[Camp]

So, you'd rather trust a single reviewer than all of us?

Knowing this site is aiming for the HT gamer I think that brings a unique perspective to the reviews and, quite frankly, I'd like to see multiple opinions. I disagree with a lot of the opinions expressed here but that's what a forum is for. I think multiple reviewers gives the reader a forum-like opportunity to see a game from different angles.

Perhaps each review would have an "official" review followed by "member comments" and ratings. ???

I don't know...I'm just throwing out ideas.

 

[Romier S]

Perhaps each review would have an "official" review followed by "member comments" and ratings. ???

That is exactly what I had planned. I want to have at least 4-5 official reviewers and I plan to have a review template of some kind for others to fill out there reviews with. I'm working on this now.

 

[Ike]

That is exactly what I had planned. I want to have at least 4-5 official reviewers and I plan to have a review template of some kind for others to fill out there reviews with. I'm working on this now.

Oh, what magazine has 4 or 5 reviews for each game? EGM?

Either way, I like the idea of multiple "official" reviews. After seeing some reviews on here that I completely disagree with, it'd be nice if it was a nice and even set of reviewers.

I'd offer to review, but the scope of games I play is limited-I generally just rent the games that are well reviewed. But I will wait for the site!0

 

[Romier S]

Oh, what magazine has 4 or 5 reviews for each game? EGM?

I'm not exactly sure what thats supposed to mean but I'm am surely not trying to copy the format of EGM in any way.
When I say I want to get 4-5 official reviewers I sure dont mean its the same 4-5 people. If someone from the forum contacts me and wants to do an "official" review for the game I am more than willing to post it. If it so happens that several people want to review the same game I can post those as official as well. I do have to set some kind of limit though. Cant have 27 Halo reviews and 2 Blood wake reviews. I'd like some consistency. From there if a guest wishes to review the game they can do so.
The official review will need to have more of the technical info that we want as HT enthusiasts. What those areas are as of now I am still working out and that is why I need as much info and feedback from you guys as possible. What HT categories should we be more specific on with the site?
Ike you mentioned the differences in format such as 480p, 1080i, 720p. Those are the kinds of suggestions I need to make a standard review template for the reviewers to follow as a guideline. Widescreen modes, 5.1 sound. I want to make the reviews on the site very detailed and hopefully very different than what is out there now.
I'm setting up a big compilation of all the info taken here and making a kind of mission statement for the site. Please keep the feedback coming. Everything being said here is being taken into consideration. I'm in no hurry to get the site up and I want to get allot of content ready before I do.

 

[Ike]

I'm not exactly sure what thats supposed to mean but I'm am surely not trying to copy the format of EGM in any way.

That's not what I meant-I was just saying there was a magazine that used this format, and I actually thought their reviews were pretty balanced-nothing about ripping anyone off.

Let me make sure I understand-if I got in, and was the first 4 or 5 people, I could have an official review?

 

[Romier S]

Let me make sure I understand-if I got in, and was the first 4 or 5 people, I could have an official review?

Thats kind of what I had in mind. What do you think about that? Let me know, its all up for discussion
I apologize for misunderstanding you also. No harm done either way
By the way for everyone I have posted the 5 designs I have received for the "official" site logo on my personal FTP space for your viewing. Let me know what you think and which one you like. (I personally am in love with 5 and its right in line with what I had in mind for the site)
You can find them at:
http://romier.home.mindspring.com
Very, very special thanks to Mr. Eric Nees (one of our members) for sending me these designs. He did these literally overnight and I thought they were great. It was almost uncanny as they are close to what I had in mind for the site all along! Thank you so much Eric.

 

[ChrisV]

Number five is my favorite.

 

[Eric Nees]

About the logos, while they're up for "official" consideration, they're by no means finished. I threw those together pretty quickly, all variations on the same theme that I liked. So I'd take into consideration any opinions about what you like or don't like, along with other suggestions (change the colors, different font, etc).

 

[Andre F]

Regarding the logos, I like #1 the best but #5 is not far behind.

-Andre F

 

[Andre F]

I have some questions for the technical/money side of things.
1. How is the initial funding for this going to take place? It does cost money to host a site (assuming this site will be hosted). I'm sure other costs will pop up along the way as well. Are we looking for a sponser?
2. Has any thought been given to the technical side of the site? Someone mentioned mentioned a database backend for the site, if that is the case then are we looking at a dynamic site using ASP or PHP using a web server like IIS or Apache? Or is the plan to start with a simple html (obvisouly using some scripting languages along to the way to make the site interesting) site and go from there?
Like I said to Romier earlier, I was very close (I guess it could still happen...) to starting a commercial HT site last year so I did a lot research on the technology side of things (the business side was for my partner to handle ). With that in mind I'm very happy to share my thoughts/time on that kind of stuff once some definition is wrapped around the site (goals etc from the technical side). Overall I'm really excited about this!
Oh and by the way like everyone else I would love to do some reviews. God knows I place enough games....
-Andre F