I need a little help figuring out what's wrong with my board. I would greatly appreciate any helpful criticism. Is the layout too intimidating or something? Because I've been advertising it for the past like three days and I've only managed to snag one person. ._. A role play can't really survive on two whole people.

http://syndicate.dreamsofstone.com/

Anything helpful you have to offer, please let me know.

I don't like the layout and the tabs on the top. I think it makes it hard to find things. It may just be me though but I thought it could be helpful :D

Very well could be the layout. I'm lazy, I don't like clicking tabs. I want all the forums right there in front of me so all I have to do is scroll, instead of selecting different tabs to view different forums. Doesn't help that the forums category names don't fit in the tabs, so I have to hover to read them, which sometimes doesn't work for whatever odd reason. -- Plus the layout is a bit boring. Not to be mean or anything, but it's just not attention catching.

It's kind of difficult to find the information about the board too. Plots great, but it's sort of hidden. It loads slow, and once you're in a forum, the tabs disappear, and you wonder what happened, because by now, you've begun to think of them as your only source of travel, so you backspace a whole bunch. ><

Read the plot... still don't' have enough information to feel comfortable joining. And I can't find a place to post an application thingy. Just adoptions. So.. it's confusing. I know people complain about some sites having too much to read, but a little more wouldn't hurt on your site.

Is it really mainly the layout? I’ll have to change it then. That’s funny though and makes me wonder what everyone else really thought that I asked about it because everyone told me they loved it. :-/

The application thing is available once you register and are logged in. I’ve hidden it from guest view.

The tabs wouldn't be too bad if they didn't shuffle themselves every time you click one.

But I think it could benefit from easier navigation, because it looks like something that you have to get used to, and I know I wouldn't join a board that I have to think for more than two seconds about navigating. It makes me assume I'm going to have to think even harder about everything else.

Yeah, the layout is a bit scary. It's inventive, but is a bit intimidating.

I'm going to stop advertising until I make a better layout. Should only take me a day or so.

I thank you guys much =] You've all confirmed what I thought from the beginning >>;;

As for the plot; a more detailed one has been in the works x3 Don't think I ignored that, because I didn't. =)

Maybe if you also geared the layout a little more toward what the rpg is about. Often enough you get an idea of what the game is like/about from the layout.

I'd also make the applications and such visible to guests, so they can see what they'll have to do to join before registering. Otherwise you may end up with a bunch of members who never really join in the game, because they don't want to do whatever it is to create a character.

I saw the old one with tabs (which, by the way, I don't think worked properly in Firefox, which turned me off right away). I agree that that was unnecessarily complicated, and hiding the forums in tabs just made me go "Where is everything?" It took me a minute to figure out to click the tabs.

If I didn't know I was supposed to be looking for stuff, I wouldn't have bothered.

You need to remember to sell your board. The rule of thumb is that if you can't hook someone on your product (in this case, a forum) and get them interested in it in some way in less that 15 seconds, you've failed. Most people are impatient and aren't going to just root around and try to find things. It's a fact.

This new skin, while a definite improvement over the other, also falls short. I have no clue what your board is about just by looking at it. How am I supposed to know if I want to look harder, if I have no idea what the theme even is?

You should really consider getting a skin that seems to be in harmony with your theme. I believe your sig said it was a mafia roleplay? I don't get mafia from this. I get scifi, if anything. Consider a darker skin, maybe. Something that evokes the proper feeling the board should put someone in. Also, I find a header image goes a long way in letting people know what your board is about right off the bat.

Good luck!

The new skin is just temporary and means absolutely nothing xD

The old skin; it's funny the tabs worked for me. They did take a little bit to load but I just figured it was my stupid internet because it's been DOG SLOW.

For me, there was too many boards on the main page. Personally. That is all it took for me to close it.

I think there are too many OOC categories. That was the first thing I noticed. Having an excessive amount of forums, OOC or IC, means a ridiculous amount of stuff to keep an eye on (and it means more empty forums that lurking guests may see as the result of inactivity). You should condense all the OOC forums into two categories. This is how I usually do it:

ADMINISTRATION

• Rules/Site Info/etc
  I normally keep things like rules and plot here, as well as more specific information (in this case, a list of mob families or something). This would also be the place for a FAQ thread. I really don't think a whole forum is required. My advice: set up one thread with the most frequently asked questions listed, and invite people to reply with further questions.
• Registration/Character Profiles/Hall of Records/etc.
  I keep my application template here. This is also where people would post their profiles. If it's a site that requires acceptance, there's usually an "Accepted" subforum in this forum where accepted profiles are kept. Any other registrations can be kept here too.
• News
  Announcements and such, self explanatory.
• Admin
  When there's more than one admin, I like to have an admin forum that only administrators can see, so that we can leave notes for each other, make to-do lists, and discuss adminly things.

This category I normally keep up top so that it's the first thing people see.

OOC

• General Discussion/etc
  Self-explanatory title. It's your basic OOC forum where people can talk about whatever, within site rules, of course. I usually have a subforum for games and polls.
• Support Forum/Questions, Comments, Concerns/etc
  Self-explanatory again.
• Advertisements
  Again, self-explanatory. Affiliates is usually a subforum.

This category I keep at the bottom, because I don't want it to have more focus than the actual roleplay.

Basically, you've got a lot of unnecessary OOC forums that can be condensed, and I really thing that will help the organization and clarity of the site. A new skin wouldn't hurt either, haha. ;)

Keep in mind a lot of the board descriptions are really long too.

Long forum descriptions aside, you've got ten OOC forums when you need at most six, and the ones you have are separated into unnecessary categories that overpower the forums themselves.

ooc areas were condensed to 5. well 7 including the area for admins / staff and archives.

I would suggest turning North, East, West & South into forums, instead of categories, and putting all the other stuff into subforums for each of them. If that made any sense. It'll go a long way into condensing your forum so it doesn't look so big and empty. If your forum software has subforums - and I think it's IPB, which if I remember correctly, does!

Maybe stick Announcements with the rest of the OOC stuff that you have under support, and give members a regular OOC chat forum, and maybe a rp partner finding forum thing. But then... that is a common layout for forums, if you were looking to be different, and I kind of like the idea of having announcements up top where they are the first thing you see.. since, you know, they tend to be important.

Yeah I've found having the announcements be the first thing people see, they tend to get noticed and people read them a little more often whereas if they're mixed in with the rest of the ooc it tends to get over looked. >>;

Slimming down the width of the forum and possibly adding either a sidebar or a top one might halp. The skin colors I really don't mind, it's more the width that bothers me.

An announcement board or side bar would help a lot to list all the main liks to rules and such as well as fun thinks like character of the month and the like.

Yep there is a sidebar on the new layout. I haven't released it yet though so no one but members can see it. S'ok I hate wide layouts myself XD Believe me.

The only thing I have a problem with is that the top banner is really big. It takes up almost the whole page for me!

I'll lower the height. You must have a smaller resolution screen than I do. :-/

I'm not exactly impressed with the layout and the sidebar, sorry. Same with the banner. I didn't know this was a mafia rpg AT ALL. I just opened this topic, saw you couldn't get members, opened the forum, and had no clue what your forum was about. Whatever that thing is in the background (chains, maybe?) confuses me. Sorry, you don't give enough information on the front page for me to know what it is. I don't know where it is, when it is, who is in it, etc. etc. Also, the light blue on black hurts me eyes, and I don't want to read the forum descriptions & posts because of it.

Where is the OOC section? I can't find it. You really need one of those, because it brings members together and forms a friendly community.
I personally would make the Adoptions section a thread rather than an actual forum. Make a list of all the characters up for grabs, and then have the person interested in the character contact the original owner.
Around the World confuses me, too. Characters can be all over the world? That is going to be very hard to rp, FYI.
I would also make Affiliation a thread rather than a forum. Have people reply to a topic where they can sign up to be an affiliate, rather than make a topic. People are not going to stay long enough to make a topic to apply.

Your plot seems out of joint. You start talking about the Yakuza, but then suddenly go back to Chicago in one paragraph. I really don't understand why the Yakuza are the big thing on the forum. And why do they have to be Japanese? I don't live in Chicago, but I thought most Ghetto areas have African Americans, Hispanics, etc. The Japanese you want who are cool, rich, and have that funky style found in Japan would be found in, well, Japan. I really doubt Japanese gangs in Chicago look like that.

Things I think you need to improve: layout (please, for the sake of my eyes), forums (you really need to organize better - try looking at other forums), OOC sections (forum games, hot topics, chat, etc.), and application process.
My advice? Look at other forums that have done well in the RP world. See how they've set up their site. See what makes them so special. Then you'll get the idea.

Also remember that you just opened - you are not going to get a bus load of people in a second.

Good luck with your board!
<3 June