Nice I like it, werry nice features, somehow it remainds me a n medievel bock written in latin but also now pm are in new coulor, easyer to see and for eyes this features are better

i want to say i dont like this "Index, Search,..." in italics...my personal feeling is, that now those links are harder to hit - because they seems smaller to me...probably just a feeling...

Yeah, me too, I dont like the Italics much either. And the other features, well, I can say I like them, I like those borders on the left and right side, and the lighter blue color reminds me of old MS designs, I dont know why...
Notification and PM's yellow color is a bit awkward, but as K7 already said, its probably easier to notice, so , as alway, I welcome the (positive) changes on MetalStorm!!

Unless something had changed before I checked, the PM system looks exactly the same as it did before. Now that the borders have been taken out, I really like this new look!

Written by Ivan on 05.06.2008 at 10:23

Written by Nox Lux on 05.06.2008 at 07:17

aaaarrrgghhh! It's the italics on the top 'Index, Search,...' options that I can't stand. Don't mess with that fantastic Arial font in my opinion.

There's always been something about the look of Arial in grey shades and bold that looks so seductive to the eye when reading.

I'm pretty sure everyone will agree with that. I understand that the idea was to make them look less like random words written on the top, or perhaps to grab more attention, but I think because of the way people psychologically think of italics on websites, and the way they are normally used, quite the opposite is accomplished.

Is it me or does anyone else actually feel less inclined to click on 'New Posts' just because it's slanted?! Seriously, I'm cringing here.

To be honest, the light blue isn't grim enough for me either. That's only half a joke. Although news gets ripped off of the following kind of sites all the time; something about the borders looks too 'Blabbermouth' to me.

I think we should keep the borders understated. If anything, perhaps make them more minimal, rather than more pronounced?

First of all, the font is Verdana, not Arial. Also, the submenu never was in bold. And yes, the idea was to make the submenu stand out a bit - because I have a suspicion that people (especially newcomers) simply don't notice it. I might think of something else that works better than italics, but I'm gonna leave them for now.

What looks like light blue to you actually looks like very dark blue on older monitors. The old color was also blue, but apparently some people never even realized it wasn't anything but black. And since I removed the borders, I had to make menu/page titles stand out a bit more - it's just a question of usability. As for being grim... We're not exclusively an extreme metal website, and being all grim and frostbitten is not really our goal

I agree, the borders look a bit Blabbermouth-ish. It wasn't intentional, just the first thing I came up with - I might change them to something different if I get a good idea.

Btw, thanks for the useful criticism, I appreciate it.

Fair enough, Verdana. I know they were never in bold on those particular submenues, I'm just saying that's another version of the Verdana font that looks really nice in that shade of grey on this site. Perhaps, as a suggestion, instead of italics, they could be in bold? or underlined? or perhaps with the old school and simple square brackets [] as everyone who sees these brackets usually thinks of links. Anyway, you've probably gone through those options during the process.
Thanks for the work you've put in, I know you didn't necessarily need to. I remember the winter skin from times of old, which actually was frostbitten, but still light and airy to navigate. I guess I just didn't want it to become a blue version of blabbermouth, so I'm glad that you seem to look at it the same way. To me, more black or more of that tranlucent [spelt wrong, but can't be arsed] grey is better than the blue - because down the line it would probably just get bluer and bluer, without anyone realising.
Anyway, I can see why you changed the top bar - I was one of the guys that wrote in on shoutbox about that annoying pixel problem....I'm not sure if that had anything to do with the decision.
Anyway, I understand that there are a lot of people using old monitors, although I was not thinking of that when I made the criticisms.
I must say that when it comes to the extra brightness on the titles of pages/menu titles, it's kind of explanatory that if there's a top blue bar [whether old grey or new blue] with some words written, that it's the title of the page. The extra brightness seems a bit much...I guess what I mean is that you may want to bare in mind that they may now look more like hyperlinks than titles.

Anyway, this wasn't originally intended to be another list of criticisms but it has turned out that way. Basically not too bothered, just giving some extra suggestions.
I'm still more bothered about the italics

some of the features turned out to be really cool, like the left and right background images; the lighter blue main panel doesn't look so good though.

Speaking of new features and this site evolving: I just stumbled upon this page. MS has changed quite a bit since 2001 hasn't it?

@GT: sure it has changed, on FEATURED BANDS are bands like Limb Bizkit imagine that band on the present MS. Also on FEATURED BANDS there's a band unknow for me, Merilin Manson.

Written by GT on 06.06.2008 at 23:01

Speaking of new features and this site evolving: I just stumbled upon this page. MS has changed quite a bit since 2001 hasn't it?

I saw that before, someone else had posted it up but I don't remember who. Really neat to look at.

Written by Lord TJ on 06.06.2008 at 23:23

Written by GT on 06.06.2008 at 23:01

Speaking of new features and this site evolving: I just stumbled upon this page. MS has changed quite a bit since 2001 hasn't it?

I saw that before, someone else had posted it up but I don't remember who. Really neat to look at.

Me Now you remember

Written by Stalker on 07.06.2008 at 01:20

Me Now you remember

Really? I feel bad lol. I was thinking it was from Wrathchild or K7.

Written by Lord TJ on 07.06.2008 at 14:26

Written by Stalker on 07.06.2008 at 01:20

Me Now you remember

Really? I feel bad lol. I was thinking it was from Wrathchild or K7.

Hm, yes also Wratchild, he was the first to do so, but later I showed that to someone, I thought it was you, but might have been Warman.. LOL haha

well done, the new feature, Site Tour, is so fantastic. i enjoy this; i'm sure new members or those who are not member now will enjoy this.

I am glad you've noticed the site tour after Ivan put in the work to make it. The link is a little bigger for people who are not logged in.

Written by Baz Anderson on 09.06.2008 at 19:56

I am glad you've noticed the site tour after Ivan put in the work to make it. The link is a little bigger for people who are not logged in.

Heheh, yeah I tried it as well
Now Ill try to log out
EDIT: aaah, I thought its REALLY bigger, but its just slightly bigger hahah

Written by Stalker on 09.06.2008 at 20:16

Written by Baz Anderson on 09.06.2008 at 19:56

I am glad you've noticed the site tour after Ivan put in the work to make it. The link is a little bigger for people who are not logged in.

Heheh, yeah I tried it as well
Now Ill try to log out
EDIT: aaah, I thought its REALLY bigger, but its just slightly bigger hahah

Did you expect that staffs change the logo text from Metal Storm to Site Tour?

EDIT: something like this:

Written by Hamird on 10.06.2008 at 01:26

Written by Stalker on 09.06.2008 at 20:16

Written by Baz Anderson on 09.06.2008 at 19:56

I am glad you've noticed the site tour after Ivan put in the work to make it. The link is a little bigger for people who are not logged in.

Heheh, yeah I tried it as well
Now Ill try to log out
EDIT: aaah, I thought its REALLY bigger, but its just slightly bigger hahah

Did you expect that staffs change the logo text from Metal Storm to Site Tour?

LOL, well, not really, but something of that size

Another great feature of the website, Metal Locations. although it is not useful for me (because in my area there is no metal locations ) but that a very nice idea. you can also add the festival places.

Yeah, that really is the coolest feature I've seen so far. I wonder, do metal bars also count as a 'metal location?'

Written by Sunioj on 17.06.2008 at 17:28

Yeah, that really is the coolest feature I've seen so far. I wonder, do metal bars also count as a 'metal location?'

Yes, of course they do

What about the steel mill?[/corny joke]

I really like the software that powers this forum/site. Was it custom-coded, or built on top of something else?

Written by Conservationist on 19.07.2008 at 21:17

I really like the software that powers this forum/site. Was it custom-coded, or built on top of something else?

As far as I know it was built on top of something else. But it is safer to let Ivan or Ivor answer this question fo yours.

Written by Conservationist on 19.07.2008 at 21:17

I really like the software that powers this forum/site. Was it custom-coded, or built on top of something else?

It's 100% custom-coded. At first the engine was based on YaBBSE, but it's been re-written from scratch since.

Aha, very cool. I've used YaBB and SMF (still moderate on one of 'em) and they're neat softwares. I really like the software here: it's efficient, low on faggotry, and the interfaces make sense once you get used to them. Good work!

I want to suggest a new feature to be added to MS, I think there is a big need for a feature of "listening queue" or "Albums that I will check out", something like the votes on user profiles.

Currently a lot of bands have their stuff on bandcamp through the label account.
I think that it's correct not to link the label bandcamp page, but I think it would be worth to interested people to have a link in the record details to an official bandcamp page for the record.
This way people interested could go to an official site and eventually listen or buy the record, instead of going on youtube to just listen to what they find.

On the same style a link to the spotify url of the record would be useful.

Written by pdepmcp on 29.06.2015 at 16:08

Currently a lot of bands have their stuff on bandcamp through the label account.
I think that it's correct not to link the label bandcamp page, but I think it would be worth to interested people to have a link in the record details to an official bandcamp page for the record.
This way people interested could go to an official site and eventually listen or buy the record, instead of going on youtube to just listen to what they find.

On the same style a link to the spotify url of the record would be useful.

This is already sometimes done. Just not very often. Potential issue with this idea though is that if the link is ever taken down or the url changed then the link will be dead. Could end up creating a lot of dead album links that then have to be deleted.

Best thing really is to submit news (if it's like a pre-release stream or around the same time as the album release) or just post it in the album comments like many other users already do.

Written by psykometal on 29.06.2015 at 22:52

Written by pdepmcp on 29.06.2015 at 16:08

Currently a lot of bands have their stuff on bandcamp through the label account.
I think that it's correct not to link the label bandcamp page, but I think it would be worth to interested people to have a link in the record details to an official bandcamp page for the record.
This way people interested could go to an official site and eventually listen or buy the record, instead of going on youtube to just listen to what they find.

On the same style a link to the spotify url of the record would be useful.

This is already sometimes done. Just not very often. Potential issue with this idea though is that if the link is ever taken down or the url changed then the link will be dead. Could end up creating a lot of dead album links that then have to be deleted.

Best thing really is to submit news (if it's like a pre-release stream or around the same time as the album release) or just post it in the album comments like many other users already do.

I see your point and I agree with you, and even if autoremove dead link is not that hard it's risky too. To autocheck and then alarm the staff to take the proper action is probably too much time consuming to be handled.
I still thing that it'd be a worthy addiction for the casual user. On my browser the metalstorm tab has at least two twins, one on bandcamp and the other on youtube (after the death of grooveshark, RIP), so it's not gonna change my life