The New ACW Skin (Work in Progress)

[VorteX]

I re-sized the picture and added a rounded border to the bottom of the forum. The gradient can be changed pretty easily if it is too glaring.

[Jason Freeman]

I dunno it looks kinda bland/amateurish to me. I dunno why, I think its the grey. Maybe thats it. I still think we should default to Red Zone since it even syncs up with the site now

[VorteX]

It's got a long way to go. I'm going to try to add all the forums we have and see what it looks like then, since only having one isn't really a great idea of the final product. Top of forum is rounded now also (only doing the rounding because some people said that the forums look too 'square').

EDIT: Updated the picture. Probably is going to take a moment to load as I didn't optimize it...but it gives a good idea of where the skin is at. Any ideas on how to make it better would be wonderful as always (yes, I know it's missing a logo and the quick link bar at the top with ACW SITE, etc.).

EDIT2: Added some dithering to the category backgrounds.

[BK London]

I've always secretly hated those Warfare/Meltdown logos. >_>

[VorteX]

Alright, I am going to temporarily halt work on this until more input is provided. The main issue with this skin is that it changes the way the forum looks so it will have to replace what we have now and then be re-skinned for those few skins that get used (Red Zone, AquaJet, etc.). You could take the rounding away but then we look like every other pro-boards board in existence.

EDIT: I know I said I was going to stop...but I had to finish out what is present, so I added a border around the whole outside of the forum and some more dithering.

EDIT2: ...and I changed the gradient so it isn't so glaring with the rest of the colors >_>.

[BK London]

I think we should use more vibrant colors.

[VorteX]

Updated image on page 2 again (now with even less color! (sorry BK)). I had to choose a white instead of a red for the links as they appear on multiple pages (this already required a javascript hack to do), but this sort of brings it closer to the Red Zone skin.

[Jason Freeman]

The thing is, that it looks kinda bland. I mean it's alright but I just dont feel the same...I dunno...its hard to explain. There's just something about it that seems..."distant"? That doesnt make sense but yeah <_<

I again say MAKE RED ZONE DEFAULT. IT MATCHES THE SITE <_<

[VorteX]

I could be wrong but I think the 'bland' you are referring to is that there is not a whole lot of color. I made it monochrome for readability...although if it is red gradients and bars you guys are after (much like Red Zone) I can try to adapt to that.

EDIT: I replaced the gradients with Red ones. I could replace some of the dithered bars, although that would require a bit more work.

[Jason Freeman]

Its a little better but still too grey for me, and I dont like the background. I think a solid color background (like Red Zone's dark grey) is better. Id be better help if I could vocalize why I like the current look (with Red Zone) better than that one, but I dunno. Its just a totally different style. I guess its just not my preference, thats all

[VorteX]

It is pretty important to vocalize now though. If something like this were to get implemented it would be a pretty radical change (it's a smaller forum size, etc.). So there needs to be lots of input even if it's 'I think it's great / terrible for <reason>'.

[Jason Freeman]

Its just I dont know how to describe why I dont like it. Its not bad, like, for what it is, I just dont like what it is. I really dont think we need the change. Im not trying to slam your work or anything, though I guess thats what Im doing so Im sorry, but I just dont like it, and since it would be a huge change, I will say that I really really dont want to implement that.

[BK London]

Freeman just wants Red Zone, or a better version of Red Zone.

[VorteX]

I gathered that =p. Even if this thing doesn't get implemented, it still gives me a bit of a refresher on web stuff, which I always enjoy. Anyway, this skin was more to target those who say that the forum is too 'old-school' looking and that we need some way to catch a user's attention. I looked at various 'popular' feds and mixed some of the stuff they had in and then added rounded corners which I hadn't seen on any of them. The biggest thing I noticed on almost all of them was that the forum is much smaller in width than ours, so I rolled that in also.

The colors are almost Red Zone, however I replaced them with less glaring alternatives (black is now gray, red is reddish-orange) in order to improve readability for those who may have high-contrast monitors. It would not be so hard to copy what is there over here, what would be more of a challenge is adding back the skins we have, as there are some custom images that would need to be re-colored.

Anyway, the skin is pretty much done now. There are readability issues with the Google ad thing at the bottom, however that's pretty minor and can be fixed at a later time. Also, the ACW site logo--while looking good on the site--looks bad on the forum, and some sort of banner would need to be constructed.

Anyway, I'm done rambling =).

EDIT: For all you Red Zone fans:

[BK London]

Burnt Orange & Red don't really go that well together. >_>