http://www.acornrack.com/nih/
The next site on the list is Nihilum, a Post-Apocalypse RP. Of course the draw for this site is the human psychology of what people do in dire times of need, and how other people react to what is the new set of arbitrary rules now that society has been changed. And this is what this site feeds off of, the human condition.
The AD essentially says what I just did, however in more "story-ish" words. Also a note for this site is that everything is done in roleplay, there isn't any pre-planning or discussion which is another draw for this site. Also I look forward to having my rating posted on the AD under ticklebear's :) Now... onto the review!
First Impression:
A nice and compact layout. Reminds me of like a newspaper somewhat, I'm not sure if that's what they were going for but anyway I like it. IC and OOC news are both present on the front page which I also like, there is no need to login to see what's new within the site unless there is a particular news article you want to read. One minor thing here, as you navigate the pages if at any point you want to head back to the index page you're going to have to edit the URL or use that back button because I found no link. When you're logged in, you have the links at the bottom of the picture, however those just browsing are out of luck.
The Public/Private Area:
Aside from the normal member things, Forums, memberlist etc. These two are one and the same so therefore I am knocking out two birds with one stone here. (Jello cups for giving me less work. Hey, I'm The Jello Emperor here, not Bonnie Brownie.)
The About Nihilum page gives a good sense of what the site is about if you didn't bother reading the whole AD, once again repeating the finer points of the site.
The Basic Plot page is just that, sticking true to the "back to the basics" approach the site takes. It tells you what happened and it's your job to do the rest.
The Apocalypse page gives you further detail on how the setting came to be and how generally people reacted. (For those of you keeping score, I still have no complaints at this point.)
The Setting page obviously tells you where you're at, I'd like to point out at this point I like how they divided up the information into small sizeable bites instead of creating one giant page and going: Alright here's all the info... now go read it and understand.
I'm skipping now to the FAQ page because I don't have anything to comment up to till this point. Generally the page is fine except for one thing in particular, "fo srsly". Up until this point I had the image of a professional site, taking everything back down to square one to revive the roots of the glory of RPing and then I get hit with that.
Now even though you tell your members to stop nitpicking, this is my job, (okay, not really my job, but a hobby I invest time in) and I've always been a fan of having the FAQ after the Rules page. Because I generally find that questions stem from after reading the Rules and the next place they visit should hopefully answer them.
Random Events, I quite like this idea it gives a sense of spontaneity of any RP in which things can go from one mind set to another. However, I would have personally liked it if users were only allowed to decline and know beforehand of a Red event. Up to orange the Random Event account would just simply post their event and they would have to react accordingly, a more truer random event as it were. People will cater their posts if they know something is going to happen to their character towards a safer RP route.
Example with a Rabid Dog case:
Sue and John are talking while walking inside a building and the random event person shows up for an orange event. They post both accepting but they've now moved their conversation into a hallway with rooms with lockable doors. So now all they need is to run into said room and lock it and boom, safe from event.
The Application:
I love the collapsible applications, and also the two part personality things. A nice innovation on the simple application here.
Forums:
10 IC forums (with nice descriptions), however in this particular case the amount of forums work well because it's one singular city and doesn't make the forums page long enough that I have to play my old record of the scroll bar suffering. There are also hotlinks to the OOC and IC sections. I question the IC section hotlink and there is no "Back to Top" link from OOC but I suppose people can just hit the "Home" button.
Other:
The Member list is a simple list of info, and I have no particular problem with it. Members profiles are nicely filled out in Nihilum's particular style and I also want to point out that while the history can be filled out it is only seen by you. The reason for it is given in the FAQ section and you'll just have to go and meander over there to find out what it is.
Roleplaying:
The roleplaying on this site I categorize as Intermediate to Advanced.
Rating: 7.8 out of 10 Points.
Overall a very nice site, things are well organized and the seamless transition so that a public and private layout is essentially non-existent is also nice. Though this site is very nice, it seems to lack a certain something that I can only describe as a community spirit. The OOC posts don't feel like a sufficient amount of contact with people out of character, and it sort of gives the site a melancholy feel.
Reviewed by: The Jello Emperor
The next site on the list is Nihilum, a Post-Apocalypse RP. Of course the draw for this site is the human psychology of what people do in dire times of need, and how other people react to what is the new set of arbitrary rules now that society has been changed. And this is what this site feeds off of, the human condition.
The AD essentially says what I just did, however in more "story-ish" words. Also a note for this site is that everything is done in roleplay, there isn't any pre-planning or discussion which is another draw for this site. Also I look forward to having my rating posted on the AD under ticklebear's :) Now... onto the review!
First Impression:
A nice and compact layout. Reminds me of like a newspaper somewhat, I'm not sure if that's what they were going for but anyway I like it. IC and OOC news are both present on the front page which I also like, there is no need to login to see what's new within the site unless there is a particular news article you want to read. One minor thing here, as you navigate the pages if at any point you want to head back to the index page you're going to have to edit the URL or use that back button because I found no link. When you're logged in, you have the links at the bottom of the picture, however those just browsing are out of luck.
The Public/Private Area:
Aside from the normal member things, Forums, memberlist etc. These two are one and the same so therefore I am knocking out two birds with one stone here. (Jello cups for giving me less work. Hey, I'm The Jello Emperor here, not Bonnie Brownie.)
The About Nihilum page gives a good sense of what the site is about if you didn't bother reading the whole AD, once again repeating the finer points of the site.
The Basic Plot page is just that, sticking true to the "back to the basics" approach the site takes. It tells you what happened and it's your job to do the rest.
The Apocalypse page gives you further detail on how the setting came to be and how generally people reacted. (For those of you keeping score, I still have no complaints at this point.)
The Setting page obviously tells you where you're at, I'd like to point out at this point I like how they divided up the information into small sizeable bites instead of creating one giant page and going: Alright here's all the info... now go read it and understand.
I'm skipping now to the FAQ page because I don't have anything to comment up to till this point. Generally the page is fine except for one thing in particular, "fo srsly". Up until this point I had the image of a professional site, taking everything back down to square one to revive the roots of the glory of RPing and then I get hit with that.
Now even though you tell your members to stop nitpicking, this is my job, (okay, not really my job, but a hobby I invest time in) and I've always been a fan of having the FAQ after the Rules page. Because I generally find that questions stem from after reading the Rules and the next place they visit should hopefully answer them.
Random Events, I quite like this idea it gives a sense of spontaneity of any RP in which things can go from one mind set to another. However, I would have personally liked it if users were only allowed to decline and know beforehand of a Red event. Up to orange the Random Event account would just simply post their event and they would have to react accordingly, a more truer random event as it were. People will cater their posts if they know something is going to happen to their character towards a safer RP route.
Example with a Rabid Dog case:
Sue and John are talking while walking inside a building and the random event person shows up for an orange event. They post both accepting but they've now moved their conversation into a hallway with rooms with lockable doors. So now all they need is to run into said room and lock it and boom, safe from event.
The Application:
I love the collapsible applications, and also the two part personality things. A nice innovation on the simple application here.
Forums:
10 IC forums (with nice descriptions), however in this particular case the amount of forums work well because it's one singular city and doesn't make the forums page long enough that I have to play my old record of the scroll bar suffering. There are also hotlinks to the OOC and IC sections. I question the IC section hotlink and there is no "Back to Top" link from OOC but I suppose people can just hit the "Home" button.
Other:
The Member list is a simple list of info, and I have no particular problem with it. Members profiles are nicely filled out in Nihilum's particular style and I also want to point out that while the history can be filled out it is only seen by you. The reason for it is given in the FAQ section and you'll just have to go and meander over there to find out what it is.
Roleplaying:
The roleplaying on this site I categorize as Intermediate to Advanced.
Rating: 7.8 out of 10 Points.
Overall a very nice site, things are well organized and the seamless transition so that a public and private layout is essentially non-existent is also nice. Though this site is very nice, it seems to lack a certain something that I can only describe as a community spirit. The OOC posts don't feel like a sufficient amount of contact with people out of character, and it sort of gives the site a melancholy feel.
Reviewed by: The Jello Emperor
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