I don't know what I'm walking into, here--whether somebody really, simply posted that "your site sucks;" or whether they gave an extensive, literate, intelligible putdown; or whether many people said it; or whether one out of twenty-five said it was bad. But I'll take a jab at the job of a light site review.
It looks generally good, but all the hotlinks are in one section, and you have to scroll down past them to read content--very annoying.
I find the muddy color of your News font a problem. It's hard to read.
Onto the preview-- With respect, the failure of Menzoberranzen, etc, was the opposite of what you suggest: there was *no* real change in the genre. Adding realtime (in some other products), or upping the graphics, did not truly make for a more non-linear world, or in-depth characters, or add to the sub-gaming systems.
Ultima VII and VIIb, be it noted, were CRPGs that sold very well, but Garriott had already decided by the time of their release that first person action shooters were the wave of the future. You left out Origin Systems in discussing your history. You also left out Sir-tech (with ostensibly the oldest CRPG series in existence, Wizardry), and New World Computing (with the third oldest series, Might & Magic), both of which were doing quite well.
Sierra didn't do any standalone CRPGs.
Past the history, you certainly provide a good deal of material about the game, though much of the "rote" stuff (creating a character, etc) has the feel of coming out of the manual. I would suggest getting a proofreader; there were a number of grammatical errors. Very useful hotlinks! I did feel that I wanted a more discriminating evaluation of the product, and less of a love for everything done in the product: "What more can I say but this game is a must for any one out there that enjoys a good CRPG and / or the D&D setting and all that comes with it." Understandably, it's a preview, but I prefer either more critical evaluation, or a complete absence of bias when reading/writing a preview.
I'd say you've got a promising website, and that you've put a lot of work into your efforts. I wish you the best with it, in the future.
[This message has been edited by fable (edited 03-22-2001).]
