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Pokemon Express

P

PokemonExpress

New member
Hey Everyone! A member of ours told me it would be a good idea to start with Dragonflies to advertise about our site so here I am!

Pokemon Express just started up about 1.5 months ago and since then I've been beefing it up and adding content. We're still working on our pokedex so please bear with us when it comes to that. However, we do have a lot to offer and new stuff is being added everyday. Pokemon Express has a classifieds section with eBay like traders scores so you know who you're dealing with, we've got an arcade with a little over 100 games so you can kill time when you're bored, we've got a nifty chatbox with multiple chat rooms, we've got a theater room with the 1st season of Pokemon on it with new episodes added daily and, something that is extremely addicting, we've got Pokemon Triple Triad (a card game where you collect and buy Pokemon decks and then battle bosses or each other.

On top of that, we're running a referral contest. Become a member and be the first to get 50 active referrals and you can win a DSi! If you're the first to 100 and noone hits 50 after you already have, then you have a chance to win a 3DS! We've got more details on the site when you sign up.

So, give us a shot, help our community grow and have fun on our site. Visit www.thepokemonexpress.com !!!
 
I noticed we've got quite a few views but no responses. I'd really love to get some feedback on the site too! What we could do better, anything else we can add. Even if it plain sucks, let me know (just give me a more detailed crititque so I can make it less sucky).
 
firstly: bumping your own thread because nobody's replied is less likely to get people to respond and more likely to get people to ignore you. tcodf is not a fast or large forum, and if people aren't interested, bumping will not interest them.

secondly: why do you have a pokedex up that is a) unfinished and b) seemingly inferior to veekun, bulbapedia and serebii? if you want people to be interested or use your pokedex, you've got pretty big shoes to fill; most people generally use one or a combination of those three, so your pokedex should be at least as good as those if you want it to be used. Why would I use your pokedex when I am already spoiled for choice with three very good ones?

in fact, why do you even have it on the website if it's unfinished? people are only going to click the link, wanting to compare it to veekun or somesuch and be greeted with 'there is no content in this section', so. There's not much point having one up if it's empty.

actually, I've just found a few pages (like this one) and it... just seems like you're copying information from other pokedexes. You've also separated pokemon by games for some reason - why? you can get the same pokemon in say, blue as you can red? I don't understand why you've sorted it this way - did you mean to sort them by generation? In any case, you've only listed the moveset for bulbasaur without saying which game you're referring to - bulbasaur learns different moves in blue than it does in white, for example. It also looks like you're making individual blog-type posts for each pokemon which is... really the wrong way to go about it. good online pokedexes are made with a huge amount of programming and stuff; they are not created with hundreds of little pages that someone's just typed all the information into.

but, you've said that you're working on it, so I digress.

thirdly: what exactly is supposed to be bought/sold in the classifieds section? Is it with real money? ... why does a pokemon site need a classifieds section? It would make sense if people were buying/trading pokemon cards, games or merchandise (or something), but I actually can't find the classifieds section, nor anything about it at all.

fourthly: are you legally allowed to publicly steam/post pokemon anime episodes and movies? I'm pretty sure nintendo frowns upon people distributing their material for free and would see it as a breach of copyright law, so you... might want to look into that. you really don't want nintendo after you.

fifthly: running a referral contest for a website that isn't complete is pointless, because I actually don't understand what this site is for. as a guest, I can't view more than half of the website because I'm not registered - but I can't find any reason to register because I'm not exactly sure what I'm supposed to do here. Your FAQ section gives me information about VBulletin, not your website. Why would I waste time giving this place my email address when I don't even have a reason to join it in the first place? You need to show some content, otherwise people are just going to shrug and click back on their browser.
Also: the other half of the website can't be viewed because it either has no content or is 'down for functionality testing'.

Also, running a referral contest at all in 2011 tends to make you look really shady. Where are you getting the money to give a 3DS/DSi to someone? Because as far as I can tell, you're not making any money from this website. o.o

sixthly: the graphics, layout and so on seem to be okay, but considering there isn't much viewable content I'm not sure I can evaluate it properly. The styles are okay, I suppose, but they don't really deviate at all aside from changing the colour of the links, border and header.

seventh: while the triple triad looks like a cool idea, there are actually several triple triad games already online. still! adding a pokemon twist to it might encourage a niche following, so good luck with that. It'd be nice if I could actually get a look at it without registering, though.

So... yeah. I can't really give much feedback for a website I can't view or isn't finished. I get the impression you have a lot of big ideas for this website but you're not exactly sure how to execute them. It looks promising, but I would really work on it a lot more before opening it to the public. In short, I don't really see much reason to join because I don't know anything about this website. There's not even an 'About Us' page or something to refer to. Might want to look into that!
 
Ultraviolet,

I really appreciate the response although it was a tough critique to swallow but I appreciate it nonetheless. I'll try to respond to each of your points and hopefully answer them to a point.

1. Bumping: I only really bumped it because I truly do want feedback such as yours. Our site only has a few active members (that came with me from another site) so their feedback was biased and wasn't helping me better the site. Unfortunately, this is the only site that I can find that allows advertising another site which is why I posted here. I truly do need some unbiased feedback.

2. Pokedex: I started that Pokedex with good intentions and a few members began creating some entries but a one man operation is no match for sites such as those you mentioned. I've resigned myself to most likely taking the Pokedex out and instead providing links to the three big ones. You're right about having a half-@ssed Pokedex....more of a detractor than anything else.

3. Classifieds: The classifieds section is for members to post stuff that they want to buy/sell/trade amongst themselves. I'm not sure why you couldn't find the classifieds section because it's right in the forums for everyone, including guests, to view. I've also posted rules as to how the classifieds section would work: http://www.thepokemonexpress.com/showthread.php?t=111. Please let me know if you still can't see it.

4. Videos: This was actually quite iffy for me too. I've seen some other sites out there with streams to videos so I figured I could try it too. I don't own or host any of the videos, I'm merely providing streams to videos people have already posted on Youtube, Megavideo, Dailymotion and such. In fact, I believe Pokemonepisode.org has all the seasons and videos posted on their site (something which I was trying to mimic). With that being said, finding all these streams is another huge undertaking (took me three days just to find all the 1st season). I think I might go more towards individually made Pokemon videos (I've seen some Pokemon comedy videos on Youtube that may be fun to stream).

5. Referral Contest: This is actually a threefold critique. 1) Guest viewing: This is my fault completely. I keep on making minor adjustments to the site without keeping unregistered users in mind. As such, I forgot to enable viewing of content for guests. I'm not sure when you last visited the site but I believe I have now enabled all content on the site to be viewed by guests. 2) Referral contest: This is more an incentive for my already existing members to help me spread the word. Again, with very few places allowing me to advertise and me being new to this whole website owner thing, I'm finding it difficult to get the word out. So, I'm trying to get my new and existing members to be part of the advertising campaign. In regards to the 3ds, DSi, I'm not making any money from the site at all. I don't run advertisements or anything of the sort. I'm buying it out of my own pocket just like I spent the money to get the vBulletin license and such. Everything is of my own expense. I'm just hoping to provide a pleasurable experience to my members. I don't intend on making and money off of the site now or in the future. In my opinion, a community site is just that, for the community....not for the money. 3) What section was down for functionality testing? I know I don't have a hell of a lot of content but that comes with the territory of being new. I'm hoping by getting other members to the site, more content will be provided. We'll see how this pans out though. Maybe this is just a short-lived experiment.

6. Graphics: As I am running low on funds, I can't hire a professional style designer for the site. As such, I've had to take existing styles out there, use my mid-level design abilities, and modify portions of the styles myself. You're correct in the fact the styles don't deviate much except in colors. As time goes on, I'll continue to make adjustments to each individual one to make them more distinguishable.

7. Triple Triad: Actually, this is probably the only thing that is unique to our site and separates us from the rest. In fact, you may be right in that it becomes just a niche site with Pokemon Triple Triad being the main focus of the site and then the rest being a side function. I have just recently made Triple Triad available to guests as well (only viewing, not actually buying packs and playing). This is another thing where I forgot to actually add viewing for guests but it is fixed now. Guests can't play cause they have no forum dollars to purchase a pack but they can view all the cards (I've added the pokemon from all generations) and can watch existing or live matches against bosses. To get to it, you either go under the Gamer's Lounge Navtab or you can visit it by going to http://www.thepokemonexpress.com/tripletriad.php?do=database. Again, as a guest, you can only view the cards and battles going on.

As I said before, I really do appreciate the feedback. It means a lot to me no matter how critical it is. I don't know what I'm doing wrong if noone tells me so thank you for voicing your opinion. I will actually start to make some of the changes you pointed out in the near future. Please remember that I am a one man operation and I'm relatively new to this whole thing. I've been working on setting this whole site up but I obviously have some work to do. I've opened it to the public because I'm hoping by crowdsourcing some of the work (like providing content) will alleviate some of the work I have to do. I'm only one man with a full time job and doing this on the side so if I tried to do this on my own with no help at all, this site wouldn't go public for another two years :)

Anyway, thank you very much for everything and hopefully, one day, we provide enough content to entice you to become a member.

Thanks,

Bob
 
ThePokemonExpress is one of the nicest websites i've been to people wise, there is a lot that could be added to it and there will be a lot done to it in the future but it needs peoples recommendations to get there it has a very warm family feel and i love it there you can spend hours on Triple Triad, we are allvery close there and would love to add anybody to our family.

We need every bodies help to grow and expand whats happening on the forum.
 
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