C0rtexReaver on 30/1/2008 at 22:14
Quote Posted by demagogue
I was thinking you guys should set it up like a spoof Corporate website for Trioptimum. It's what one would expect it to be, anyway ... and there are traditional fansites now.
That's actually the exact vision that I've always had for it.
-CR
demagogue on 31/1/2008 at 03:50
Quote Posted by William Dojinn
Just give me something to work with as a design for them to follow, colors used, iconography, ect.
Well, let's think about it logically. I'd think generally ... the kind of real-world company that comes closest is a Japanese (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaibatsu) Zaibatsu, "megacorporation" that literally does a little of everything ... seriously; the West really doesn't have anything as outrageously multifaceted as these (they're also is the kind of companies that you could imagine developing a SHODAN system).
And of those, the big 3 industrial ones are (
http://www.sumitomo.gr.jp/english/index.html) Sumitomo, (
http://www.mitsubishi.com/e/index.html) Mitsubishi, and (
http://www.mitsui.co.jp//en/) Mutsui
Just looking at those by sight, Mitsui is the one that seems in the neighborhood of what we're looking for, as far as organization and outlay and having a futuristic edge (although elements of Sumitomo's have potential, if you used it with the right motif). It is worth pointing out, BTW, that Mitsubishi literally means Three-Arrows (TriArrow), and its insignia has the whole three-pronged similarity thing going for it; I wouldn't be surprised if Mitsubishi weren't part of the inspiration. (Although, for that matter, Mitsui means Three-Springs (like wells).)
From that point, I'd think you'd want to get a general motif primarily from the game and also polished scifi elements (e.g., see what kinds of colors and motifs sites like (
http://www.scifi.co.uk/whatson/home.asp) Scifi channel use, etc ... ugh not that page design, though...). I'll think about it some more. Probably good to just get all the game assets and a bunch of polished scifi assets and colors and motifs in front of you and absorb all of it, and just work off that, with something like the Mitsui site as a rough roadmap.
I'm thinking: First change that top Mitsui design to something a little more space-y (maybe a star-map instead of a globe map, some space and a nebula in the background, maybe a ship?, and along with the people silhouettes add a few robots, aliens and a mutant-monkey thrown in, etc), maybe the background from white to something more like a faded gray (or a scifi purple or green?), but maybe better to keep it white to keep the corporate flavor?, try it a few ways and see what looks good... The way the links and boxes look already fits pretty well.
Then naturally you'd also adapt all the information to be tailored to TriOptimum ... space vehicles instead of cars, inter-planetary development and shipping, asteroid-mining, biotech, etc ... Update the news to things dated 200 years in the future with appropriately scifi sort of news. Change regional offices to interstellar system offices ... Vega-system, Solaris-system, etc... And a lot of the sub-pages work out well, a Corporate info and FAQ page, a little page for each business venture with a photo and funny description. And don't forget links to the email and some important fan-sites somewhere in there too! (Maybe a TriOptimum employee's page for stuff like that).
William Dojinn on 31/1/2008 at 14:47
I could see in-game assets being used where appropriate(the elevator deck labels, the main screen for the logo, ect). In fact you could easily look at the main screen for the game for the layout, save that you'd ahve to add a bit more here and there in way of button coloring and the like so it wouldn't blend in(as the buttons would be far far smaller).
Site Sections I could see divided out as follows:
Select Region:
Choices would be the different regions of earth(including orbital space stations) that triop has a good footing on, remember if we set this between shock1 and 2 triop was almost completely smashed as a legetimate business due to the SHODAN thing. Byond earth there'd be the Martian Colonies, the Asteroid belt, Your guess on what would be around jupiter due to the radiation though the unn DOEs somehow have a base on io, so I guess its not out of the question), Saturn(mining for ore and the like off the moons, if not just outright raping triton for rescources). Can't see there being much byond that unless ther'es research or helium mining on Uranus but atsome point you have to say enough.
Select Service:
The main branching would be Science, Millitary, and Consumer products with each branch having its own product lists. Use your imagination here, but given the drones and other stuff you see scattered around both shock games, one could easily imagain product lines centered around drone laboroers, home replicators(that need monthly servicing....so they can collect the nanites the thing siphons off that arn't needed to create what you want), Prefab housing, implants(surely there's got to be different implants that are in common use), cybermodules and learning stations for those implants(would be prohibitivly expensive for home use, well, most homes), just look at the help tags for the stuff you can pick up and or frob(or check the crf files for the help text) for ideas here.
About us:
Bit of a show-pony version of triop's history with an overdose of positive pr spin going on. You know, since every company has this kindof self-indulgent section.
Our People:
Testimonials from 'random' workers
And basicly whatever. I'm fairly sure there's other, better ideas floating around but I just felt like tossing my two bits in.
C0rtexReaver on 31/1/2008 at 14:53
This all sounds great. . . Apache2/php5/mysql5. >=]
-CR
William Dojinn on 1/2/2008 at 02:16
The problem is I've heard nothing from any of my web-creation saavy friends and I haven't the skills byond basic html for much of anything. Sure i guess it COULD be done in a wysiwyg editor(forget the name of it but there was supposed to be a really gone one tht was cross-platform), but that tends to add needless bloat.
The Magpie on 1/2/2008 at 13:00
Quote Posted by William Dojinn
but that tends to add needless bloat.
Well, it's not like corporate websites tend to give a damn about that. And I don't know if trioptimum.com is in any kind of hurry to go live?
My first hunch was to do the site in Flash, but there are of course several reasons why that's not really a good idea for this kind of site.
I'm not sure if one should set this in the period between SS1/2 or in OUR "present". I'd personally like to see the projects and visions that would
become the TriOp of SS1,
as it would appear today, in its infantile, larvae-like state.
In short, I'd like to keep the Martian colonies and nebulae out of it. Plans for settling Luna would be slightly more appropriate, but IMO TriOp would focus on gaining power here at home on Earth. Interstellar trade routes? Sorry. (Besides, FTL isn't gained until SS2.)
I believe they'd invest in rentacops/security companies, and the weapons industry for the Military branch. Consumer needs would be catered to by manufacturing goods like bottled water, mobile tech, electronic displaying techs (more than LCD/plasma), intelligent toys, GM foods and tobacco, and snacks, for instance. And quite a bit about research, which is probably where most of the science fiction references would be found.
I'd say there would always be a little... sense that these guys are kicking it up a notch. That their military products and services in particular actually take things a bit further than anyone else's. Particularly regarding ethical constraints. Maybe they flaunt some truly atrocious weapons, maybe they gleefully sell contraband to both sides of any conflict, maybe they actively lobby to get nations to disregard the Geneva convention...
Perhaps likewise, one could make the consumer branch focus on... let's say addictive products. For instance.
I'd like such a spoof site to be able to fool any casual websurfer at first glance, and astonish them for a few minutes. Maybe some crackpots would be spurred into writing emails. Heh, just think of the job openings page. One could create some truly outrageous stuff there.
(I got the idea from a promo site put up a few years ago by the Norwegian metal band Cadaver, Inc. It was a corporate site advertising the company's services and products - namely disposal of human remains. Possibly involvement with making said remains, too. Nicely done, and apparently able to fool quite a few people.)
--
Larris
William Dojinn on 1/2/2008 at 15:05
Interesting ideas. the thing is, about the food, EVERYTHING is created via nanites, at least for your base consumer group. there's probably real food out there, grown, processed, ect ect, but it'd probably only be for the ultra-ritch or as an occasional treat.
Edit:
THOU SHALT NOT USE FLASH!
I know that seems to be a trend going on, but no...just bloody NO, say no to flash. Its annoying, it really offers nothing, and if you find something on a page you like, you can't save it to disk without figuring out where a good flash decompiler is.
demagogue on 1/2/2008 at 18:45
I was thinking the page should be after the events of SS2, the successor company after the sh*t hit the fan in both games, cleaning up the mess ... Then you can have references to both games (it can cover all the canon that exists), trying to assure consumers and investors that things are in "much better shape now."
Like, I imagine a message from the CEO trying to reassure investors ... I realize the rumors that my predecessor may have brought a hostile alien lifeform onto our flag-cargoship and was later himself corrupted and metamorphised into a large-headed, floating psi-reaver guarding the lifeform's brain inside its body (a full investigation is underway) ... But I can assure our consumers and investors, whatever the facts of these unfortunate recent events, we now have added quality assurance checks to prevent such alleged lapses in the future. [then a short, absurd list like ... - Ship AI have been provided with a new "smart firewall" to prevent xenogenous infiltration; etc...]
Re: an early TriOp site ... Of course, like all these big corporate sites, there's always a corporate history section where the history of the company is outlined. I think that's a good place to write-out the story of TriOptimum in its early years (our present day), and how it got started and grew over time ... in fact, it's probably a better way to tell that story than in an actual "present-day" site, IMO.
I guess the main point, though, is that if it's after SS2, then there are no limits to what can get referenced in the site. Everything that exists in the canon in both games can have a place ... and when there's only a finite amount of information we have on TriOp, it's good not to limit one's self to what you can use.
cosmicnut on 4/2/2008 at 14:31
I would use a time frame after the launch of the VB, that way you could have some fun with all the "broken" stuff on the ship as well as having articles like
"After the disapearence of the VB, Chairman xxxx tells us the latest theories on what happened"
as well as
"On the aniversery of the deaths at citadel station, AI reseracher yyyyy tells us why it could never happen again and his hope for future AI development and his plans for the SHODAN mk2 unit"
Semt-X on 20/2/2008 at 16:24
I hope I'm not going off-topic too much by using this thread to thank you for your awesome email service. It's the only email service I regularly use, and I'm very sorry to hear that it seems some people abuse your goodwill by asking for an account just to 'have' one, instead of actually using it.
Again, thank you very much, I hope this service will last for a long time to come.
Lava Croft (lava dot croft at trioptimum dot com)
