The GHZ Forum

Sonic City - Official SoE Sonic site launches

Given the fervent popularity Sonic enjoys in Europe, it is somewhat surprising that the SoE website doesn’t have an area for the blue blur. The newly launched Sonic City aims to rectify this deficiency, but, at the moment, it is more of a desolate village than a bustling city, being sparse in both design and content.

Design wise, the website is structured around a simple blue-coloured 3D render of a city that bares no resemblance to the imaginative locations found in the Sonic universe.

The content consists of a single-sentence profile for each of the three upcoming Sonic games. The English language translation of the interview with Masato Nakamura, which first appeared on Sonic Central, has also been included.

Despite this minimalist approach, visitors will need to use a fairly advanced system to access the site, as it can only be comfortably browsed on a 1152x864 monitor resolution.


^ There’s not much to discover at the moment

SoE’s web efforts are often of a fairly good standard – Sega City, for example, contains several exclusive Sega interviews, while the original SoE website received an award for its design – so hopefully Sonic City will develop with future updates.

It's a friggin' pretzel.

Think of it as a holding page ;)

We wanted to get something up quickly for E3, see... Lots more in the works...

Rom wrote:Think of it as a holding page ;)

We wanted to get something up quickly for E3, see... Lots more in the works...

Here are a few friendly suggestions for future updates. ^_^

An official website works best when it contains items that fans cannot produce, or at least can’t produce easily. Therefore, the best forms of content include:
-- Interviews with the game creators
-- Galleries of concept artwork or game design documents
-- A collection of game manuals (especially of manuals of older games and Japanese manuals)
-- English language translations of Japanese content (e.g. the story and character content from the Japanese game manuals or Japanese websites, both of which differ greatly from their official English counterparts)
-- A collection of advertising and promotional materials (including television advertisements and photographs of merchandise), particularly for the older Sonic titles
-- Galleries of official artwork (particularly artwork that isn’t commonly available)
-- Scans of any other material Sega Europe uses in promoting and localising the Sonic games

Sonic Central is an example of a terrible official website because, other than the odd exclusive interview, most of its content (which is already fairly sparse) is identical to that found on fan websites.

Good luck with the site. ^_^

Thanks mate.

Very good suggestions - we'll certainly see what we can do

You're new, aren't ya?

Well, that was surprising.

Brazillian Cara wrote:You're new, aren't ya?

Rom



Joined: 13 Jun 2005
Posts: 2

Hmmmmm.

Yeah, I'm very new.

I work over at SOE on its websites - figured it was finally worth dipping my oar in, although I've been a leacher round here for a while

Wow, we have a guy on the inside. Do you get free stuff?

More importantly: can you get US free stuff?

Possibly even more important than that: Can you get ME free stuff?

It's hard enough getting ME free stuff

Stop avoiding the question!

Ok ok, sorry. So, what's the definition of free stuff? They give me a coffee break sometimes, that count?

Can you get me free coffee?

No, fraid not, but I can get you a free break.

Do you have any inside info about the games?

Well, yeah, plenty. However, I obviously can't start going on about stuff that's still under wraps. I'd lose my job, for starters. But anything that's already announced I can go on about ad infinitum, no probs.

But then, saying that, I probably won't. I like reading these forums cos they're interesting and funny, rather than being here as a hired SEGA evangelist.

If I can answer any questions, or help out with website assets etc (if possible), then I will though.

I was thinking t-shirts and stuff, mainly. YOU ARE USELESS TO ME.

Haha.

Yeah, I get the shirts. Tell you what, we're hopefully getting some more in soon. I could run a prize draw on here or something...

Just a thought.

I am suddenly in love with you.

Don't think any of them are pink though, sorry.

Rom wrote:Haha.

Yeah, I get the shirts. Tell you what, we're hopefully getting some more in soon. I could run a prize draw on here or something...

Just a thought.

Wow, you're like Big_Smile's good twin.

Also, if there are any shirts in pink, sign me up too as one can never have too many pink shirts if they currently own less than 2.

That's me all over.