-=Silencer=-

Keep a diary of what you're hitting, what's frustrating you, and your goals.
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Jazzkid
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Re: -=Silencer=-

Post by Jazzkid » 10 Nov 2015 06:40

As far as the swirling whirring swirl is concerned....
After extreme critiques of the execution, combined with my swirling abilities, I thought Holy shit !!!! And as far as someone saying it isn't clean..... I thought the exact same thing as you ...let them go try to hit the trick and see how they execute it. It's pretty ridiculous to expect a swirl that is one of four parts to look the exact same as if it was just by itself. Great job on that trick !
SHRED HARD!

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Re: -=Silencer=-

Post by C-Fan » 10 Nov 2015 11:45

Lycanthrope wrote:Also, I'd like to see someone hit a cleaner swirling whirring swirl before they try to criticize mine. Get on my level.
I've always been annoyed when people give advice on a trick they can't do, or comment on the relative difficulty of something they can't do (don't get me started on judging at major events). But judging a trick's cleanliness isn't contingent on being able to hit it. 2 summers ago I was working really hard to hit a clean nemesis, since I wasn't going to Worlds or USO and I wanted an HD video of me hitting my hardest stuff. That whole summer I'd film nemesis attempts, and show them to a handful of shredders (4) on Facebook to see if they thought I was getting them clean. Two of the players have never hit nemesis, but I trusted their eyes to let me know if I made my goal or not. Maybe the difference here is unsolicited criticism vs. requested feedback.

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Re: -=Silencer=-

Post by Nathan » 10 Nov 2015 17:24

It's definitely lame when certain players comment on the Facebook group once a year, and that one comment is, "the." especially when it's along the lines of.. "that [groundbreaking trick that's never been hit by anyone else] is 'the'." I'm not the most active or biggest "fan" the sport has by any means, but when I do check out a video I try to be constructive. I only call out cleanliness if the player asks about the execution.

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Re: -=Silencer=-

Post by Lycanthrope » 10 Nov 2015 18:21

So what gives a person the right to judge a footbag trick if not skill level, ken? I remember when Dat Phan was giving Jorden Moir advice at SJFF and Jorden was eating it up like it means something. Not to bash on Dat, but I feel that he had no right to give Moir advice. That said, I can rely on Ianek to give me advice sometimes because he can see things that other people don't even though he is not on my level. Perhaps he is an exception..

I appreciate the attention, but the scrutiny of the spotlight gets so old so quickly. I'm glad I'm not a superstar in a 'real sport' minus the money thing... It's not like I'm competing to do that trick... it's that I'm the only player ever to do it with nobody else even on the radar of accomplishing it. I don't mean to be negative. I hope you guys understand where I'm coming from... push myself to the physical and mental limits just do have whiney bitch trolls who contribute nothing cry about the smallest things.

Thanks for the posts. It makes me feel slightly less alone in my new life.
Evan 'OP' Gatesman

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F[uns]tylin' Eclectic
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Re: -=Silencer=-

Post by F[uns]tylin' Eclectic » 30 Nov 2015 09:28

Evan, you're the man.

Don't give a shit about what someone else said. Do you think it's a cool trick? Then do it. Who cares if it's the? (it wasn't). Even if it was, it's a Swirling Whirling Swirl, which is more than a lot of people can even touch. In my eyes, you're the king of trick selection and style. Just know that.

Really stoked to kick with you and *gulp* compete against you at NYJ. Hope that comment about the Swirling Whirring Swirl didn't get you down too much. Chin up, dude. You're Evan Gatesman.
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Re: -=Silencer=-

Post by Lycanthrope » 30 Nov 2015 12:22

Yeah, there haven't been many responses to that. Anyway, I'm over it. I try not to let the haters get to me, but it's hard sometimes. Anyway, we have a lot of work to do, so let's get to it. :)
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Re: -=Silencer=-

Post by F[uns]tylin' Eclectic » 01 Dec 2015 11:35

Amen! I've been thinking about drills at work all day. Never been more motivated to keep pushing. Thanks for pushing me with that message and inspiring me to try to reach my ultimate goal.
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Re: -=Silencer=-

Post by Lycanthrope » 02 Dec 2015 19:15

I've been thinking about the website for a couple days straight now. I have been doing the best I can with my limited resources and knowledge of websites, wordpress, and ecommerce. I would really like some help with the site in the form of criticism, advice, or anything else the community has to offer.

I'm in the process of working on the social media aspect and pretty much all other aspects at the same time. Let me know what you think. =)
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Re: -=Silencer=-

Post by F[uns]tylin' Eclectic » 02 Dec 2015 22:06

Some ideas for Freedom:

-In the intro, when talking about the new generation of players, you could outright day "be a part of it with us" or "we invite you to join us in our new generation..." Great intro though. I also like "building friendships since 2002".

-Another idea for front page: Since we Live in a video oriented world, maybe you and Nick could film yourselves giving a short intro to the sport. Joke around a bit in the video too, so new players can see that, aside from being footbag beasts, you're also just regular people, like them. Being relatable is important for advertising. In the video, you could have you and Nick pointing to areas above, to the sides, and below you, which you can later edit in as links to the Facebook group, modified, footbag.org (for the event page), etc... I think it's important that people see it's more than just hackybags and that there's a really cool social aspect to the sport.

-Future idea: I've always thought that we lost a huge part of the footbag hype when flipsider went down. It would be great if we could eventually get a move vault page on freedomfootbags.com, so once the player gets his or her bag from you guys, they can click a link on the same website and start learning immediately. This would also draw more attention to your site. I know you guys are going to be madd busy with everything, so I would not mind one bit if you dumped that project on me, if you like the idea. It just pisses me off that new players have to sift through random youtube videos, in no organised order, to learn a few tricks. Such an inconvenienc and it makes our sport look unofficial/unprofessional.

-Shoes: I thought freedom was the shit when I found out they sold OFFICIAL footbag shoes. To me, that was like, yeah these guys know their shit. Are there plans to sell Quantums on Freedom when they're released ?


Alright, Nick. Time to shut up lol

Sorry for the jumble of junk. Hope you liked some of my ideas. Keep what you like, toss what you don't. Promoting this sort has always been a big priority in my book.
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Re: -=Silencer=-

Post by Lycanthrope » 03 Dec 2015 00:57

Thanks for your quick response, Nick. I do like the idea of engaging the audience more and being relatable. We definitely have our work cut out for us.

About the Flipsider thing, I feel like a couple solid youtube channels would solve that issue, but the truth is that flipsider was just pre-youtube. I don't think it makes sense to have it nowadays.

There aren't plans to sell the new quantums yet, as I want to test them before I invest in something as upscale as footbag shoes, but there is money to be made there for sure, and North America will need a solid distributor for the new shoes if they are of good quality this time around.

Thanks for the ideas. I have a lot of my own. I think we will start reaching out with a facebook shop page as well as some more instagram posts. I've changed my personal page to Freedom_Footbags already so that we won't start with zero people on there. I think it's okay to do since I represent footbag already anyhow.

Let me know if you have anything else for me in the future, Nick. I always appreciate your input! =D
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Re: -=Silencer=-

Post by h0ag3yb3atZ » 03 Dec 2015 08:07

keeping in mind the site is brand new but looking threw jaded design goggles:


I would: <shut the fuck up because i'm not a web designer 8) >

You want to establish a consistent look that’s instantly recognizable, using uniform colors, fonts and even the style of photos and page furniture on each tab. Create a feel that’s not only clean, sexy and modern but easy for users to navigate and is a true representation of how dope our sport can be, I’d look at what you have so far and ask yourself if the feel of the site truly visually reflects the caliber we all hold footbag to.

also i think the logo looks like shit on that awful purple color, not really much to add to that sentiment.

I’m still pretty one sided with wordpress but I’d be willing to put some time in to help you make the site look better…even just a few font changes and maybe knocking out the logo on that <awful> purple header would make it look a hair hotter.

I hope you take that as professional critiques vs dickhead hoagbeat elitism. Always create for your audience and don’t be afraid to look at your work threw the goggles of some random hacky propsect who thinks we’re lame because our site looks juvenile (people judge everything whether we like it or not and reach those conclusions quickly, i want to help you blow minds when people hit that landing page vs go check out that hot looking freestyle soccer site or something ;) )


<removes dickhead designer glasses, takes off skinny jeans and dumps out chai latte and turns down jazz for a moment>

With that said will definetly be buying a bag off you’s soon. glad your out of vegas and stoked on life, sad we won’t be hanging out on new years, I really lucked out on the amount of Gateman hangouts this year.


Thanks for considering what I have to say Ev, lets talk soon ;)
Last edited by h0ag3yb3atZ on 03 Dec 2015 12:12, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: -=Silencer=-

Post by Lycanthrope » 03 Dec 2015 09:36

Ask and you shall receive. Lol.

Thanks, kev. I said I was only using Wordpress for two days. I guess I got straight to that fourth grade level though :)

Well, guess you're never getting into bap. Bahaha :twisted:
Last edited by Lycanthrope on 03 Dec 2015 10:59, edited 1 time in total.
Evan 'OP' Gatesman

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Re: -=Silencer=-

Post by Allan » 03 Dec 2015 10:32

h0ag3yb3atZ wrote: I’d recommend maybe doing up some sliders and not making users have to scroll too much, its 2015 and that shit is clunky as fuck.
I'd have to rather strongly disagree with the sliders recommendation:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=carousels+are+bad+ux&t=osx

I looked, but at the moment I can't find the particular article I saw that actually had statistics across a range of sites that showed rather conclusively that sliders/carousels are completely ineffective and it would seem especially true for ecommerce.

Sliders are generally OK for tertiary information that is unimportant to the main thrust of your content (e.g. the slider (that was) at the top of the forum homepage), but using them as a focal point is a bad idea for numerous reasons.

As well, from a technical standpoint, unless you're extremely careful about it, sliders tend to add a bunch of bloat to the pages they're on, in many cases dramatically slowing down the page load as users wait for content to load that, as shown above, most of them never even see. With a commerce website this is pure death. Google/Amazon/eBay et al have done soooooo many studies that show how big of a difference page speed makes to conversion rates with even minor speed-ups having a dramatic effect.

As well, I'd also strongly disagree with the sentiment that scrolling is bad. It's 2015 and scrolling is the default behaviour that people expect:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=there+is+no+fold&t=osx

Scrolling is A Good Thing.
h0ag3yb3atZ wrote: You want to establish a consistent look that’s instantly recognizable, using uniform colors, fonts and even the style of photos and page furniture on each tab.
I couldn't agree more with the rest of the critique :)

One suggestion I would make would be to put a group of featured products right on the home page. Studies also show that the fewer clicks a person has to do increase conversions substantially. Putting products right on the home page increases conversion rates substantially.

I'm sorry I missed you again last night, Evan. We'll have that phone conversation soon :D

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Re: -=Silencer=-

Post by F[uns]tylin' Eclectic » 03 Dec 2015 10:40

I agree with the above things, especially about showing more players doing tricks... When people realize there are other good players with different styles all over the world.. boom boom more hypeeee. Just wanted to pop back in here and say something else I just thought of...

Maybe have a tab on the homepage that leads to just a few hand-selected inspirational videos, such as (a few that come to mind): To Be A Footbagger (by Greg Wenner), Undefeated (by Eli Piltz.. this is the first footbag video I ever saw and it was a game changer), Modest Mouse video: Invisible with Lon Smith (People see a semi-well known, commonly appreciated band with an official music video featuring footbag = more official appeal), King of Footbag (Vasek), Jay's Highspeed tricks video when he's in cargo shorts, Grand Theft Gravity, etc... Just another idea. I know you want creative control over your site and I DO NOT blame you. Just some suggestions :D These were some of the most motivational videos for me.
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Re: -=Silencer=-

Post by h0ag3yb3atZ » 03 Dec 2015 12:22

Scrolling is A Good Thing.
allan wrote:
I couldn't agree more with the rest of the critique :)

Shit so I can still get bapped then? we're still friends, right allan? :lol:


Yeah, pretty much what Allan said, that's why I stick to print design I clearly don't know what the hell i'm talking about.


hit any whirrs lately ev?
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Re: -=Silencer=-

Post by Lycanthrope » 03 Dec 2015 12:25

I've been trying to play in quantums, but I suck in them XD Then again, it would only be my third session ever in them today..
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Re: -=Silencer=-

Post by Allan » 03 Dec 2015 18:45

h0ag3yb3atZ wrote: Shit so I can still get bapped then? we're still friends, right allan? :lol:
I'm what they'd call a "non-voting" member of BAP :) But you'd get my vote if I really had one! Of course we're friends :)
h0ag3yb3atZ wrote: Yeah, pretty much what Allan said, that's why I stick to print design I clearly don't know what the hell i'm talking about.
I hope you know I didn't mean to degrade your opinion. A couple of years ago I would have completely agreed with you. You just happened to pick two things that I've actually done a fair amount of reading/research on in recent years and have had my opinions changed. Considering how both of your suggestions are (or perhaps were) conventional wisdom, they weren't wrong, per se.

Carousels look cool and let you put lots of content in a small spot. I've built dozens of carousels myself. I made a slider in Flash a few times now that I think about :oops: It just turns out that they're shitty in most use cases.

And as for scrolling, "the fold" is still very much a concept that a lot of professionals subscribe to; it seems to make intuitive sense. But did you happen to see some of the graphics on http://thereisnofold.tumblr.com? They're extremely compelling:

Image
Image
Image

So anyhow, yeah :) I'm sorry if my tone is around here is too adversarial or whatever; it seems to be just how I write. I'm working on being more diplomatic :)

I'm digging the black/white bar/logo right now Lycanthrope

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Re: -=Silencer=-

Post by C-Fan » 06 Apr 2016 07:11

Due for an update in here?

Always dug this stepping combo:

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