Yay, I CAN be taught!

Since deciding to redesign my website, I’ve been relearning a lot about design. For example, if you choose to organize the page using a lot of tables, you can expect to be hunted down by the web police and burned at the stake. Tables are out; DIV tags and CSS are in. I knew a little about the latter, but next to nothing about the former so I’ve been teaching myself (slowly) for several weeks. Eventually, I heard a *ding* which either meant I had finally reached a critical mass of understanding or my microwave burrito was done.

So, this week I made some progress on the site design that didn’t make me want to jump out the window. In fact, over the last couple of days, I’ve even approached being “happy” about the results. It may not last, but at least I can enjoy some temporary satisfaction. Here’s a screenshot of a large graphic I'll be including on the main page. It’s not done and there’s still stuff to be added or changed, but I want to give some idea where I’m doing with it:

Meanwhile, the playtesting continues, but without a lot of progress. It’s nobody’s fault actually, but I’m worried about things that haven’t been tested yet. I’m thinking about putting out some more forum posts specifically for people to playtest the combat system since that’s the part that could be really bad if it’s not balanced properly. I’d hoped to be nearly done by now, but it’s looking like testing will go on into August for sure. Delays . . . Delays . . .