As a person that plays a lot of video games, and often does so with friends, I often need to find a way to host a game so everyone else can play while I am in class or just away from my computer. I find that leaving my computer on to run a game server is an option, but it can stop me from performing other tasks. For a game like Modded Minecraft, Nodecraft is the best choice when it comes to server hosting. Nodecraft.com is a website dedicated to letting people have their own server for gaming, without using their own computer. This means that the server will stay up and running 24/7 because it is not your own computer.
Starting off I went in knowing that I wanted a server that could run the SkyFactory 3 modpack. From the homepage there was no search bar and a menu with six buttons. Of those 6 buttons my mind went straight to pressing “Pricing”. I came to this deduction before looking at the other 5 buttons labeled “Home” (which was already highlighted), “Community”, “Blog”, “Support”, and “About Us”. After clicking “Pricing” it took me to a screen with six different plans and from past knowledge I knew I needed at least 3GB of RAM to run a server playing SkyFactory 3. I clicked the “Order” button on this new page under the plans and was amazed by what came up:
After revisiting the website for this assignment, I noticed something rather unique to Nodecraft that sets them aside from the competitors. When I click on “Order” for a server it doesn’t just show me the plans like other websites, but it also shows me the game types someone can run on each plan. This is unique to this website and highly useful to consumers. As I was using their function for checking the game types I noticed that it was titled “Customize Your Order”. This option had a slider that showed the game types and also changed the plan for you. This slider brings up a good point from the readings; “Faced with any sort of technology, very few people take the time to read instructions” (Krug 26). I believe that in this one instance that falsifies this statement. When someone is put into this situation they are faced with an option once more. Do you want to make sure this works for your game? If yes, then use this nifty slider. It’s an option that also may change the plan and the way the user is thinking.
So I put the plan into the cart and it took me directly to the cart. The most difficult part of buying this plan is the fact that you must have an account to use it. The most thinking I have had to do on this website has become the making of an account, and even that is easy.
The website was easy to use and made me think twice. The only thing that really needed to be changed was the cart. I was directly linked to the cart the first time I put an order into it. When I backed out of the cart to the homepage I didn’t see the cart anywhere. After looking everywhere I clicked on the “Pricing” tab again and then saw the cart. It would have been so much easier to use if the cart was also on the homepage.
Krug, Steve. Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability.
Berkeley, Calif: New Riders Pub., 2006. Print.