Whats happened to Rockettheme?
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- Samantha Smith
- Jr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 21
- Thanks: 3
- Design Boys
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I have been a long time user of RT templates, going all the way back to Joomla 1.0 / 1.5
In those days, RT templates were exciting, vibrant and refreshing. Cutting edge stuff!
However, of late it seems that something is wrong at RT. There just doesn't seem to be anything worthwhile coming out.
Yes, I get the need to build responsive design, HTML 5 and all that, but cummon.....
Take a look at the latest offering, such as Epsilon, Anacron and Hardon. Then compare them to the likes of Luminiere, Leviathon or Cerulean. Can you honestly tell me that the new templates are better?
I think Gantry is a great solution and RT produces technically high quality templates.
I just dont think I will be using any of them. Why? Quite simple....they are just plain boring!
Why is there so much use made of grey? Why are all the colors so washed out?
Why are there no templates with vibrant colors?
And what happened to templates for social communities? JomSocial, EasySocial or Community Builder?
The last one released was about 3 years ago.....this is one of areas where users like me would pay for a good quality template.
This is not me taking a swipe at Rockettheme.....I am a paid up member and would love to continue to be.
But give me something to make me want to stay. -
The following users have thanked you: David Goode, Duarte Nunes
- Effective, affordable & hassle free websites for big-thinking small business.
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- David Goode
- Preeminent Rocketeer
- Posts: 17058
- Thanks: 890
- Web Designer and Host
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Hi there,
Beany wrote:I have been a long time user of RT templates, going all the way back to Joomla 1.0 / 1.5
In those days, RT templates were exciting, vibrant and refreshing. Cutting edge stuff!
I have to agree, but back then it wasn't hard to break the mold as there were very few template clubs and the way Joomla was built gave us some great tricks to work with.
Beany wrote:However, of late it seems that something is wrong at RT. There just doesn't seem to be anything worthwhile coming out. Yes, I get the need to build responsive design, HTML 5 and all that, but cummon.....
Take a look at the latest offering, such as Epsilon, Anacron and Hardon. Then compare them to the likes of Luminiere, Leviathon or Cerulean. Can you honestly tell me that the new templates are better?
While there is an element of similarity there are distinct differences. When developing templates the team look at the posts in our Requests forum and try to take a steer from members. We have to also consider that many members have jumped into Joomla 3.X for their sites and each time the Joomla 3.X evolves then we have to rework any required changes with each release.
Beany wrote:I think Gantry is a great solution and RT produces technically high quality templates.
I just dont think I will be using any of them. Why? Quite simple....they are just plain boring!
I think this is where our previous success has come back to bite us. In the past it was hard for most people to make changes to templates as it required a great deal of hands on knowledge to change stuff. Since the introduction of Gantry we have been able to make the template admin more versatile, hoping to meet member requests. I guess this functionality, combined with web responsiveness, has made it harder to create masterpieces such as Technopia (my first template from RT) and the more visually dramatic effects we are used to seeing.
Beany wrote:Why is there so much use made of grey? Why are all the colors so washed out?
Why are there no templates with vibrant colors?
With the controls available in most of the templates you can almost have any colours you want. We will never satisfy all of our members with our demos, but that doesn't stop people from making the changes they want for their sites.
Beany wrote:And what happened to templates for social communities? JomSocial, EasySocial or Community Builder?
The last one released was about 3 years ago.....this is one of areas where users like me would pay for a good quality template.
The trouble with creating specifics like these is that the social extensions get developed for Joomla and Bootstrap and we experience no end of conflicts with styling. At one point there were almost monthly updates from JomSocial and it was a nightmare trying to find out what had changed and what do we need to edit to make it compatible again. This was the same when we released ecommerce templates only to have to keep answering member problems from having updated their shopping cart.
Beany wrote:This is not me taking a swipe at Rockettheme.....I am a paid up member and would love to continue to be.
But give me something to make me want to stay.
We see this sort of post as member feedback. I guess we have gone from the early days of having great templates where the only thing you needed to do was change some images, a logo, and a little bit of css now and then, to some fairly advanced templates where you can change an awful lot without too much effort, and the visual impact has dropped off a bit. It is a fine line between showing templates that can be used for almost anything if you use your imagination, to a demo that screams single purpose use and people don't even test it.
Thanks for taking the time to tell us how you feel about our latest templates.
Please search forums before posting. Please make sure your post includes the version of the CMS you are using and a link to the problem. Annotations on screenshots can also be helpful to explain problems/goals. Please use the "secure" tab for confidential information
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- Samantha Smith
- Jr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 21
- Thanks: 3
- Design Boys
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Hi David,
Thanks for taking the time to respond.
Again, I'm not knocking RT....just echoing some of the frustration we feel with things right now.
With the controls available in most of the templates you can almost have any colours you want. We will never satisfy all of our members with our demos, but that doesn't stop people from making the changes they want for their sites
Yes we can change things, but we can't easily change the core colors. And even if we can, why not start with something visually more exciting and let us mute it down?
Specifically, why use grey and not black?
Why use washed out reds, blues and greens instead of vibrant colors?
Thats not difficult for RT to change, but it would make a world of difference to us and our customers. - Last Edit: 11 years 2 months ago by Samantha Smith.
- Effective, affordable & hassle free websites for big-thinking small business.
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- Terp
- Elite Rocketeer
- Posts: 1720
- Thanks: 23
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While there are few templates lately that appeal to me like the old days, I think the biggest draw for me and to the credit of Andy and RT is:
1.) The stuff just flat out works and works well (like Apple used to).
2.) The documentation is second to none, which is great for people who fail to keep up (like myself when life gets busy).
3.) The support rocks.
Sure, I let my membership lapse for more than a year before, as nothing was really exciting me and I argued that Andy was outsourcing too much of the designs nowadays, but I have tried nearly all of the other template clubs out there and can assure you that the grass is definitely not greener on the other side of the template pasture.
But I totally understand where you're coming from, Beany. Some months I play with the demo for fewer than 5 minutes before packing it up and waiting another 30 days in hopes of something great.
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- Samantha Smith
- Jr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 21
- Thanks: 3
- Design Boys
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Exactly my point......great product but nothing exciting enough to make me want to renew my subscription.
Surely that should be the main objective.....to keep members happy so that we sign up again.
It far easier to keep a member than to acquire new ones, and I've been a paid member since 2009!
Yet I too will let my membership lapse cause I'm just not getting anything exciting enough to use, no matter how good the products are technically. There is little to no difference between the latest templates....well certainly nothing different enough to make me consider replacing my current templates.
We want bright,we want visually exciting, we want something that makes us go wow!
Thats where we will spend our money. - Effective, affordable & hassle free websites for big-thinking small business.
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- David Goode
- Preeminent Rocketeer
- Posts: 17058
- Thanks: 890
- Web Designer and Host
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Hi all,
Thanks for the feedback. It will all be passed to the appropriate people for consideration as we move forward.
Please search forums before posting. Please make sure your post includes the version of the CMS you are using and a link to the problem. Annotations on screenshots can also be helpful to explain problems/goals. Please use the "secure" tab for confidential information
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