Editor's Note: Pens, Paper and Pretzels

[Geoffrey42]

Question on the ToC:

Is there some sort of editorial order? IE, in the minds of the editor, is there some order to the articles that seems appropriate? In my subscription e-mail, Issue 106 is listed Pitts, Weathers, Miller, Shwayder, Goodfellow. In the ToC at the bottom of each article page, the articles are listed alphabetically by title. Any significance?

Edit: The preview pane on the portal also lists, left to right, in the order presented by the subscription. So my guess is, yes, there is an editorial order. So, I guess my question really is: is it feasible to maintain that in the ToC?

 

[hammarus]

As a graphic designer/gamer. I have to say, I'm dissappointed with the new site layout. Additionally, I miss the magazine format and the pdf files. Crosslinking and all that "jazz" never really appealed to me as I don't come to this site for research, I come to be informed and semi-entertained.

And while a typical response from you would be; we can't please everyone, there are many who like the new layout, blah blah blah. I have to ask the proverbial; If it ain't broke, don't fix it, so why did you fix it?

 

[Archon]

Geoffrey - Regarding your comparisons to "Blowing Up Galaxies," I see some truth in your analogy. I agree a subscriber preview would have been a good idea.

Hammarus - From our point of view, it was broke. The old layout wouldn't let us archive and tag our content in a presentable way; it cost us as much to do the layouts as to do the content that the layouts were presenting; and our readership was "voting with its eyeballs" that it preferred web layouts to magazine layouts anyway. So given those facts, it made sense to revisit how we presented our content. We didn't make the decision lightly.

 

[Virgil]

Is there some sort of editorial order? ... So, I guess my question really is: is it feasible to maintain that in the ToC?

Well there wasn't a specified order for this issue (just the order they were added) but having them show up in different orders in different places was definitely odd. Should be fixed now, though it will take some time to propagate to all the index listings.

 

[Nordstrom]

Based on comments so far, here's what's been done:
- Added a link on the upper-left Issue box to a Table of Contents page for the latest issue
- Added a link on the main nav bar to a Table of Contents page for the latest issue
- Added a navigation bar at the bottom of every issue article to all the content of the issue

That helped. While I still feel nostalgic for the old layout, I find the new feature layout easier to read and digest. Given a choice, I would choose the old layout but the new layout works fine for me.

I understand that this is just one vote, that your web statistics could say something else, but I find the front page too busy. I come here for the features and editorials. For me, the news items are just noise that clog up the front page, making it hard to get to the high quality content.

 

[Jazzlvraz]

I'll have to add my name to the "good-bye Escapist, it's been a great ride" list. I want at least the ability to simply click on a "next article" button at the end of each one, not to have to remember which ones I've covered already. It's lazy, yes, but that's the Escapist as it's been presented to me for two years; you established the expectation.

I don't read websites nor participate in discussions, but I signed up for an account specifically to put these thoughts into the comment-list for consideration the next time you re-design. I'll stay on the email list and wait to see when you announce a format-change, but reading here's not what I want to be doing.

 

[cmdr_zoom]

I'm with zolo and Nutrimentia and the others. After some internal debate, I went to the trouble of registering just to tell you that I am unsubscribing.

I am not interested in visiting this site and wading through the new format in order to get at the content that was previously delivered to my mailbox. I am not interested in taking part in general discussion here - I have other venues for that. I enjoyed the differences that you have now eliminated.

I will miss the weekly pleasure/ritual of downloading and reading the PDF, but at least I have all 104 previous issues archived on my HD. They will have to suffice.

Fare well.

 

[pyrosity [deprecated]]

I will not deny your statistics and information. I will, however, raise my hand as being one in this "vocal minority." Maybe I was one in a thousand that actually went direct to the magazine to read through the articles, but I was likely one of few who vocally recommended "The Escapist Magazine" to all of my game-interested friends, and quickly to aspiring game development acquaintances. Site statistics cannot begin to express the foundational importance of the "magazine" backbone.

Personally, I never downloaded any of the PDFs. I was content with reading on the web, still feeling fully absorbed in the site's unique ability to make readers feel like they were reading a professional, printed magazine.

Perhaps my largest disappointment was the severe lack of communication in this endeavor. Whereas a high cost existed to maintain the site in its form, I feel that I was one of many unaware of such hardships. If a poll had been sent to newsletter subscribers, I would have checked the option for a payment for an exclusive/continued magazine format. Now, a magazine format option does not even exist.

I am not going to pretend that I did not register an account just to post in the comments here. However, I feel that it is absolutely necessary that my once vocally recommending, now "vocal minority" opinions be expressed.

 

[Nordstrom]

You can view The Escapist more cleanly by browsing to the Features page ( http://www.escapistmagazine.com/features/ ) instead of the front page. It probably won't appease people that have already decided to leave, but it looks better than the busy front page.

 

[Nordstrom]

Yes! The blue permalink bars are gone. That helps the front page flow more smoothly.

One last suggestion. The blue "Recent Headlines" bar makes the bottom, left list look like a completely different section than the items above it. The two titles are similar ("Recent Headlines" and "News and Columns") but seemingly unrelated. It has caused me a lot of confusion and I suspect that it confuses other people too. I keep checking to see whether they really are part of the same thing or not.

I recommend that the blue "Recent Headlines" bar be eliminated to make the bottom, left list look like a continuation of the above items. This would give the readers one less thing to parse and, I think, make the page look more clear.

 

[Draynir]

I'm kind of confused on the voting with eyeballs thing. I read the web version of the site but it looked just like the pdf with the magazine type of format, was there another version I missed?

 

[Russ Pitts]

I'm kind of confused on the voting with eyeballs thing. I read the web version of the site but it looked just like the pdf with the magazine type of format, was there another version I missed?

Several months ago we introduced a "text only" version of all of our articles, which had been steadily growing in popularity since. I can't quote exact numbers, but as the boss said, they spoke volumes about the preferences of the vast majority of our readership.

 

[louiswu]

It is with regret that I also have to admit I have signed up to this site with the sole purpose of expresing my disappointed with the new style.

I really think you have taken a step backwards with your move towards pure web content, each "magazine" now reads more like a news article I can look at on ign, than a thought provoking editorial on the current trends of the gaming universe.

Although you are saying that statistically more people are looking at the text-only version than the magazine format, this could be attributed to a number of reasons that aren't necessarily "people prefer it". You would've also thought, that although the people posting here are the vocal minority, that at least a large proportion of them would like the new format.

The fact that 99% of the posts in this thread are to the opposite suggest that even though we are a minority of the site's readers, we still represent the correct proportion of views.

Escapist for me has unfortunately lost it's heart and soul, and I find it difficult to imagine I'll continue to be a regular reader.

 

[zolo]

But you also represent our most faithful readers, and we are listening to you. Julianne (our fearless E-I-C) and Jason (our cunning tech director) are reading every post here carefully and making notes on what you are saying.

More or less, I know that all the complaints are in vain, but it's still good to know.

Unfortunately, since there has been no warning (Geoffrey42 mentioned this), it's close to pointless, all the little tweaks cannot make a difference - you can't use band aid when your arm has been cut off

This aside, please endure this one illustrative paragraph - and imagine a relationship - you can have a week-end relationship and spend a lot of time together, but it's still not the same as having the person with you everyday. It doesn't mean that you spend longer actually talking together, you can go about doing your own hobbies, but the assurance, the feeling that you are close is a huge factor - it gives you confidence that if you wanted, you could simply spend the whole evening... talking. And it's a reason why a mathematical account of hours spent together is never really the whole picture of a relationship.

This, applied to TE is my point (pyrosity and louiswu already hinted at this) - because the magazine (the PDF) was there, it also gave value to the text dumps (sorry for the wording). Sure I found it easier to read the site in HTML at work, but the articles still had that magic when i KNEW that I could downlaod the PDF, when I knew that the atmosphere is still inside them. It's a very psychological thing, and I'm not sure this has been taken into consideration when getting rid of what for you was a relic.

And then, of course, inevitably, comes my other point, of people just CLICKING on the links - it's not surprising that you get many more hits than PDF downloads, but how many people actually take the time to read the articles? You say vocal minority, but weren't we actually your core? The ones that actually READ it, instead of just skimming through it? If you download a PDF, there is a huge chance that you will actually read it (much higher than when you just "browse" a website). And if you're an author you know this only too well - 1000 clicks on your article means nothing - but 1 e-mail from a fan means everything.

And it's not like the PDF's lives were over when downloaded - do you know my first encounter with The Escapist? I copied it from my friend's hard drive where he had it under e-Books. It's such a sad thing to remember that right now.

Sadly, I have a fear that more or less this change is down to something with sponsors, money and all that. It usually is, when something special decides to go mainstream, and that's why I don't think that anything will really change anymore now. But I am really so happy to see other people who registered just to tell their opinions - and that I'm not alone in this.

Well, serves me right - I took TE for granted, maybe I should have registered sooner, written about how good it is, so that people understand. I have a site that I like - it's a site, but actually it has a lot of heart, partly because it doesn't change its layout with every wave of modern style that comes along and that it values content and managed to create something special - and I sm SO writing to the editor right now and pour my heart out. I really am.

 

[Virgil]

One last suggestion. The blue "Recent Headlines" bar makes the bottom, left list look like a completely different section than the items above it. ...

We actually just added that in (same time we removed the permalink bars) because we had a lot of requests/questions about what the single-line headline section under the news summaries were. We'll probably keep the header for a little while, see what the response to it is, and make adjustments as we go.

 

[Nordstrom]

One last suggestion. The blue "Recent Headlines" bar makes the bottom, left list look like a completely different section than the items above it. ...

We actually just added that in (same time we removed the permalink bars) because we had a lot of requests/questions about what the single-line headline section under the news summaries were. We'll probably keep the header for a little while, see what the response to it is, and make adjustments as we go.

Thanks. I appreciate all that The Escapist has been doing. I'm actually surprised how many forum suggestions have gone into the site. It's made a big difference for me. What if the bar in question was renamed to "More News & Columns" or "News & Columns continued" or something else to make the connection clear?

[edit to clarify:
Looking back at the first page of this thread, I see that I commented about the bottom, left list. I didn't know what it was and asked for clarity. On page 3 of this thread, I suggested the title be removed. What happened?

Back when there were blue permalink bars, each news item looked like a category unto itself and the bottom list looked orphaned. Now that the news items have a style that is more similar to the list, they look like they could go together without needing the extra title. (Or the title on the list could make the connection more clear).

All this goes to show that I sometimes focus waaaaay too much attention on niggly details. I will try to repress myself from further comments and let you get back to your work.]

 

[Goofonian]

I'm kind of confused on the voting with eyeballs thing. I read the web version of the site but it looked just like the pdf with the magazine type of format, was there another version I missed?

There was the pdf, and the web version that was exactly the same as the pdf. But I believe (not 100% cos I never read it) that not long after the first redesign they introduced a much less formated, almost word document style, similar to what is there now.

I supposed I'll add my voice to the group who miss the old magazine layout, but I'm willing to cop it on the chin the same way I did when radio went to get smokes and never came back. At least the content is still there and on the plus side the layout of the forums and "lounge" articles is much cleaner now I reckon.

One thing that I do miss is the old white writing on a dark background. I find the white background to be just a bit to harsh on the eyes when I'm staring at my screen and this is just another area that the escapist was better than the majority of sites before but not so much now. *tear*

 

[Logan Frederick]

I supposed I'll add my voice to the group who miss the old magazine layout, but I'm willing to cop it on the chin the same way I did when radio went to get smokes and never came back. At least the content is still there and on the plus side the layout of the forums and "lounge" articles is much cleaner now I reckon.

One thing that I do miss is the old white writing on a dark background. I find the white background to be just a bit to harsh on the eyes when I'm staring at my screen and this is just another area that the escapist was better than the majority of sites before but not so much now. *tear*

1. I'm not sure how many people listened to either the old Gamers With Jobs Radio or Escapist Radio, but I'm sure most of those listeners greatly miss the show.

2. Well, they've gone from blue and black to blue and gray. We're not in the white yet!

 

[Trillinon]

I've given the new design a couple of weeks to digest, while keeping an eye on this thread and the changes being made.

I have to admit that reading the articles now is more pleasant than any previous HTML format. Not quite so nice as the PDF, but close.

All in all, you've done good work appeasing your vocal minority. You seem to recognize that we're vocal for a reason.

The table of contents page is great, and repeating it at the end of every article is a very useful and elegant touch. I agree with the Jazzlvraz and a couple others, though, that a "Next Article" button that replaces the "Next Page" button on the last page of an article would be nice.

The homepage is still very busy, and most things on it seem to do a better job of drawing attention than the Magazine itself. My suggestion: Still build a cover page for each issue, and put the small table of contents to the right of it. Essentially, let the magazine take up the majority of the horizontal space across the top of the page. If nothing else, having a cover image will help recreate that magazine feeling.

I'm glad to see the "Features" link on the main bar, though it should probably say "Current Issue" instead.

Lastly, I wish the text in articles wasn't a small san-serif font. People these days have large, high resolution displays, and you have an infinite canvas with which to work, so why hold on to the 1995 standards for web fonts? This is a minor complaint for me, though, because I can use a custom stylesheet to change this, but it would be a nice consideration for other readers.

All in all, though, you've done a good job. Thank you for listening.

 

[Russ Pitts]

I'm glad to see the "Features" link on the main bar, though it should probably say "Current Issue" instead.

We - believe it or not - had quite a long discussion about this the other day. "Current Issue" was suggested as a name for that button, but we ultimately settled on "Features" because, although our most current issue is always something we'd like to get out, we still have hundreds of feature articles in stock that are largely timeless and as relevant now as they were today. The button also takes you to a scroll bar from where you can select any of our 100+ issues, so we decided to leave it "features."

The rest of your suggestions don't fall anywhere near my purview, but I can promise they'll be looked at.