The Escapist Redesign

[Thaluikhain]

Argh! When I go to my messaages to see who has quoted me, clicked on the "view post" thing takes me to the beginning of the thread, not the post that's quoted me, which is obviously much better.

Oh, and yeah, making something looking newer and higher tech isn't a great idea when the original was fine to begin with. Hopefully there was all sorts of underlying issues that this is fixing, they aren't just tweaking things to make them uglier for its own sake.

 

[Worgen]

I dont really like it, I mean it seems more difficult to look though the news now, going though the news was one of the main things I did. Plus the site seems slower then it was.

 

[DasDestroyer]

The color scheme is very plain, the large amount of white is annoying(not to mention less eco-friendly) and the pages seem to take 10x longer to load :/
Can we at least have the option to turn it back to the old one?

 

[Doom-Slayer]

I suspect the Escapist will pull a Youtube, meaning redesign which is borderline everyone saying Thumbs down, and they won't care, I hope this is not the case but it wouldn't be out of the question as this doesn't seem to have been a discussed situation with the community.

It's been admitted several times that the only people who had even a little warning was the "first class" users, those who pay for the Publisher club. It's pure and simple bullcrap, as much so as Youtube's change, and for practically all the same reasons. The only thing Youtube did that was smarter was avoiding the sheer white background.

Also, at least youtube had a trick to revert its home page back to the original style, at least for a day or two until it was removed.

Im in the publcub, and the Beta style that we got to use its very different to the new style, and on top of that even we cant change back to the old beta which was actually a very nice theme. Oh well.

 

[cheese_wizington]

It looks exactly like Gameinformer's website, and all of this stark white gives me eye aids.

 

[manaman]

I'm old and I don't like change. Through I could deal with it if the more minimalist appearance meant I could actually reliably load the escapist on my phone. Sadly this is not the case. In fact it doesn't seem to want to load at all anymore.

 

[NeutralDrow]

Hmm...on the one hand, the font appears to have been fixed.

On the other...oh, wait, it's not pure white any more. It's more of a marble gray on the outside. Actually, that's a little better, though I still prefer darker colors.

 

[Titan Buttons]

It's very white, maybe just a little bit more colour to fill in around the comments and the background would be nice

 

[Zethrax]

I loved the old design. It provide a lot of interesting and well laid out information on the front page which allowed me to quickly find something worthwhile to read or watch.

The new design provides less value in more space. The points of discovery for accessing content are gone and so are most of my reasons for visiting the site. I can find many other sites which provide entertainment value without my needing to hunt for them on the site.

This is the sort of move that I expect from Youtube. They don't care about their users, they just make changes because they can - without any thought for the needs of the user. And they make those changes while ignoring problems, such as their broken subscription system. This is not a move I expected from a supposedly in-touch-with-their-users organization like the Escapist.

 

[replingham153]

Greetings and Salutations, Escapists!

You may have noticed that the site looks a bit different. If you want some more information about that, please direct your attention here:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114736-The-New-Shiny-Escapist

Sincerely,
- Nas

I'll be honest... why?

Just why? This all feels a little unnecessary and ridiculous... but hey whatever you guys are the masters so... the fuck can I do?

Leave, I suppose?

 

[Valanthe]

Hmm...on the one hand, the font appears to have been fixed.

On the other...oh, wait, it's not pure white any more. It's more of a marble gray on the outside. Actually, that's a little better, though I still prefer darker colors.

Until you pointed that out I actually thought it was my retinas burning out from the glare. Probably a sign that it's time for bed.

 

[BulletMagTrig]

First I must protest. I hate too much white. Why does white seem to be the new black in the technology world today? Hurts my eyes especially in my otherwise dark room. (To reduce glare, not because I'm emo.)

I agree that with the whole, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" crowd. However, since you went through the effort to give us this new look could you see about fine tuning the site over the next few months to make it feel like the Escapist should?

There will be whining and trolling, but see about taking the constructive criticism offered from the users and make the site more user and owner friendly.

 

[Voulan]

It's way too white and bright - I can barely differentiate between all the different posts and videos on the main page, since they're outlined by a thin light blue border or nothing at all. It's hard to find all of my favourite things straight away now - I actually have to search for them. It just looks like a whole lot of random elements shoved onto a bland white background. The Escapist had a signature look, and now there's nothing unique at all.

I'm trying to keep my feedback constructive.

EDIT: Also, the "Your Latest" under your profile is mostly wrong. It says my latest badge was my very first badge ever earned, and the latest posts are behind as well.

 

[Kimarous]

It's okay for the most part, but I don't like all the white where the blue bordering used to be. The brightness is a bit hard on the eyes.

 

[Hookman]

Hmm... kinda blank and empty in here all of a sudden. So far I think its alright but I havent explored the site any more than the forums. Only time will tell...ell...ll...l.

 

[Hamtier]

My main complaint is that its way too cluttered and confusing.
before,it was:most recent video show's on the right,news and headlines on the left.
now i dont even know what is what :S.
if i didnt knew about the escapist before,this confusing layout would scare me back to youtube(which has better layout compared to..this).

 

[Nasrin]

I'll be honest... why?

Just why? This all feels a little unnecessary and ridiculous... but hey whatever you guys are the masters so... the fuck can I do?

Leave, I suppose?

Well, most of the work we did was functional. Although it seems slow now, because it was released with a few kinks still, it should ultimately run a lot faster and better than the previous site. The aesthetic changes were in part to enable the art team to do more work. If you just try it for a short time I really think you'll enjoy it. I've been voluntarily using it for some time now. I thought I would switch back, but now the old site looks... old.

 

[Lawyer105]

snip

You've basically stolen the words right off my fingertips, so that only thing I can really add is that the new layout feels cluttered, everything is squashed into the middle of the page making navigation a bit more of a chore than I'd like.

You've both summarised my feelings perfectly. I really can't get into this new colour/design scheme.

Oh well... less time forum-browsing = more time gaming, I guess!

Upside to everything!

 

[Gorog2]

It need improvement, to me as it is now, it is a downgrade.
I miss my side bar :'(

 

[bluepilot]

Nooooooo.......... I just finally got the hang of navigating around the old site (ha, only took two years) and now everything is changed. There used to be this nice little tool bar at the top which had all the links I needed abs now it is gone.

How can I access the "hot threads" and "latest" thread function?

I guess it is a not neater though. But it still makes me feel like a Luddite.