The New Shiny Escapist

[Irridium]

The new layout is really not that great for showing new video content. It only allows ONE video to be shown on the front page, compared to the old layout which allowed three to be featured at once. So on days where there are multiple videos, like today, only Zero Punctuation gets featured. Feed Dump and Miracle of Sound are nowhere to be seen, and it took 40 minutes before someone commented on Feed Dump, and about an hour before someone commented on Miracle of Sound.

Though now Miracle of Sound finally has a spot on the front page, after an hour or so, Feed Dump is still nowhere to be seen.

 

[Dana22]

Im scared and confused, I dont like changes.

Its Kotaku all over again, and I dont browse Kotaku anymore.

 

[Jiffex]

I'm not a fan of the new colour scheme but nothing else bothers me that much.

 

[mrscott137]

Everything seems to be loading slower, but that's probably just the opening day thing.
Aside from that, I shall get used to the new UI.

 

[Misterian]

It looks like facebook now. Like... the current facebook. The bad one. With boxes and feeds everywhere, and everything way too spread out and inefficient.

Before it was compact, streamlined, efficient, and warm. Now, its facebook.

Sort of what I was thinking, but then, I don't go to Facebook very much.

I hope they at least do what Wikipedia did and give out an option to use the older version.

 

[N3Burgener]

My main complaints with the new site are as follows:

1) I miss having descriptive text under the featured articles on the main page. Just a quick blurb to clue me in to what the article's about and entice me to click on it. Now all I've got are a bunch of seemingly random headlines.

2) I don't like how everything just kind of "floats" on the white background. There are hardly any borders anywhere, and it makes it feel like nothing's really anchored to the site, like it's just a bunch of transient things wandering around the site, doesn't feel like anything belongs.

I realize the intention was to add more "air" to the site, to make the front page seem less cluttered, but I think it kind of backfired. Yes, there's less stuff all over the front page, but now there's quite simply NO CONTEXT for anything. It makes all of the featured content feel random and fleeting, and now that there's less information on the front page, everything actually feels more cluttered.

 

[BlueGlowstick]

I went to theescapist.com and thought I went to the wrong site. O.O

The I looked at the domain name and realized I DID go to the wrong site! I don't like it. At All.

 

[BlueGlowstick]

It looks like facebook now. Like... the current facebook. The bad one. With boxes and feeds everywhere, and everything way too spread out and inefficient.

Before it was compact, streamlined, efficient, and warm. Now, its facebook.

Sort of what I was thinking, but then, I don't go to Facebook very much.

I hope they at least do what Wikipedia did and give out an option to use the older version.

that's what Twitter did. before it was all new and no old.

 

[mew4ever23]

My first thought was "Did someone go and poison my DNS?" then "WAUGH GET IT AWAY!".

Seriously, It looks terrible, and this is a trend I'm getting bloody tired of - Website redesigns that look like ass. First Facebook, then YouTube, now here.

Bloody hell, you guys need a better web designer. You guys must be joking that it took 6 months to plan, code, and implement this. This looks like something a highschool student could have thrown together in a double block.

What the hell was wrong with the old design? THAT was both beautiful and readable, as well as streamlined and efficient!

Hits:

... I'll get back to you on that!

Misses:

The site as a whole isn't loading in a timely manner.
Just had this weeks ZP playing twice in a popout w/ads (Which I STILL hate, by the way!).
Said ad popouts also don't have a close button. Might wanna look into that.
Too much blank space.
There's something going on with the new font - Looks like text in flash with the quality set to "low".

 

[Trujkin]

I used to read The Escapist, then I took a flashbang to the face.

Ok ok...

I like it, when the Publishers Club members got early access to it I wasn't sure about at first. After trying it out for the last few days I've got used to it and I love it now.

The same thing happened to me. I thought I would switch back and then never wanted to.

 

[red the fister]

3rd times a charm.
not gonna tell you any pf my problems with the new design.
because the last two times i tried the site crashed... i think. couldn't find the server at ant rate

 

[bakan]

Too bright, too much spacing, too 'clean', damn slow and harder to navigate.

Overall, the change is bad.

 

[Crystalite]

wow, this is bad.
I´m sorry, but its just really terrible.
The new look is really an eyesore, and the site is slow as all hell now.

But everyone is saying that now, aren´t they?

Yes, we will probably get used to it.

 

[DktrAgonizer]

Okay, I know I'm just going to be rehashing everything else a bunch of other people have said, but I feel the need to throw in my two cents.

My very first impression of the site today when I opened it was literally "What the fuck, did the CSS fail to load?", before I actually realized this was supposed to look the way it does.

This is exactly what I thought when I navigated to The Escapist. You know why?

-Because of the blinding white background. My eyes are starting to ache the more I keep this page open; what happened to the nice blue the Escapist used to be?
-The homepage is cluttered. There are no dividers to separate the sections, so it all looks kind of... smushed together.
-The lag is horrible, but hopefully that will go away in time. As in, soon.

You say the site is "shiny" now. Well, honestly, shiny does not always equal good. As it is now, shiny equals eye pain.

However, I do like the dropdown menus so... that's nice.

 

[Warachia]

Thank you so much for adding backgrounds now, at least it's MUCH easier on the eyes, now all you have to do is clean up the front page and the three boxes right below this comments section (light blue on white doesn't work).
For some reason this reminds me of a bethesda launch title. Horrible at first, then fixed later.

There are different backgrounds? How do I change mine?

there are no different backgrounds, but you see that grey on the left and right of the pages, as well as where the words are in my comments? That used to be white, and it was absolute murder on my eyes.

I don't like the new site, but at least now it's more tolerable. Still plenty of things that need fixing though.

 

[AmzRigh]

Okay, so this may have been said already; if it is, I'm simply adding my chip to the pile.

The layout, I've got no problems with, but some serious CSS work is needed, because the fonts look fugly. You know how fonts get at in-between sizes? When they're on the small side, entire strokes of letters disappear, making them illegible; when they're on the large side, random lines get thicker, and sometimes spiky. For a site that posts so many articles, making it difficult to read is shooting yourself in the foot.

Further examination implies you only tested your site in Internet Explorer, because it looks great in IE9. However, in Firefox 7.0.1 and Chrome 16.0.912.63, it looks awful. So please, do 40% or more of your readers a solid and work on your fonts.

 

[Segadroid]

Way, WAY too much white. It makes it look kinda cheap compared to the older design, which succesfully used several shades of dark blue as its base.
Profile bar is alright I guess, but it feels slightly unneccesary to display my latest post and badge.

If we're gonna change the Escapist's design that much, at least give us the option to switch between different layouts. Then, everyone's happy.

 

[Ddgafd]

I don't like the new font. It makes it difficult(at least for me) to read any text besides forum posts. Otherwise it's alright.

 

[Callate]

Okay, having tried this for a couple of days, I have to say that while I'm still okay with the interface (though seriously, shrink the font on that headline scroller, guys- we're getting cut-off headlines like "Obsidian Hopes Digital Distribution Stabs...") but I'm getting a little tired of the shebang running like a sloth on quaaludes. Sometimes pages take twenty seconds or more to load; sometimes they refuse to load at all.

 

[ShindoL Shill]

it feels... bluer.
just... more blue.
i realise it was blue before...
it's just... a different blue...
curiouser and curiouser...

It looks like facebook now. Like... the current facebook. The bad one. With boxes and feeds everywhere, and everything way too spread out and inefficient.

Before it was compact, streamlined, efficient, and warm. Now, its facebook.

YES! that kind of blue. a facebook blue.
not the same colour.
just facebooky.
the blue is facebooky.
it feels facebook.

*whimpers*
i dont like it, turn off the blue!