The New Shiny Escapist

[Frankster]

Now that i've had some time to get used to it...Giving some better feedback.

The dropdown selection is pretty handy and can see what ya were going for with front page layout.

Just too much white. Needs more color, if only to help differentiate between whats on the front page.

 

[bl4ckh4wk64]

It looks too spread out in my opinion, but I guess it'll grow on me. I did notice a problem with the videos, they took forever to load and even then it sometimes crashed and I'd have to re-open the browser. Please fix this soon, I wasn't able to watch my weekly ZP : (

 

[Prince Regent]

To be constructive: a scrolling news window is silly. Do I really have to sit and wait for up to a minute to see a news item that might interest me, and then do it again after I've followed a link to see what stories follow after?

THIS Please fix this escapist site wizards.

 

[Codeman90]

Only thing that bothers me is that it was very convenient to look at the right side of the website and see all the latest videos from Yahtzee, Moviebob and others, and now I can't do that. Why did that need to be changed?

 

[Abengoshis]

Light blue text on a white and background and vice versa becomes even worse when its also in a thin font. This looks awful.

 

[Olrod]

How do I change back to the old forum skin? The loading times on this new one are horrible.

 

[Vallds]

Not a fan of the new look, no siree.

I wonder why it needed such a radical shift too.

 

[Solomar]

I don't post often but I had to say I do not support this new look.

 

[Dimitriov]

For the record: It's been a few days, and I still hate the new design. Yes, I can use it. But it is definitely worse looking and harder to use now.

And no it's not just because "I hate change."

If you want to change your web design, that's fine by me, but please improve rather than destroy.


Anyway, I don't know what you guys are thinking, but please do the adult thing and just admit you made a mistake and fix it.

 

[Jesse Kilgore]

What's wrong with color? Bring the color back!

 

[mandalorian2298]

So people of the PubClub have access to a magical button that restores the Escapist to the... you know, BETTER VESRION? DO want. (not enough to subscribe though).
That's a nice slogan though: Join the PubClub, access the Escapist, keep your retinas.

Ok, I'm just bitter because I hate changes... and I don't like having to use sunglasses to read articles in the computer.

That is the first news about the new design that actually makes sense. If the new designed has been conceived as a punishment for all of us freeloaders, then fair play to Escapist and congratulations on the job VERY well done to the design team. I do feel punished.

New slogan: "Our content is free, your health is extra."

 

[ashertaz]

Awww, you guys! You shouldn't have! Really, i mean it, stir the hornet's nest and expect to survive the manure storm with no umbrella? Do you know how many people still use the old layout of the yahoo mail? I don't know either but there's still a few. So, where's your umbrella?

 

[captainwalrus]

The portal has no rhyme or reason. Some things randomly take up more space than other things, and there's a required reading section with random articles, there's random news articles on the auto scrolling bar thing, while other random news articles are randomly random'd around the page -- but then you have the neat little box with news articles sorted by latest, comments, and views which makes the scroll bar and randomly placed stories kind of redundant.

I feel like the portal would be better if everything was more like that neat little news box. Have your articles, videos, features, and whatnot all have their own little boxes. If you really want something eyecatching to highlight certain videos, stories, or articles, then you can have a scrollable highlights section like Steam or Slate uses. I think the biggest problem is that everything is so disorganized. I look at the portal and (besides being blinded by the whiteness) I'm confused by the randomness. It's like you took Bush's Shock and Awe doctrine and developed a website design philosophy around it.

 

[Jonathan Bradford]

Love the minimal color use, nice change imo.

 

[O maestre]

well ill add my voice to the unwashed masses. i despise this change, and resent the fact that we did not get any sort of influence on the change. forgive me for belittling your sense of precognition but how the fuck do you know what we would like changed on the site, if you do not even bother to ask for the escapists user input.
I cincerly hope you have not deluded yourselves to think that our opinion is irrelevant. I hate when this happens, some presumptuous VIP gets it into his head that there needs to be a layout change without even bothering to consult the users. I am truly disappointed that my favourite site has finally made the final transition from sensible to disrespectful.
i realize my rant will have no effect, but it is all i can do, its not like my or anybody else's opinion matters to the escapist at all!!

so what are my concrete complaints, everything is too bright an almost duochrome. but mostly i dislike the change because this gaming site now looks like a social networking site. likewise content seems like it was pre selected, instead of the more content filled main page, where i could access almost all of the sites features. instead if i want to find specific content one has to navigate and through menu after menu. yes i realize less is more and simple is good. These changes however seem annoying at best and impractical borderline stupid at worst.

i hold the crew behind the escapist in high esteem and have always been appreciative of their talent and effort, something that has gained my respect, i guess i just am saddened to learn that they dont give two shits about their users opinion, just like every other company.

 

[Mr Thin]

I freely confess I couldn't be bothered to read most of this thread, but this is where feedback goes, so here is my feedback.

I don't like the bright white sidebars. I loved the Escapists blue sidebar thing, it was much easier on the eyes, and this change genuinely confuses me. Indeed, I would prefer it if the whole site was just a few shades darker.

Other than that, I have no complaints. Having browsed around for a short while now, I have not found the change to be an improvement on the aesthetics of the site, but it doesn't look any worse either. I was bothered by the scrolling news display, because I would see an interesting sounding article and then it would scroll on before I could click it; but the 'News' section is right up the top, so that is no longer a bother.

I wasn't clamouring for change, but I'm not afraid of it either. So if you guys like the new design, more power to you.

Oh, something positive I just noticed! I can see more of my friends on my profile page. That's not significant, but it's nice.

Final Note: The website is often loading slower than it used to. I assume this is just growing pains, so I'm not too bothered; but if it becomes a permanent aspect of the site change, that's a serious problem.

Final Note II: There is an insane amount of hatred coming from this thread! Anyone who thinks this website is badly designed needs to look around on the internet more. Whether you like the change or not, this site is a desert rose compared to so many others.

Final Note III: Having watched todays GINX video, I went to enter the forum thread for said video, only to find I could not locate the button to take me there. Either it is very well hidden, which is exactly the opposite of what it should be, or an error has occured, because there is no way that's a deliberate design choice.

 

[Freedon Nad]

This looks like a PowerPoint template made into a website, sans any background. Seriously, I keep waiting for some background to load. Now it's a wasteland of a website and I lost any appetite to read anything.

 

[reaperman22]

ehh not a fan, give me back my sidebar of shows and i will be fine but this new layout is going to make it impossible for me to use my ps3 to watch new videos (as i often did) and it takes longer to get to other new videos, plus the colour scheme is...wrong, i dont know i just much prefered the old layout