Jesus christ, you do realize that you're obligated to at least to pretend to act with some level of maturity, right? Why the hell are you deliberately pissing people off who help pay for this site? More importantly, how the hell are you keeping a job doing shit like this? At the very least you could just not respond to him, rather than mocking him for getting fucked over, like you're some sort of MMO scammer. Is this really The Escapist's response to unsatisfied customers? Seriously?Kross said:
The New Shiny Escapist
- Thread starter Trujkin
- Start date
It seemed a response with the same amount of rational thought as a rant tossing random accusations borne out of some sense of Internet entitlement.adalekplunger said:
We've been very obviously responding to feedback throughout the new site launch. The theme has changed to some degree every single day except the weekends (actually, that's a lie, we worked on it then as well - just not all day). There's now more customization options, and more features are in the works. The site performance has also been improving throughout the past few weeks, despite lag or timeouts due to traffic and new site features. I'm sorry we are not working fast enough for you. We will be hiring more programmers at some point, unfortunately we have other things to spend money on first.
The site performance has been steadily degrading for a while now. The new site added more load on top of the existing situation. That's why you have been seeing various slowdowns and timeouts, as traffic touches off a bottleneck to some back end service and the web servers fall over behind it. I've been rewriting some of our worst queries (the first was the thread/group view query) to take advantage of some fancy nosql thing that uses magnets or something for speed. I think you'll notice that while there are still random traffic spikes that stall the servers, the performance currently is better then it has been in quite a while.
Anyway, I have very little respect for people who post comments like the one I replied to, although I did consider it better then my initial impulse to just firewall him the fuck off my servers. I try to be civil where I can, though not everyone can see such gestures. :/
EDIT: WHY THE GODDAMN FUCK ARE MY BADGES BROKEN
EDIT2: It's Christmas, nobody's working right now. Except when I get a text telling me the new stupid magic database thing is lagging and I should restart it.
EDIT3: MERRY CHRISTMAS
I was going to do a wall of text, but thanks to this person I can just use the quote button. You didn't seem like a completely irrational dick who doesn't care about the people who use this site, it's because your only responses were short trolls, when there were legitimate complaints. If you do make tiny changes addressing complaints, but those exact same complaints are rolling in, the reasonable thing to do is to spell it out with something along the lines of "I know you guys don't like this, so were doing that to change it". Keeping silent about everything and just tossing out "We're working on stuff" just pisses people off.Bob Kyuss said:
Still, I will admit I've noticed that the loading times aren't as much of a pain in the ass as before, so definitely good work there.
**DISCLAIMER: I WAS A COMPLAINER!!!**
Back after a few days of silence, work, and observing. I can see improvements so far. The use of a picture for the side borders is the first, and best, fix so far. Great work.
The servers seem to be handling traffic and database queries a bit better than when the new site went live. Good work Kross.
I think one thing people have to remember is that the IT staff, like Kross, are under immense pressure from above. I work as a IT Support/Server Admin at a school with 1000 students and over 100 staff. Each and every student has a laptop, same with teachers. And the rest have desktops. Do we always do things right? No, of cause not. Do we always do what we think needs to be done? Of cause not! Do we do what management wants us to do. YES!
I believe that the responses are getting through, but have to work through the various levels in a business, which the Escapist is, a business.
I think if they made the latest news more noticeable, and near the top somehow, then the site would work. The main itemssection at the top has been tweaked with Escapist-grown stuff. Random sections of the site aren't being shown as SQL queries, and I don't have to wait 5 minutes per page to load. Seems like progress.
A separate article explaining what has been happening lately would go along way settling the masses, and make the people feel more included in the process besides just a one way yelling match.
Also, a word the the wise to Kross. Don't make fun of the userbase. I did that once...and...yeah...the kids mum was a cop. Nuf said. (He should have NOT been looking at porn all day...)
Have a good Christmas, or other festive/religious time of year.
Back after a few days of silence, work, and observing. I can see improvements so far. The use of a picture for the side borders is the first, and best, fix so far. Great work.
The servers seem to be handling traffic and database queries a bit better than when the new site went live. Good work Kross.
I think one thing people have to remember is that the IT staff, like Kross, are under immense pressure from above. I work as a IT Support/Server Admin at a school with 1000 students and over 100 staff. Each and every student has a laptop, same with teachers. And the rest have desktops. Do we always do things right? No, of cause not. Do we always do what we think needs to be done? Of cause not! Do we do what management wants us to do. YES!
I believe that the responses are getting through, but have to work through the various levels in a business, which the Escapist is, a business.
I think if they made the latest news more noticeable, and near the top somehow, then the site would work. The main itemssection at the top has been tweaked with Escapist-grown stuff. Random sections of the site aren't being shown as SQL queries, and I don't have to wait 5 minutes per page to load. Seems like progress.
A separate article explaining what has been happening lately would go along way settling the masses, and make the people feel more included in the process besides just a one way yelling match.
Also, a word the the wise to Kross. Don't make fun of the userbase. I did that once...and...yeah...the kids mum was a cop. Nuf said. (He should have NOT been looking at porn all day...)
Have a good Christmas, or other festive/religious time of year.
I'm not entirely sure where you're getting [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.335457-Dear-Escapist-This-site-is-getting-slower-and-slower#13546166] your [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/6.333298-The-New-Shiny-Escapist?page=32#13536106] information [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/6.333298-The-New-Shiny-Escapist?page=30#13525652] from [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/6.333298-The-New-Shiny-Escapist?page=12#13500960]. (Never mind the various posts and responses in the Tech [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/groups/view/Tech-Team] and Redesign [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/groups/view/Escapist-Redesign-Information] group - and all the other various staff responses)Bob Kyuss said:
Not particularly. I don't believe I implied anywhere that I thought everyone else who supported the site was spewing irrational anger at the staff who worked hard on it. I have nothing but respect for those who show us respect. I believe my posts and dealings with the community have pretty consistently shown that. Treating ill conceived rants as the jokes that they should be, is out of consideration for the poster - rather then assuming they are either short sighted and incapable of reading other responses or exhibiting simple patience while we deal with a tedious process over the holidays; OR assuming they are just a troll and banning them outright.Bob Kyuss said:
Really, what person who claims to want to support the site thinks "fuck you I'm leaving" is at all useful to the people who run the site that purportedly means enough for you to pay purely to donate. As all of the still functioning (and even added upon) Pubclub benefits aren't enough to stop a demand of a refund for philosophical reasons? I don't know what other positive light I could view his comment other then the joke I treated it as. We don't hate site traffic. It's kind of a nice thing.
Things are updating, and I'm sorry if it is not quite as fast as you would like (we'll have more coders someday, that day is not today). We are listening and things will be improving towards wherever we can find consensus. I personally try not to directly comment on the color scheme because I have nothing to do with the color scheme of the site. Other staff has I believe, and there are alternative colors in the works. Adding other backgrounds (like the blue) require we make sure all the other elements of the site show up against it, which takes some time. We'll have more background selections added over time, but we are still working out the exact details of the implementation.
We do like the community (why wouldn't we?), and are working to make things fall into line with what you guys want. We've never had any tolerance for parts of the community that have nothing better to do then spew hate on our forums without thought.
So I've held myself back from commenting and much other Escapist stuff for a bit, aside from LRR-related content, so I thought I'd jump back in with some updated feedback!
I... Really fucking like the new layout now! Well, kind of. Sort of. Maybe? I dunno.
The image that's set as the background is MUCH better than the blinding white! I personally think a random background per month would be pretty neat! Maybe the biggest game of the month could relate to that somehow?
I can understand the concern about the snow hurting CPU speeds, but my CPU kinda sucks and I'm not getting much slowness from the site.. Good thing there's a Turn It Off function though!
There's still a few things I have some problems with, but it's really not bad enough to require a "CHANGE THIS RIGHT THE FUCK GOD DAMN NOW", y'know?
The front page still looks a bit cluttered and stuff, but it seems to be getting there! The few things I said earlier about the news ticker, etc could still be awesome to see fixed up though.
I also tweaked my monitor's contrast settings as well as some overall graphics options and it's boosted the quality of everything else as well, so.. Go Team?
I... Really fucking like the new layout now! Well, kind of. Sort of. Maybe? I dunno.
The image that's set as the background is MUCH better than the blinding white! I personally think a random background per month would be pretty neat! Maybe the biggest game of the month could relate to that somehow?
I can understand the concern about the snow hurting CPU speeds, but my CPU kinda sucks and I'm not getting much slowness from the site.. Good thing there's a Turn It Off function though!
There's still a few things I have some problems with, but it's really not bad enough to require a "CHANGE THIS RIGHT THE FUCK GOD DAMN NOW", y'know?
The front page still looks a bit cluttered and stuff, but it seems to be getting there! The few things I said earlier about the news ticker, etc could still be awesome to see fixed up though.
I also tweaked my monitor's contrast settings as well as some overall graphics options and it's boosted the quality of everything else as well, so.. Go Team?
So the layout stil sucks, the content displayed is still disorganised and uninformative as to the content, the loading times are still a joke and we've replaced the 'flashbang' white with a bandwidth killing flash background...
If you like I know a guy from my university days who used to do web design a lot more competently than this. I'm sure saving the ass of a major website would look good on his CV.
Site navigation is such a pain these days that I only come on to see if a sane person has taken over and fixed it and to check here to see if there's an explaination for why said sane person hasn't stormed in and saved the day.
Eventually I'll get tired and stop coming here, catch the video content when it eventually filters down to youtube and eventually be able to keep up to date when your content providers abandon you for other site... because you can no longer pay them... you know because the ad views will have dropped off and you'll be recieving too few subscriptions.
If you like I know a guy from my university days who used to do web design a lot more competently than this. I'm sure saving the ass of a major website would look good on his CV.
Site navigation is such a pain these days that I only come on to see if a sane person has taken over and fixed it and to check here to see if there's an explaination for why said sane person hasn't stormed in and saved the day.
Eventually I'll get tired and stop coming here, catch the video content when it eventually filters down to youtube and eventually be able to keep up to date when your content providers abandon you for other site... because you can no longer pay them... you know because the ad views will have dropped off and you'll be recieving too few subscriptions.
I whined before, so it seemed appropriate to also give credit where credit is due. The holiday borders are easy on the eyes, and appreciated.
So much this. The new blue just doesn't feel like home.arc1991 said:
Also the
[ h1]
and
[ h2]
forum codes were changed to the new color as well.
[HEADING=1]This is what[/HEADING]
[HEADING=2]they used to look like.[/HEADING]
************************************
[HEADING=1]This is what[/HEADING]
[HEADING=2]they look like now.[/HEADING]
[HEADING=2]they used to look like.[/HEADING]
************************************
[HEADING=1]This is what[/HEADING]
[HEADING=2]they look like now.[/HEADING]
It may be petty but it bugs me.
Just like Microsoft's idea of "improving" the Xbox Dashboard, I think the new look of the Escapist site falls short of success. The current colours are rather bright (my eyes actually do hurt just a tad after actually browsing for a few minutes). But what's upsetting me the most is I can't flipping pause the videos by clicking them anymore. I can't even press the spacebar to make them pause, I can ONLY click the little pause button, and you have no idea how annoying that is when you suddenly have to pause it cause of an emergency or something comes up you wanted to stop and read (like on a ZP video).
EDIT: Well, looking at more of the posts here, I guess opinions that don't explicitly state "The Escapist Is Perfect!!" are going to be ignored, or even worse, punished. That's certainly not right, and a good way to turn your userbase against you.
EDIT: Well, looking at more of the posts here, I guess opinions that don't explicitly state "The Escapist Is Perfect!!" are going to be ignored, or even worse, punished. That's certainly not right, and a good way to turn your userbase against you.
So how do I go through the process of deleting my account from existence? I will not support a site that allows their mods/employees to talk the way they do to customers. It's been a long road but one that has been worse than better. From not paying employees to shabby service it just keeps going down hill.
I changed my "browsing options" to natural.. It only took 5 minutes and constant reloads but I see no effect. I still only get bright white as a background. I am not going to spend this time again, what a wasted effort.
As to those who think that it is a-ok to treat members of the community with contempt just because you believe they deserve it please rethink this flawed idea as is the flawed notion of entitlement. I thought that Escapist staff were above playground antics and would treat any member with care, respect, and compassion, no matter how inane their actions. It is clear now that the staff here feels no such responsibility towards its community because of the lack of action taken in the past few days. I will wait around a little longer to see if logic prevails and we get a formal apology but I will not hold my breathe.
As to those who think that it is a-ok to treat members of the community with contempt just because you believe they deserve it please rethink this flawed idea as is the flawed notion of entitlement. I thought that Escapist staff were above playground antics and would treat any member with care, respect, and compassion, no matter how inane their actions. It is clear now that the staff here feels no such responsibility towards its community because of the lack of action taken in the past few days. I will wait around a little longer to see if logic prevails and we get a formal apology but I will not hold my breathe.
I don't know if this will be read or not, but my only question is why all of the content contributors are being uploaded at such strange times now. It may just be me, because I haven't seen any threads asking about it, but Zero Punctuation hasn't updated today, Extra Punctuation took until about 10 PM last night to update, Feed Dump hasn't updated, and LoadingReadyRun hadn't updated at the "normal" time on Monday. It strikes me as strange because Jimquisition, Unskippable, and The Big Picture all did update at the proper times.
Also, I much preferred the snowy mountain background picture to the blinding white that it has now returned to. EDIT: Though the "darker" option is nice.
Also, I much preferred the snowy mountain background picture to the blinding white that it has now returned to. EDIT: Though the "darker" option is nice.
So uhhh... all that about "thanks for adding holiday borders because it's easy on the eyes"...
Yeah, I revoke my praise. Thanks for removing them so we're back to BURNING LIGHT OF A THOUSAND SUNS borders. People who are screaming bloody murder about the escapist not listening: I'm starting to understand them.
Yeah, I revoke my praise. Thanks for removing them so we're back to BURNING LIGHT OF A THOUSAND SUNS borders. People who are screaming bloody murder about the escapist not listening: I'm starting to understand them.