The New Shiny Escapist

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

I rather like the design, I saw this on Friday and I was impressed.

I have two small grips though, one, it takes forever to load a page, and the other is, dear GOD the white is hurting my retinas! It probably doesn't help that it's raining and super grey outside, but ouch!

Other than that, I like the design, cheers to you guys for creating it!

 

[hoockhand]

Liked the old layout more..

 

[Dosbilliam]

Not sure why it needed to be changed.

It didn't. The old site was good enough and aside from what I can see on the bottom about the suggested articles and stuff, it seems to be an exercise in futility. The FB comments are completely borked up due to other suggested articles that seem to be somewhat relevant but in no way interesting. Personally, I would prefer them changing back to the old design, or at least adding an option to change back.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Make the borders Blue and I'll be fine.

 

[Fusioncode9]

It's so white... Plus its been running pretty slow for me.

 

[NikolaiK]

aaaaaaaaaaaah aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah aaaaaaaaaaaaaah my poor eyes
How can I lurk in the forums when the design makes my soul vomit?
And where have all the latest videos gone?
And why.... just why
I may have to leave the escapist as I am a hidebound traditionalist
also to reiterate points made before - laggy, too much white and nice subtle use of massive adverts everywhere which ruin the way the site looks

 

[tthor]

Change the blue to darker and use something on the borders to cover up the white other than an advertisement and it'll be okay.

Seriously though, the change is mediocre, I know I'll get used to it, but the old site with the old news bar and colour scheme was far more homely.
Like someone else said, it reminds me of facebook and that's not good.

Meh, I could've done better.

everything he said. And tho it does look kinda remind me of facebook, it somehow looks worse;

 

[seraphy]

I think that shiny part is worst of it actually. This new layout is too bright. Please please tone it down a notch at least. It actually hurts my eyes.

 

[Pinstar]

I'm sure you guys worked very hard on this. And maybe, just maybe, this just a natural aversion to change. But the longer load times and the design?

 

[SovietSecrets]

Its kind of meh to be honest. Just huge boxes everywhere and way too much white.

 

[Dimitriov]

I am sorry, but this new interface is incredibly poorly designed. There is no separation visually between different news articles and videos on the front page. It's confusing and unappealing: it is just a mess.

Frankly it looks like the web page hasn't loaded properly.

The text actually seems less readable too.

PLEASE change it back, for your own sake.

This seems like one of those instances where the best of intentions went very awry. I assume whoever worked on it got too caught up in what they were doing and became unable to take a step back and notice just how BAD what they had created was.


Honestly, I don't think I can look at this on a regular basis, as it is really kind of painful. If it stays this way then I won't be frequenting your website. That's not some stupid ultimatum, or attempt to boycott, or even me just whining. It's a simple truth that reflects the quality of what has been created here, and you should probably be made aware of it.

 

[Intoxicain]

This is just terrible. It feels like a jump on the "make it look better in mobile" bandwagon one year too late, but it still makes all thee same mistakes. too much whitespace, inconsistent layout, horrible fonts, and a layout that clips your content. even your nice front-page pictures are all clipped and tiny.

I cannot see why you would ever sign off on this.

when you hover over the buttons they look 500% better, so I have no idea why that isn't the base state.

 

[alwaysrockon]

Hey, it looks as though they have added some border! Yay! no more pure whiteness!!

 

[Numachuka]

I'm sorry but you need to hire a new website designer or what not. This is quite simply a pile of shit. I don't know how you could fuck it up so badly. It's like you set out to make the worst possible layout. Well, you succeed.

 

[Trujkin]

I might not have seen it, but a letter from the editor a week or so in advanced would have been nice. Thanks for all your work and I look forward to seeing more of your amazing content.

We did give some advance notice to Publisher's Club members, who have had access to the new design since Friday. Part of the incentive for joining Publisher's Club is that we let people in on stuff like this early

part of the incentive is to get access to web design a 5 year old would laugh at? oh gee, how privileged! now I'm REALLY glad I never paid for that garbage.

No need to be rude about it.

 

[Nimzar]

I'm kinda disliking it. But I am a person so resistant to change that I'm still using MSOffice 2003 and Windows XP.

More Concrete Criticism:

*The font change in the articles makes them a little harder for me to read.
*The site as a whole seems much slower than it used to be.
*Too much white space. The website is blinding.
*The removal of the listing of latest updates (with pages to click back through) is disappointing. That was the how I accessed most of the content on this site.

I know this will probably get lost under a pile of nerd-rage but I'm putting these concerns out there and hoping for the best.

 

[Imre Csete]

Okay, the Red Button badge smuckbait is still working, so no hard feelings.

In other news, what's up with every site changing looks nowdays?

 

[TimeLord]

Seeing as most of the general population seem to be reaching for their pitchforks, I fear my comment will get slightly lost in the maelstrom, but hey ho hear we go!

A lot of the issues have been addressed by the Tech Team and whoever they have replaced the hamsters with (ex employees? Are Kuliani and Russ in the engine room going at it on treadmills? Nobody get's to leave the Escapist do they!) since the site was released to the Publishers Club a few days ago based on our own feedback. So keep in mind that some changes were made based on the comments made by members of this community.
The site is a little slow at the moment but I'm guessing that's from the HUUUUUUGE influx of the new UI through the entire site as opposed to the PubClub limitation of that last two/three days. However I'm no server whiz so don't quote me on that.

On the whole though I don't really get the whole white complaint! Yeah... it's brighter... but you should take that as the Escapist preparing you for life outside (ooooh burn! I kid, it was way too easy to make that joke and I feel dirty already having said it).

However, on the whole I think it's a lot more streamlined and sexy looking and the message thing is orange now!

Orange is cool.