The New Shiny Escapist

[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.

 

[Bobic]

Ok, I can get past the awkward design and horrendously bright white, but seriously, this barely even runs, it takes minutes to load each page, I know you may be screaming first world problems at me now but considering the last one loaded in seconds, I don't see how this is an upgrade. At first I thought it might just be my comp, but plenty of other people seem to be complaining. You may really want to consider changing it back.

 

[Domehammer]

Well loading times since this change for me are too high to really even browse. Keep getting blank screen that failed to load for some forums. Don't know if I'll visit website till loading times are not 30 seconds to minute plus.

 

[Deef]

I feel like I hate it, but I think it's just the shock of not recognizing anything anymore.
You guys really should have announced that the change was coming, and given some previews as to what it would look like. That way you would've had people hyped up to see it, instead of angry about the sudden change.

Edit: Upon navigating the site for a little bit, it's actually very fluid, a step-up from the old design.
The white is a problem though, I'm actually feeling forced to squint to look at the site. I don't really understand why though, because many other sites I frequent use plain white backgrounds too.

 

[Dryk]

Am I the only one who used the sidebar to see what shows had what episode up at the moment? The fact that it's gone is my only major gripe... although I do see the colour scheme getting old

Not sure why it needed to be changed.

Gives the graphic designers something to do

 

[Thamian]

Likes:

1)New nav bar. Shiny in the Firefly sense.

2)Kinda like the new front page. May just be that I'm running at 1080p but it don't know what these complaints about it being too widely spaced are.

3)Just noticed this: the text box for forum posts expanding as you type into it. Shiny! Again in the Firefly sense!

Dislikes:

1)The white. Bring me my blue borders back please! It's not quite so bad on a 4:3 display (even then there are bloody great empty white voids either side of the actual important stuff), but on my main display it's diabolical, and just makes it look... unfinished somehow.

2)It may just be that you're transferring between servers or suffering some other similar hiccups, but it's taking forever to load and often just giving me a blank white screen. This needs to be fixed. Before the servers get saturated at 17:00 GMT tomorrow.

 

[sb666]

I like a few of the changes but i don't like the color scheme and the front page is a bit of a cluster.

 

[StrixMaxima]

I didn't like it. Too Facebook-ey, harder on the eyes (mine, at least), strange priorities on the front page, harder to get to some of the best content in the site...

Frankly, not to my liking. Change is good, but going towards a unified Internet identity is a bad thing. Sadly, this is happening a lot, lately.

Oh, well.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Has anyone mentioned that it's too bright, and that the news should be on the top of the page?

I'll do so.

Again.

Great work on the tech side, I just don't like it for this website.

EDIT: The site is running really slow as well. I'm sure people have also noticed and commented, but it takes so long for a page to show up, I haven't checked.

I'll also do so. Again. Seriously, how many complaints about the background will it take to have you change it to a darker color?

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Ow...

The new layout...it's ok. Will take some getting used to.

But the colours...please, for the love of my eyesight, can we get an option for toning them down? I'm having to look away just to type this out.

 

[monnes]

My biggest issue at the moment is that even when you go into the news section of the site, there's a very short list. I read the news here about twice a week, and then I read all of it, which means I open about 30 tabs a time. this is going to be very bothersome with the short list and no page number for news as there used to be, even more so. The brightness is also fairly bothersome.

 

[Susan Arendt]

For folks saying you didn't' ask for this...actually, many of you did. We got a lot of feedback that the site felt too cluttered and was hard to navigate. If you have constructive criticism, please let us know. We know the sudden change is a shock, but once you've had a few days to get used to it, please let us know what you think. We want this to be something you guys find can embrace.

I don't blame you guys for freaking out, but please, we'd really appreciate it if you used it for a few days to see what you think.

 

[CGAdam]

It's too stark, I think. I'm with the group that says the background needs to be some other color. I'm still exploring the rest.

 

[IndianaJonny]

Goodness, this was quite literally "out of the blue".

I didn't realise you guys felt the necessity to change the website's image. A little warning would've been nice (though maybe Premium members knew earlier or, in my ignorance, I missed the bulletins).

EDIT:

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.

(Ah, this little gem needs to be spread round. In the end it's the PubClub chaps who deserve to wield the megaphone.)

For a organisation with a white logo, was a white background such a good idea? It looks rather...unfinished, with so much white. A rich, blue backdrop might be a nice addition, no?

And Greg, while I preferred the 'newspaper' layout of the older formats, I appreciate and thank you for keeping up with competing websites, involving the community in your decisions and being generous (and fearless) enough to lay yourself out here in plain fashion.

(With my pragmatist hat on, I rather reckon few will actually leave over this change; I won't be. The covers might change but the content is still magnificent)