The New Shiny Escapist

[bomblord]

Your violating some very basic design principles the home page is overcrowded there's no definite lines. My eyes have no idea where to go first as there's no contrast between important items. Way to many links no definite grouping to it I'm not supposed to sit there for 5 minutes to figure out how everything goes together.

The facebook comments and the related news don't line up well on stories and clash pretty harshly with each other.

Less is always more uncrowd everything and layout things in a more logical manner one positive thing is the colors work well together.


You also have 319 errors and 151 warnings in your html code. http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.escapistmagazine.com%2F&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0

 

[Fleetfiend]

I have to say, I really enjoyed the old one a lot better. Now, Escapist just looks like one of those dozens of other sites.

I suppose I'll get used to it eventually, though.

 

[Robbo]

I have to admit, if the Publisher's Club members approved this, then I don't think they really care. No one is naive enough to not notice an aspect 98% of the people here are complaining about (the brightness). Sorry, but the facts are there to back me up.

Actually we didn't. All these issues were brought up and the first design was ACTUALLY worse on the eyes. They added a VERY subtle gradient and thought well this is fixed. I told them to stop giving me headaches and hire a real designer and they told me I was too mean and people had worked really hard on it.

I wouldn't be so pissed or actually care about the terrible layout, hard to use, terrible performance or even the bad colour scheme if it did one thing. One simple thing. NOT STRAIN MY EYES AND GIVE ME A HEADACHE... RAGE MY HEAD HURTS!

 

[Don Reba]

Huh. I expected this to remain in beta for another week or two.

[ul]
[li]The welcome message still does not remember to stay closed in IE8 and Chrome.[/li]
[li]The drop-down menu text is faded out and borderline readable in IE8.[/li]
[li]The search box text is clipped on the bottom in IE8 and Chrome.[/li]
[/ul]

 

[Stone Golem]

Dammit windows i turned bubble mode off . . . oh wait . . . . hummm not sure if like, ill give it a week or two to see how it settles with me.

 

[CommanderKirov]

I do not care about the new layout.

But I cannot take so much white on my gaming website, sorry Escapist. I guess I'll just pop in here sometimes to watch the videos. But the forums will be too much of an eyestrain on me.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

It's... different, but I guess I can get used to it (though I miss being able to search through the hot thread and new threads tabs...).

I also wish it wasn't so damn slow at times...

 

[Robert Ewing]

MY WORLD IS CHANGING AND I DON'T LIKE IT.

Meh, it looks alright I guess, nothing wrong with the old layout though, that's the problem.

It will take people time to get used to. But I preferred the old ones dark aesthetic, not this whiteness shit.

 

[spaceman_jan]

So I'll check back every known and again for improvement otherwise use my own time to make the browser render this pos well enough to not get a headache. I used to be a fan of this site however I see this as the start of the end for the escapist. Hope to see Yahtzee joining Extra Credits on a site that I can easily use.

R.I.P Escapist.

On the contrary i feel that the penny arcade website isn't very friendly at all. The escapist has some of the freindlyist staff running the website and i am positive that they are working on making the site better for all of us. also i would love to see another website that contains such a fantastic and intelligent communtiny.

In short i dont think that this is the end of the escapist that is a little dramatic. I believe that websites change whether we like it or not but the content of the website is still the same and i think that we just have to hope that they smooth the website over.

My freind this is not the end of the escapist it is only a new form that we must accomadate to (like youtube).

My only suggestion would be that the escapist offer a option (like a button) to switch back to the old formate! (again like youtube)

This is all i have to say.

 

[luna_moth]

The only problem I have is the blinding light on light colour scheme that melts my brain when I look at it, and makes it very difficult to read text. Other than that I'm fine with the new layout.

 

[Taawus]

Please oh please, allow option to use old layout?

 

[ThunderCavalier]

Derp de dooooo I absolutely hate the new Escapist its just like the bad YouTube and bad Facebook I hate it when people change stuff rage rage rage rage rage.



tbh, I haven't really taken a look around the new Escapist yet. I'll give it a day and then give some real feedback of what I feel about the site. Just wanted to get on the hate bandwagon for some fun.

 

[Arachon]

There's a lot of white
Having an all-white background on a website, where the main attraction is reading, is going to strain the user's eyes. I recommend replacing the white with a light gray and the problem will go away.

No clear and defined boundaries
On the main page you have a lot of content. While that's not always a bad thing, the problem is the eyes don't know where to naturally land and cannot be focused on one particular thing very easily. This can be solved by adding clear boundaries for the content whether it be through a different color pallete or clear markers/lines to show the user where something ends and something new begins. It's just feels like a chore to browse the home page. A good example of a high-content and well-designed page is CNN [http://www.cnn.com]

These are my main issues, the entire site looks somehow "unfinished", the lack of boundaries makes it look as if the CSS failed or something, and all the white just makes me wait for something to load.

 

[fieryshadowcard]

I'd like to let you know what I think about the actual features the new design implemented, but every time I try to look my eyes start to bleed from the painfully bright colors and tiny, tiny fonts. In fact, I have no idea how many years of permanent damage I've caused to my vision just to tell you this.

 

[LadyTL]

Well, day two of supposedly getting used to the new site. Still exactly the same problems
I had with it before.

The 90% white background and useless massive white bars make it pointless to read anything on the site since I don't need to blind myself or give myself a crippling headache.

The news page is still taken up by more pointless empty space and pinned articles that I have no interest in since they are old. Why have two front pages by the way? You pin articles to the front page to make a front page but why try and make a second front page out of the news page? The tiny box of what I am actually looking for, articles written, is hard to navigate and punishes you for not immediately clinking on things because it gets confusing to navigate back and forth since there are no page numbers and the font is tiny so it is hard to read.

The facebook comments are still cramped and squashed by more pinned news articles. I get it you want us to read them. The thing is we really do not need that on every single page we go to. I honestly can remember what I read two days ago or even what I read yesterday. I do not need constant reminders of things I have already read. Facebook comments are also more limited. Why only allow a couple new comments to appear at a time? I can read way faster than that.

A last few minor quibbles, I miss the series bars on the side. They were relevant since I don't feel the need to bookmark a dozen or more pages to keep track of things that are all on one website. And finally the stories I might like are useless, since it is old news and I have already watched and read all of what is there. They don't even change if I pick one of them so what is the point?

Guys please stop acting like Gawker. I really don't want this place to end up like Kotaku. Most of us are not complaining because things changed. We are complaining because the changes are BAD. Now I'm going back to avoiding this site because just writing this comment has given me a horrendous headache because of the site colors.

 

[AwesomeExpress]

Holy websites, Batman! I think it looks really nice! Can't wait to use this every day!

 

[keiskay]

So I'll check back every known and again for improvement otherwise use my own time to make the browser render this pos well enough to not get a headache. I used to be a fan of this site however I see this as the start of the end for the escapist. Hope to see Yahtzee joining Extra Credits on a site that I can easily use.

R.I.P Escapist.

On the contrary i feel that the penny arcade website isn't very friendly at all. The escapist has some of the freindlyist staff running the website and i am positive that they are working on making the site better for all of us. also i would love to see another website that contains such a fantastic and intelligent communtiny.

In short i dont think that this is the end of the escapist that is a little dramatic. I believe that websites change whether we like it or not but the content of the website is still the same and i think that we just have to hope that they smooth the website over.

My freind this is not the end of the escapist it is only a new form that we must accomadate to (like youtube).

My only suggestion would be that the escapist offer a option (like a button) to switch back to the old formate! (again like youtube)

This is all i have to say.

he wasnt talking about friendly as in staff he meant user friendly.

 

[krellen]

No sir, I don't like it.

Where's my nice list of your content along the sidebar where I could quickly check for new episodes/columns? What is it about web designers* that insist on making their websites less accessible every time they do a "redesign"?

*Does not apply to all web designers, only the ones I complain about.

 

[saphirekosmos]

The white is a bit much. Hard on the eyes. When it first loaded I though that there had been a problem loading. I think that is a bad first thought when you see a site. It still looks like the page only ever half loads o me. Pretty annoying personally. And woe to anyone who goes here in a dark room. O__O

 

[new_age_reject]

Eeeeeeeeh.
I really don't like it. It looks messy and is confusing to the eye. It's much harder to navigate and the white background is pretty mildly offensive