Welcome to the new GarageGames.com!
by Jacob Fike · 01/13/2009 (6:28 pm) · 200 comments
Notice anything different around here? The GarageGames web team presents to you the first new look of GarageGames.com. Of course, there are a lot more changes around here than just getting a face-lift.
The web team was allowed out of jail to take this picture. Smiling bright and sunny are Derek and Jason on the left, in the shadows with hands in pockets are me and Ken on the right.
It's pretty established over here in Eugene that the GG.com website team is a quiet and reserved bunch, as opposed to the more extroverted Torque devs who are always eager to talk about new tech. However, it's probably good for you to get a quick overview of who made the site possible. I'm Jacob Fike (probably obvious given the blog header), and I've been working with GarageGames for two years now. I got my start by creating Overlord Management System system. I then went on to help create the Great Games Experiment and worked on the backend of InstantAction for a while before devoting myself full time to this site. Working beside me is an even more quiet guy, Jason Hetu, who did most of the design work for the site and likes bran muffins (ask him about that later). Also heavily involved in the content and design of the new site were Derek Bronson (for better marketing of our 3rd party products), Eric Fritz (for marketing and usability), Davey Jackson and Michael Blenden (for the needs of educators who visit the site), and Ken Holst and Jeff Hojnacke (for testing).
And HUGE THANKS to the Operations team. First lead by Jay Arrera, and then Jeff Cassar, we wouldn't have been able to post the site up so quickly. Eli Janssen (who doesn't have a profile page since he's too busy making this all work) in particular put in a ridiculous amount of overtime to get this live. We salute you and your beard, Eli.
For anyone who has been here any length of time, you know the old site was beginning to show its age. Although it was still functional, it looked and acted like a site that had been built in the early 1990s. A myriad of web devs had added some cool things to the site over time like community web blogging, snapshots, etc., but maintaining the site was becoming something of a task from a backend perspective since it had ballooned so much. It was due for a much needed overhaul to take advantage of new technologies that made coding and maintenance much easier over the course of the last few years. And, of course, from a usability perspective, there were just too many pages (many of them hard to find if you didn't know the site well), so it was also time to make it easier for new users to navigate through our site.
(And just between you and me, we were kind of sick of the yellow. While it gave the site some personality bonus points, it also made it really hard to design nice art assets for the site. So we chose an easier-on-the-eyes color that would make your blog screenshots pop out of the page.)
Here are 11 links in one drop down and according to Google Analytics, they were rarely clicked on. Sad Panda.
Most of it is pretty self-explanatory. For example, we've simplified the navigation bar so that the entire site is linked through the pages on the top bar. The product pages have been condensed so everything you need to know is contained on one page. And a lot of functionality is staying the same for now, such as Markup Lite for blogs and forum posts. But there are few things that you should know as you familiarize yourself with the site:
Search has been revamped for the entire site. We knew a lot of you would be pleased with this one. The main search box will do a search on all sections of the site. However, each section has its own search box that will search only that type of content (blogs, for instance). The simple search box is smart enough to recognize most standard search queries like phrase matching (put multiple words in quotes to find that exact phase), specific field matches (i.e. author:Bob), and negative term matches (i.e. -dave would show results that do not contain the term dave). Pretty much anything you use on Google, you can use here. The Advanced Search even has the ability to search based on dates, and allows you to limit your searches all the way down to specific forums.
We have a support tab that contains links to all documentation, a form to submit bugs, and how to get paid support. For now, documentation links to the work Michael Perry started with the old site, but will slowly get revamped as he improves the doc system this year. The submit bugs form is similar to our old one, but much easier to find, so we get quicker feedback on our products. And finally, we will be processing requests for paid support, although that is likely geared toward the professional end of our users.
The What's New Page has been simplified to the most clicked on links. The old What's New Page had way too much content, and after some Google Analytic research, we decided to boil it down to the basics. We put GG blogs and other blogs we flag as "featured" right at the top. (Our old "Snapshots" feature has been replaced with these "Featured" blogs.) All other recent blogs also have screen real estate on the bottom of the page. We also have separate tabs for blogs, resources, and forums so you can keep track of those. We'll keep a close eye on how this new navigation is used and make improvements throughout the year.
All information on a single product is now contained within...the product's page. Remember the old days where you had to click on several pages to find information about a product? Even feature lists were on separate pages? Yeah, that sucked. And yeah, we fixed that, by having all information about a product put in tabs on one easily-found page. And now all products are under the "Products" drop-down. Hooray, consistency!
Logins are based on e-mail addresses, not handles. We decided to use e-mail addresses for our unique login because, well, they're unique by design, and people tend to remember them better than handles, which can change over time. Your e-mail address on the new site was the private e-mail you listed when you first registered on GG.com. However, for those of you that can't remember what that was, you'll notice on the login page that we have a place where you can still login under your old handle. Just know that we will eventually rely solely on e-mail addresses for all logins in a future build.
You no longer have pictures and other files uploaded to your profile. Due to the way we set up our initial backend, we decided not to support user uploaded files. Since profile pictures were the only real functionality must people took advantage off, we thought this was okay for initial launch.
Please do not use origin-www or the direct IP address to get to the new site. For the past year, we've been dealing with a rare, but frustrating issue through our CDN (Akamai) where users would get a screen that said "Service Unavailable" when trying to connect. To bypass Akamai and go around this error, some users have been entering the IP address for GG directly, or using origin-www.garage..... as an alternative. We're confident that the "Service Unavailable" issue will be disappearing entirely when the new site is up. It's being hosted in a different location, so connection issues to Akamai should be resolved. However, for each user that bypasses Akamai and connects to our hosted hardware directly, it plugs an available socket. If too many of these are plugged, Akamai can't process requests and neither can the hosted site. Please use www.garagegames.com exclusively from the time the new site is up and discontinue using origin-www or the direct IP. This should save us a lot of hassle and make the site operate faster for everyone who uses it.
Yeah, this is a massive post. I'm sure I've missed a couple things...my mind's kind of mush right now after all the work it's taken to get this far. Do know that we are nowhere near feature completeness of what we want the site to be able to do. More features will be rolled on a steady basis as we collect feedback and monitor site usage.
Welcome again to the new site, and post away with any issues you encounter or things you'd like to see. I'll address them as best as I can in follow-up site releases over the following weeks.
Who are you again?
The web team was allowed out of jail to take this picture. Smiling bright and sunny are Derek and Jason on the left, in the shadows with hands in pockets are me and Ken on the right.It's pretty established over here in Eugene that the GG.com website team is a quiet and reserved bunch, as opposed to the more extroverted Torque devs who are always eager to talk about new tech. However, it's probably good for you to get a quick overview of who made the site possible. I'm Jacob Fike (probably obvious given the blog header), and I've been working with GarageGames for two years now. I got my start by creating Overlord Management System system. I then went on to help create the Great Games Experiment and worked on the backend of InstantAction for a while before devoting myself full time to this site. Working beside me is an even more quiet guy, Jason Hetu, who did most of the design work for the site and likes bran muffins (ask him about that later). Also heavily involved in the content and design of the new site were Derek Bronson (for better marketing of our 3rd party products), Eric Fritz (for marketing and usability), Davey Jackson and Michael Blenden (for the needs of educators who visit the site), and Ken Holst and Jeff Hojnacke (for testing).
And HUGE THANKS to the Operations team. First lead by Jay Arrera, and then Jeff Cassar, we wouldn't have been able to post the site up so quickly. Eli Janssen (who doesn't have a profile page since he's too busy making this all work) in particular put in a ridiculous amount of overtime to get this live. We salute you and your beard, Eli.
Hey, I liked the yellow banners. Why bother with the change?
For anyone who has been here any length of time, you know the old site was beginning to show its age. Although it was still functional, it looked and acted like a site that had been built in the early 1990s. A myriad of web devs had added some cool things to the site over time like community web blogging, snapshots, etc., but maintaining the site was becoming something of a task from a backend perspective since it had ballooned so much. It was due for a much needed overhaul to take advantage of new technologies that made coding and maintenance much easier over the course of the last few years. And, of course, from a usability perspective, there were just too many pages (many of them hard to find if you didn't know the site well), so it was also time to make it easier for new users to navigate through our site.
(And just between you and me, we were kind of sick of the yellow. While it gave the site some personality bonus points, it also made it really hard to design nice art assets for the site. So we chose an easier-on-the-eyes color that would make your blog screenshots pop out of the page.)
Here are 11 links in one drop down and according to Google Analytics, they were rarely clicked on. Sad Panda.What should I know about the new site?
Most of it is pretty self-explanatory. For example, we've simplified the navigation bar so that the entire site is linked through the pages on the top bar. The product pages have been condensed so everything you need to know is contained on one page. And a lot of functionality is staying the same for now, such as Markup Lite for blogs and forum posts. But there are few things that you should know as you familiarize yourself with the site:
Search has been revamped for the entire site. We knew a lot of you would be pleased with this one. The main search box will do a search on all sections of the site. However, each section has its own search box that will search only that type of content (blogs, for instance). The simple search box is smart enough to recognize most standard search queries like phrase matching (put multiple words in quotes to find that exact phase), specific field matches (i.e. author:Bob), and negative term matches (i.e. -dave would show results that do not contain the term dave). Pretty much anything you use on Google, you can use here. The Advanced Search even has the ability to search based on dates, and allows you to limit your searches all the way down to specific forums.
We have a support tab that contains links to all documentation, a form to submit bugs, and how to get paid support. For now, documentation links to the work Michael Perry started with the old site, but will slowly get revamped as he improves the doc system this year. The submit bugs form is similar to our old one, but much easier to find, so we get quicker feedback on our products. And finally, we will be processing requests for paid support, although that is likely geared toward the professional end of our users.
The What's New Page has been simplified to the most clicked on links. The old What's New Page had way too much content, and after some Google Analytic research, we decided to boil it down to the basics. We put GG blogs and other blogs we flag as "featured" right at the top. (Our old "Snapshots" feature has been replaced with these "Featured" blogs.) All other recent blogs also have screen real estate on the bottom of the page. We also have separate tabs for blogs, resources, and forums so you can keep track of those. We'll keep a close eye on how this new navigation is used and make improvements throughout the year.
All information on a single product is now contained within...the product's page. Remember the old days where you had to click on several pages to find information about a product? Even feature lists were on separate pages? Yeah, that sucked. And yeah, we fixed that, by having all information about a product put in tabs on one easily-found page. And now all products are under the "Products" drop-down. Hooray, consistency!
Logins are based on e-mail addresses, not handles. We decided to use e-mail addresses for our unique login because, well, they're unique by design, and people tend to remember them better than handles, which can change over time. Your e-mail address on the new site was the private e-mail you listed when you first registered on GG.com. However, for those of you that can't remember what that was, you'll notice on the login page that we have a place where you can still login under your old handle. Just know that we will eventually rely solely on e-mail addresses for all logins in a future build.
You no longer have pictures and other files uploaded to your profile. Due to the way we set up our initial backend, we decided not to support user uploaded files. Since profile pictures were the only real functionality must people took advantage off, we thought this was okay for initial launch.
Please do not use origin-www or the direct IP address to get to the new site. For the past year, we've been dealing with a rare, but frustrating issue through our CDN (Akamai) where users would get a screen that said "Service Unavailable" when trying to connect. To bypass Akamai and go around this error, some users have been entering the IP address for GG directly, or using origin-www.garage..... as an alternative. We're confident that the "Service Unavailable" issue will be disappearing entirely when the new site is up. It's being hosted in a different location, so connection issues to Akamai should be resolved. However, for each user that bypasses Akamai and connects to our hosted hardware directly, it plugs an available socket. If too many of these are plugged, Akamai can't process requests and neither can the hosted site. Please use www.garagegames.com exclusively from the time the new site is up and discontinue using origin-www or the direct IP. This should save us a lot of hassle and make the site operate faster for everyone who uses it.
For someone who hasn't blogged since 2006, you sure talk a lot.
Yeah, this is a massive post. I'm sure I've missed a couple things...my mind's kind of mush right now after all the work it's taken to get this far. Do know that we are nowhere near feature completeness of what we want the site to be able to do. More features will be rolled on a steady basis as we collect feedback and monitor site usage.
Welcome again to the new site, and post away with any issues you encounter or things you'd like to see. I'll address them as best as I can in follow-up site releases over the following weeks.
About the author
As the CTO of Avalon Labs LLC, I am responsible for the technology behind Fellowstream, our team-based to-do list.
#82
Also, I think you can reduce the blog info to the older format and have more space for more. An alternative is to store a cookie for which blog page the user wants to start at, so if I select the "blogs" tab I always go back to that tab when hitting the community page. That way I can choose to see GG blogs as the main focus, or user blogs.
I miss the screenshots.
01/14/2009 (7:36 am)
Just wanted to add. I liked the fact that when you hit the community page, you got what was happening in the community really quickly. I dont really feel like GG are part of the "community" so much, so having GG blogs as the prominent aspect feels somewhat off.Also, I think you can reduce the blog info to the older format and have more space for more. An alternative is to store a cookie for which blog page the user wants to start at, so if I select the "blogs" tab I always go back to that tab when hitting the community page. That way I can choose to see GG blogs as the main focus, or user blogs.
I miss the screenshots.
#83
01/14/2009 (7:36 am)
I have to agree with everyone here on most points, so not to go round in a circle, please bring back to old site and use the new site as a beta for the next few weeks at least. 
#84
01/14/2009 (7:38 am)
:(
#85
01/14/2009 (7:39 am)
How do I edit a post after I posted it? 
#86
You would think these are comments about this new site.... but they are not. They are comments on the old GG.com when it was launched in 2005.
I agree that the community aspect feels crippled and that they could have probably waited another week to do the switch... but i'm sure that we'll be seeing a bunch of improvements over the next few days.
01/14/2009 (7:51 am)
This is interesting...Quote:The only thing I have to complain about is that even though much more info is only 1 click away, less info is available with zero clicks. Before, I could see employee blogs, community blogs, associate blogs, snapshots, news, and latest threads with no navigation. It gave me a pretty good idea of what's going on. Now I have to click around a bit more to get an overall picture of what's going on.
BIG step forward in visuals and functionality, small step backwards in casual usability.
Quote:The more I look at it, the more I feel that this update was less about streamlining, and more about trying to be like everyone else... Don't get me wrong, it looks nice, but what happened to the individuality of GG?
Quote:The extraneous whitespace on the What's New page leaves a lot to be desired in Firefox/Mozilla. It's also a bit tedious to click several tabs to see information that previously was displayed on the main page.
You would think these are comments about this new site.... but they are not. They are comments on the old GG.com when it was launched in 2005.
I agree that the community aspect feels crippled and that they could have probably waited another week to do the switch... but i'm sure that we'll be seeing a bunch of improvements over the next few days.
#87
Could you list the functions/info that has been removed so we can comment on them specifically? Definitely miss the comment notification, contractor listings and account blog listings?
Can we search member profiles, e.g. lead programmer / designer near Boston?
Will their be better integration to TDN (at least single sign-on, common interface)? I feel like TDN gets neglected b/c of the less than seamless integration (not a knock on TDN, just think that a few small improvements could increase wiki usage).
Finally, I do exactly the same thing Tom does each time I visit GG so I miss the snapshots and unread blogs in date order.
01/14/2009 (8:03 am)
The new look and feel is very clean - congrats on an excellent release! I also think it will be much more amenable to new GG customers. Few questions...Could you list the functions/info that has been removed so we can comment on them specifically? Definitely miss the comment notification, contractor listings and account blog listings?
Can we search member profiles, e.g. lead programmer / designer near Boston?
Will their be better integration to TDN (at least single sign-on, common interface)? I feel like TDN gets neglected b/c of the less than seamless integration (not a knock on TDN, just think that a few small improvements could increase wiki usage).
Finally, I do exactly the same thing Tom does each time I visit GG so I miss the snapshots and unread blogs in date order.
#88
That's why you beta a new site, instead of taking the old one down completely before the new one is up, tested, and full-featured.
If we're going to assume that this new site will eventually "get back" most of the core functionality that it has lost, then that will, in time, solve most of the problems with the site.
Right now, we're looking at having lost a ton of features, lost a ton of functionality, and lost a ton of the things that made the site "feel" nice. Psychologically, the design of the new site is that of a sales site with a couple of community features tacked on - the old site was a community site that did sales. And the users here - myself included - are reading that design change as a direction change for the company, especially when taken in company with their other recent announcements and the mass exodus of so many of their older employees over the last year.
If they had wanted to reassure their community, the new site would have been a BASTION of community tools and structures. It's not. It's a sales site with a badly written blogs module and poorly written forums (c'mon, PHPBB is better than the mess that is in use here now!). While I totally understand that sales needs to be a priority for any business...
...one of the major selling points for Torque has always been the community. Dismantling that was an unwise move. Personally, I'd say:
- put the old site back up, with links to this site as a beta test
- solicit input from your users about what features they want in the new site, what things you can do to make it feel more homey
- rework the site over the next few months to add back in the missing features and functions, and to redesign pages to improve function
- relaunch when you're ready, and when the community has had time to give their input, advice, and thoughts.
01/14/2009 (8:05 am)
Quote:I agree that the community aspect feels crippled and that they could have probably waited another week to do the switch... but i'm sure that we'll be seeing a bunch of improvements over the next few days.
That's why you beta a new site, instead of taking the old one down completely before the new one is up, tested, and full-featured.
If we're going to assume that this new site will eventually "get back" most of the core functionality that it has lost, then that will, in time, solve most of the problems with the site.
Right now, we're looking at having lost a ton of features, lost a ton of functionality, and lost a ton of the things that made the site "feel" nice. Psychologically, the design of the new site is that of a sales site with a couple of community features tacked on - the old site was a community site that did sales. And the users here - myself included - are reading that design change as a direction change for the company, especially when taken in company with their other recent announcements and the mass exodus of so many of their older employees over the last year.
If they had wanted to reassure their community, the new site would have been a BASTION of community tools and structures. It's not. It's a sales site with a badly written blogs module and poorly written forums (c'mon, PHPBB is better than the mess that is in use here now!). While I totally understand that sales needs to be a priority for any business...
...one of the major selling points for Torque has always been the community. Dismantling that was an unwise move. Personally, I'd say:
- put the old site back up, with links to this site as a beta test
- solicit input from your users about what features they want in the new site, what things you can do to make it feel more homey
- rework the site over the next few months to add back in the missing features and functions, and to redesign pages to improve function
- relaunch when you're ready, and when the community has had time to give their input, advice, and thoughts.
#89
Frankly... the community side of the site... which is what is of the most valuable to us, the users, is sorely lacking compared to the old site and here are just some examples of why I say this.
• Forums & Blogs: You cannot edit your posts. That alone is enough reason for this system to have not been rolled out yet.
• Profiles: Still states that user X has submitted xx number of resources... but no longer links to a list of them... that was one of my favorite bits of functionality on the old site, if someone posted a resource that impressed me I would, without fail, go to their profile page and check out every other resource they had submitted which has led to me finding many great bits and pieces that I may have never seen otherwise.
• Scrolling: You have to scroll everywhere... to get to anything! That is horrible functional design. Every where I go, even a simple forum post I have to scroll way down the page to even get to the parts of the page I came for.
• Pagination on everything: A big pain in the butt here, not so much because you have to flip through pages to see all of the results, but again... because every time you flip the page you have to scroll past tons of content to get back to the posts/comments. Suggestion: only show the original post/article on the first page... if we have chosen to go to the second pages of comments/posts that means we are interested in reading the rest of the comments/posts, not seeing the article again... and again... and again.
• The "What's New" tab: PLEASE bring back the old functionality for this. It was SOOO much better then the current one and I totally agree with everything Kevin has said about it. Every day I would come to the GG site and without fail, hit the "what's new" link, and "Glance" at the "featured blogs" then seriously look through and read most of the "user submitted" blogs, resources, and forums post. Now all it does is throw the featured blogs in your face and lets you see a couple community posted blogs. No more "new resources", "new forum posts" etc. Which means that I no longer have time to visit the GG site in the morning as per my usual routine... because I can no longer get a quick glance at the new community activity and pick out the ones I am most interested in right then.
• Resources: This is just absolutely horrible. Again agreeing totally with Kevin on this. Before it was at least semi-organized by functionality / purpose, now it is just one big cluster f*ck list of items that has no organization whatsoever and therefore is of very little use to the community IMHO.
These are just the things I have seen in my 30 or so minutes of usage this morning. The new site looks good, it may not be as warm and welcoming as the old one, but it is clean and neat and does an excellent job of displaying the advertising media. The community side of it however, is where it feels like it was ripped to shreds and I think you are going to find that people will use the site much less now because of it, if this is not addressed and fixed ASAP. Just an honest opinion from a daily user. The new site has potential… but IMO it was definitely not ready to be taken live. The sales side was… but the community side is far from ready. And I think that if the community side suffers… everything will suffer… because that is, at least for me, the single highest selling point GG has… it’s great community.
I do not use Torque because it is the best engine out there… in fact I have found it sorely lacking on many fronts. I use it because the community is so strong and helpful that those areas where the engine itself is either sub-par or flat out non-functional can almost always be gotten around or fixed entirely, by doing a little research on the community side of the site.
01/14/2009 (8:10 am)
Ok upon further use of the site I have to post again and add some constructive criticism that agrees very much with most of what Kevin McLaughlin has stated. I won’t be complaining about color schemes and what not, my critiques are more with the functionality and usability of the site. (Although I do agree, it looks good but no longer has the "game dev community feel” to it.) Frankly... the community side of the site... which is what is of the most valuable to us, the users, is sorely lacking compared to the old site and here are just some examples of why I say this.
• Forums & Blogs: You cannot edit your posts. That alone is enough reason for this system to have not been rolled out yet.
• Profiles: Still states that user X has submitted xx number of resources... but no longer links to a list of them... that was one of my favorite bits of functionality on the old site, if someone posted a resource that impressed me I would, without fail, go to their profile page and check out every other resource they had submitted which has led to me finding many great bits and pieces that I may have never seen otherwise.
• Scrolling: You have to scroll everywhere... to get to anything! That is horrible functional design. Every where I go, even a simple forum post I have to scroll way down the page to even get to the parts of the page I came for.
• Pagination on everything: A big pain in the butt here, not so much because you have to flip through pages to see all of the results, but again... because every time you flip the page you have to scroll past tons of content to get back to the posts/comments. Suggestion: only show the original post/article on the first page... if we have chosen to go to the second pages of comments/posts that means we are interested in reading the rest of the comments/posts, not seeing the article again... and again... and again.
• The "What's New" tab: PLEASE bring back the old functionality for this. It was SOOO much better then the current one and I totally agree with everything Kevin has said about it. Every day I would come to the GG site and without fail, hit the "what's new" link, and "Glance" at the "featured blogs" then seriously look through and read most of the "user submitted" blogs, resources, and forums post. Now all it does is throw the featured blogs in your face and lets you see a couple community posted blogs. No more "new resources", "new forum posts" etc. Which means that I no longer have time to visit the GG site in the morning as per my usual routine... because I can no longer get a quick glance at the new community activity and pick out the ones I am most interested in right then.
• Resources: This is just absolutely horrible. Again agreeing totally with Kevin on this. Before it was at least semi-organized by functionality / purpose, now it is just one big cluster f*ck list of items that has no organization whatsoever and therefore is of very little use to the community IMHO.
These are just the things I have seen in my 30 or so minutes of usage this morning. The new site looks good, it may not be as warm and welcoming as the old one, but it is clean and neat and does an excellent job of displaying the advertising media. The community side of it however, is where it feels like it was ripped to shreds and I think you are going to find that people will use the site much less now because of it, if this is not addressed and fixed ASAP. Just an honest opinion from a daily user. The new site has potential… but IMO it was definitely not ready to be taken live. The sales side was… but the community side is far from ready. And I think that if the community side suffers… everything will suffer… because that is, at least for me, the single highest selling point GG has… it’s great community.
I do not use Torque because it is the best engine out there… in fact I have found it sorely lacking on many fronts. I use it because the community is so strong and helpful that those areas where the engine itself is either sub-par or flat out non-functional can almost always be gotten around or fixed entirely, by doing a little research on the community side of the site.
#90
01/14/2009 (8:13 am)
I agree with most of the points here. The "View unread forum posts" function is what I am going to miss the most. There is no way I'm going to go through every forum to find the posts that have come up since I last visited.
#91
According to one of GG banner adds @ http://www.garagegames.com/products/tge
TGE is no longer officially supported <<<<-------- mite be why its not Products page.
01/14/2009 (8:20 am)
to Charlie SibbachAccording to one of GG banner adds @ http://www.garagegames.com/products/tge
TGE is no longer officially supported <<<<-------- mite be why its not Products page.
#92
I forgot one big feature… where is the snapshot of the day? That was an awesome feature that allowed the users to get a big splash style display of something they have been working so hard on. Again, just a piece of what made this community so great and promoted interaction.
Also the marketplace, the area for dev teams to post jobs and developers to apply… this was a HUGE part of the community aspect.
I am really hoping that most of this will be added back in over the next few weeks. The more I use this site the more disappointed I become and am now going to add my vote that the old site be brought back for the time being and this site put up as a beta while the community side of it is (hopefully) re-implemented to give us back the capabilities that the old site had.
01/14/2009 (8:25 am)
*** Edit To My Previous Post ***I forgot one big feature… where is the snapshot of the day? That was an awesome feature that allowed the users to get a big splash style display of something they have been working so hard on. Again, just a piece of what made this community so great and promoted interaction.
Also the marketplace, the area for dev teams to post jobs and developers to apply… this was a HUGE part of the community aspect.
I am really hoping that most of this will be added back in over the next few weeks. The more I use this site the more disappointed I become and am now going to add my vote that the old site be brought back for the time being and this site put up as a beta while the community side of it is (hopefully) re-implemented to give us back the capabilities that the old site had.
#93
It looks to (way too) clean and i'm missing functionality of the old site.
Can we have a slight change in the backgroundcolors of following up comments? That makes it easier to read for me.
Thanks!
01/14/2009 (8:26 am)
I agree with most of the points mentioned by Syllus and others.It looks to (way too) clean and i'm missing functionality of the old site.
Can we have a slight change in the backgroundcolors of following up comments? That makes it easier to read for me.
Thanks!
#94
Also, it's a bit glitchy in IE6. No PNG support results in horrible looking images (with square box outlines), plus several items on the page are out of place. Oh, and I don't plan on changing my browser!
Good job on the new design, but it could do with some updates and such. ;)
01/14/2009 (8:26 am)
My first thoughts: I'm not too sure about it. The design is pretty cool, but the page just looks so empty. I'm not too keen on the What's New section. I still need to get used to it though; it takes time for me to become accustomed to a new website layout, purely because I'm so used to the old one. I still haven't looked around the whole site, so these opinions are based purely on what I have seen so far.Also, it's a bit glitchy in IE6. No PNG support results in horrible looking images (with square box outlines), plus several items on the page are out of place. Oh, and I don't plan on changing my browser!
Good job on the new design, but it could do with some updates and such. ;)
#95
if i login with email, no produtcs, posts, etc... if login with old username, all is ok...
01/14/2009 (8:29 am)
bug:if i login with email, no produtcs, posts, etc... if login with old username, all is ok...
#96
01/14/2009 (8:45 am)
i like it..but it just needs a little bit more color. In my opinion
#97
Meanwhile, congrats - I really like the new clean look and feel. And I think it will make GG more amenable to new customers. A few questions...
Would it be possible to post a list of functions/content that has been removed so we can comment as a community? I.e. no more snapshots, blog posts on account page, contractor postings, etc.
Is better integration with TDN in the cards? I feel that TDN gets severely neglected b/c of a few missing elements like single sign and a less than seamless integration with the rest of the GG site. Perhaps a way to tie (or view side by side) a forum thread to a wiki for ongoing discussion as a wiki article/documentation set/resource is being updated?
Will there be a way to search member profiles? E.g. help me find an amazing programmer / lead designer in the Boston area.
Will there be any improvements to the embed features or external link monitoring to combat the broken links and lost images/videos in aging postings?
Finally, like Tom I miss the snapshots and unread blog postings ordered by date - I check GG the same way he does every day.
To the Team: great job streamlining the look and feel and improving the search capabilities. You have a good, solid base to take the site to the next level.
01/14/2009 (8:48 am)
Second time Im writing this, perhaps an "autosave" function in our future?Meanwhile, congrats - I really like the new clean look and feel. And I think it will make GG more amenable to new customers. A few questions...
Would it be possible to post a list of functions/content that has been removed so we can comment as a community? I.e. no more snapshots, blog posts on account page, contractor postings, etc.
Is better integration with TDN in the cards? I feel that TDN gets severely neglected b/c of a few missing elements like single sign and a less than seamless integration with the rest of the GG site. Perhaps a way to tie (or view side by side) a forum thread to a wiki for ongoing discussion as a wiki article/documentation set/resource is being updated?
Will there be a way to search member profiles? E.g. help me find an amazing programmer / lead designer in the Boston area.
Will there be any improvements to the embed features or external link monitoring to combat the broken links and lost images/videos in aging postings?
Finally, like Tom I miss the snapshots and unread blog postings ordered by date - I check GG the same way he does every day.
To the Team: great job streamlining the look and feel and improving the search capabilities. You have a good, solid base to take the site to the next level.
#98
I agree with it needing more colour. I mean, GarageGames is about computer games. Computer games are about fun and imagination. IMO, the lack of colour really doesn't reflect this. It just looks too.. "Business-y", for lack of a better term. :)
01/14/2009 (8:54 am)
@JermaineI agree with it needing more colour. I mean, GarageGames is about computer games. Computer games are about fun and imagination. IMO, the lack of colour really doesn't reflect this. It just looks too.. "Business-y", for lack of a better term. :)
#99
I have to admit that its a bit dark for my taste and that it could use a little bit different color scheme, but it looks good and it looks like it will more functional.
01/14/2009 (8:58 am)
I like logging in with my email, that's nice, it makes it easier to remember...I have to admit that its a bit dark for my taste and that it could use a little bit different color scheme, but it looks good and it looks like it will more functional.
#100
Chalk this up to another case of poor Google Analytics Analysis, and even poorer execution on research data. Rule of thumb when looking at those numbers, it's not WHAT your users do, it's WHY they do it.
Lot's of missing functionality here, seems as though this upgrade may have been rushed a bit. Has potential though.
01/14/2009 (9:08 am)
The "community" aspect just seems gone now. Sad because it was a major draw.Chalk this up to another case of poor Google Analytics Analysis, and even poorer execution on research data. Rule of thumb when looking at those numbers, it's not WHAT your users do, it's WHY they do it.
Lot's of missing functionality here, seems as though this upgrade may have been rushed a bit. Has potential though.
Torque Owner Kevin McLaughlin
Some thoughts...
- Frontpage and general layout: in general, improved. I think the frontpage looks nice. The old one did too, mind you - but the black and white looks a lot more sleek. Side effect: the yellow was a lot more open, welcoming, and friendly! Black and white is a wonderful color combination for generating sales; it makes you look more professional. It is not a *welcoming* color combo though, and so is completely inappropriate for a community site.
- Community Button: Ugh.
I click on the community button, and instead of the open, friendly layout that used to be there with an "at a glance" look at EVERYTHING new and exciting going on, we have... a string of "featured blogs" from GG employees. And down below that, five whole blogs from community members - which incidentally are so far down that you have to scroll to see them.
Yes, I can pop over to the Blog button and see a full list of blogs, but that seems painful compared to being able to easily see the last week or so worth in one glance, AND see recent forum posts AND see everything else the old page had. The new community page doesn't feel like a community page - it feels like a place to read GG official blogs.
Community Art/Announcement flier feature: I *liked* the feature that let you pop up some art from your game with a special announcement about that game. I thought that was a unique and especially valid thing that the GG site did. I loved looking at the new work people had put out. I REALLY liked being able to see new art product posted there, since it was almost always posted like that - and while you might miss a blog, you never missed one of the art panels. Now this seems to be GONE? What a shame. This was one of the best features the old site had, something that stood above other community sites.
Resources: They're a mess. They used to be at least moderately well organized; now they're a disaster area.
Forums: I don't really *like* the changes here, but I can deal with them. The functionality is about the same, but the look is different. It feels much more businesslike, and as a result... much colder. It's another case of the "we've put on our black and white success suit" that seems to permeate the new website.
And that, at the core, is my problem with the new site. I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume the web designers understood color theory. If so, they understood precisely what they were doing as they dismantled everything that made the old GG site warm and community-friendly, and cast a cold, sharp, corporate look over the new design.
The GG site has always been more about community than about raw sales. I do not feel that is the case any longer. Which is a shame, because one of the best selling points for Torque has always been the open, friendly community. I don't know how well you'll be able to continue to foster that in this new home, but I know it won't be as easy as it was where you lived before.
A sad day.