Oooh, shiny!

The 'new' link in the forums doesn't scroll down to where I need to start reading - the post opens to the top each time.

Disclaimer, I'm running IE6 on my work machine (not through choice) - don't know if that's related.

EDIT - seems it is - Firefox works just fine.

Looks great so far.

Nice! Thanks!

*hugs*

Nevermind. Problem vanished.

I fixed a couple of permissions issues a few minutes ago and Chrome looks good to me now. Let us know if you're still having issues with it.

Hmm. I'm not seeing these issues in Chrome in Windows or Linux, or in the Chromium nightly build in Linux.

Nice job on the changes!

I like the front page setup much better. On more than one occasion I've almost missed a good article because I didn't scroll down far enough.

The OP fix is awesome and definately helps out. The catch-all's OPs are usually image heavy and not having them there on every page makes surfing the site at work subtler.

The only thing upsetting to me is the back end changes. I love your back ends just the way they are.

Please, I hope this doesn't come off as too harsh or disapproving, I've tried to be as constructive as possible. I hope it is useful.

---

While I don't disprove of the new features I think the top half of the page is badly designed.

1. The advantage of the old layout was being able to see the latest article instantly as it was on top area of the page. This area is now filled with articles I've already read. I have to scroll down to see if there is a new article.

The black banner on top of the site however isn't used for anything. Move the right panel (showcase and frontpage articles) up and you'll be using the vertical screen estate more efficiently. Alternatively redesign the entire page header to be smaller.

2. The images in the showcase are too small to be useful. You can't really identify what is in the image. They merely serve as recognition for articles already read.

So perhaps rather then cropping the images down to size, zoom in on a significant detail in the image?

3. The article showcases description
text is
awfully
hard to
read
vertically.

Fewer articles in the article bar would provide more horizontal room for the description texts. As an added bonus, long titles don't need to be spread out over two lines any more either.

4. The showcase category label is big and red, it invites clicking but isn't actually clickable. The other elements of the showcase aren't so easy to click. Being able to click the picture is good but is typically on the web used to show the full sized picture. This causes confusion.

Basically making the whole showcase area clickable and conveying this by highlighting the outline around the showcase would improve this.

5. To accommodate users viewing in <1024 move the left side bar to the right. This again puts the most important information, the articles, in view first. That screen estate isn't being used efficiently is especially noticeable when scrolling down, after two articles, there is a large empty space on the left.

Edited for typos another other endangered species.

I really appreciate that you guys are trying to change the site, but I agree with a lot of what Lucan is saying.

People go to the front page? My bookmark goes straight to the forums menu.

I only read it for the articles!

Not anymore, right? The GOG ad has been moved to the left sidebar under the Popular Forum Threads.

The first three boxes at the top are the latest feature articles. The scroll down you do to see the article blog area is no different than before, newest articles at the top, etc.
There will be ads there, eventually. In-house stuff at first, maybe game-specific stuff down the line.

Design ideas are appreciated, but I'll warn you now that they'll be taken more seriously in a week or two once people have settled in and got used to the existing changes. I personally HATE website changes until I get used to them. It's a normal reaction.