[quote=Amélie Vaincœur]Um… if I switch between the beta and the "normal" version, will my actions be synced? Or is the beta only for testing, and what I do there has no "real" effects?
edited by Amélie Vaincœur on 5/25/2018[/quote]
[color=#cc0099]The beta site and the current site both sync live. Switching back and forth shouldn’t cause any issues[/color]
Really? That’s interesting. I was under the impression that they were planning to ensure a single website that would be responsive accross all platforms - the whole "more responsive" improvement has been repeated many times, which wouldn’t be nearly as important if the "main" site wasn’t meant to be played on mobile (in fact, it would be pretty much moot, because I have never had any problems whatsoever even on pretty small screens less than 1000px in width).
I’ll take your word for it, but it does beg the question as to why everything looks and feels like it was designed for a touch screen if they have a dedicated desktop website.
Trying out the beta site now; although it may take some getting used to, I think it shall be serviceable. A little feedback, though:
–In the possessions tab, tooltips can get in the way of selecting other items, since they stick around if you mouse over them.
–And though it’s a minor thing, opening up Surprise Packages demands manually going to the Story tab to open the package instead of happening automatically as before.
–I only noticed this after originally posting this, but there’s also no way to record the sidebar snippets into the journal.
Though admittedly I’m a little ambivalent as to the redesign as a whole, I’m interested to see how it turns out. Besides, HTTPS is never a bad thing.
edited by ReusedNPC on 5/25/2018
So how does one use the new site? Thought I’d try it out but it doesn’t accept my regular account ID and password.
[color=#6666ff]Got it. Thanks Reused NPC. Will get it fixed ASAP.[/color]
Some of the rounded icons look a bit fuzzy to me, but I can’t tell if that’s an actual image with the issue or the contrast with the higher-detail storylet images.
Also, anyone else who took part in the beta may need to clear their cache to see the changes.
I really like the redesigned profile page. Adding the location of where Echos were recorded will help a lot with finding specific ones.
Um, the profile page of the old site does that. Has done long as I’ve been playing.
The header on the new profile page takes up a frankly excessive amount of space. The equipment display seems off too. It’s out of order (glove/hat/clothing/companion/destiny/weapon/boots, club/transport/affiliation/home comfort) compared to the more logical order of the possessions page. It’s also missing ship and spouse.
Speaking of equipment, having the outfit selector directly under the lodgings on the possessions page is rather strange. The mouseover for the lodgings often blocks the menu momentarily. The menu’s placement there also makes it unintuitive for users not already familiar with its function–on the current site it’s right above outfits, and thus clearly related, but now it’s sandwiched between the unrelated lodgings image and expanded inventory button.
Also just noticed that item and quality description text is justified in mouseovers, which looks terrible in some cases. That spacing for Infernal Contracts is, well, infernal.
Also also, the way it’s currently formatted, the item quantity number for mouseovers in the inventory isn’t immediately recognizable as giving the quantity. I would suggest adding the ‘x’ back, i.e. "Infernal Contract x 9" rather than "Infernal Contract 9".
edited by Optimatum on 5/25/2018
Overall, the redesign is pretty nice. The only problem that I can think of right now is that I can’t save any of the snippets (the sidebar ones), and the snippets are one of my favorite things about Fallen London (the Starveling Ket! The Starveling Ket! What did it find in the oubliette?)
Now that the beta site is open and have been able to navigate at my own leisure I think I can give my two cents on the changes with more confidence now.
First off, my major issue with the picture for qualities becoming rounded has been somewhat abated by the fact that items have remained sharp. It’s actually mildly usefully to be able to more easily differentiate the two at a glance. If they were both sharp I think it would actually have looked even weirder than having the two be different and substantially better than if they were both rounded. The main qualities becoming rounded has, actually, kinda grown on me with surprising speed. The framing works especially well with the BDR qualities.
I was not able to spot that detail in the video unfortunately. Would have been nice to have a voice over talking about the major changes but its a bit late for that now.
Second of all I love the new headers. That new and now very prominent art looks gorgeous. Special mention should go to Spite, Veilgarden, Ladybones road, the now splendid looking Shuttered Palace, and - to a lesser extent - the university and watchmakers hill. The former four which have new, more flavorful looking art, and the later two which, while retaining the same art, were smothered in the previous designs by things like the candle, the site title, and delicious friend being added on top of them and forcing their art to become much smaller relative to everything else. Just look at the difference between university of the current site and the beta one. I had not visited the university in a while so I actually had to go back and check the current site to make sure that it wasn’t actually a new image.
Lastly, all the main tabs are much easier to navigate now. The search bar is going to make my tier three side-conversions simpler and selling things is less of a hassle now. The stories, possessions, and myself pages are more functional than before. People might argue the original design was more flavorful but I disagree. The previous design made it really hard to use anything at bottom of the page and there was nothing about the design that made it innately more flavorful. Wild Words, Rumor, and Wines which I found myself converting/selling quite often were unusually annoying. I don’t think I like how it’s a list now (that is, it orders everything from top to bottom) on the possessions and myself tab but it works. I suppose. I do miss having just the icons though, it took way less space compared to the new design and was still very understandable and navigable.
I don’t know if this new design is a step up or not. I definitely don’t think it’s a step down though. Maybe a step to the side or a small step up but it is very definitely not worse. At least in my personal opinion.
The only serious criticisms I have is that it seems some of the beta bugs seems to have managed to persist to the open beta (or rather the "get used to the new design earlier" beta). The story tab seems to end up becoming completely blanking and shrinking all the way up to the top for some reason. I’m not using some super special browser (just google chrome) and I have no idea what’s causing it but it’s pretty weird. Also this is less of a glitch and more of a visual discrepancy but on the bazaar tab (and presumably any page where the category list can follow you) if go all the way to the bottom and switch which shop you’re in the category list will shoot to the top. If you scroll so much as a pixel to make it update again it will shoot back to where you are again. It’s nothing major but it’s a tad irritating it’s managed to avoid being spotted for so long. Failbetter has plenty of time to correct these though.
So, all in all, I think I’m reasonably happy now that I’ve been able to play with it by myself now.
Just one more thing though. I promise.
Failbetter. Please.
Why did you change the icon for the luminous neathglass goggles?! They had a unique picture! Now they’re just a differently tinted pair of the irrigo goggles!
No, like, seriously. I’d love to hear why you’d take away a unique icon for a less unique one to replace it. Was it too vertical or something and couldn’t easily be cropped?
TL;DR: Come on! If you want a guys two cents on the biggest change to this site in a long time you should be willing to read it all. Be excited! We haven’t had something like this in forever go to the website if you’d like. If only to get used to the new design earlier.
Edit: Hyperlinked the site properly.
edited by lukeskylicker on 5/25/2018
Opened up the beta and poked around: Seems alright.
Most noticeable and bothersome thing to me would be that, in general, things take up far too much vertical space. I thought I had to scroll a lot with the OLD myself tab! Now my equipment takes up nearly two full vertical screens!
It’s not displaying my spouse, ship, or club on the beta site profile view. This bothers me. The profile view overall is somewhat frustrating.
In the possessions, it feels like item icons are smaller, which is a pity because they were already fairly small. Also, they are no longer in order. It’s a lot less intuitive when they are not in conversion order. This is true for Wines, Infernal, and Wild Words. Also, having unrelated items (like the University Fellowship Endowment) sandwiched between items breaks the flow.
The pages are in general just very tall. The fate page, for instance, is so friggin long for little actual change.
I appreciate improved responsiveness but there are so many things that are visual downgrades. I understand the desire to switch to a more modern site aesthetic but the old style was quite charming. The new one has nice elements (the banner image, for example), but there’s a lot that just feels wrong.
[quote=Jaina ]In the possessions, it feels like item icons are smaller, which is a pity because they were already fairly small. Also, they are no longer in order. It’s a lot less intuitive when they are not in conversion order. This is true for Wines, Infernal, and Wild Words. Also, having unrelated items (like the University Fellowship Endowment) sandwiched between items breaks the flow.
[/quote]
As far as I can tell, the items are currently sorted first by whether or not they can be used, then by their internal ID number. This usually works fine but I’m guessing for the categories you mentioned items were added in a different order. Having usable items first also causes issues for some categories like Rubbery (as the base item Deep Amber should be first) and Wines (Greyfields 1879 gets shunted to the end).
Really I hope they just undo the new ordering aside from Curiosity. Having usable items first is really handy for a category that big. The search feature helps, but it’s much less convenient–especially on mobile–than just scrolling to the item when you don’t have to look for it through the whole category. Curiosity should still go back to alphabetical order though, since now we have silliness like the older and newer Court works being separated.
On a semi-related note, I just noticed that trying to inspect page elements in-browser shrinks the page width and suddenly the mobile site appears instead. What a pain.
Can someone tell me how to change my affiliation, transportation, and home comfort? It’s not obvious unless I’m missing something.
There’s an "expanded" button underneath your lodgings in the Possessions tab. That’s where the affiliation, transportation, spouse, ship, club, and home comfort selections are.
This is going to take a great deal of getting used to. All that beige space! It may also be worth checking the defaults. My account had been set to private, for example.
Oh, and on the sign-in page, I’m back to seeing only the devil’s ear.
edited by Meradine Heidenreich on 5/26/2018
edited by Meradine Heidenreich on 5/26/2018
I’ve had the opportunity to try the site out on a couple of different devices. Here’s some general impressions of the three different designs:
Minor quibbles:
Some miscellaneous comments:
I’ve been using the beta website on my smartphone, love how responsive it is, but I’m also getting the story tab going blank problem at times. I noticed this seems to occur whenever the connection is having a hiccup (either on my side or on the server’s side), which makes me wonder… I see the game can automatically sync itself now, but is there something akin to a manual soft refresh built into it? Like, in the old site, if I encounter any tab blanking I can click on the tab again until it loads. It doesn’t seem I can do the same with the beta site - or at least not with the story tab in mobile. A complete refresh can fix the blank tab of course, but I like "click until it works" better.
And this is more nitpicking than anything, but I also have problem with how bad and inconsistent the cropping of some icons are - not something I like to see carried over from the app. An example. It bugs me how the two Shadowy masks aren’t aligned on the same level and the Exceptional Hat and Judgmental Hat are cropped differently.
I must say I’m impressed with the amount of changes implemented since the last beta closed in such a short amount of time. It’s really good to see all that feedback was taken seriously. With the final changes once the site goes live I’m sure it will be great.
The new looks are a matter of taste (I personally like it now that the icons have changed to rounded corners), but funtionally I don’t think anyone can say the new site will be worse.
The only issue I still have right now is the story tab occasionally going blank again, but the live site is also throwing 504 errors.
As for the item order, it’s better now, but as someone already mentioned a few categories are still a bit weird.
