At 2 hours ago, Vegemorph wrote: Browsing movies more often than games. Just a small note, I'm not a big fan of where the stats and info are found on games and movie pages. I think the box should be moved up above related content or combined with the credits box like it is in the art portal.

I agree - I want to bump that info up and just append to the credits.

At 3 hours ago, Tony-DarkGrave wrote: are we able to change the background of the site like pre-redesign NGS? because having giant Tits on the screen isn't very safe for some of us who surf the site at work Tom.

The next FP skin won't have giant tits.

At 4 hours ago, TomFulp wrote: The NG buglist is LONG and the gang has been working their way through it. We are also cranking out mockups for improvements and other tweaks around the site.

There are a few things I'm curious about:

1) Do you find yourself ignoring the big content showcase box here on the front page? I've been told it doesn't make enough of a "call to action" and while looking pretty, people aren't being as enticed to click it as they should be.

2) Have you explored the content genre browsing? I feel like this is a really powerful system that a lot of people are overlooking; some have even complained that we removed genres. Go to the games page and scan the categories in the left column. Click around and start exploring. The categories get really in-depth and you can sort by all sorts of criteria. Right now we default to sort by date, which was an attempt to put the spotlight on new submissions but may have been a mistake. Instead we should probably default to sorting by score but maybe set the range to "Year" instead of "All" so there's more movement in the space.

This also makes me wonder if the games front page should be different. Right now we showcase the latest games, popular games from this week, highest scoring games of the month, highest scoring of the year and highest scoring of all time. Popular games tend to just mirror the front page. Best games of all time feels pretty static (instead maybe it could have a random selection from the top 200). But instead of all of that, I'm wondering if we should return to something like the old site, where we have a per-genre showcase. For example, the first box under "Brand Spankin' New Games" could be "Best New Action Games" and list the latest four action games with scores greater than 3.3 (number is based on some personal observations but not set in stone). The showcase would continue with "Best New Adventure Games", etc. I'm thinking it would better highlight the genre categories and might give people more direct access to stuff they like.

3) Have you been making use of the feed button (the star next to logout) in the header? It lists new submissions by artists you have favorited, something that was only available via email in the past. We intend to merge all favorites into one list of people you follow, so that you can easily add them from their user page and not have to add them in the context of a piece of content. Our current system (where you favorite artists based on content categories) is really old and has some charm but it feels like overkill nowadays.

4) Have you found yourself doing anything more or less as a result of the new layout?

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

Later today we'll see the arrival of the latest Cuboy adventure.

Check back tomorrow for the launch of a mesmerizing new featured game from SpikeVallentine!

For Number One, I still use the "Under Judgment" system, either the classic format or the new (which is nice since it displays everything new and under judgment clearly and distinct without having to squint at one spot on the screen). I only flip through a Front Page submission if I missed it when it was Under Judgment.

For two, I have explored Content Genre Browsing via the Audio Portal and have done so to review the latest heavy metal tracks even before the redesign debut. I can see how this could be useful for both Flash content and Artwork, so it's nice to have everything in a uniform package.

For Games, however, it doesn't matter whether it is new or old. Actually, it might, but only to some people. I prefer the genre-based approach, not some score-based assessment of a game's popularity. Popularity does not equal quality; I have banged my head through walls and windows with some of the games with scores of 4 and above, while others I have simply adored even though they are less than 3.3. Consider making a gridlike system where the genres are listed across and the date of release is from latest to earliest, color-coding each icon beneath according to relative score and even hype (i.e. traffic to page, views, and amount (but not average ratings) of feedback via reviews. Last comment: I don't give a damn about the flashy game promo on the front page. I have better regard for the regular listings beneath Front Page movies, rather than seeing an alleged must-play game flashing on the top. Most of the games I've played were ones I found through the typical search engines, not front-page wonders.

For the third point, I don't make use of the Feed button because I show up often enough that I stay apprised of new content regularly. I do check author pages if I haven't heard from them or are awaiting another edition to a series or write a well-thought-out query letter expressing interest in more stuff from them while praising their earlier works. It's a bit of schmoozing that any artist could appreciate. The "Favorite Author" tab is nowhere near the seal of approval people think it is, because if you think they're good, you'd look them up every so often automatically.

For the fourth and final query, I find myself showing up and smiling at what a polished site this place looks like. It rivals some of the other entertainment sites, and it's user-generated to boot! If there was a complaint I would have to make, it would be that I am unsure about if my Blam and Protection points are adjusting my voter score anymore, or even if I'm making automatic deposits of experience while rifling through new content as I used to. It would be nice if that bug gets cleared ASAP, or if there's a workaround, I'd like to hear one.

At 1 hour ago, tox wrote: it would be very nice to see more avantagious things for the people that are building their accounts.. weather it be more options, added tweeks..
take the forum for example.. you go from the 0-9,999 posts and then finally you get a new forum to post in..
thats a large gap, but the same could be said about other parts of the site, give people something to look forward to... give people that have a achievment and perfectionist attitude a feeling that if they just do this a little more they can get something, give the kid that is suffering through depression a little glimmer of light if this is all they have... im not saying free things, im not suggesting imortality,

I do want more perks for people with lots of medals - we're AT LEAST gonna have a rankings page. But even more private forums could be fun. The forum on our staging server was fun because it was just a small group of people testing the site. Same could go for a forum with people who earned tons of medals. Could be like their own version of general... Just more personal. Unless it just becomes dead. But anyway rewards are always fun, I wanna have so much MORE fun stuff like that but it seems like the other stuff always comes first.

At 1 hour ago, Rainwave wrote: All I would like to add to this topic is that I'm really missing the updates on reviews on your own submissions.
The system before the update made it visible in one scroll to see how many new reviews and on what submissions you have, and now I can't seem to find any, making it harder to respond to them. :]

Sorry about that - these links will be returning!

At 1 hour ago, Vorlek wrote: The flash 'splash pages' for each game are a step way way way back imo. Its like going back to the old design when i signed up (2005) which was quite cool 7 years ago... but Flash is really not needed for a button just loads the flash...

You can toggle these under your display options on your account page. We're removing the sounds though.

I'd just like to say that I am very happy that I no longer have to sign in since the 'remember' function properly works now. Thanks for getting that fixed.

At 1 hour ago, punisher1 wrote: Is anything being done about the voting? I vote on 5 sdifferent submissions and it just tells me to keep voting. I vote on 10 and it keeps saying the same thing.

It logs your EXP after five votes but the notifications are down. They'll be back.

4) Have you found yourself doing anything more or less as a result of the new layout?

I am submitting more of my art. However, I still can't get all of my content in the portal. :/

4 of 5 of my new submissions don't show up still. A Mod on here told me that it's a bug in the portal and I was just wondering if there's been any update on this as I'm eager to have all my new submissions in the portal.

Here's the thread link:

http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1292738

At 11 minutes ago, Drake wrote: I'd just like to say that I am very happy that I no longer have to sign in since the 'remember' function properly works now. Thanks for getting that fixed.

You can thank Rob for that one (and really every bug fix is thanks to Rob, PsychoGoldfish, Liljim or Mike).

At 4 hours ago, TomFulp wrote: 1) Do you find yourself ignoring the big content showcase box here on the front page? I've been told it doesn't make enough of a "call to action" and while looking pretty, people aren't being as enticed to click it as they should be.

No, I'm more inclined to check it out now.

2) Have you explored the content genre browsing? I feel like this is a really powerful system that a lot of people are overlooking; some have even complained that we removed genres. Go to the games page and scan the categories in the left column. Click around and start exploring. The categories get really in-depth and you can sort by all sorts of criteria. Right now we default to sort by date, which was an attempt to put the spotlight on new submissions but may have been a mistake. Instead we should probably default to sorting by score but maybe set the range to "Year" instead of "All" so there's more movement in the space.

For audio mostly, but it could be a lot better with some ajax.

This also makes me wonder if the games front page should be different. Right now we showcase the latest games, popular games from this week, highest scoring games of the month, highest scoring of the year and highest scoring of all time. Popular games tend to just mirror the front page. Best games of all time feels pretty static (instead maybe it could have a random selection from the top 200). But instead of all of that, I'm wondering if we should return to something like the old site, where we have a per-genre showcase. For example, the first box under "Brand Spankin' New Games" could be "Best New Action Games" and list the latest four action games with scores greater than 3.3 (number is based on some personal observations but not set in stone). The showcase would continue with "Best New Adventure Games", etc. I'm thinking it would better highlight the genre categories and might give people more direct access to stuff they like.

Sounds good, any chance for mock-up?

3) Have you been making use of the feed button (the star next to logout) in the header? It lists new submissions by artists you have favorited, something that was only available via email in the past. We intend to merge all favorites into one list of people you follow, so that you can easily add them from their user page and not have to add them in the context of a piece of content. Our current system (where you favorite artists based on content categories) is really old and has some charm but it feels like overkill nowadays.

Yes, it works really well and is much better than emails. I would like you to try the feed button as a hover menu, but have the mock-up for when the star is clicked.

4) Have you found yourself doing anything more or less as a result of the new layout?

Voting on under judgement submissions is a lot easier and more fun so that's stepped up in a big way. The only problem I have is the sound effects on the play panel repeating. I think it would be better to play the sounds on the first loop only and then keep it quiet until hovering over it to help with multiple tabs.

I find it rather hard to tell when I've deposited or not when voting on flashes. It's not a huge problem but I do miss the count of votes I had left until my deposit was made on the page after I voted.

there is one question i wanted to ask, do we still vote on flashes/games to level up? if not then is there another way?

Hey Tom, nice redesign. Yeah I as been said the frontpage icons feel like a collection of thumbnails and you dont know which to click. Just seperate the boxes a bit more with some more info and it should be better.

I haven't really been able to enjoy the redesign since I mostly use devices such as iphone and ipad. This redesign while being fantastic also manages to make using the site and my tools harder or outright impossible on devices.

For instance I can't choose an emote while on a device. Neither can I use my tools unless I'm using opera instead of safari and opera sucks major dick on those devices.

I know that you guys are up to your eyeballs with bugs and future design releases but I hope that making the site more device friendly is on one of the back burners.

As far as the featured game/movie. Like previously mentioned, that bitch needs a play button. A big and red, juicy play button.

I'm sure you've thought about it already or it's been said before but I have an idea for that spot and generating click traffic.

ADD STATS AND/OR REWARDS

For lazy ass BBS stat whore users that never buy a god damned thing you can add a stat achievable only once a day or achievable every time you swap a new movie/game in.

Another idea is like a frequent customer card type deal. The user that clicks through the featured content and presses play get their "frequent customer card punched" (once per submission) and when they reach a certain number they're rewarded with a "coupon/voucher" that allows a discount in the shop.

The last idea I have is a raffle/random choosing/etc of users that clicked through. The winner could get a prize from the shop or some type of privilege, like owning a square on the FP for a day to put whatever they want in (with oversight of course, lol), I dunno. You catch my drift...

Good job guys, keep up the good work. Please fix the issue with devices. And tell Bob that I scoff in his general direction.

yippie yo

As far as the feed button goes, it's something I really like the sound of, but maybe it could still be improved.
One thing would be to allow us to check off movies we've already seen/aren't really interested in seeing. At the moment it's like "yeah I know LazyMuffin put out a new movie I've watched it already jesus." I dunno if there's any change to the icon when new content is out (maybe the star could become brighter when something new is put out?).

One thing I would like to see, considering all the social networking dooflips on the submission pages, would be the option to set up links to our Twitters and whatnot on our user pages. Us artists got a lot of things to plug and not a whole lot of space to plug it.

In terms of expanding your social networking grip, you may want to look into Tumblr integration since there's a good chunk of shareable fun on that sight. DeviantArt currently has a thing where you can automatically set up a post on one your deviations, so something similar to that would be pretty neat for spreading the NG love.

At 4 hours ago, deckheadtottie wrote:

At 1 hour ago, TomFulp wrote: 2) Have you explored the content genre browsing?

I don't like the page refresh every time you click one of the category/sub-category navigation buttons. It'll be awesome if the content could update on the fly.

You see the little + and - buttons? Click those to expand/collapse the categories, not their titles.

At 58 minutes ago, TomFulp wrote:

You can toggle these under your display options on your account page. We're removing the sounds though.

Noooooo, I actually really enjoy the sounds.

1. I do kind of feel a bit more hesitant to click on the movies and games on the front page, I suppose. It could be because the little 60 character description of the movie/game isn't shown there any more. Granted, this could just be because it's so different from how Newgrounds navigation used to be, but personally, I always read that shit before clicking.

2. I've only clicked around the genre navigation a little bit but I already love it. It's so much better than what it used to be.

3. I'm not using the notifications panel at all. It feels cramped, and I don't even think to click it in the first place because there's nothing to TELL me that I have new notifications until I've already clicked on it. I think at the very least, there should be an indication of new notifications on there, and clicking it would take you to a notification page a la Deviantart? I don't really go on Deviantart much, but I think the way they do it would translate very well to Newgrounds.

Also, having SOMEWHERE on the front page where the latest from your favorite artists is showcased would be awesome.

4. A bit less, granted I am spending a lot of that time taking in the new layout. And as big as the icons are, content kind of feels a bit cramped to me at the moment, and like I mentioned earlier, without any kind of information about what the icon will take me too, I feel far less compelled to mouse-over and click on the icons.

And finally: please split the audio portal between voice acting and music! You did it with movies and games in the Flash portal, please make it happen here.

Thank you guys very much for being the best community on the net.

- Matt

I don't post on these very often, but as long as there's an opportunity, I do have an opinion/suggestion I'd like to share. I remembered it when you mentioned the content rating:

Back when I first joined, each video listed directly on its page exactly why it was rated the way it was, based on what artists checked off when describing any mature content (on the submissions page). Other people may not really care, I don't know; and of course, the artists interpretation of their own work isn't always 100% reliable. But I personally found it useful in quite a few situations. It helped me avoid accidentally running into something I didn't really want to see...

Anyway, just a thought. Site design looks fantastic, and I wish you luck in working out the remaining bugs.

-Kyle Sullivan

Man. I'm so excited I could just take a shit RIGHT NOW!!!

...Aw poop :(

i cant wait for the new game!!!

CHANGE YOUR ICON BACK YOU PRICK.

I haven't been using the activity feed, no. I poked around with it pre-release, but of course because the only people in the site were testers there weren't any activity updates. I was expecting it to have a number or something alerting me when it was working, so I haven't thought about clicking it since launch. I'm guessing a number might not work though, since by the look of it now it always shows the last 10 or something. Some sort of visual indicator similar to a number, like a little 'new' if there's been stuff since you last clicked it.

Also in the art portal, it'd be cool if the "More art from this artist" showed most recent art, because it's always just shown everybody's really old art. The same few pictures get promoted heaps, it never changes, they're generally not their best works, and if I look at a piece by an artist, chances are I've seen all the "More art from this artist" things already.

For me, I feel like #4.

As a result of the layout, I find myself using the forums more often, voting on under judgement less often, and making blogs WAY less often.

1) I'm using the forums more often because, ever since your SOPA post, I'm motivated to join the conversation. And it turns out there are some pretty interesting subjects nowadays. At least people matured when it comes to topic threads, they're no longer saturated by hentai.

2) I'm voting on UJ submissions less often because the B/P bonus doesn't work which beats the purpose of getting B/P points without any bonuses.

3) I completely stopped blogging after realizing the fact that the Riff Raff is gone. And I need to wait for the lit portal to come by so I can showcase my stories and fan fiction.

Well... out of the other 3 statements, no, I'm in no way affected by the redesign preventing me from checking every feature without overlooking. And no, the navigation bar motivates me to surf through every category other than the fact that it's nice, colorful and shiny, it feels more convenient.

Although I DO feel that the Movies and Games sections should have their categories highlighted much more like you said.

I don't like the changes. I miss the robot and the black kid dancing to the beat in the audio portal,
and the dancing badger...

Musicians should be able to delete songs from the audio portal.

At 7 hours ago, TomFulp wrote: Early next week you can expect us to unveil new content formatting, based on the discsussion in this thread. The plan is that thumbnails will have a visible title and author on the front page while author and score will be visible on all other pages. Rollover info will include description, genre and content rating.

I don't quite like having to roll-over in order to view information, though rolling-over to view buttons is already for me.

We have another surprise coming later next week so you'll have to stick around and see what it is! Actually two surprises if you count the new featured game next Friday.

.

The NG buglist is LONG and the gang has been working their way through it. We are also cranking out mockups for improvements and other tweaks around the site.

I wonder why the score in games and movies don't show, and that I have to roll-over the stars to see the score. I don't like that at all. I loathe it.

I'd also like to see the "Average Review Score" again. Before, I used it to determine whether users found the content worthy of me playing/listening/seeing it.

There are a few things I'm curious about:

Ask away.

1) Do you find yourself ignoring the big content showcase box here on the front page? I've been told it doesn't make enough of a "call to action" and while looking pretty, people aren't being as enticed to click it as they should be.

Yes.

2) Have you explored the content genre browsing? I feel like this is a really powerful system that a lot of people are overlooking; some have even complained that we removed genres. Go to the games page and scan the categories in the left column. Click around and start exploring. The categories get really in-depth and you can sort by all sorts of criteria. Right now we default to sort by date, which was an attempt to put the spotlight on new submissions but may have been a mistake. Instead we should probably default to sorting by score but maybe set the range to "Year" instead of "All" so there's more movement in the space.

No.

This also makes me wonder if the games front page should be different. Right now we showcase the latest games, popular games from this week, highest scoring games of the month, highest scoring of the year and highest scoring of all time. Popular games tend to just mirror the front page. Best games of all time feels pretty static (instead maybe it could have a random selection from the top 200). But instead of all of that, I'm wondering if we should return to something like the old site, where we have a per-genre showcase. For example, the first box under "Brand Spankin' New Games" could be "Best New Action Games" and list the latest four action games with scores greater than 3.3 (number is based on some personal observations but not set in stone). The showcase would continue with "Best New Adventure Games", etc. I'm thinking it would better highlight the genre categories and might give people more direct access to stuff they like.

I agree to returning to something similar to the old site; that just seems to make a little more sense, though you could keep the new design intact if you find that more fitting (If you get what I mean).

3) Have you been making use of the feed button (the star next to logout) in the header? It lists new submissions by artists you have favorited, something that was only available via email in the past. We intend to merge all favorites into one list of people you follow, so that you can easily add them from their user page and not have to add them in the context of a piece of content. Our current system (where you favorite artists based on content categories) is really old and has some charm but it feels like overkill nowadays.

The only reason why I don't use it is because I'm not used to the new layout yet and I often forget that it even exists. Damn.

4) Have you found yourself doing anything more or less as a result of the new layout?

No, there's no change in my activity (Except for the annoyance when I vote on a game/movie and don't see that friendly message telling how many more submissions left to vote on before I deposit experience points)

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

NP, Tom. Glad to see a team that actually works (Rather than smoking and drinking all day and all night accomplishing nothing work-related), and actually cares (Rather than leaving users to sort out their own messes).

The only other thing I'm concerned about is that plan that was going to make everything a "One-vote-per-user," thing, which was in the old old site (I hadn't signed up yet then).

At 4 minutes ago, k6ka wrote: The only other thing I'm concerned about is that plan that was going to make everything a "One-vote-per-user," thing, which was in the old old site (I hadn't signed up yet then).

If you think it involves the "like/dislike" system a long with having the same voting power, then you're sadly mistaken.

What Tom means by "one-vote-per-user", he means that once you vote on a submission, you don't have to vote on it again unless you change your opinion. If your voting power gets bigger, then it affects the score. That's all.

Hey, I've got a complaint that probably really only affects the writing forum, and maybe copypasta people. I've noticed that when you copy and paste something from word into the BBS box, it converts all special characters (tilted quotation marks, apostrophes, ..., the accented e in cliche or cafe or anything like that) into unreadable jumbles of letters. I think the quotation marks show up as something like AeumnT or something. I haven't found a good way to stop this from happening. Any way to program the box to accept those? I never had a problem with this before the redesign...

At 8 hours ago, TomFulp wrote:
4) Have you found yourself doing anything more or less as a result of the new layout?

I haven't been doing anything extra because of the redesign, a few more games (But that's a more spare time thing) but I haven't been to the audio portal at all recently, when I used to visit it every day. It's just because of the old Top 5 weekly audio player isn't there any more, I used to leave it on for an hour or so every day, just listening to the top 5 while I browsed forums and stuff, But without the auto player, I'd have to click on each track every time I wanted it to change. And having to manually swap songs every 3 minutes can be a huge pain, so I've barely clicked on it since I realized it had gone.

Also the audio portal in particular looks less amazing, I'm not sure why but it just looks empty...

But the rest of the site is pretty good, no complaints anywhere else. Good Job.