Tracy Poff (2094) on 7/25/2022 4:06 PM · Permalink · Report

Oy, lots of empty, wasted space everywhere, plus too large text and everything in one blob so need to scroll even more.

I agree that we need to tighten some things so we're using space better, but I think at the same time the old way isn't always better, just "what we're used to". We should strike a balance between fitting lots of data on the screen and making it easy to separate things visually and understand what's there.

And new contributions not separated by type on front page anymore

That's deliberate, and IMO an improvement. We should have some way to see just contributions of a given type, if you're interested in that, but I don't think there's any reason they should be separated on the front page--we just want an overview of what's changed recently, and sorting them all together on the front page does a better job of that, I think.

Was about to say that it's nice to see the mobyscore being back, but that's not the mobyscore...

This is a work in progress. What you're seeing now on there is based on the up/down votes (which were generated from user ratings, so these percentages do correspond roughly to mobyscore). There's fundamentally not a difference between showing it as 0-5 or scaling it up to 0-100 for display so it's comparable to critic scores, or whatever. The goal is to allow users to express their opinion of a game, and use that to give viewers an idea of the aggregate opinion, and to let us do things like sort by mobyscore in the game browser.

How do you rate games there? As in give numerical ratings, preferably as they are, on categories, not referring to the silly up/down vote.

The current plan is for numerical ratings to be added through the havelist/wantlist interface, and have game-level up/down votes on the main game pages.

Oh, and random browsing doesn't seem to care what it picks, had developers show up too, not just games. Shouldn't that be for random games?

It shows games, developers, or companies, and limits the selection to fairly 'complete' entries: games that have screenshots, covers, description, etc.; developers with bio and shots; companies with logo and overview. This way the random link showcases our better entries.

And forum doesn't seem to support quotes, as in the quote code shows up.

You're right, that's a missing feature. I'll look into this.

And where's the contributions per year view?

The contributions in the detail subpages are sorted by date, but it's not presently displayed or filterable. This view is definitely not yet complete. I intend for these views to be more detailed, see e.g. the view for promo art.

And the read/unread message icon doesn't seem to exist either.

A count of unread messages appears below your username on the menu bar, in a similar position to the current indicator.

And where's the poll?

It is not presently planned to keep the poll feature.

Cavalary (11445) on 7/16/2022 12:55 PM · edited · Permalink · Report

About overlays, there was a (very brief) discussion on the approver forum after which it was decided to merge them with covers, because there are very few and so "anything in the box" will be in one place.

Back to what I was saying above, while I guess it can be of some use to have the most common contribution types as tabs in the leaderboards, please also keep the pulldown menu with all types. And definitely bring back contributions per year (for any type too, and in profiles as well), and the possibility to select the year, not just the current one. I mean, if you can also add per month, nice, but not at the expense of year. (And if you do add per month, should also allow to select any month.) And how do you go past the first page now? Also, in profile don't see rank listed anymore, and points isn't a link anymore (sure, the very next tab is with contributions, but was a quick and intuitive way to get there.)

On the other hand, don't see approval messages link anymore. Does clicking on contributions open that page instead of approval status if there are any? And if so can you still go to status without clearing messages?

And in the approval interface, far fewer things that you can approve for all platforms. What I clearly noticed was the lack of a reviews for all platforms category. And also no more separation according to submission age.

Oh, in profile, the private lists tab vanishes if you select contributions or systems. And anyway, just another part of the immense waste of space on PC, having tabs for systems and lists instead of on a sidebar as they are now.

And where are the lists of games reviewed and rated?

And overall, if a functionality exists now, please make sure it'll continue to exist!

Tracy Poff (2094) on 7/25/2022 4:44 PM · Permalink · Report

My general impression is that the (visual) layout is a bit too basic currently - but I assume designers will work on it later?

The layout is not yet final, yes. Feedback is welcome.

From a user perspective I don't like the terms "Metadata", and in there "Attributes". Attributes should continue to be "Tech-Specs". Metadata could be "Release Information" maybe?

I don't know that tech-specs is necessarily more user-friendly, but it's true that 'attributes' is a bit opaque. Attributes and ratings aren't really release-level information, so I don't think putting them under the heading "Release Information" makes more sense.

Covers don't seem to be ordered, see https://beta.mobygames.com/game/141393/tetris/covers/ for example.

Those covers are I think ordered the same, they're just not alphabetized by platform--which means that it's possible on beta to set a cover group ordering for the game as a whole, to make the earliest or most representative cover set actually display at the top.

The search seems to return results in some non-intuitive order, too. Why is the game entry with the exact name of my search only on position 6? https://beta.mobygames.com/search/?q=Vector+Pilot

Yes, search results are presently not ideal. Tweaking the weighting on those is a work in progress, but we should definitely have exact matches ranked higher.

Overlays (for Vectrex games) don't seem to be shown anywhere currently.

Yeah, they're not displayed at present, because I plan to convert them to cover art. There are fewer than 200 overlays in the database, it's unlikely we'll get any more, and there's no real benefit to keeping them separated--and some benefit to converting them, so they can be placed in the cover group they belong to.

Everything needs twice as many clicks as before, as everything is hidden behind a drop-down menu.

It does take an extra click, but (especially given the tech specs aren't necessarily alphabetized), I think the ability to type to filter is a win. How does everyone else feel about this?

Game attribute browsing doesn't seem to work completely yet: https://beta.mobygames.com/attributes/attribute/225/ And I'm currently failing to see how to e.g. browse for Linux games released in 2000 in a box or on CD-ROM - the filters seem to be even more limited than before?

Nothing shows up there because those are cover art attributes rather than game attributes, but we can (and should) display the games associated with the cover art there. Is it presently possible to browse for "Linux games released in 2000 in a box"? I don't think you can filter by packaging on the existing site. It should be possible to filter by attributes in the game browser--in fact, the game browser is powering the game list on attributes right now--there's just no UI to combine it with the other filters yet.

From what I can see currently these are only UI changes, there hasn't been any database restructuring yet, correct?

There's been a fair bit of not-very-visible restructuring. One notable change is that games' official sites are now (on beta) regular related sites, and you as an approver can pick which one is the official site. This way users get credit for submitting them and there's an obvious process for it. Major changes are going to have to wait until after the initial release, but it will be much easier for us to make the kind of changes we need to, when the current site is retired.

Tracy Poff (2094) on 7/25/2022 4:54 PM · Permalink · Report

One thing though, the Game Groups have no search or sorting options, the list is pretty basic and sparse on details. Is that planned or still under construction? I mean compare the groups below on the current site and the beta. On the current site it displays more details (platform, publisher) and you can sort on name and year and skip to a year more easily.

It could make sense to have a more detailed view in various places, e.g. we have more info on the critic pages, though it's not sortable. I do like the simple view with the cover that we have, too, though. This design needs some more consideration, I think.

Tracy Poff (2094) on 7/25/2022 5:02 PM · Permalink · Report

Also see that it no longer lists when a game was added. Was an interesting bit of info for older games.

Hmm, you're right--we do show that on single-platform pages on the current site. Maybe it'd make sense to add it where we currently display the last modified date on beta.

But more importantly, how do you select to just see a game info for a specific platform in the beta? If you click a platform, you end up on the game browser!

Because most of the data isn't platform-specific, the platform-specific overviews have been eliminated in favor of selecting the platform on the relevant subpage.

And when it was rescued from GameFly it was after a redesign made to be "modern" and removing features, and the rescue was a return to how it used to be. Don't make the same mistake you fixed back then.

Indeed, there are a lot of features we want to add, and very few considered for removal. The challenge is to add all these features without making the site too complex for mere mortals to use--but we're working on it! This v2 isn't just a design change for the sake of looking more modern, it's a total rewrite from scratch with an eye toward making the site easier to maintain and extend in the coming years.

Tracy Poff (2094) on 7/29/2022 4:32 AM · edited · Permalink · Report

In general, completely agree. But when it comes to web design, the old way is definitely better. The web had its sweet spot around 2005 or so, and for static content I'd even dare to say that for the most part if you remove the animated gifs it was best just before the .com crash of 2000. So kind of when Mobygames was set up... Pretty much every design model from the smartphone age, so from 2007 onwards, was just a different shade of awful, just going from bad to worse. (And, give or take a couple of years, can apply that to software in general.)

I like moby's information-dense, tabular design, too--but I'm using a desktop computer with three monitors. More than half of web traffic is from phones, now, and has been for a few years. And even on desktop, there's some room for improvement. But you'll notice that beta looks a lot like the current site--we're not just throwing out things where the current design works well. The only thing that has been totally overhauled without reference to the old site, I think, is the contribution interface, which is now always single-page rather than the three-step wizard. And that's a substantial improvement, in my eyes.

I don't, but as long as there will still be a way to just see recent game, review and screenshot additions, I guess it'll just make the front page just about useless from where I'm standing and I'll just look there.

Well, if what you're looking for is X and we have a page dedicated to X, then it's good if you go there to look for it? I don't really see that as a downside. If you don't care about the other stuff on the homepage (news, this day in gaming, featured game) then of course there's no particular reason you should go there.

Rather doubt that non-game entries are interesting to those who'd click random. Or, if they could be, should at least still have a way to go for a random game, specifically.

We could do that, perhaps.

What? Why??? I keep saying it should be emphasized more, put above the fold on the front page and likely in the sidebar on game pages as well, so users will actually see it when they land here searching for a particular game, and changed more often. I mean, if a site is known for frequent polls, it actually generates engagement. See this and this for example.

We could try to analyze whether in principle polls increase engagement or repeat visits or whatever, but it's a moot point, because almost no one uses them on mobygames. Our polls get substantially less than 1% that many votes, and I hope you can understand that a poll asking people who respond to polls whether they are interested in polls is likely to have a little bias.

Basically, we have a lot of much more important and urgent features, and only one of me, so my time is better spent on other features.

Metadata is a weird term, I wouldn't think to look under it for release info or specs. I associate it with stuff like tags, so ratings could fit it, but that's about it.

Yeah, we might want to reorganize or at least rename that. But is this what meant to respond to? My 'an extra click' you quoted was replying about the tech spec contribution form.

Selecting a platform was also a good way to make mobytags point to a specific game when more with that name exist.

You can still do that with mobytags--it'll take you to the main page for the game that has that platform.

And specs, releases, reviews, screenshots, scores and covers are definitely platform specific, and ad blurbs can also be, and typically there are differences in credits too. So I'd say that most info actually is platform-specific.

On the overview page, the infobox is split between platform-specific and non-specific, then for platform-specific sections there are: screenshots, credits, critic reviews, user reviews. For non-platform specific info, there are: alternate titles, description, promo images, groups, trivia, related sites, related games, identifiers. So it's 4 vs. 8. Ad blurbs don't have associated platforms.

And either way, if you just care for the information for a specific platform, now you click it once and then can browse through the tabs instead of looking for it in every single one.

This is maybe a difference in how we use the site. If I click on the release info tab, sometimes I want to see info for just one platform, but usually I want to compare them or check which was the earliest. I typically like to see screenshots from other platforms, too--both for comparison on older games and because on modern games one platform is usually about the same as another. But maybe there is something we can do to ease this use case, as well--if you're looking at a tab filtered to one platform, and you click another tab that can be filtered, we could keep the filter.

And I imagine that always loading all info makes the server do more work too.

Not as much as you'd imagine. We have to fetch some of that data anyway, to make a combined overview, and it's usually only trivially more expensive to get everything than to get part of it. Then once we retrieve it, we cache it for future loads, so after the first person visits a page, it's very fast and adds essentially no burden to the server for everyone else. This is one of the design goals of the new site: even if crawlers hit us hard, it should cause little additional load on the server.

I'm referring to the icon that's at the start of each line in the inbox/outbox now, indicating whether each message is replied to, read or unread.

Noted. We'll fix that.

Pseudo_Intellectual (66361) on 8/17/2022 11:55 PM · Permalink · Report

Hey U-L, thanks for dropping by! Long time no see!

Alaka (106012) on 9/10/2022 5:43 AM · Permalink · Report

[Q --start Infernos wrote--] 4) There's still no link anywhere (as far as I could find) to browse game groups. [/Q --end Infernos wrote--]

Browse>Games>Also Browse Groups

here.