Obsidian Portal Launch Feedback

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Comments

  • deljohn
    deljohn
    Posts: 24 edited October 2013
    I need to work through the redesign today to see that I can learn but I have a request and a general comment:

    1) The buttons on the login screen are yellow on white, with my bad eyes I literally cannot see the proper login button. Please add contrast, either a darker color or darker text.

    2) Please remember there are at least a few of us who know very little about coding and this site was incredibly useful for its basic database capabilities. The Reforging has made the site *significantly* more difficult to manage from that perspective. In this respect I completely agree with Praesi's feedback above.

    JohnD
    Post edited by deljohn on
  • Number_Six
    Number_Six
    Posts: 9
    We shouldn't need a Vanguard program to fix campaigns that weren't broken in the first place. And what are these experienced coders going to do? Physically log in to our accounts and manually fix CSS code for all of us affected by this nonsense?

    Not all of us have the time to dedicate to this, and it's especially galling to ask that of us if you've already spent countless hours on it and you're not a coder by nature.
  • JackMunchkin
    JackMunchkin
    Posts: 8 edited October 2013
    I am a recent member and I was about to become an ascendant member. It was until you made that update (I was not aware it was coming so I totally discovered the new version).
    I am sorry to say that I will postpone my subscription decision to a later date. Unfortunately that new version is awful. I will repeat what has already been said :
    1. Awful color combinations (yellow on white, white on grey...) and no possibility to change that !
    2. So much space lost !!! Reminds me of Facebook where main space was shrinked to give place to ads... Fonts are huge, buttons take to much space, side bars are useless and blank, middle column not wide enough and with only a few lines so we have to click to read adventure logs...
    3. Spending too much time scrolling down and up, your dragon logo takes too much space above the banner, why not just put it above the left side menu bar
    4. In progress Wiki can't be seen anymore
    5. Display issues on Mac Safari
    6.Character pictures missing, no difference between PCs, NPCs, secret NPCs...
    7. Less intuitive than previous version

    Probably missing other stuff but already addressed by regular users. I'm happy I never spent time into personalization, I understand some people are pissed regarding CSS etc.

    Sadly, previous version was far better... I hope you will fix most of issues soon but this looks like a beta version launched too early. I really would like to know who chose the color schemes though, that person can't be a user. Yellow on white ? Seriously ? White on light grey ?? Everything is a pain to read !
    Post edited by JackMunchkin on
  • Viehmagnat
    Viehmagnat
    Posts: 24
    Some will be repeats of comments above:

    1. White on gray = horrible
    2. When I upload character portraits, any tags associated with that character vanish and require re-entry.
    3. No Adventure Log Comments
    4. Inability to edit forum comments
    5. Loss of subforums
    6. Forum "stickies" no longer work
    7. Lots and lots of scrolling required for forums. Easy to get lost. I have forums with over 300 comments. Trying to find information in them is daunting. Before I could at least recall a page, now it is endless scrolling.
    8. Missing PCs on the Front Page. Multiple PCs owned by the same player or the GM do not show up.
    9. Still lots of wasted space on the sidebars with the exception of the dashboard, easily my favorite example of how I prefer the space to be used.
    10. White on gray = horrible

    Those are my top 10 gripes. I do not use CSS or any html editing, so I don't have those issues personally. Following the beta, I had some time to get used to the new format and it is clear that comparing my thoughts on the reforged Portal with those of my players, they will likely grow to enjoy the new layout and pages once the shock of "different" wears off. In only a day since launch, improvements have already been noticed too, thank you! Please make the edit box colors a top priority. White on gray does not work. The darker gray is only until you actually click on the edit box. A classic black on white can't be beat. Default to that and make the schemeing of that box optional if necessary.

    Thanks for all the effort. I look forward to seeing what it looks like after a month of feedback and improvements (not to mention natural editing)!
  • Bookscorpion
    Bookscorpion
    Posts: 58 edited October 2013
    I absolutely second the comment that white text on gray background = horrible. I cannot read what I'm writing and this makes the site pretty much unusable for me for now.

    I would also love to see smaller sidebars and more room for the actual contents of the campaigns. Tags visible in the sidebar would be awesome or at least all tags of a wiki article visible. I've used A LOT of tags and now I can only see the first five or so on any given article.

    The log timeline is a cool idea ... but we've dated our log posts 2070/71 (Shadowrun) and that's no visible in the timeline on the main adventure log page. Just a minor quibble, though.

    I do like the reforging. The tags search rocks and I'm a huge fan of no longer having separate tags for wiki, characters and items. I also like the drop down menu that lets me create a new character/wiki page/log with one click. The edit view in general looks much better than before to me. So I hope that at least the colour scheme for the edit view will be fixed/changed will be fixed as soon as possible. Black on white/gray - it works ;)
    Post edited by Bookscorpion on

    Shadowrun: The Rat's Nest - COTM  November 2014

  • storycrafter
    storycrafter
    Posts: 1
    Decent site before -- unusable now. I'm sorry, I can't get past the garishness of whatever has become of the message boards to care to see what else got mangled in the "upgrade". I'll be taking my players to another site and looking into some sort of refund. The QA/UAT process seems to have failed here.
  • corvos
    corvos
    Posts: 1 edited October 2013
    Hello, and sorry for my english this is not my mother tongue so i try tocommunicate as i can)
    As Asphin said it right, i'm gonna quote him/her:


    "I am going to try and be patient here, because I know this is the first day and you are having a lot of disgruntled people shout at you. However, I have to say that I was very happy with the old format, which through trial and error I had utilised to run a low-tech, enjoyable campaign.

    Having now enountered the new format, I have to say that I am:
    - disappointed that my campaign which was pulled together using my very limited HTML/programming expertise is now incredibly ugly, full of broken links, disjointed and will require a lot of work
    - My background graphics now sit over my text, making it almost impossible to read that text.
    - All of my existing grahpics are now stretched out of shape and do not fit the current format."

    But this is from me:
    this Upgrade can't be more wrong. Just give us back the previous version and say it's news, we won't complain!

    1) waste of place (and previous graphics are now going out of the place (https://magie-moderne.obsidianportal.com/ check how the "stream" is
    2) loss of previous layout which mean few hours work for nothing
    3) no more separation between PC and NPC
    4) Loss of 70% of the pictures i gave to my NPC
    5) Lots of bugs when i want to edit
    6) the 3 Backgrounds are ugly (please give us back the old-black version which is the more economic to load - like google black instead of google) Fixed!
    7) When I upload character portraits, any tags associated with that character vanish and require re-entry.

    But, i notice an upgrade. Yes, one. Now the link are in yellow and it's more readable than the old light-blue-links
    Hang on and continue to do a hard work to give us a good version (or go back to the old one, it was good).
    Post edited by corvos on
  • EugeneGM
    EugeneGM
    Posts: 11
    The dashboard is really cool. Why can't it all look like the Dashboard?
  • Bookscorpion
    Bookscorpion
    Posts: 58
    The search bar on top is brilliant. I only just discovered it, that makes searching the campaign and finding things quickly in the wiki very easy. A scroll bar in the suggestions that pop up when you enter something into the search would make it even better (I'm not quite clear how the couple of suggestions are selected), but I like it a lot just how it is.

    Shadowrun: The Rat's Nest - COTM  November 2014

  • Cernig
    Cernig
    Posts: 60
    So, thankfully I have Langy as Co-GM and he knows CSS so Edgerunners looks gorgeous after he spent several hours yesterday repairing it. Thanks, L, you're the best!

    But...I am not any kind of CSS writer and my HTML was barely adequate to the task of making wikis look fun in the old OP format, and therefore today (or as soon as the OP servers will let me, yesterday I was getting a gateway error) I will backup my old campaigns Beyond The Veil and The Town and then delete them. I don't have the time or inclination to repair The Town - even though it was the second most liked Gurps campaign on OP after Edgerunners its a finished campaign that won't ever be played again, so there's no good reson to throw more work into it. As for Beyond The Veil, I was planning a massive rewrite/reboot of the setting anyway so maybe it'll look good in the new OP format. Then again, maybe it won't - there are some major problems with the current default that plenty of others have pointed out. Alas, I think more than a few others will be clicking the delete button over the next few days.

    Now, to concrete feedback.

    1) Who convinced the OP folks that 70 characters a line, which is great for dead-tree print, was the optimum for text on-screen when a minutes Googling would have sent them to several studies showing the optimum is really more like 95-100 characters per line? Please take whoever it was out into a field and shoot them. Or at least get some of your money back from them. Seriously on that last one.

    2) Fix, universally, the white/gray editing problem ASAP. And get more of your money back from the idiot who implemented that atrocity.

    3) As soon as is practically possible, allow the selection of a few different "themes" from the front-end dashboard at campaign creation. As soon after that as is practicable, allow a plug-and-play theme option too and let folk like Langy or Vanguard members build and get official approval for CSS-based Themes that folk can use. The aim there should be easy theme use comparable with Wordpress or Blogger themes. Build a page where folk can download or select these themes to plug into their wikis.

    4) Accept that you, the OP people, have made several mistakes in this roll-out, do a mea culpa publicly, and accept that you're going to have to give some very unhappy people a proportion of their money back. Not me, by the way - I'll work with the changes - but you've made enough of a mess of this that anyone who sues for failure to perform a service for which you received remuneration will in my humble opinion have a good case for damages plus costs. (By the way, does OP have a professional indemnity/errors and omissions insurance policy? If not, it should get one. I'm not trying to be scary, just telling you the facts based on my dozen years as a correspondent for Lloyd's of London.)
  • DreadGazebo
    DreadGazebo
    Posts: 218
    MORNING UPDATE:

    After a very late night, I now bring you all the following:

    *First and foremost* - _we're listening to feedback and prioritizing everything_. I cannot stress this enough. Please bear with us while we transition and absorb all of this feedback and implement changes. The OP team is small, I'm not sure how many of you are aware just how few people are actually behind the site. If we were some huge corporate entity I would understand expecting fixes within a 4 hour time window but for us that's just not possible. All of us have day jobs, and families that we tend to as well as OP and we're rocking this out as best we can.

    Also, Ascendant time for Kickstarter backers who opted for their time to start _after the reforge_ will be processed this afternoon.

    *Now, because we _are_ listening to everyone's feedback we are currently working on making the following changes/fixes:*

    * Based on feedback, we're going to re-add the adventure log comments (unsure about campaign comments as of yet). Removing the adventure log comments was a big stumble, and we apologize.
    * We're also making the color scheme selection available to everyone, not just Ascendant. Plus, we'll make sure that all the backgrounds have appropriate color schemes associated with them.
    * Speaking of colors, we have heard you loud and clear regarding the gray text on white background and are looking into implementing changes/fix for those of you who have issues with it.
    * The editing of forum posts is returning too, this was a simple oversight on our behalf.
    * The text stating "drag images" is plural, however it is only meant for one file at a time. There are no rotating/alternating/randomizing of backgrounds or banners. We will implement a fix to change this poor wording which may have led some users astray. It will likely be corrected to reflect something along the lines of "Click or drag here to upload an image".
    * Tags - we are aware that they are not working properly in some areas of the site and are currently working on a fix
    * Video embedding - we are aware of the issues here and are working on getting them fixed
    * Broken images for characters (a re-upload should fix some of these) - we are looking into fixing this as well
    * Updating characters / making changes - this is an SSL related issue and may also be causing troubles with the portraits as well, currently investigating a fix


    *Things that we currently are _not_ doing or have no intention on changing:*
    * Changing the banner size, resizing images for campaigns en masse - we simply do not have the resources to do this and all of our time needs to be devoted to the Reforging launch. The banner size is listed incorrectly and we will fix that, however the size will not revert back to the old size.
    * We will not be switching back to the old site. While there are a few issues we are addressing in the new layout, we strongly believe that it is ultimately better.


    *Once things settle down we will be looking into the following issues:*
    * Separation of NPC/PC as opposed to strictly relying on tags
    * A "view all" wiki pages option instead of performing a search and putting in nothing to search for
    * Page width on adventure logs, we are aware of how narrow the readable area is and are looking into
    * 404 errors when clicking links from within emails about certain site activities
    * Page titles at the top of the browser properly displaying the page title instead of just "Obsidian Portal"

    I'm back to dash off to my day job here but I'll be keeping an eye out, just wanted to give you all a quick update!
  • MarkGiguere
    MarkGiguere
    Posts: 53
    @DreadGazebo

    Thanks for the update! Hang in there. I, and many others I'm sure, like the new site and a few growing pains won't stop us from using this great tool.
  • FrankSirmarco
    FrankSirmarco
    Posts: 250
    I'm very disappointed. Some of us funded this "reforging" and paid extra to get in early. However, it was not a beta test, and we never had a fully working version of the site to play with. Had that happened, I'd bet big money that a lot of the Kickstarter backers would have told you guys to hold off on launching the reforged site indiscriminately to meet a self-imposed deadline.

    Listen, I accept that to proceed, the CSS was going to fail and many of us were going to have a lot of extra work to do to bring our pages back to their former glory. But this was handled very sloppily, and I have to think that it has disappointed many of your most fervent supporters.

    In the future, I would ask that you beta test your product properly with the people who paid for your reforging. That way, you could avoid releasing a buggy product that just alienated most of the people that have work the hardest on their campaign sites.
  • DireHammer
    DireHammer
    Posts: 21
    In addition to all the technical difficulties I can't stand the layout of the new site. I'm going to be looking into other options before deciding whether or not I want to keep using this site.
  • SkidAce
    SkidAce
    Posts: 830
    I'm staying for the long haul, and I'm optimistic, but I have to agree with FrankS, there had to have been something missing from the beta feedback.

    From the outside looking in (as a manager of change in other organizations) I don't think YOUR goals and intent was clearly communicated to become the expectations of the users. It looks like conflicting goals, which made for varying expectations.

    What the users wanted from the site, and where you wanted to take it, while not necessarily incompatible, were not blended together.

    No worries, we will make it through.
  • ElAdoran
    ElAdoran
    Posts: 6
    I just want to add my voice to the clamor and say that I'm excited by the changes. Yes, some of them are poorly implemented. This update doesn't seem to have played nice at all with existing campaigns, which is a huge drawback and will hopefully be addressed ASAP. But I think that new campaigns starting from scratch will really benefit, so I am excited on new players' behalf.

    I started teaching myself CSS from scratch a few months ago, cobbling together bits and pieces from Wolfhound and other users. I had something that looked pretty decent but was far from professional. Now I have a chance to start over and re-do everything with more knowledge than I had before. It's like tutorial mode just ended and now I get to try my skills for real.

    Thanks to the OP team for providing the platform--it's clearly a labor of love even if people hate you for it. And thanks to Langy and the other users who are smoothing the transition by providing suggestions and code.
  • DreadGazebo
    DreadGazebo
    Posts: 218
    Also, I feel the need to add one more short update there that should really go without saying but unfortunately it looks like this is the point at which it must be said.

    Anyone who is blatantly just spewing vitriol and hate regarding the Reforging or the persons who work for Obsidian Portal, anything regarding references to violence or purely non-constructive language is going to get moderated heavily. We have these forums so that we can communicate with all of you to better serve our community and I'd rather not have to filter though unbridled rage and counterproductive commentary to try and get to the information that is relevant and useful.

    To sum this all up: if you make a post that is pure anger and devoid of anything constructive it will be deleted.

    To those of you who giving us honest, constructive feedback, even if it's unpleasant, we know we need to hear it. We appreciate it, honestly. Please know that, and please keep it coming. Thank you.
  • aaronak
    aaronak
    Posts: 2
    Posting my thoughts even though other people have said most of this stuff before.

    PROS
    I like the sidebar as opposed to the tabs on top. It's easier to find the adventure log, etc.
    I like that tables are now boxed and have different shaded rows, makes them easier to read.

    CONS
    Text needs more contrast! I'm seeing dark gray on light gray, bright orange on white. This hurts my eyes. Not to mention the fact that on the wiki, fresh links, visited links, and links to empty pages are all the same color.
    The margins are too big. The dashboard does it fairly well, with things on the left and right to look at, but the wiki pages just have these huge freaking margins that take up 70% or more of the space on my screen.
    I liked the old division between PCs and NPCs on the character page.
  • The_D
    The_D
    Posts: 9
    I didn't see anything in that list about re-implementing subforums. That really is an important part of our campaign, as we use it alongside the table game to further character specific plots, or information gathering that doesn't require dice rolling. Furthermore, I was just last week making plans to really open up the potential I saw in the forums to create a vibrant world that moves along with the game world. We are playing Shadowrun, so it seemed a no-brainer to use the internet to create this effect.
    If I can't do that or, at the very least, organize the forums into threads that are useful as places to store valuable in game information, then why should I pay money for this at all?
    I don't think I'm alone in saying that the forums were the best part of OP for my group and me. We could keep track of the adventure log via an email chain if we wanted, and we use Hero Lab, so it's easy to share character information between us. And we can do that without me paying extra money. The forums were the only thing worth paying for, and now they are just a side thing.
    I thought that Obsidan Portal was meant to enhance games, not just be a shiny way to record what you've done. Maybe I was wrong.
  • ElAdoran
    ElAdoran
    Posts: 6
    The huge margin space on the wiki pages is definitely one of my biggest peeves right now (along with broken character images) especially since the sidebar is taken up with a single "last edited by" and a bunch of whitespace. I really like the sidebar on the adventure logs though--it makes it easy to browse through the logs by seeing others that were posted nearby. I do wish it showed more than 2 logs into the future/past, and it would be nice if tags would show up for those other logs too.

    I have been playing with CSS to hide the sidebar overall, but I'm still trying to figure out if I can have my cake and eat it too by hiding the sidebar on just the wiki pages.
  • dr_venture
    dr_venture
    Posts: 32
    @DreadGazebo Thanks for the update - I can't speak for anyone else, but I certainly never expected fixes immediately, but I did expect communication by the OP folks directly. It's much more important at this point that we know what your plan is as opposed to seeing immediate results. So some observations:

    * 7 of the 9 things at the top of the list are basically bugs that I would *hope* you would fix, as either the UI is unclear or the functionality is broken or severely impaired. In addition, 3 of the 5 "we'll look into it later" issues are either bugs or shortcomings of the site. In short: it's not ready. I'm still surprised you'd launch until you knew these kinds of wide-spread bugs and/or "issues" were fixed. I'm guessing you guys felt pressure to meet the launch deadline... if so, I appreciate the team's dedication to meeting the deadline, but I think it's far more important that a stable, relatively bug-free product is released. Personally, I would have been happy to wait longer to get the better quality without all the confusion and broohaha. In the end, the problems are going to have to be fixed, but now you've incurred customer ill will in the process. Better to delay launch and have people say it was worth the wait.

    * You didn't mention anything about the wiki links to non-existent pages having the same color as links to existing pages. This is a huge show-stopper for me, as it makes my work of maintaining my wiki drastically harder than before. It also deviates from standard wiki functionality on sites like Wikipedia. Can we assume this will be addressed, too? In my case, if this is not addressed in some way, any features gained in the reforging simply aren't worth the work of trying to surmount this obstacle, and I'd probably have to leave.

    * Changing the banner size... are you referring specifically to the uploaded campaign banner? If so, are you saying that the resources needed to provide an option for a smaller top banner are such that it can't be done?

    * While I think we all appreciate you guys have day jobs, when you raise a *lot* of money and make promises to customers, then the dynamic changes. If you guys can't provide the functionality that people want when they want it, then you at least need to make sure you're in close communication with everyone, and find other ways to provide value for the money. Ultimately folks will just leave and go somewhere else if they aren't getting their money's worth. As a web developer, there have been several projects I thought about trying to monetize, but I realized I couldn't provide the value and more importantly, the post-sale support that people would expect. It's really hard to pull off, and I definitely wish you guys the best for both the sake of your company, and the sake of my campaigns!
  • DreadGazebo
    DreadGazebo
    Posts: 218
    @dr_venture In my post earlier, I obviously didn't cover all of the issues people are having that you mentioned (link colors, etc.) and will give another update when time allows here. Just want that to be known, I'm not scratching the surface with my reply probably, I have over 100 support tickets in my queue that I've been unable to even glance at yet but I'll be spending my lunch hour going over them and getting back with everyone.

    Chiming in as best I can between my workload today.
  • Langy
    Langy
    Posts: 364
    I think what he meant about the banner was that he can't go and actually edit them all manually to make them the 'appropriate' size for every site.

    Options would be nice; there's already CSS code posted on the forums to return them to their original size, for example.
  • cpthero2
    cpthero2
    Posts: 3
    Good morning DreadGazebo,

    I'd like to start off by thanking you for the update this morning: thank you. I am sure as you and other staff members of your company realize, a majority of the rage is due in part to a loyal market segment feeling disenfranchised due to the significant issues that these paying customers are facing. The disenfranchisement is because this community is very passionate about what we do, and many of us as you know, have invested a good deal of time into the construction of highly customized campaigns only to watch them significantly damaged, some beyond effective repair due to the time investment that some do not have to simply have to repeat in untold hours. While I believe that most customers here understand vis-a-vis your update that your staff are working to resolve the problems, I feel one action can be taken to help mitigate a large degree of the frustration/rage, etc.:

    Have the CEO/Co-Founder/General Manager Micah Wedemeyer provide a post to the customer base in a sticky folder without commenting enabled. Just use it as a a highly visible, one stop shop for updates. Make them substantive (like your update above this morning), concise, and with a well articulated path forward that the customer base can find useful and follow on a day-to-day basis. Fandom generally speaking is very forgiving, and they are rather sensitive to feeling as if they are being ignored, so I've found the method by which communication happens is just as important as the fix itself.

    While your updates are extremely valuable and I wish for them to continue, the core customer base I feel is feeling that the man most in charge is not stepping up. This could be mostly a visibility issue because of the high volume of posts out there but it seems that you are responding to people more than the CEO in this case. In light of the significant issues with Reforged, our community here needs to hear the CEO come forward to claim this, update us, and provide a clear, concise path forward that we can have faith in. Leadership is needed.

    As the CEO of an SME here in the Pacific Northwest, and having been on the unfortunate side of a disenfranchised customer base myself before, this is something that can help soothe the wounds if you will.

    I hope this is seen as the constructive criticism that is meant to be.

    I appreciate your time in reading this and look forward to your response.

    Sincerely,


    Robert McDonell (cpthero2)

    Fnord

  • dr_venture
    dr_venture
    Posts: 32
    @DreadGazebo Thanks for the update - be sure to eat, too. :) To echo @cpthero2, I think clear communication is your best ally here. Your updates are definitely appreciated.

    @Langy I didn't see the CSS fix for the banner size issue. Is it possible to have a support page somewhere that the various CSS fixes can be gathered and presented all together? Or does it already exist? Looking up individual stuff in forums is not always very effective - having a single place to point people to quickly solve one or more issues at a consistent URL (hopefully not buried int eh forums) seems useful to me, and a quick way to provide solutions to frustrated users.
  • Micah
    Micah
    Posts: 894
    Hey all,

    I just wanted to drop in and make sure everyone knows that you're being heard.

    Right now we are prioritizing things and deciding which issues to address. We'll keep you posted periodically on what we’re working on. It's very important to remember: Just because we don't address your particular issue immediately doesn't mean we won't do it eventually. We're talking about 6 months of development work here and a few things at the tail end to iron out. It may take us a week or two to get through most items.

    Jerry and Drew are doing a great job of getting feedback and passing it along to me. Along those lines, please be respectful to them. The voices we listen to are the constructive ones. The voices we ignore are the hate and rage-filled ones. And, if you have any complaints about things, level them directly at me. I made most of the decisions along the way, and I thumbs-up'ed every one I didn't make. I won't throw the team under the bus. They did an amazing job, and at this point we're just addressing a few outstanding issues. If you don’t like things, that’s on me, nobody else.

    I'm not going to respond to individual posts here. I may pop in every now and then, but trust me: you'd rather have me working than talking. Consider Jerry and Drew my voice here on the forum. They're listening to all of you, and I'm listening to them.

    Finally, a thank you to everyone who is offering both constructive criticism and help to your fellow gamers. In particular, I want to thank Langy for going above and beyond. Your help has not gone unnoticed!
  • Langy
    Langy
    Posts: 364
    Dr. Venture: Unfortunately there isn't one really set up yet, but I'm sure it'll come eventually. Give people a bit of time to come up with the tweaks, decide what's actually working and what's not, and then collect and collate them.

    For now, this code'll make your banner the original size:

    .campaign-public-layout #banner-container .campaign-banner-image {
    height: 300px;
    width: 750px;
    margin-left: auto;
    margin-right: auto;
    }
  • GamingMegaverse
    GamingMegaverse
    Posts: 2,998
    I had to go 800 width, but it does work really well!!
    Cannot thank you enough Langy! I am back to the grind....

    Just trying to help out.

  • cpthero2
    cpthero2
    Posts: 3
    Mr. Wedemeyer,

    I really appreciated your swift, and helpful post: thank you!

    I am sure many people will take note and I will certainly direct them this way to highlight what is being done from a leadership and management perspective.

    I look forward to the ongoing work and changes that come from it.

    Sincerely,


    Robert McDonell

    Fnord

  • Rahz
    Rahz
    Posts: 2
    Based on my initial digging though my groups campaigns, mine where I played with formatting a lot more are quite messed up (wiki) whereas our other current one run by someone else in the group who kept things simple seems to be working ok other than some of the link/image issues mentioned elsewhere in this thread.

    As for impressions:
    The good:
    -Quick Search feature: we love this!
    -Overall layout (though the menu bar on the top would have made more sense to me on the right hand side, but that's just me).

    The not so good:
    -Size constraints. I'm not sure if you were hoping to keep the site super phone friendly but I for one would rather sacrifice mobile access for better layout on the computer. Even on a crappy netbook there is a good amount of wasted real estate and I'm not sure why.
    -Sub forums gone. While not catastrophic, I liked the option of breaking down the information into subfolders to keep things clean and sorted.
    -Overall site responsiveness: not sure if it's due to the number of folks bashing away on it right now, changes to the back end or the ongoing maintenance/tweaks but I find the site is much less responsive and the load times are certainly longer.
    -PC distinction: while this was identified during the design process and my group and I grumbled about it a bit, we figured it would work out find anyway. Now that we're playing with it... Not so much. PCs should be in a class of their own
    -Inability to show all wiki pages: We have some wiki pages that are not linked to the main menu as we used to just list them all (or they are linked from Character pages, etc...). While the search function works really well to locate the one you're looking for, from a GM/DM point of view, it would be nice to have them listed at some stage when doing a lot of edits.

    The really not good:
    - Lack of beta/roll-out issues. No software solution is ever going to be 100% on launch day or launch week for that matter BUT you had folks pay you to be part of the beta testing and from the comments above (I waffled and chose not to take part in this), it would seem that a lot of the rocky start we're seeing right now could have been mitigated with a longer test period.

    All in all, the content of our active campaign is still usable with a couple minor tweaks so we'll keep on trucking but if I had to "fix" my retired one, I would likely be deleting it instead and moving on to something different at this stage.
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March 2024
Wrath of the Highborn

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