What happened to this site?

Yesterday, the site had a clear, easy to follow design and a unique look. Today, the design is still easy to follow, but it looks like a Gamespot.com and a troll had a child.

EDIT -- removed some overly-vitriolic remarks.

If you are going to keep the lined backgrounds, please switch to a percentage-based format for the tables. There is absolutely no need to keep everything at a fixed-width. True, fixed-width makes creating layouts quite a bit easier, but in the end, having a percentage-based system ensures that viewers running at all resolutions have a pleasurable browsing experience.
*** This post was edited by LeDongGrande 1/30/2003 4:36:49 PM ***

Personally I find the post above rubbish. From just visting Gamespot now I seen very little resemblience.

CoasterBuzz has yet to make you load an advertisment before you vist the site so that is a major difference right there.

They are also a lot of sites with this type of background... most likely gamespot got there stripped background idea from another site.

Also the way the links are a totally different. CoasterBuzz has simple text links that are fast loading and look spiffy. Gamespots links are images for navigating the site that on my computer took a long time to load.

On the lines you said about trashing this is design is bad. If you sign up for a club membership you can change the skin of the site and then it won't look like gamespot... Also you would then donate $20 to CoasterBuzz and get access to CoasterBuzz Club events.

Here is a rule of life on the internet:

"If you didn't make it or pay the bills for it don't bash it."

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Matt Rydzik
http://beyond-repair.net
*** This post was edited by CoasterBGW 1/30/2003 4:11:53 PM ***

And Jeff's supposed to take your opinion seriously, why? You just joined yesterday and are the only one complaining...go away little troll...

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--George H
---Superman the ride...coming to a SF park near you soon...
Currency tracking experiment... http://www.wheresgeorge.com (Referring to The "George" on the $1 bill - Not Me)

With the exception of the stiped background as well as the white text on black background...

...there is absolutely no resemblance to Gamespot. Their forums are different, slow, and clunky. The only resemblance is the color scheme, and that's it.... period.

Wow this guy is certainly off to a great start. Post number one yesterdau he told me to screw myself in french. Now a day later he's going on about this?

Smells like a big stinking pile of French pancakes! "Le CPnut". Anyone think his name is appropriate?

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- "I used to be in the audio/visual club, but I was kicked out because of my views on Vietnam........and I was stealing projectors" - Homer Simpson

What the heck? How can you NOT see the blatant resemblence to Gamespot? It's not as if I am imagining this -- it is totally obvious. Even the scroll bar looks identical to Gamespot's set up!! I applaud Jeff for wanting to make the website better, but this horrid excuse for a design is just not going to cut it. He has neutered the forums. The yellow-on-black burns my eyes.

Apparently, nobody was signing up for the 'Club, so Jeff has decided to force people to sign up. If you don't, you're forced to have your brain slowly melt as the horrid color scheme devours your soul. Granted, it's not REALLY as terrible as my description, but it is still NOT an improvement upon the originial design. Thank you Jeff for wanting to update, but this is just not up to your usual high standards.

I hate to say but 300 people signed up in a year.

Also please re-read my firs post where I point out differences in the two sites.

If you want the site changed so bad pay for webhosting, pay for a domain, and spend your time to make your own site where you can run it how you want. For how it is here that is Jeff's desicion and I feel that he is doing a good job.

Why should jeff change the design for a couple of people that don't like it when the majority likes it?

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Matt Rydzik
http://beyond-repair.net
*** This post was edited by CoasterBGW 1/30/2003 4:28:59 PM ***
*** This post was edited by CoasterBGW 1/30/2003 4:30:55 PM ***

^^ Yes, and 300 people is not enough to cover the cost of running a website. Please, try not to focus on such miniscule portions of my argument. I am simply saying that I think the website looked better yesterday than it did today. The skinning idea is nice, but why have such a poor default color scheme? On top of that, why not use percentage-based tables so that the page actually fills the entire screen? As it is, only a small column is actually filled with content. This is all "Design 101" stuff that Jeff had dealt with in the previous version of his site, but has failed to address in this "improved" version.

^^^^ If Jeff likes it, then fine. It is his website after all and he definitely has the final say in all of this. I agree that the majority of my remarks were overly hostile, but I still find it hard to believe that such a degredation of quality has occured. Besides the color scheme, the fixed-width tables are a good example of poor design.
*** This post was edited by LeDongGrande 1/30/2003 4:34:33 PM ***

I feel that this design is improved of the old one...

If you really want to get your idea heard I am sure Jeff will change something if you provide a vaild argument and tell him what you think will be better.

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Matt Rydzik
http://beyond-repair.net

See my comments here about percentage based columns are bad for text (and the follow up by jdancisin, who is a designer by trade).

I admit, I do like Gamespot, and I'd be lying if there wasn't some influence, but the layout of the site itself remains mostly unchanged.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - Sillynonsense.com
"The world rotates to The Ultra-Heavy Beat!" - KMFDM

Well, thank you for being honest and not flaming me into a charred crisp.

After reading about the problems with percentage-based tables, I am still not convinced. Perhaps, you could limit news articles to a relatively small size? The forum posts could also be kept within 500-600px and still be quite readable, but allow the rest of the page to expand to at least 90% of the total width? It just seems as if there is a lot of unused (wasted) space on the edges. I understand that it's difficult to put "extras" on the side and still have full accessibility across all resolutions, but you can see my issues with the current site.

PS. I also work in webdesign, although the company I work for is pretty much limitted to a "flash/shockwave-only" user-base. We do not deal with HTML-based page layouts all that often. [Not trying to pimp the site, just giving you some background so you know where I am coming from. http://www.derbauer.de/]
*** This post was edited by LeDongGrande 1/30/2003 5:02:08 PM ***

I really hope I didn't sound mean I was just pointing stuff out :)

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Matt Rydzik
http://beyond-repair.net

Trouble is, no matter how advanced the server stuff is, it's still a web page, and it still needs to be legible on the small screen. You know how long I have hated the tiny little text entry boxes that virtually all Web-based discussion systems have in common? Horizontal scrolling is death, and 800x600 is just barely standard these days, add to that the fact that web pages can now be rendered on mobile phone displays, and the fact that there isn't really a nice clean easy way to divine the width of the user's display. I'm just glad Jeff opted to center the discussion in the window, though it doesn't look that way with this big blank space on the right-hand side (must be getting vertical ads from Doubleclick or something...their servers are the only ones I'm blocking...)

Personally, I think the site looks good, but I have trouble reading it. I've bumped the size up to 120% (which helps) because the text isn't heavy enough against the dark background for me to read it; a slightly bolder font (how about Arial Black... :) ) would make all the difference. The hairline white text just gets lost in the black.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I still think that "Ledonggrade" and "jacues frederic" are CPnut, and I'm not the only one who thinks so.

*Edit* I see Peabody agrees with me.

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So you believe that you are studying us, then kindly explain why you are the ones trapped in your seats.

*** This post was edited by FoF 1/30/2003 6:29:12 PM ***

I don't think he's CPNUT, but this character signed up at the same time as Jacques and Mistar Coffee. And this guy had a very similar address on yahoo France. What are the odds of two guys with French address signing up within just a few minutes of each other. Pretty odd, huh?

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- "I used to be in the audio/visual club, but I was kicked out because of my views on Vietnam........and I was stealing projectors" - Homer Simpson

Yeah, I dont think his name is appropate either, plus this character was talking in French Yesterday and some broken English (with very little knowlegde of the site), now hes typing perfect English and knows a lot.
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So you believe that you are studying us, then kindly explain why you are the ones trapped in your seats.

I'm surprised Jeff has let "LeDongGrande" stick around with that name. I bet someone who signed up as "A Big Di**" wouldn't last very long! :)

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- "I used to be in the audio/visual club, but I was kicked out because of my views on Vietnam........and I was stealing projectors" - Homer Simpson

You know, I wasn't even paying attention. Thanks for pointing it out.

The Hammer has spoken.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - Sillynonsense.com
"The world rotates to The Ultra-Heavy Beat!" - KMFDM