Personal Pros/Cons on version 3

catqeen1234 • 25 April 2017 at 12:46 AM

I'll be honest; at first I wasn't a huge fan of the change. I haven't navigated all over the site yet, but there are a few things I've noticed that are better to some degree. There aren't enough characters to comment on the blog post, so I thought I'd make a pro/con list here and if anyone agrees or has anything to add, feel free!

Pros:
While at first I missed the obvious "previous creature"/"next creature" buttons, I like the fixed arrows. Not having been in the archives yet, I hope it's the same because it wasn't so fun having to keep looking for the 'next' link when browsing for Easter eggs.

I really like the happiness bar on the side. It makes checking happiness sooooooo much easier, especially since I don't log on every day and use Tim for feeding most of the time.

No notification pop-ups that don't go away unless I let the page sit long enough. Yay!

So far I have no issues with navigation, although it would be nice to have the menus drop down on a hover instead of a click.

One less click in adopting from the Cave. While I liked the 'steal' and 'leave egg' options side-by-side, having the option to name as the steal option outweighed my dislike for the page being cluttered. I can deal.



Cons: (disclaimer: most of these are personal nitpicks and I don't expect anyone else to agree)
The background image looks stretched. If the site is going to be full-page like it is, the background image should be tailored to fit.

On creature profiles, there's no longer the archive description. I liked that ☹️

Another user has pointed out everything is 'big'. I agree. It'll take some getting used to, but it would be nice to have a setting option to decrease the size without doing it across our browsers (I know in Chrome if I zoom in on one tab, it zooms on all of my tabs until I set it back and it's annoying. I use Firefox for Egg Cave though so I don't know if that trend follows)

The red circle that tells me I can't click 'feed' after I feed a creature. Is that really necessary? It kinda stresses me out.

Eggs on the cave image. If they're gonna be there, I'd prefer them to be individually clickable without selecting one egg and then approaching. I mean, I'd prefer that in general, but to be on the cave image and have a translucent background is a little much.

No 'recently fed by' information on egg/creature profiles. It would be nice to know who fed or visited so I can return the favor.



Overall, I like the new layout minus my few nitpicks. Bonus: instead of the dollar sign, you guys should create your own currency symbol. Idk why but I'd really like to see that. Personalization?

I don't know. What do my fellow Arkians think? Am I too picky? Do I have any points? Ah well. This was my site feedback. I don't think I left anything out, since I remembered things while writing this haha.

dusskfall • 25 April 2017 at 10:47 AM

thoughts for me on the new version

+direct transfer of creatures as gifts to players.
+Collapsible click exchange.. big fan of that
+creatures And items on auctions and trades, Big plus on that. Con here though.. why do I have to offer a trash egg to trade an item for EC now? (I tend to buy CC vouchers with EC a lot, and i'm pretty sure the person selling the CC doesn't need or want a trash egg. I know I don't want the added hassle of having to get the egg in the first place)
- cove lay out. 20 creatures per window was much more helpful than 12. mostly because I often have lag issues and have to put the browser down and back up again to make it go away, trying to find my place in a cove counting by 12 is a lot slower than counting by 20
-I like to look at my creatures page sorted by species. this is no longer an option. (I realize I can Search by species, but that's a poor substitute to seeing them all at once)

Might be nice to have an option to arrange your friends list how you want it?

other than these points I find i'm kind of indifferent to the changes.

telekinec • 25 April 2017 at 10:52 AM

Thoughts, to follow your thoughts (going through them without good or bad, just observations):
- Things seem more refined and cleaner than before. Maybe a little bit too much since we really need to scroll down hard and the background seems stretched.
- I like the soft colors for the website. In the beginning, it used to be a dark color, which did change the mood.
- I like how everything looks more modern and slick.
- There are alot of popup windows when I don't think it's necessary.

I've been here since its beginning so I've seen all the changes, but since I was on an hiatus and I've come back, I think I'll need some time to adjust. Overall, I do like the V3.0 though. I haven't encountered any problems, so maybe that's why I'm particularly okay with it... dunno.

catqeen1234 • 25 April 2017 at 7:31 PM

@dusskfall @jean561114573609

I had one issue that got fixed, which was not being able to edit my posts. I'd remembered something I wanted to add, but I can just add it here now:

Con: Word-wrapping is non-existent. It gives me a headache to try and read a word that is split between two lines. If it won't fit on the first line, just move the entire word to the second line. There isn't even a hyphen to connect the letters when it gets split!

Also, it would be nice to have the option of being notified that someone responded to your forum topic, or when others also comment on a different topic, without requiring a ping. I would've never known you two responded without checking it manually!

I don't have much to do with trading or auctions, so I'll probably never have an opinion on that lol. I can see the frustration of being required to use a junk egg. I do remember the last layout change, when the colors changed and I've offered suggestions (that were actually implemented!) in the past, so I see the modernization point. It does look better overall, minus the stretched background.

Use a popup blocker if you don't have one. I haven't had a single popup yet.

I have to admit, I'm excited to see how the layout change affects the events. I miss the Easter event having set locations for eggs, but the randomizing does make for more suspense. Gobblers and Kinump seeds, however... that's what I'm excited to see, how that's affected by the change. I hope there are no bugs for that.

telekinec • 25 April 2017 at 8:01 PM

@catqeen1234
I agree with what you just said! Especially the notification for furum posts without having to ping. That would be awesome and I haven't thought about that point.

han • 25 April 2017 at 8:06 PM

I'll share my two cents as well!

First isn't about the site changes - while at first I was really disoriented and not happy with the changes made, I've basically gotten used to it now. I think the reason there are so many complaints going on now is mostly because we're just not used to it, which will eventually wear off. I'm sure we all appreciate all the hard work and thought that went into version 3. 😊

Cons
- I have to say.. the combination of the navigation bar's background with the main (stretched) background image... isn't that visually appealing. The colors just don't go together that well.
- I wish the fonts were uniform: in some places (like posting comments, the search bar, etc.) it looks like Arial and other places is the 'nicer' not-default font. It would look nicer if they were all the same.
- I'm not a huge fan of how... huge everything is. I'm currently browsing Egg Cave at 80% browser size because otherwise everything is just too big. The text is ginormous!
- I liked being able to arrange the order of the boxes on our profiles, so I'm sorry to see that feature go. I'm also not a fan of all the scrollboxes (ex: creature descriptions, profiles). I'm sure this was done to make the boxes have uniform heights, but now some of the boxes are too large for the small amount of text, and some require a lot of scrolling.
- This is definitely being nit-picky, but I find it a little annoying that it's not as direct to access the cave. Egg Cave's main 'thing' is, well, the cave. We used to be able to click that nice big 'adopt' button.
- In the forums main page, I can't right click to open one of the topics in a new tab anymore. For someone like me who wants to visit multiple forums at the same time, it would be a lot easier if these could be opened more easily.
- The livepulse was such a nice feature ☹️ 'Recent topics' and 'recent hashtags' make a lot of awkward space at the bottom - I'd rather just have the forum main page show all the forum topics, and have the separate livepulse page back.
- I wish there were alternating backgrounds for the topics in the forums. I feel like that helped the topics to stand out more - now it's just white background and orange links, it's kind of hard to scroll through.
- This is a tiny, tiny, basically non-issue. But I think the Advent Tree link can stay out of the main navigation until December.
- The Archives look really squished! I know scrolling is reduced, but the lack of space between the creatures is just uncomfortable to look at!
- Missing the timestamps on status updates.
- There are wayyy too many pop ups. I don't need a page refresh every time I delete or post a comment.

Pros
- I love, love, love the new Resurrection Stone and freezing pages. Finally, I don't have to click through many names on a dropdown box and just immediately see all of the creatures, with their species!! I think this was a much-needed improvement.
- I'm noticing that the images/names change much quicker - I used to have to clear my browser cache every time I made a change, but now it updates automatically, which is nice.
- I like seeing how many feeds/views/clicks each creature gets in a day. I also like the new feeding button. It definitely makes feeding a little faster.
- The trades allowing 20 items/creatures is great! At first I wasn't sure it was a good idea to combine item and creature trades, but it makes transferring creatures around my accounts so much easier. I do think in the Search feature, they could add a checkbox for 'Items only' or 'Creatures only' so that people who want to browse separately could see?
- Also, one-way transfers: YES, YES, YES!
- I personally love the guarantee of 10k EC from the Site Trivia every day, haha.
- I like that the 'Last Seen Time' is much more specific (for those who haven't hidden it, anyways).
- The new cave layout is pretty neat!
- Seeing the overall cove health is great. I do think the new 'Your Creatures' page is more functional. At first I wished the Town Hall had stayed, but I think renaming the creatures on the page is actually easier.
- I know many users liked the pop up notifications, but I'm actually glad that now that the notifications are less in-your-face. I still find the notification icon lighting up noticeable, without being obtrusive.
- Not really about the actual changes made, but I love how quickly the Egg Cave team has been responding to concerns and complaints. It's so reassuring to know that EC is taking the time to review individual concerns and continuing to make the site better as we speak ❤️

Hmm.. I think that's all! (That was a lot, whew) I know my opinions are probably going to get lost in the sea of them, haha, but hopefully some of you agree with what I've said 😊 Thanks again to the Egg Cave team for working on this new change and I hope to see it continue to move in the right direction! ^^

telekinec • 25 April 2017 at 8:31 PM

@snowball888111
Seriously, you guys have thought about all the things I've seen since returning here this morning. I just hope that people who are complaining (not referring to you guys, but to those who don't give V3.0 a chance) realize that they've done a lot of work and nobody is going to be completely satisfied.

prairie • 25 April 2017 at 8:32 PM

I still find it hard to get used to these changes. 😋
Then again, I really don't like a different changes in layout. Xp

I've gotten used to the site more, but here are the things that still bug me alot:

Cons
- Don't really like how narrow the white area (where all the stuff is) is, and how long it makes the site. I just feel like I am scrolling way more. :l
- Profiles are now scrolled. (This bugs me a TON, I like how it was spred out and fully visible. ☹️)
- Comments seem really boxy to me, as all are surrounded by a outline and have a large blank space if the area wasn't used. 😋
- User pages are alot more busy and boxed.
- Page reloads and brings me to top each time I post a comment

Pros
- Creature images seem crisper
- you can put items creature trades
- You can make creature trades with much more creatures! 😃
- no "enter the code" in the shops
- able to view items by rarity!
- chances of getting things in TS and Leila Oasis are higher

catqeen1234 • 26 April 2017 at 2:12 AM

@prairie @jean561114573609 @snowball888111 @dusskfall

First off, thank you guys for replying and adding in your opinions. I'm sure we all appreciate the work put in to trying to update EC and keep it fresh for us users. I'm definitely not trying to just complain, which is why I decided on making a pros AND cons list. Plus, if any admins happen to come by and read our posts here, all of our feedback is in one place and in clear categories!

I've been pretty impressed by the sheer number of things you guys have added and just shows me how little I really navigate. I noticed the adopt button was gone but didn't even think to include that in my initial review. I see the point of the colors not matching up between the toolbar and the background image. I have no ideas on how to fix that though lol.

Also, yesssssss the option to open new tabs on not only the forums but under notifications is horrible! I can't even click with my scroll wheel; it just opens my scroller. But the notification area is so much better now. Still too big, but I like the font and layout and the placement is out of the way, with the orange alert color the perfect option imo. Not red like a warning so it doesn't stress me out, just a mellow orange to let me know "You've Got Mail" 😉

dragongirl02 • 26 April 2017 at 3:15 AM

I had missed a few day I don't always come on every day. Glad to see they got version 3 working.

A current complaint would be that portrait ad between the search and main continent on forces me to scroll dow and with the mobile sensitive to touch I'm afraid of acidetly taping it an not realizing I did so.

Maybe if they could switch that one to a landscape and shrink all the ads on the mobile side it would help. They are a bit of an eyesore on the mobile with them being desktop sized.

telekinec • 26 April 2017 at 7:22 AM

@catqeen1234
I was only aiming at the people I've seen who said that V3 wasn't good without giving it any chances. Seeing you posting pros and cons, maikes me see that you gave it a chance. Thats why I wrote I wasn't aiming at those who have made comments on here 😊

ryu28000 • 29 April 2017 at 10:03 AM

To be honest I have no issue really with the new layout. I learned how to navigate and learned to deal with trivial things regarding the new version.

That said there are just a couple of things I would like to see implemented someday..

1) Word wrap feature. Please. Sometimes when a word is broken up and the last letter is on a new line and I end up wondering if something is wrong with my browser.

2) I would really like to see a feature where you can clean out the notification section. The notification icon is basically useless to me if it is orange all the time (indicating new alerts). Sometimes I do not always pay attention to the actual number of notifications
so if I get a new notification then it would be nice to know at a glance. Otherwise older notifications are of no use to me so why have them.

There is not even a way to delete them individually. I appreciate that the pop-ups were eliminated especially since they kept appearing when one navigated to another page
but if the only way to know if there is a new alert is to take note of the number of alerts one regardless of how many are old ones then why have the alert icon?

However, I was wondering, not that I do not appreciate less mouse travel so feeding and clicking is faster and not because I wanna come off as sounding lazy but...would it be feasible to slip in a "hot key" to go to the next critter? Maybe
like using the "n" key or something?

Anyways...the new version is just fine in my view and while II liked the old version too this one is just fine, you worked very hard to make it nice and I managed to get over all the trivial differences and I certainly do not mean to come off as being whinny and complaining.
There will probably still be some coding snags that decide to creep up now and then when you least expect it.

Edited to add:
In regards to the notification thing, I had to go to each page of alerts then back to the one for today before the counter registered "0".
Odd really though I still would like to see a way to delete old alerts.