New site layout!
4 years ago
British Columbia, Canada
AidanMse
He/Him, She/Her
4 years ago

After messing around with the custom themes settings, I really like the new update actually (I don't like custom background but they should be added back in tbh). Here's how good I was able to make it look: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/488218907627356181/591491260884189194/unknown.png

SoopaPhastMan, Quivico and 2 others like this
Sweden

Should've at least kept some of the customization already done, seeing as you're clearly now moving towards the direction of allowing some customization.

This honestly feels poorly thought out and executed, not to mention how crappy it feels to have the themes you've diligently and proudly worked on perfecting for so long just tossed out, for seemingly no reason other than that other's themes aren't as thoughtfully put together.

The best thing now would be to revert and make the new layout opt-in only. Continue then to take suggestions from the community and fine tune it until it's eventually ready to push out onto everyone.

Edited by the author 4 years ago
Imaproshaman and Ian07 like this
United States

@MakkerDon yeah, I'm aware haha. I mostly meant that part as a joke. Even still, that's why many websites detect the user's location and show the regional spelling.

Jönköping, Sweden

Its very green... I will miss the old layout

Imaproshaman likes this
Estonia

To people complaining about the "Green", you can change that along with other things to make it more appealing to you. The only thing really missing now is the backdrop and that's just fine if it means the site looks cleaner overall. A lot of backdrops weren't exactly the greatest and could deter some newcomers due to their favourite game site looking hideous.

I will say though that it would be cool if there was a tick-box added into user settings to be able to view backdrops as some people have personal attachments to the backdrop of their favourite game and they are mostly already seasoned runners. That way only people who wouldn't see them are people less familiar with the site.

Another note, it would visually in my opinion be better if the header at the top changed to blue if you switch to night mode by default. The colour pattern just works better.

Edit: Oh, nevermind, I wasn't aware you can't edit your theme unless you've donated.

Edited by the author 4 years ago
Qatar

SRC was such a unique design till this change. I honestly don't know if there was really a need for light mode. The colors doesn't help it either (whether its green or not considering the framework that you are using).

I am not sure if my assumption is correct on the framework, but there was really no need for boostrap framework. The layout was fine the way it was not to mention it was also much better for eyes. Because of that, the site looks more of mobile app or any common social media site rather than an actual leaderboard.

Saying "very few of them actually looked good" is basically fueling the fire causing you to have more stingy comments.

Edited by the author 4 years ago
Aquitaine, France

I'm agreeing with everything above, love the update, everything looks more professionnal, but bring the custom backgrounds back ><

Imaproshaman likes this
Canada

Removing themes in my humble opinion was a terrible idea, especially with what it was replaced with.

I think (more logically) if you wanted a more "streamlined" look, and if the backend allowed it, why not do as you did, but create a specific toggle for THAT? You could have setup some kind of toggle that streamlined the layout and forced a specific background / text colours, etc to a default, without actually stripping communities the individualism that made this website very unique to browse through.

Other changes: welcomed.

Edited by the author 4 years ago
Quivico, Imaproshaman, and Helix like this
Rhode Island, USA

A few things:

  1. Please put night mode by default. Light mode looks too different from what the site used to look like, and most people prefer dark sites. Keep light mode as an option for people who do like it.

  2. Allow users to change the colors of the top bar when logged in, or change it to something that is easier to read than green on green. Green on a dark bar, or similar would be MUCH better.

  3. Allow for the custom speedrun.com banners, maybe a custom icon for moderators (seriously, the sword doesn't make sense for any game I've ever ran), a second color, or some other non-obtrusive theming options. I understand reasons for removing the backgrounds, but some of the things that were removed weren't problematic on even the ugliest boards I've seen.

  4. What size is the banner, really? You wrote in another post that you can "make it any size and it'll resize automatically" but it's much easier to make something that looks good if we know how tall and wide it's supposed to be.

starsmiley, rythin and 6 others like this
Victoria, Australia

Overall i don't like how the site looks, it feels too modern.

Suggestions

  1. Bring back custom backgrounds / at least the profile backgrounds
  2. Make dark mode default
  3. If you are going to keep this can we please have the option to go back to the old layout, if possible
Edited by the author 4 years ago
Melwing17 and Imaproshaman like this
United States

Looks purely worse. Especially the banner which I can't stop looking at while I'm trying to focus. Also, I didn't know there was a night mode at first so I was stuck with the physically painful, distracting white mode & my eyes were still messed up for like 10 minutes after I switched to night mode. Also, I think I've only ever seen like one custom background that was bad enough for me to really notice it but I've seen plenty that looked good.

  1. Love the UI updates.
  2. Loathe light mode; I tried it for 7 hours. Just switched to (night mode/white theme/black bar). What a relief it was to get back to a more familiar feel. Too bad it wasn't default, at least for existing users. That might have eased some stress.
  3. Ambivalent on themes. I've been active on the Discord and we've been told there for months that themes are going away. Too bad about how it was all handled. I'm sure I can make some kickin' banners when things settle down.

There's just one thing I'd like to know, if you decide to be transparent about the motivations...

Is the redesign a precursor to having (more) ads?

I am worried. I think a lot of us are. This site represents a great deal and many people have poured so much into it. Thank you for your time.

Edited by the author 4 years ago
Melwing17, ShikenNuggets and 2 others like this
Germany

While I like a few parts of the redesing (everything feels more responsive), the change to designs is a disaster. Every single game looks so boring and there is no personality to it. It doesnt matter if I look at Skylar and Plux, Hat in Time, Mario 64 or OOT... They are all the same now. What sets them apart is a banner and a few minor things.

What is the next update? Will everything turn into a spreadsheet? So we gone full circle again? I do not like where this all is going. I enjoyed having the speedgames leaderboard have different themes and looks. It is representing the community in a way and I just dont understand why it had to be taken away.

Inb4 we also get bubble avatars soon.

TomTheDragon, Imaproshaman and 3 others like this

Oof, changes D:

SNAAAAAAAAAAAKE!

Denmark

I like the overall look, but the green colour is bad and hurts my eyes.

TomTheDragon likes this
Oregon, USA

To give my two cents, there's definitely a fair amount of that feels like it was unnecessarily scrapped. There's of course the obvious stuff like backgrounds and custom SRC logo banners (I can understand axing the former, but the latter seemed benign enough), but the Edit Theme page for user profiles is where I'm particularly baffled.

https://imgur.com/vQTUtzZ

The big thing that stands out to me is the restriction to one custom color, as opposed to the array of parameters you could set colors to in the previous layout. I can think of several reasons to restrict image uploads from a moderation standpoint, but I see no positive reason to remove color customization in such a Scorched-Earth-style manner; it even has a negative impact on the interface since there's no longer a visual distinction between new and visited links, on top of other things.

Minor extra note: the Banner field lacks suggested size or dimensions for the image upload. (I highly doubt that was on purpose, though)

The-Mad-King and HowDenKing like this
Pennsylvania, USA

Personally, I think the biggest problems are...

  1. Series pages take forever to load now, even for ones with only a few games. The entire page basically just "freezes" when that happens as well.

  2. Using green as the default theme color. I see that changing your profile color changes it for the entire site, but I still think the default green is just a weird choice. And if anything, using the "Same as panel color" option by default would look so much better.

  3. Banners are weird. Being forced at a height of 144 pixels is really awkward, especially if you want a smaller one. Plus the forced gradient really clashes with a lot of designs. Also half of the time when you load a page, it's already scrolled down past the banner (I guess as a result of it not loading fast enough?), so you might not even see it unless you scroll back up.

  4. Backgrounds. I know there's the whole situation with some games having really ugly or inappropriate backgrounds, but I don't see that as cause to remove them for every game. Ultimately, with there only being so much you can do with banners, I really think custom backgrounds need to return to give each game more of an identity. I don't think we need like, a separate foreground layer, scrolling, etc., but just being able to add any kind of background again would be a big improvement.

Edited by the author 4 years ago
Russia

rework is fine, site loads much faster, yet

a) think about bringing the customization back w/o bringing a paywall behind it.

nobody really cared about memey games having their memery backgrounds, unless they were unappropriate (prolly the best word here). considering barely any1 would click on a game thats on 187th page (sorted by active runners), and that particular game had some dude eating tacos, with his leg and stomach ripped apart yadda-yadda. people were actively looking at the games that were showcased on gdq/esa/marathons in general, or, if someone popular was playing that game, and these particular games are quite popular. guess what: the dudes that had the most active games on the site spent a lot of time combining text color, backgrounds, link color and other important things, that made some leaderboards extremely pleasant to watch. because you allowed people to take responsibility of what their games look like, because they knew what's gonna b good for the games.

instead, you literally look that responsibility, butchered the idea of making your own page look great, and made three different elements on the page take a SINGLE color, effectively butchering not only everyones leaderboards, but also their own pages: http://prntscr.com/o4s5y6

this is bad, and this is probably the primary reason most people are mad about.

b) let people decide which SRC theme they want to use, if the rework is not yet "solidified".

Steam has a great option to participate in beta versions of the games, w/o making the original game look bad. so why forcing the update, instead of making people choose if they want to see one? it's a huge difference, and i'm not sure why this decision wasn't made in a first place, as you dodge the hatewave for making the site look worse, and you can get feedback for free, without people being sad that "this is how things will be from now on", and considering their departure from the site, just because the site looks worse NOW, not oh hey i can see what will be later on, oh shie, the site looks bad lemme write a feedback of a things that should be changed imo.

the difference between these two themes is astounding, and you can't just pull a trigger w/o alarming people of what the site will look like. bunch of screens not equals an access to a reworked site, so if possible (since you'll probably keep this theme as default now) - let people "downgrade" to the older version of the site, or have new theme as an option. don't introduce new things that you'll have in a future to the older version, but i think you got the idea.

rythin, Crep and 2 others like this
Alsace, France

I really dislike this. Hours of custom sprite and color work down the shitter for every single pages i worked on. I'm really pissed.

neuro, SilverSpade92 and 3 others like this
Greater Manchester, England

Bad because every page with a custom image has been overwriten. so its the same for every page

The-Mad-King likes this