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Alex Weekes

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Mar 2005

Brighton, UK

02 Feb 2006 at 16:16 - 81

Quote:

Originally Posted by TB_

A game FAQs should include:

#1 Entry should be system requirements. Processors speeds, gfx and sound info, bandwidth, minimum OS version, and a note saying that in the future futher chapters may require more horse power. A suggestion about drivers and such helps.

#2 Sign up and purchase issues. This means issues with PlayNC.com despite they will have their own help, possible issues with passwords, email and so forth. And of course, infomation about choosing a server to use, how to pick the best one (as GW often comes using the wrong choice by default) and when to pick it.

#3 Basic technical issues and errors. Graphics problems, Net 7, crashing, and info on the support forms to use.

#4 In Game, basic asked questions. Such as, how do I assign keys, how do I take a screenshot (without the UI), and other simple mechanics issues.

#5 Handy tips, such as leaving pre-searing early can cause problems, you get n slots for chars, differences between PvP and PvE etc.

Now some of that can be moved round but all that info is important.

All of the above are already covered in more relevant places ... such as the far more detailed (and searchable) support.guildwars.com knowledge base, the game manual, etc. The FAQs are not meant to be the answer to everything, they're a quick-stop shop for common questions.

Now, perhaps the FAQs could include links forwarding players to the more detailed places where they can find information...

Lord Scoopula

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Dec 2005

Fargo, North Dakota

W/Mo

02 Feb 2006 at 16:28 - 82

Quote:

Originally Posted by jsumners

Absolutely horrible! It is now a nuisance to read the game updates; the content is just difficult to find.

Did they even try this design in something other than Internet Explorer? It is wretched in both Safari and Firefox. It is absolutely unusable in Opera. Here is a hint to the "web design" team at Arena.net: FLASH IS HORRIBLE! You guys need to read http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/ and http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/.

I enjoy playing the game, but I doubt I will be visiting the web site much any more. I can't describe how bad it is.

Update your browsers, works fine in Firefox 1.5.0.1, it also works fine in Opera Version 8.51.

Plus if you have some problem solving skills you can find everything that you need to know on the site easy.

Eugaet

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Apr 2005

US

Righteous Apathy [RA]

02 Feb 2006 at 16:29 - 83

Quote:

Originally Posted by jsumners

Did they even try this design in something other than Internet Explorer? It is wretched in...Firefox. It is absolutely unusable in Opera.

Looks absolutely perfect to me in Firefox (except for the Adblock tags everywhere)...I'm using v1.5 (just got the notification I was auto-updated to 1.5.0.1...w00t!). Looks great in Opera 8.5, too. You might have some plugin/extension/configuration issues there.

EDIT: Drat, I take too long to reply. Lord Scoopula FTW!

Quote:

Originally Posted by jsumners

It is now a nuisance to read the game updates.

Get thee a feed reader!

TB_

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Jun 2005

02 Feb 2006 at 16:38 - 84

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alex Weekes

Now, perhaps the FAQs could include links forwarding players to the more detailed places where they can find information...

Alex is always on the ball

.

jsumners

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Aug 2005

Stockbridge, GA

Illustrious Chromatic Enigmas

W/Mo

02 Feb 2006 at 16:41 - 85

In response to Lord Scoopula:

Browser is updated just fine. I didn't say it doesn't "look" like it is supposed to look. I said it performs horribly. The background image for the menu comes forward when scrolling and all of the flash slows down scrolling. The design team evidently knew Flash would be a problem for people they just didn't finish the site before making it live. From the guildwars.com source, ""

You must also have a special version of Opera. I have Opera 8.51 build 2182. The background Flash for the navigation menu completely covers the navigation menu making it impossible to navigate the web site. That means the website is unusable in Opera.

Also, problem solving skills shouldn't be involved in navigating a web site. A professional web site should provide easy, well defined, access to the content. The user shouldn't have to guess to figure out where the content is that he is looking for.

In response to Eugat:

I have one. It is called Safari. I have no desire to subscribe to the guildwars.com feed though. I only visit the site occasionally. I use feeds for sites that I want to get content from constantly. I check the game updates page about once per week to see what is changing while I am unable to play (can't play much during the semester).

----

The previous site design may not have been impressive, but it worked. It was easy to find the content desired and it worked well in every browser. This new design is just bad. Hell, they even specified a DOCTYPE and then ignored it -- http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=ht...ildwars.com%2F

Lord Scoopula

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Dec 2005

Fargo, North Dakota

W/Mo

02 Feb 2006 at 16:45 - 86

Quote:

Originally Posted by jsumners

In response to Lord Scoopula:

Browser is updated just fine. I didn't say it doesn't "look" like it is supposed to look. I said it performs horribly. The background image for the menu comes forward when scrolling and all of the flash slows down scrolling. The design team evidently knew Flash would be a problem for people they just didn't finish the site before making it live. From the guildwars.com source, ""

You must also have a special version of Opera. I have Opera 8.51 build 2182. The background Flash for the navigation menu completely covers the navigation menu making it impossible to navigate the web site. That means the website is unusable in Opera.

Operates and looks fine in both browsers I use, your screen resolution also plays a part in how it looks...there's only minimal slowdown when the main page first loads, but wait a second before scrolling and it scrolls smooth as ice.

Red Locust

Site Contributor

Join Date: May 2005

02 Feb 2006 at 17:22 - 87

To add on what jsumners said, it's not working too well for me either (just downloaded the latest firefox update yesterday). The site is a bit slow, and the flash icons at the top of the homepage do not work; I'm pointing at one thing and something 2 boxes away shows as being selected. Sometimes, nothing will select at all.

Other than that, the site looks very nice.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zobi

It is probably just me, but could anybody tell me where the Guild Ladder is now, please?

The pic in the lower right corner of the homepage with the 2 warrior chicks going at it, click the bottom half titled "Guild Wars Ladder."

Kakumei

Forge Runner

Join Date: Jul 2005

Grind is subjective

learn this please

02 Feb 2006 at 17:45 - 88

I'm not an enormous fan of flash designs on the whole, but this one is at least relatively well done.

And I'm not getting any errors or problems or anything whatsoever. Firefox 1.0.7 here.

mqstout

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: May 2005

Pittsburgh

02 Feb 2006 at 18:17 - 89

The new site is terrible. It violates all terms of usability -- it
doesn't scale to different window/screen sizes, one cannot utilize "open in new
tab" and "open in new window" features due to Flash-based navigation. The old
menu methods -- where any sub-page could easily be accessible from any other
page on the site -- is gone, and many more page loads are spent getting to
whatever information is designed. As countless studies have shown, the more
clicks deep information is, and the longer it takes (the Flash takes longer to
load and render), the less likely a visitor is to stay interested and continue
to use the site.

All in all -- the old layout, while not as pretty and "one big marketing
advertisement", was better, simply because it was so much more user-friendly.

Retribution X

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Nov 2005

Check behind you again.

N/

02 Feb 2006 at 18:24 - 90

HOLY BLISHT! I LIKE IT! IT PWNS!!!

/Endrant

Andy_M

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: May 2005

Worthing, UK

(Don't fear) The Beaver

02 Feb 2006 at 18:26 - 91

It scales to different screen sizes just fine for me. Yes, you can't use open in new window/tab but er, so what ? And for people who say it's using up bandwidth......well just WHAT are you people using the rest for ? hehe.

thirtypercent

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Aug 2005

02 Feb 2006 at 19:33 - 92

why not haf a forums section there?

My Sweet Revenga

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Nov 2005

R/

02 Feb 2006 at 19:48 - 93

Quote:

Originally Posted by LifeInfusion

The real irony is I liked the old site better for its speed. Since the new one is all flashy and stuff is all over, it is harder to navigate.

Another irony is it is all female characters on the front page.

Well it's not ALL female characters... note if you scroll down you'll see in the lower right corner the pvp ladder image with a guy... but he is about to get shanked hard by a female character so...... I guess there's something for every guy on this page if you're into that kinda thing

kvndoom

Forge Runner

Join Date: Jul 2005

Communistwealth of Virginia

Uninstalled

W/Mo

02 Feb 2006 at 20:52 - 94

Quote:

Originally Posted by sledgeunderhill

I sincerely hope they keep a version of the site flash-free.

I agree 500%. Macromedia Flush is the scourge of the internet. I won't even install the plug-in.

Eugaet

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Apr 2005

US

Righteous Apathy [RA]

02 Feb 2006 at 21:08 - 95

Quote:

Originally Posted by My Sweet Revenga

...note if you scroll down you'll see in the lower right corner the pvp ladder image with a guy...

That's a guy? I always thought that was a woman...looked like a catfight to me.

Fred Kiwi

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Sep 2005

[cola]

02 Feb 2006 at 22:09 - 96

Ha! And they included the whale in the little pentagon thing, on the menu bar

Ultimate_Gaara

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Jun 2005

BC, Canada.. how aboot that eh?

03 Feb 2006 at 00:45 - 97

Rad new layout, too bad I have to try and find out where everything is again, oh well.

EternalTempest

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Jun 2005

United States

Dark Side Ofthe Moon [DSM]

E/

03 Feb 2006 at 00:58 - 98

I think the reason why pvp ladder and support are not updated yet is due to those pages being dynamic loaded from a database where everything else was "static". They have to alter the theme while keeping all the php elements pulling live data from the database.

EternalTempest

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Jun 2005

United States

Dark Side Ofthe Moon [DSM]

E/

03 Feb 2006 at 01:00 - 99

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eugaet

That's a guy? I always thought that was a woman...looked like a catfight to me.

The warrior with the sword is female, the messer (by the looks) I think is a guy .. I think.

Fyre Brand

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Sep 2005

Shadowlight Order [SoR]

03 Feb 2006 at 01:38 - 100

I just checked it works fine on my opera browsers 8.51 build 7712 and it's always worked on my Firefox. If it's not working in your browser make sure your plug-ins are up to date. I'm always impressed how my opera links to the firefox plug-in folder. I haven't checked it in IE because I only use that for Windows update and going to certain government sites that only support IE.

I'm on dialup that is consitant around 40k bps. I think the site loads faster from an uncached state than the older site by about 30% or possibly more.

The site is beautiful. I showed someone at school today. They were impressed by the artwork and the flow through the page. Nice job Web Dev team!!!

@The markup snobs: All I have to say is standards are nice and I think the site has definitely followed that spirit more than most commercial sites. I checked several and you might be surprised who does and doesn't conform. For one thing the Safari site and the Mac site period doesn't validate to HTML 4.01 trans.... So my point is that the GW Web team did a great job please don't be so critical of them. It would be a shame to let something as spaghetti'd together as web standards get in the way of a beautiful site. (PS: Just try and find something you really want to know on the w3.org site - ack that place is a nightmare and it's ugly.)

Ashley Twig

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: May 2005

germany

Guild Of Openhearted Deeds

R/Mo

03 Feb 2006 at 09:46 - 101

What a waste of time.
Funny how people always applaude to a new design, when functionality appears to remain the same, or even worse.
That Flash-menu sucks big time. Maybe I should get a high-end video card 3D with 2GB memory 512 pipes and all, to speed it up a little?

Denny Pace

Academy Page

Join Date: Jul 2005

Good Eye Sniper [GeS]

03 Feb 2006 at 12:32 - 102

Quote:

Originally Posted by jsumners

Absolutely horrible! It is now a nuisance to read the game updates; the content is just difficult to find.

Did they even try this design in something other than Internet Explorer? It is wretched in both Safari and Firefox. It is absolutely unusable in Opera. Here is a hint to the "web design" team at Arena.net: FLASH IS HORRIBLE! You guys need to read http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/ and http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/.

I enjoy playing the game, but I doubt I will be visiting the web site much any more. I can't describe how bad it is.

I think you're stretching things a bit (absolutely unusable?), but I too am disappointed in the new site. While there's a big eye candy buff, the nice logical layout of the old site is history, replaced with a site that actually made me hunt for game updates, among other things. I'm also not a fan of forcing Flash on anybody for an official site. Very annoying for our dial-up bretheren.

I guess we live with this site, get used to it, and wait for the next update.

Cymmina

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Apr 2005

Me/N

03 Feb 2006 at 14:07 - 103

I think the new site is garbage from a usability standpoint. Sure, it's pretty. But that's all it has going for it, and that's not enough in my mind.

I use 1280x1024 as my screen resolution on my primary display, but my browser is open somewhere between 800x600 and 1024x768 (closer to 1024x768). I have it where I like it for reading. I'm not impressed by horizontal scrolling. The sad part is, it's only that way because of the absolutely useless eye candy in the middle of the navigation.

Flash is just plain bad on this site (I believe flash has *some* use, but it should never be used for navigation). I'm not 16, cheap animations don't impress me. Nor do they impress search engines. Sometimes, I'm not able to use the flash navigation for whatever reason because Macromedia is incompetent and makes plugin versions that are even more incompatible than browsers. You don't *need* flash to get alpha transparency working, provided you don't care about anything lower than IE 5.5 on Windows (which you can pretty much ignore for this kind of site), if that was your primary aim.

The main page also performs sluggishly for me when I scroll. It's most likely caused by the excessive use of flash.

It was also a terrible idea to just up and change where pages are located. I don't know what the site statistics look like on each of the individual pages are, but the only page I use on a regular basis is the game updates, and only because there's no patch notes accessible within the game client. It bothered me that I had to search every single subsection of the site to find the one thing I actually use because it was located in a completely unintuitive location (game updates goes under about?).

But hey, what do I know? I've only been doing web design for 8 years, 5 of those years on a professional level.

jsumners

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Aug 2005

Stockbridge, GA

Illustrious Chromatic Enigmas

W/Mo

03 Feb 2006 at 16:20 - 104

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fyre Brand

I just checked it works fine on my opera browsers 8.51 build 7712 and it's always worked on my Firefox. If it's not working in your browser make sure your plug-ins are up to date. I'm always impressed how my opera links to the firefox plug-in folder. I haven't checked it in IE because I only use that for Windows update and going to certain government sites that only support IE.

I'm on dialup that is consitant around 40k bps. I think the site loads faster from an uncached state than the older site by about 30% or possibly more.

The site is beautiful. I showed someone at school today. They were impressed by the artwork and the flow through the page. Nice job Web Dev team!!!

@The markup snobs: All I have to say is standards are nice and I think the site has definitely followed that spirit more than most commercial sites. I checked several and you might be surprised who does and doesn't conform. For one thing the Safari site and the Mac site period doesn't validate to HTML 4.01 trans.... So my point is that the GW Web team did a great job please don't be so critical of them. It would be a shame to let something as spaghetti'd together as web standards get in the way of a beautiful site. (PS: Just try and find something you really want to know on the w3.org site - ack that place is a nightmare and it's ugly.)

http://meyerweb.com/eric/redesignwatch/. I believe you will find that any in that list failing validation fail because they include offsite generated banner ads. And then there are those that validate to the strict DTD -- http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=ht....chevrolet.com. The GW Web team made a poor effort to adhere to the DTD they chose. It really isn't that hard to write compliant HTML; I do it all the time (HTML 4.01 Strict). And the w3.org site is very well organized. I use it all the time as a reference; the specification documents have excellent table of contents and indices.

As for why Opera isn't working properly, I don't know. Maybe it is a problem with the OS X build of Opera. Flash is installed system wide and macromedia.com works perfectly in it. All I can tell you is the navigation menu is completely obscured making the site unnavigable in Opera.

I also never said the site isn't "working" in Firefox or Safari. I said it performs very poorly due to the heavy, stupid, use of Flash.

Once again for anyone that wants to tell me I don't have updated software and plugins: my machine and all software on it is completely up-to-date.

jsumners

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Aug 2005

Stockbridge, GA

Illustrious Chromatic Enigmas

W/Mo

03 Feb 2006 at 16:25 - 105

Quote:

Originally Posted by Denny Pace

I think you're stretching things a bit (absolutely unusable?), but I too am disappointed in the new site. While there's a big eye candy buff, the nice logical layout of the old site is history, replaced with a site that actually made me hunt for game updates, among other things. I'm also not a fan of forcing Flash on anybody for an official site. Very annoying for our dial-up bretheren.

I guess we live with this site, get used to it, and wait for the next update.

I am not stretching anything:

Esprit

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Jun 2005

Dvd Forums [DVDF]

E/

03 Feb 2006 at 17:20 - 106

A full flash site, with multiple flash windows... why?

Their previous site might have looked old, but it worked great. If you changed some of the color scheme to make it more lively, then you'd have gotten that "fresh, new look".

Omega X

Ninja Unveiler

Join Date: Jun 2005

Louisiana, USA

Boston Guild[BG]

W/Me

04 Feb 2006 at 00:28 - 107

People complain too much. The flash isn't bad, I've seen MUCH worse. Not every site is 100% standards compliant, and Opera manages to skew just about everything.

From a usability standpoint, everything was simplified making it easier to traverse. ALSO, if you are not a web developer you would know that the W3C's Html validator is tempermental and won't sniff out correct errors all the time. Most of the errors that were found were due to the validator picking up symbols that were correctly placed. The other errors, if you want to call them that were the plugin src being placed in the page just in case someone didn't have flash installed.

It renders correctly in both IE and Firefox correctly. I really don't know what's Opera's problem unless it wasn't configured to use IE's User Agent.

unienaule

I dunt even get "Retired"

Join Date: Aug 2005

Fifteen Over Fifty [Rare]

04 Feb 2006 at 00:34 - 108

The Flash is terrible. I was trying to figure out why the heck my computer was lagging (It never does, even when running a mix of EvE/GW/Age3 at the same time), and lo and behold, it was the guildwars website! Flash is like a mix of the noobishness of Paladins, the horribleness of sundering, and the damage of an ogre-slaying knife, all rolled into one.

jsumners

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Aug 2005

Stockbridge, GA

Illustrious Chromatic Enigmas

W/Mo

04 Feb 2006 at 02:00 - 109

Quote:

Originally Posted by Omega X

People complain too much. The flash isn't bad, I've seen MUCH worse. Not every site is 100% standards compliant, and Opera manages to skew just about everything.

From a usability standpoint, everything was simplified making it easier to traverse. ALSO, if you are not a web developer you would know that the W3C's Html validator is tempermental and won't sniff out correct errors all the time. Most of the errors that were found were due to the validator picking up symbols that were correctly placed. The other errors, if you want to call them that were the plugin src being placed in the page just in case someone didn't have flash installed.

It renders correctly in both IE and Firefox correctly. I really don't know what's Opera's problem unless it wasn't configured to use IE's User Agent.

I know there is much worse use of Flash on the internet. That doesn't mean this instance is good, though. Also, Opera is the most standards compliant browser available. It doesn't matter what user agent string the browser sends, it is going to render the HTML with the same rendering engine. The web site might not send it the same HTML it sends others, but with the half-assed job done here I doubt they even thought of that.

As for the w3c validator: it works just fine. I use it all the time on my own projects. If the page you are validating doesn't have a DOCTYPE it can do some wonky stuff, yes. If the page does have a DOCTYPE, though, and this one does, it will give completely accurate results. You may not like them, but that doesn't mean they are incorrect. Looking through the errors for guildwars.com again, every one of them are valid according to the XHTML 1.0 Transitional DOCTYPE. If you are going to specify what kind of document it is then you need to follow the specification for that document type. There is no excusing it.

As an aside, the site is even worse on my Linux box (the machine I am using right now). Most of the header image doesn't show. It is just a big block of red.

I would like to commend the GW team, though. They are evidently paying attention. They have added quick links on the front page to the most important parts of the site, and they didn't use Flash for them. At least you guys are listening and doing something. Thank you.

kvndoom

Forge Runner

Join Date: Jul 2005

Communistwealth of Virginia

Uninstalled

W/Mo

04 Feb 2006 at 05:40 - 110

Quote:

Originally Posted by unienaule

The Flash is terrible. I was trying to figure out why the heck my computer was lagging (It never does, even when running a mix of EvE/GW/Age3 at the same time), and lo and behold, it was the guildwars website! Flash is like a mix of the noobishness of Paladins, the horribleness of sundering, and the damage of an ogre-slaying knife, all rolled into one.

I concur, though my similar rant was removed.

generik

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Jun 2005

04 Feb 2006 at 06:38 - 111

Quote:

Originally Posted by My Sweet Revenga

Well it's not ALL female characters... note if you scroll down you'll see in the lower right corner the pvp ladder image with a guy... but he is about to get shanked hard by a female character so...... I guess there's something for every guy on this page if you're into that kinda thing

Look again, they are both female

berko

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Jul 2005

Canada

N/Me

07 Feb 2006 at 03:40 - 112

Is it just me or is the new site really confusing? It's really hard to figure out what leads where.