Thanks for the heads-up, re: redirects. I have some game sites that I share links with from time to time. And I needed to locate the new address for individual articles.
(/\) Exploring Star Trek Online Since July 2008 (/\)
Okay, mad as heck, trying to check my PWE/STO account, 'cause I'm looking to see if they've fixed it (my STO account has been buggy since Jan), and according to the"my account" on the 'new' site, my LTS in CO never happened, and I've never been on STO at all, let alone subbed.
I've tried not to bug report spam them (STO) over it, but to try and even check my account, let alone do anything, do I actually -need- Arc now?
When I check the my account stuff in Arc, it says I never subbed (let alone LTS) to CO, I've never subbed at all to STO, and so forth.
Are they working to fix the account access/reading, or does it only count if I subscribed through Arc now, and I have to go and -rebuy- my LTS and stuff after installing Arc, and reinstalling all games, and so on?
Where on the Arc STO website can a person simply click to look at the patch updates? Normally, after maintenance I shoot over to the STO website and click on NEWS and find a links to the changes and patches made, but I don't seem to find that ability on the Arc page. Personally, I liked the STO website. I don't have any desire or time to play any other games online, so I am not interested about other games PWE offers. The Arc launchers wasn't too annoying, but now the Arc website, well, that's a different story. The STO website (www.startrekonline.com) had a fantastic introduction (in the form of a video) to the game for potential new players and it seems that that has been eliminated with the new move. Having it's own webpage made the game unique and standout. I want my video INTRO back!!!!
As a current STO player, I don't have a huge problem with the site. OK it's ugly, and it's non Star Trek - but I'm not it's target audience.
It's target audience is new players, and this is where it falls flat. People want to play Star Trek. They don't want to play Perfect World Entertainment or ARC. By removing the fundamentally Star Trek (and presumably Champions Online, Neverwinter, etc) feel from the games' sites, you're forcing a disconnect between the world you want your audience to engage with and the experience they're getting when they hit the site.
As an analogy, it would be like trying to get people interested in basketball by showing them a site decorated with hockey pucks and facemasks. It aint going to work.
While this 'joined approach' might make development of the platform easier, you're losing the individuality and appeal of your game worlds.
There is no Trek feeling to this what so ever including on the forums. A great deal of information is either hard to find or missing, for example, how do you transfer to tribble and how do you claim game codes, that in particular is my main concern at the moment.
There also needs to be a far easier way of navigating to the STO homepage, currently it is after a great deal of clicking... much like the game.
The new official site is junk for reading news. They are basically dumped there. And you have useless game adds about everywhere, making it difficult to find the news you are looking for.
For example, the moving news on top. You expect that would be for the most recent news. Well, it's not. You have old news that are not so important anyway.
As you can tell, STO has been officially migrated over to the new Arc website layout.
Are the subscriptions taken away? I can't find them. To my opion Arc kinda sucks. I had a better account overview at Cryptic/Perfect World. I cannot continue my subscription Veteran 400 days. I'd like a little help on this matter.
Perfect World isn't run by Ferengi, because Ferengi KNOW HOW TO SELL STUFF-they might sucker you, but you'll be smiling as they empty your bank account.
this is more like haivng the business end run by Pakleds.
Fixed that for you. But I agree nonetheless.
If the Ferengi were running the new site, it would be flashy, and modern, and attractive to new -players.
The site as it is looks like it was put together by a drunken chimpanzee. It is drab, and grey, and overemphasizes the non-STO games. It is cluttered, ugly, and unprofessional, and it just doesn't look ACTIVE. It looks like the last gasp of a dying game, when in reality STO is thriving. In other words, the new website misrepresents STO on a fundamental level.
Add to that the fact that it was rammed down our throats, the overwhelming player reaction is negative, and it's just plain UGLY...
Yeah. Not impressed, PLEASE change back.
The old website was slick and cool, modern and aesthetic. The old website was a website that enticed me to give money (and if I had the spare cash, I would've). The new site is an active turn-off. So no, I'm not going to be giving you money until this goes away and ARC is guaranteed to never be mandatory for anyone.
So no obvious warning, no announcement or anything, just do it and tell everyone afterwards? I'm not going to level blame at anyone but PWE, after all Cryptic are owned by them, but does anyone have any idea just how insulting it is to not have our concerns taken seriously?
If anything, you're proving a lot of people right on some of those right now, start listening!
Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head. - Euripides
I no longer do any Bug Hunting work for Cryptic. I may resume if a serious attempt to fix the game is made.
really think this is not that great, take a minute or two to figure out how to get to the forums, just when the old site was really getting good, PWE/Cryptic decide to get rid of it. Another thing as well the older forums looked 100% better, since there is now going back, give us options on looks.
"I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey, and reminds us to cherish every moment... because they'll never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we lived" Picard to Riker
So no obvious warning, no announcement or anything, just do it and tell everyone afterwards? I'm not going to level blame at anyone but PWE, after all Cryptic are owned by them, but does anyone have any idea just how insulting it is to not have our concerns taken seriously?
If anything, you're proving a lot of people right on some of those right now, start listening!
They are reading... Unfortunally we kinda depend on the website for certain kinds of info, so they can change whatever they want, because we have to come back.
AND, they are laughing at us while they do the changes.
Ain't that right you lousy wordpress-non-w3-theme-that-dosen't-even-work-properly-in-chrome-wannabe-webdevelopers? (thats right PWE... I know you are reading).
Don't look silly... Don't call it the "Z-Store/Zen Store"...
slower than before, old information in the big headlines (dev blog 45 & 47 for me), promoting content that's already over, while the new ones are hidden behind a small icon below. It's confusing and less clear than the old one.
It looks like a short-term intern came up with the concept.
1. Main scrollbar shouldn't be showing news from November (launch of S8.0...)
2. Main ARC page doesn't need two "Learn More" boxes, first one should be "learn more", second one should be link to main page. Instead, main page link is buried into a far corner as an actual link. If you're gonna go all tiley and mobile friendly, the important content like the entire main site of the game needs to be on a mobile friendly tiley thingy instead of an old-school computer link
3. Guides? Wouldn't that be where I found tutorials, blogs like "Dilithium 101" and the "refresher blogs" about "Ship X"? Not "game critical" things like, oh, the Vet Reward Matrix (aka an incentive to subscribe), key redemption, etc?
4. Branding - I can understand PWE "finally" taking the "appropriate" listing as publisher, relegating Cryptic to the "usual" unlisted status that most developers are stuck in. However, ARC shouldn't be bigger than the game people are reading about... :P
5. Mobile friendly. Got that. Is a "smallish" repeating starfield pattern that can go in the margins gonna kill that Galaxy S2 the Chinese are developing the site for? Will it even show up? Or flapping capes for CO? Something in the margins that tells us a little more than "we're bland, here's some thematically appropriate decoration for you?"
6. Is this the "space grey" iARC? Can we have the options of, say, a gold iARC or even iARCc's in green, white, Federation blue, heck, rose? :P
7. Loving the beta tag. On that note, is it just me or did the ARC version of the STO website "become mandatory" - even though we're "still transitioning and all non-ARC versions of the appropriate systems will be available until the end of the beta period"... Is there a way to return to the "gold" - aka fully functional - website until said beta period ends?
8. Finally found "My Account". Is the infamous "core connect" ever gonna start heading that way?
9. A shopping cart? For a pile of F2P games? Really?
More to come if I decide to poke around again later...
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Very accurate and salient design points in @patrickngo's post.
Agree with all.
What stands out to me:
As said frequently, its not obviously Star Trek. Its ARC that's the prominent feature and a users eyes are instantly drawn to it. Surely CBS must have some say in the Star Trek (tm) Logo being used correctly?
After that the users eyes are drawn to the scrolling top window. Now I'm not to uncomfortable with that, I've used them myself, however I'd tinker with the transition if I were the designer here.
Once the users eyes start to explore the rest of the page looking for information on the game, and I'm talking new user/player here, there's nothing obvious. You have to go digging.
The choice of colours is very drab but I'd assume this is a corporate decision and is the same on the other sites? (I haven't looked) Why oh why do they all seem to copy Steam's general look and theme?
I'm not so sure about having the blog entries 4 columns wide as they look a little squashed and "forced" into place. Perhaps try a 2 column approach which gives each entry more "real estate" and allow for a more eye catching graphic.
Overall, I'm not impressed. It is possible to have a range of sites all under one framework design goal and still let each one have its own identity.
Are the subscriptions taken away? I can't find them. To my opion Arc kinda sucks. I had a better account overview at Cryptic/Perfect World. I cannot continue my subscription Veteran 400 days. I'd like a little help on this matter.
For the record, finally found this one, in the semi-obvious place most people use now-a-days. Log into ARCgames, then click on your name.
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Good find! Smirk will be updating many of the guides with indices as soon as possible. Thanks for your patience as we complete the transition and get everything up to date.
Cheers,
Brandon =/\=
bran flakes how many pictures of branflakes boxes do you have and is bran flakes your favorite cerial or you just use it to be funny.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
i have hurt many people and i am deeply sorry but i hope i you will forgive me and i will try to make it better i am sorry.
The new arc web site that we are diverted to now feels like a meaningless mish-mash of content modules that tries to have this App-like continuity about it.
I think new players would be incredible confused about how to get the content they want, learn about the game, and not be bombarded with all of the other content from PWE trying to get us to play their other games too.
The branding much less doesn't even feel Star Trek. Where's the big Star Trek logo?
There are a few things that are nice, like the big content scroller at the top. But other than that...I'm not in love with it.
-Klintobean
Pretty much this. ^
It's also poorly optimized and a bit busy, in my opinion. I'll be avoiding the website from here on out and made a shortcut that goes directly to the forums. It might be trendy to be innovative, but there really needs to be some logic and an amount of simplicity behind the concept.
Any links I had to dev blogs on the old site do not redirect to the corresponding page on the new site, only to the same generic homepage. In order to keep links for things like dev blogs about ships updated, I will have to go hunting through a "News" page that doesn't work well on slower connections. I also do not see any easily findable index of new pages that I could look through.
I only ever went to the sto website if I wanted to know what was changed with the latest patch. Now that the site has migrated I can't find the patch notes. Where did they get moved to?
I only ever went to the sto website if I wanted to know what was changed with the latest patch. Now that the site has migrated I can't find the patch notes. Where did they get moved to?
Just go to the release notes section here on the forum
I dislike change for the sake of change. I hope transferring everything to that infernal arc system actually has some advantages, rather than just making stuff more difficult on everyone...
I dislike change for the sake of change. I hope transferring everything to that infernal arc system actually has some advantages, rather than just making stuff more difficult on everyone...
Sure thing. I find it easier just to use the forum to view the patch notes over the website since I'm on the forum more anyway.
Well, for the moment, it's just the website that's being migrated .. can still use the normal client. I've used arc and it's not that much different than steam from my perspective. Just another launcher.
Comments
I've tried not to bug report spam them (STO) over it, but to try and even check my account, let alone do anything, do I actually -need- Arc now?
When I check the my account stuff in Arc, it says I never subbed (let alone LTS) to CO, I've never subbed at all to STO, and so forth.
Are they working to fix the account access/reading, or does it only count if I subscribed through Arc now, and I have to go and -rebuy- my LTS and stuff after installing Arc, and reinstalling all games, and so on?
It's target audience is new players, and this is where it falls flat. People want to play Star Trek. They don't want to play Perfect World Entertainment or ARC. By removing the fundamentally Star Trek (and presumably Champions Online, Neverwinter, etc) feel from the games' sites, you're forcing a disconnect between the world you want your audience to engage with and the experience they're getting when they hit the site.
As an analogy, it would be like trying to get people interested in basketball by showing them a site decorated with hockey pucks and facemasks. It aint going to work.
While this 'joined approach' might make development of the platform easier, you're losing the individuality and appeal of your game worlds.
-K
There also needs to be a far easier way of navigating to the STO homepage, currently it is after a great deal of clicking... much like the game.
Please please please, make it more trek!
For example, the moving news on top. You expect that would be for the most recent news. Well, it's not. You have old news that are not so important anyway.
Or is it some sort of nefarious plot to steal souls? Because looking at the new bland, soulless site is certainly sucking the life out of me.
Are the subscriptions taken away? I can't find them. To my opion Arc kinda sucks. I had a better account overview at Cryptic/Perfect World. I cannot continue my subscription Veteran 400 days. I'd like a little help on this matter.
Fixed that for you. But I agree nonetheless.
If the Ferengi were running the new site, it would be flashy, and modern, and attractive to new -players.
The site as it is looks like it was put together by a drunken chimpanzee. It is drab, and grey, and overemphasizes the non-STO games. It is cluttered, ugly, and unprofessional, and it just doesn't look ACTIVE. It looks like the last gasp of a dying game, when in reality STO is thriving. In other words, the new website misrepresents STO on a fundamental level.
Add to that the fact that it was rammed down our throats, the overwhelming player reaction is negative, and it's just plain UGLY...
Yeah. Not impressed, PLEASE change back.
The old website was slick and cool, modern and aesthetic. The old website was a website that enticed me to give money (and if I had the spare cash, I would've). The new site is an active turn-off. So no, I'm not going to be giving you money until this goes away and ARC is guaranteed to never be mandatory for anyone.
Sincerely displeased,
worffan101
If anything, you're proving a lot of people right on some of those right now, start listening!
"I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey, and reminds us to cherish every moment... because they'll never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we lived" Picard to Riker
They are reading... Unfortunally we kinda depend on the website for certain kinds of info, so they can change whatever they want, because we have to come back.
AND, they are laughing at us while they do the changes.
Ain't that right you lousy wordpress-non-w3-theme-that-dosen't-even-work-properly-in-chrome-wannabe-webdevelopers? (thats right PWE... I know you are reading).
slower than before, old information in the big headlines (dev blog 45 & 47 for me), promoting content that's already over, while the new ones are hidden behind a small icon below. It's confusing and less clear than the old one.
It looks like a short-term intern came up with the concept.
1. Main scrollbar shouldn't be showing news from November (launch of S8.0...)
2. Main ARC page doesn't need two "Learn More" boxes, first one should be "learn more", second one should be link to main page. Instead, main page link is buried into a far corner as an actual link. If you're gonna go all tiley and mobile friendly, the important content like the entire main site of the game needs to be on a mobile friendly tiley thingy instead of an old-school computer link
3. Guides? Wouldn't that be where I found tutorials, blogs like "Dilithium 101" and the "refresher blogs" about "Ship X"? Not "game critical" things like, oh, the Vet Reward Matrix (aka an incentive to subscribe), key redemption, etc?
4. Branding - I can understand PWE "finally" taking the "appropriate" listing as publisher, relegating Cryptic to the "usual" unlisted status that most developers are stuck in. However, ARC shouldn't be bigger than the game people are reading about... :P
5. Mobile friendly. Got that. Is a "smallish" repeating starfield pattern that can go in the margins gonna kill that Galaxy S2 the Chinese are developing the site for? Will it even show up? Or flapping capes for CO? Something in the margins that tells us a little more than "we're bland, here's some thematically appropriate decoration for you?"
6. Is this the "space grey" iARC? Can we have the options of, say, a gold iARC or even iARCc's in green, white, Federation blue, heck, rose? :P
7. Loving the beta tag. On that note, is it just me or did the ARC version of the STO website "become mandatory" - even though we're "still transitioning and all non-ARC versions of the appropriate systems will be available until the end of the beta period"... Is there a way to return to the "gold" - aka fully functional - website until said beta period ends?
8. Finally found "My Account". Is the infamous "core connect" ever gonna start heading that way?
9. A shopping cart? For a pile of F2P games? Really?
More to come if I decide to poke around again later...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Very accurate and salient design points in @patrickngo's post.
Agree with all.
What stands out to me:
Overall, I'm not impressed. It is possible to have a range of sites all under one framework design goal and still let each one have its own identity.
This fails.
Just my 2 quids worth of feedback.
For the record, finally found this one, in the semi-obvious place most people use now-a-days. Log into ARCgames, then click on your name.
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
bran flakes how many pictures of branflakes boxes do you have and is bran flakes your favorite cerial or you just use it to be funny.
i have hurt many people and i am deeply sorry but i hope i you will forgive me and i will try to make it better i am sorry.
Pretty much this. ^
It's also poorly optimized and a bit busy, in my opinion. I'll be avoiding the website from here on out and made a shortcut that goes directly to the forums. It might be trendy to be innovative, but there really needs to be some logic and an amount of simplicity behind the concept.
STO Resources: <Ship Comparison - All Tiers + Small Craft + Hangar Pets> <Damage Resistance>
<R&D + Upgrade Costs> <Duty Officer Finder> <Suliban Doff Reqs> <Fleet Costs> <Rep Costs>
<Keybind Tour the Galaxy> <Fleet / Armada Management> <Currency Exchange> <Other STO Links>
Just go to the release notes section here on the forum
I dislike change for the sake of change. I hope transferring everything to that infernal arc system actually has some advantages, rather than just making stuff more difficult on everyone...
Sure thing. I find it easier just to use the forum to view the patch notes over the website since I'm on the forum more anyway.
Well, for the moment, it's just the website that's being migrated .. can still use the normal client. I've used arc and it's not that much different than steam from my perspective. Just another launcher.
I wonder when the Federation tutorial is going to get a new revamp because im bored with the old one!
I wonder when ESD and Qonos get a new revamp already!
I wonder when the forums will get an overhaul again.
I wonder when ...
Oh wait.