Giant Devcast: Sorry We Changed Things :(

@willyod said:

I'm not a fan of the design either, but I generally access everything through the Xbox app and only really hit up the website itself to check for upcoming live stuff, so I'm not that bothered.

Of course this new site might bring the app to an end, in which case that would be a bummer.

Those were my initial thoughts on the matter that I had when this podcast happened. Also I added the edit few seconds after my initial post, just to (try to) make it clear that these were my current thoughts about the matter.

ATM I didn't have time to listen to one hour+ podcast about, but I will update my thoughts once I've done that. I have no constructive criticism at the moment other than I prefer the old site, I'm sorry but I'm not saying this is the ultimate truth, just trying to bring out some discussion. I'm a fan of working websites and love a good UI, but sometimes if it ain't broke... you know the rest. There might be technical and other reasons for the refresh etc. but I really can't comment on anything before listening to the podcast.

My "only one not digging this new beta look" was based on the past beta discussion on the forums, where everyone (just random threads I've seen on the front page) seemed to like the new layout.

I hope I answered some of your questions about my dislikes ;)

Oooh. Neat.

oh hi!

Those were my initial thoughts on the matter that I had when this podcast happened. Also I added the edit few seconds after my initial post, just to (try to) make it clear that these were my current thoughts about the matter.

ATM I didn't have time to listen to one hour+ podcast about, but I will update my thoughts once I've done that. I have no constructive criticism at the moment other than I prefer the old site, I'm sorry but I'm not saying this is the ultimate truth, just trying to bring out some discussion. I'm a fan of working websites and love a good UI, but sometimes if it ain't broke... you know the rest. There might be technical and other reasons for the refresh etc. but I really can't comment on anything before listening to the podcast.

My "only one not digging this new beta look" was based on the past beta discussion on the forums, where everyone (just random threads I've seen on the front page) seemed to like the new layout.

I hope I answered some of your questions about my dislikes ;)

ow nice, congrats on launching the new site!

I see you've gone live with the beta. It really feels and more than that looks like a beta, I'll leave it at that. I wish your all the luck with your future endeavours. I'm not trying to overreact, but this is not a working layout for me at all. I'll probably catch your videos on YouTube in the future and listen to the podcasts through my iPad/iPhone.

Few bugs I've noticed: Formatting on post doesn't work. Editing posts doesn't work.

We fear change.

change is scary but I think the site is looking really good, you guys, well done!

gg gb

Another software dev here chiming in my excitement for this series! Hope there's a lot more inside baseball to come.

Everything is way to spread out on a monitor now fuck.

The one thing that kinda hurts is that the forums are removed from the main page but the tweet feed is still kicking.

@fishinwithguns: i dont think willyod was wrong to express his opinion about the site re-design. He wasn't offensive, he was just being passionate about the change in design of a site that we all frequent daily. A site that has become home to many of us. And I understand where he is coming from because he is the first person I saw on this site who stated that they were not a fan of the redesign. I also felt alone in this, but didnt want to say anything because of the clear backlash one gets from any type of criticism. No I am not a developer, I am a fan of the giantbomb website. We as giantbomb are a community of people, and all of us will not like the same things, and it is extremely unfair of you to call out someone for expressing a differing opinion than yours. That is the point of discussion. I also agree with willyod, i'm not a huge fan of this change, but it is what it is. I will try to adjust to the change, but if it doesn't work for me, I can also see myself just watching on youtube, or my roku app, and only loading up the site for live streams. For what it's worth, the dev team did a nice job here, its just not for me.

Full kudos for the rebuild!

This is very cool, very much looking forward to more. Working through a pretty big tech stack refactor at the moment so hearing how you guys did it can only be helpful.

Works great. Would use again. A+++++

Really enjoy the new design and this is awesome content!

That feeling when ya just hit F5 and everything changes lol. Jarring but like it.

@mistersims I may have went a bit too far, but I think my point is still valid. I didn't even say his opinion differed from mine. I agree with the bit about the start page having some wasted space.

But I realize I may have been a little hypocritical. I should have just said that while I agree with you on one issue, willyod, I feel there are better ways to express your feelings. It just came off as extremely negative and not helpful. It's not an issue in a difference of opinion. It's just how it was said, which I felt was unfair to the people who develop the site, and the point of this podcast and the previous video about the updates was to keep everyone informed on what they're doing and why, and welcoming any critiques of the new design. So I say I was a little hypocritical because I was just trying to counteract a perceived negativity on my end because I felt what you wrote was approaching the level of personal attack toward the developers but then I ended up sounding like I was attacking you personally. So I apologize, @willyod.

I don't care when people's opinions differ slightly from mine or even greatly. I just thought the original comment could have used more tact, that's all. My response to you could have as well. Sorry about that.

Interesting stuff, thanks guys.

And as someone who's done hard time in DevOps... shout out to Josh.

I would love to see more content with Dan and Will, they are cool dudes

Think its a great change. People who arent feeling it yet might just be super familiar with the old site, give it some time and you'll see this one is super wuick to find what you're looking for too, and much much better for discovery. Great work lads

Hey, I never post on this site, but this owns. I love war stories from developers, but most of the podcasts out there are pretentious ego bloats that just want to listen to their own voice and are so far removed from humble Dan Ryckert seems like a well balanced human. You guys just sound like you love to do this and that's what's fun to listen to. More of this!

The only thing that I hate is the new logo. Everything else looks great!

I like how there's a big honkin block that says "THANKS FOR BEING PREMIUM YOU DONT GET ADS INSTEAD YOU GET THIS EYESORE"

First off: I welcome change and I know that a lot of work has gone into this, but honestly, I don'lt like the new stuff at all.

Getting rid of the different video/podcast categories in favour of just "latest" and "shows" is not good at all. It just adds extra steps if I want to browse through QLs or something. Shows also seem broken right now and don't show the latest videos and instead some old stuff back from August.

Having no dedicated search function in the videos section is terrible. Searching stuff via the main search in the upper right corner, again, just adds time to something that used to be fast and simple before.

Not seeing the latest forum topics on the front page is also a big minus in my opinion. I pretty much only kept up with forum stuff because of that feature.

The upcoming section is broken and doesn't show local times. The "episode" info is completly pointless. I also don't like the style at all, the old one featured banners/pictures etc. The new one is just empty.

Honestly the only thing I actually do like is the "this day in GB history" thing. The new logo is okay, I guess. Everything else needs more work, sorry.

I feel like Dan threw in his 2 cents on that notification bell icon. I might be reaching.

Edit: Dan Ryckert

More dev talk please! A development and design focused podcast every month or so would be awesome! Would love to hear Will get into detail about building GB infinite, really enjoyed hearing you guys talk about the site and web dev in general.

Don't know how many duders fit the description, but as someone who's spent the last 10 years writing code for a living this is very much up my alley. Super excited for y'all and I hope this continues as a series.

I dont know about this. Site is cool I just hate change.

Things are different and I am lost and frightened.

I like the change. The old design was fine but too many things got lost or were bolted on. This is new and fresh and awesome.

I bet you guys are relieved and terrified that the new site is up! Congrats on all of the hard work Giant Devbombers!

You guys should start a series titled "How to develop a bomb".

Giant bomb is the fucking coolest.

As someone from an SRE background, your comments about wrangling blades together and dealing with them not being the right OS or having the right version of PHP sounds:

1. exciting
2. really awful to deal with

I'm like 99% sure y'all have thought about this already, but what are your thoughts on handling that kind of thing yourself by running your own kubernetes (or whatever other container orchestration setup makes sense) clusters? It seems like you're pretty near the scale where that seems reasonable, unless that kind of thing is handled by other folks within CBS.

Anyway, super excited about this series, and I'm hoping to see more of it.

No need to be sorry guys! I'm really loving this new version of the website! :D

Is there anyway to put in a switch to remove fields like Continue Watching since that for me is empty or I'm not going back to those? It's right up top there, unwanted, above more important ones like Shows and Latest.

This was fantastic. Looking forward to the next one.

The new layout is amazing

cool

I just found this. I posted a topic in the General Discussion forums to express my love of the new site design because I didn't know where else to do so. Then I found this. It's freaking amazing! It really is. I really can't believe how much I'm enjoying it. Great job guys! I have yet to run into anything broken. If anything, everything seems smoother. I just fuckin' love it.

I'm digging it so far! Great work :)

Holy shit, i haven't listen to this podcast yet but having this beta forced into mainstream has me blindsided.. can you please unchange things?

ps- listening now so I can backup my gut reaction with substance...

PPS- Bad start, this comment formatting is all the way fucked.

PPPS- so they mention how the beta is a beta ass beta at around 47 minutes.. yet here it is unchanged and pushed to the main site 1 day later? Uhh its still totally fucked guys..

:thumbsup:

Yeah I listened to the whole thing and my takeaway, yesterday they said it was a beta ass beta, and today it's live as the main site.

• Well I agree with part of what they said yesterday, it's an ass beta all right.

I'm just whining I hear you guys saying, well fine. But i'm also a paying customer and I will put my money where my mouth is. I will be truly sad to miss out on future premium videos.

Glad to see the problem where certain new videos sometimes never show up in the top slots made it in the redesign. And clearing my cookies doesn't fix it anymore. :(

Also I want to be able to rearrange the front page. 'Continue watching' is not a useful category for me as it only shows a bunch of things I've already watched.

And the 'coming up on giant bomb' list looked better before, now it looks too windows 8 metro-ish.

Small print: full stack web dev here so am massively biased.

Since the early days of GB I've always loved the fact that the dev crew were so integral to what the site was. Obviously Dave was always the main guy who put a face to the hard work and creativity behind the scenes, but I also always got the impression that GB as a website embraced cool design ideas (be it the old achievements system, or more recently GB infinite) and that made the site feel more personal somehow. Features like the embigen button and pin option may not be essential (and I can see how 'increased usability testing' would come to such a conclusion) but added up to make GB, well, that little bit different - the site I know and love and visit every day.

I'll be blunt, at this time I'm not seeing much of that individuality in the new site design and overall the lack of polish is leaving me wanting. The new 'shows' metaphor currently feels half-baked and the new carousel heavy layout needs refinement. However, I do love that this new podcast exists and I really hope it helps bridge the reality of the new build with the intentions of its creators. I'm excited to hear more from you guys as things progress going forward.