Site Ideas for Giant Bomb

Following up from the Content Ideas thread, I was hoping to see what changes everyone would like to see with the site. The latest re-design is great, but there are still some kinks here and there (streaming compatibility, forum search/organization/visibility, mobile site, etc.).

Do you want upvotes? Different showcase features? Better interpersonal community integration? Customizable color schemes and colorblind mode? VR compatibility? Maybe you're sadistic and you just want to see ads!

Chime in!

There should be a page that you can just go to and it's playing videos from the site 24/7. No control over it, it's just like GBTV or something. Maybe there could be like community voting for what the next video could be from a small selection list. Then a ranking for what videos are voted for most. Yeah, all that stuff I just said and more.

Colorblind mode is usually appreciated, but I can't remember the last time I was confused by colors on this site. All in all, I don't think anything needs to be changed. Mobile support seems alright as is.

Two things from the old days, related to images:

1. Load images on pages rather than all at once. That would make it so much easier to edit specific images and share them with people.
2. Let me write multiple captions at once. The current process is more tedious than it needs to be.

They should split off some staff to make a website about movies, they could make some pretty awesome video features. It could also be a movie wiki site. I think it would be wildly successful.

1. The ability to save work when writing a post or review. Really annoying when I'm trying to write something longer and I can't save my work.

2. More customization on the home page. For example, I really don't care about the "newsy" kind of posts that just serve to re-post trailers or announcements from publishers. For some people that's great, but I'd rather not see it. Conversely, I'd like some customization so that things I actually do watch for, like QLs and longer opinion/discussion posts to be closer to the top.

3. I'd really like the site achievement stuff to come back. It annoyed a lot of people, but I always found it kind of fun and distracting in a good-dumb sort of way.

1. Achievements returned
2. Bugs Fixed
3. Ordered Lists longer than 100 items

Bring us support to watch streaming (paywalled) content on our Android devices

Quests, so I can die happy

Nevermind this a SITE ideas topic not content.
original post.
I don't mean to be negative, I am honestly just curious. Have the guys ever taken a community suggestion and done something with it? Whether it be new stuff or bring back old stuff?

Personally I'd love if they brought back random pc games. It's why I used to subscribe other than just supporting the site I love.

@video_game_king: Regarding #1, what do you mean about loading images? I feel like I'm not getting the whole idea there :/

And regarding #2, do you mean like in a "mass image editor" kind of thing?

@thebunnyhunter: This is funny.

@noboners: Yeah, the color scheme is definitely simple (which is one of the best parts about the site) so I don't know if it would be needed, but it's better to at least consider it then not, right? Assuming they didn't already do so...hell, I don't know.

@lawgamer: 1. Agreed. 2. ESPN does something like that where you can customize your own home screen (I think it's called myESPN). The site is garbage but the idea is cool, I could definitely see that fitting in here. 3. Sounds pretty cool! I wasn't around when those were there, but I know Game Informer has their meta rankings system. Could be an easier way to determine who contributes what to the community. Plus, this would make @alexisg's job harder!

@nightriff: That's a pretty intense list. I think the "Bugs" forum keeps track of a lot of those issues...anything specific you'd want to see done? Pretty sure "Fix Bugs" is a priority for any development team haha.

@tommytoad: I think that's more of a not-having-an- app issue than anything...hopefully someone (maybe Giant Bomb?) could take the API and do to Android what they did to iOS.

@itwongo: YUP. Maybe region-specific quests, too! That'd be great.

@emofratparty:

Remember on the old site, where if you wanted to browse a gallery, the images would load on pages, rather than when you scrolled to the bottom of the page? I want that shit back.

More like a means of adding more than one caption at a time, but sure. Let's go with that.

And for other image suggestions, show my wiki points from images on the wiki itself. It's a little weird that for all the images I add to the Katawa Shoujo gallery, you and I still have the same level of access to it.

@emofratparty: Bugs was meant to be sarcastic, but I do have some real stupid ones like when I write a new comment it automatically adds a space, as someone with minor OCD it is extremely annoying, also it seems I can't reply one at a time and respond like how you did, if I click reply to a new person in a comment, instead of going to where my cursor was in my comment (like how it was originally) it just places in the first available space.

Biggest complaint is the wiki edit, there have been several games I wanted to go crazy on but (maybe its just me) the format gets all fucked up if I add anything to the original post. Example would be Volgarr the Viking, wanted to get super indepth with information, but it feels like I would have to do everything in one sitting (which I don't have the time to do) and also can't save it which I have lost a bunch of work on a said game. Essentially why I gave up on adding all the enemies and items because it really felt like a pain in adding to what I already started.

That make any sense to anyone other than me?

i would love this

I'd like to see more powerful lists. For instance, if you were able to tag individual items in a list, you could easily turn one into a basic game catalogue. I'd also like to see the API expanded a bit. Off the top of my head, OAuth support would be really cool, and would really expand the range of possible third-party apps that could be built.

Live streams that work on Android would be cool.

Premium knife fights.

Oh that's content... in that case I'd love the return of the followed user feed.

@video_game_king: Wasn't around for that era but I can understand what you're saying.

@nightriff: Haha I know exactly how you feel. And yeah, I have to manually input each name...which actually isn't too bad, but having it both ways would be great (that's what I originally tried before reverting to this). Your last point makes sense.

I'll throw my hat into the ring here and say that authors of threads should have the ability to lock down their own threads, as opposed to requesting mods to lock them.

So, for example, you have an overarching list of "Super Nintendo Games Released in 1987" and then tag each one as a list item? Can you not do that already? Or is my example off-base.

@emofratparty: Not quite, it's more like being able to group items in a list together. For example, let's say I create a list of every game I've played this year. It'd be nice to be able mark them individually as finished, in progress, abandoned, etc.

@tommytoad: check out the giant bomb video buddy app made by a user. Works well, and you can put in your account password so it works with sub videos. Available in the Google play store.

• The return of wiki tasks/bounties/whatever.
• A better method for getting an overview of an entire wiki page. The notice that shows up when you hover over Game Wiki can be obscured and terribly difficult to navigate should a page accumulate a certain degree of stuff on it.
• Allow us to finally delete images off of wiki pages!
• Remove or at least drastically lower the requirement for setting wiki page backgrounds.
• Increase the maximum number of things you can fit into an ordered list above 100.
• The return of similar such social features from the Whiskey days; basically having status updates and blogs listed on the right side of your profile again. With the significantly shorter character limit with Status updates to go along with it, they're bloody useless at this point. 'Following' other users just doesn't quite carry the same amount of pull or necessity anymore, and more often than not it's simply used a means of respect.

This one for sure. I'm fairly new to the GiantBomb forums although I've followed the site/podcast since it's inception. I would like to see maybe more general board sections. For instance maybe have a Playstation 4 board that holds all PS4 game related topics instead of having specific forums for each game. The forums are wonderful and I LOVE the site but sometimes the discussions can seem a bit fragmented.

I just want the chat to be always available. Possibly with random feature videos playing as well. Other than that, I'm good.

Ques-

Just the ability to quote posts on mobile.

@conmulligan: I'm diggin' it.

@meptron: Wow...I feel dumb. This is great, thank you for pointing it out.

@yummylee: Awesome feedback!

@watchdog_gamer: Fragmented is a good word for it, but it is a lot of content to sort through. Just want it to be easier for the mods to sort and more accessible for people looking for specific topics, keywords, etc.

Yeh I was thinking they could hire a few guys and do like a website covering like, gadgets and 3D printing and such stuff, maybe throw in some product reviews etc.

There might even be some sort of market for some sort of comic book themed GB type website. They could call it Comic-Bomb.

Might as well start an Anime site too, you dont even have to have a staff either. Just let the community create all the content and all the Battle threads one could ever want.

I think they need to fix the bug that causes Video_Game_King's quotes to break in word ways. I get that he's probably using a browser of Lunarian design, but the site should be able to handle that properly.

I just want the Giant Bomb BBS to return :(

The main thing I would like to see is to have forums tweaked. Right now we see thread title in bold and the forum section in small letters. For example this is how a current thread appears:

Are you guys buying disc or digital?
Playstation 4

It should be the opposite:

Playstation 4
Are you guys buying disc or digital?

When browsing the default forum view (all forum sections mixed) then it makes no sense to do it any other way. A possible exception can be made for General Discussion and Off-Topic, but probably it's best to keep things consistent. Maybe they can be shortened to GD and OT, or just General and Off-Topic.

That said, another issue with the forums is that two separate sections exist named General Discussion and Off-Topic. This is completely unintelligible. If one is for gaming discussion and the other is not, then it should say so. General Discussion should be Gaming Discussion, or, General Gaming.

I think a feature, it could be a livestream or not, doesn't matter really. They just go over games they're playing currently. Like sure, Brads always playing dota, so maybe he'll talk about dota alot, who cares. Sorta like a video version of the podcast discussion "what are you playing lately" they always do.

Maybe a weekly feature, where each member records a bit about a game they're currently playing because they WANT to (not because of review purposes), and they edit it all together. It could combine all the different branches of giantbomb as well. Since patrick for example could record his bit and send it to drew or vinny and everyone else could do the same. We already know everymember of the staff pretty much has video capture capability to some extent.

I dunno could be cool to see that "what are you playing" in video format with them actually playing stuff and it'd be an easy cool way to link all the branches of giantbomb since thats easily edited together. Everyone records a couple minutes of them playing a game and why they like it, bam send it to someone, they edit it together BOOM great feature.

A much better text editor would be nice as quoting multiple people or doing a variety of others things tends to be very clumsy and this is a text heavy forum.

As a much crazier idea I think it would be cool if there was an active chat room on the site where you could come in and talk to people in real time throughout the day. Sometimes you want to discuss a game with fellow Bombers in a casual manner.

Being able to navigate the site using Rock Band drums.

When you reply to someone there's this stupid blank line above their name. It didn't used to be that way. My idea is for that stupid blank line to go away.

"Watched" history (or at least indicator), kinda like the one in the Video Buddy but perhaps more complete.

@lordandrew:

Your post confuses me.

Achievement tracking. Please.