3. The New Homepage

The New Homepage


  • I'm sorry but the new homepage is terrible. The scroll to get information design is awful and the removal of the menu that let you get to most key game functions via a single click was a massive mistake. Tons of wasted space with artwork that has nothing to do with the actual game. It's a great example of everything wrong with a scroll based homepage.

    I have to hit sign in regardless of if I'm signed in just to get to the map screen? I have to load the map just to get to anything else? etc.. etc..

    1 Reply
  • Dev Team

    @shibdib This is more a landing page (i.e. for new visitors), rather than a home page. If you're a player, your real home page should be the app index page https://screeps.com/a/, it has everything on the left side menu and redirects you automatically to the world view centered on some of your rooms. This is the link from the "Sign in" button on the landing page.

    🤔

  • Regardless if it's a landing page, he is still right the usability is down.
    While I personally think that the new design is a visual upgrade it shouldn't be on the cost of usability.

    Also loading the app screen takes a significant piece of time (and generates traffic), if you don't even want to be there.
    Any unnecessary data queries should be avoided as a general rule but I don't have to tell you that it is a given.


  • But did you see the video of the new Screeps game at the top? That looks GREAT! It's super fast and appears to have a "time dilation" ability that lets you build an entire base fast! And that soundtrack! Awesome! I'm totally going to play that game when it comes out.


  • Yeah I'd seen that the other day and wondered what had happened to the home page.

    I'm just going to throw my two bits in here, but I've always hated the "scroll down twelve times to see content that could have fit on a single page" approach to web design.

    EDIT: I'd also like to point out that the information density has been driven even further down, due to all the weird and pointless empty spaces next to text.


  • Well I to go directly to https://screeps.com/ when I login to my web browser. That is what is saved as one of my most visited sites. I would click on docs if I need to see the API, status if stuff was broken, or click on world if I needed to go into the game.

    Regardless if it is a landing page, a homepage, or an art project it is used as a portal to multiple sources of information for multiple people. For some that functionality has been impaired by the recent changes. Going to https://screeps.com/a/ would indeed still get me the info I need, but I do not always want to load into the game world. It takes longer to load(much longer if "units" are displayed), and I highly doubt it will actually load if the servers are having an issue.

    This game requires MANY resources to properly play that are outside of the actual game client and world, having a proper portal to access those resources would be greatly appreciated.

    ☝

  • @KyraLee I'd also point out that the website overall can be a little redirect happy as well, making this whole thing worse. More than once I've tried to view a room someone linked me, had to wait for the world to load, clicked out of popups, logged in, gotten directed to either my stuff (if I'm spawned in) or where it thinks I should spawn, etc., go back, wait no now it forgot I logged in, etc.

  • Dev Team

    Still, I strongly disagree that https://screeps.com should be bookmarked as a portal. It is not designed and not intended for such a purpose. Instead, we have plans of improving the Overview in-game page, which will have more dashboards and metrics (even customizable, with API support), this is a far more appropriate approach here. Let alone many people log in via Steam client, many of them haven't seen the web landing page ever.

    But if you really need some external page to be a portal, I don't see how it's impaired in the current design. You have every link right on the first screen, and you don't have to scroll content because it tells you things you already know.


  • FWIW I've always used the https://screeps.com/a/#!/map page as my "portal". I rarely look at the front page.

    ☝