[Marek]

I'm wondering if our news section might be underexposed in the way the layout of the site is currently set up.

Our news section is a very important asset. There simply isn't another adventure game site with semi-daily updates. However, the links to the headlines are pretty small, so it's possible that they could get snowed under by other links. We introduced the 'sticky news' to help remedy this problem -- very important news is displayed at the top of the headlines table for a longer period of time. I'm now working on some more experiments behind the screens, so I'm interested in your opinion.

Firstly, do you read the adventure news at all? Is it easy to read / catch up with? Secondly, what do you think of link-and-quote news? Do you use the links to reviews and previews on other sites? Would you prefer a bulleted list of links instead of individual news items with quotes? Or would you prefer us to drop the link-and-quote news altogether, and leave that to sites like metacritic.com or gamerankings.com?

[AGA]

Well it seems the site is optimised for 800 x resolution. I think a minimum of 1024 x is the average these days. It you made the site wider, you could make the news section more prominent...

[Marek]

Yeah, I'm always looking at all the options, so that's why I need people to tell me what they think of the news now, and what they want it to be in the future.

[Moosferatu]

I disagree, AGA, 800x600 is still very much the norm, especially when you consider that most adventure gamers probably don't have the most up-to-date computers. But that is not to say that the page can't be made wider. SitePoint has a very good dynamic layout, but who knows how much of a head ache it would be to do something like that with the AGers layout (I know I wouldn't want to do it).

I only sometimes glance at the news and rarely click on it. This is mainly because I find out all I need to know from a combination of these forums, GameSpot, and, of course, Mixnmojo.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Well, you could have it done like a ticker tape presentation, where there would be a bar across the top of the site in which the latest headlines would slowly scroll across (all done tastefully, of course). Click on a headline for its respective story. The dynamic format would catch people's attention, but there could also be a button to click that lists all the headlines.

[Marek]

Perhaps my first post was misleading. I'm not really looking for suggestions on how to make the news more visible. I have ideas for that already. I appreciate the ticker box suggestion, but it doesn't really work in practice.

What I want to know is which type of news posts have priority in your mind. Do you just read game announcements, or the 'industry news'? Or are links to reviews and previews on other sites just as much a part of the news to you?

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Well, for me personally, anything pertaining to the adventure game industry is welcome news. Perhaps you could divide it up categorically, apportioning some space only for game announcements, another space for p/reviews of games at other sites, and a space for industrywide news.

[ragnar]

When I first discovered AG.com a long time ago (when it still was green and didn't have an s appended to it's name) I only read the news section (Í wasn't a forum member either). But, now, I always seem to miss the news in the news section even though I check out the site about once a day. The news seem to disappear when put beside the big headers of the reviews and articles.

The news I'm most interested in are trailers/demos of games, new games coming out and interesting articles/essays about the genre found elsewhere.

[Erkki]

I have to confess I don't even visit the main site very often, only the forums. I usually only visit the site when I've heard about some article or review on the forums.

But when I do I usually read all the current news headlines and click on anything that interests me.

[Huz]

I don't visit the main site too often either - the chatter on the forum usually alerts me to the appearance of an interesting article, and that's when I pay a visit to read it. I don't know how typical I am of a regular visitor - your logs can probably tell you that!

To be honest, the news doesn't tend to interest me too much in any case, I'm here for the articles and the forums. I'm just making this post to point out that while newcomers might hit the front page first, regular visitors might have the forums bookmarked - you have a 'community forums' bit on the front page, and it would be really clever if you could show a reverse version on the forums on the first visit of the day or something.

Oh, and - on behalf of owners of crap-computer owners everywhere - if you make the main site any wider, I'll be forced to shoot you. Really.

[remixor]

I think news on the front page could definitely be worth looking into. At the moment it's perhaps a bit too hidden. I often find myself catching up on several days' worth of news all at once because I missed items the first time around.

[Garyos]

I also sometimes miss the news, mostly because I usually just open the main page and then quickly hit the 'forum' link. If anything new hasn't caught my eye in that small time frame, it's ignored. I read most of the news eventually though, except for most of the links to reviews/previews. They rarely interest me.

[BacardiJim]

I hit the main site at least once a day, but I often forget to check the news because it just doesn't catch my eye. A bolder or more eye-catching outline for that box to somehow set it apart from all the other identical boxes down that right-hand column might remind me to check the headlines more often.

And I have less-than-zero interest in links to other sites' (p)reviews. I frequent enough sites that I run across the reviews anyway. Given their general lack of credit or respect for the adventure game genre as a whole, I do NOT want to know what Gamespot, Gamespy, PC Gamer, etc. have to say about a particular game. Their opinion will only be of value if it is some kind of action/adventure hybrid. And if the game is one of those, I don't want to know about it anyway and it has no place on the "front page" of the "best pure adventure game site on the Internet." (Emphasis mine.)

[TheDerman]

Get rid of the "Coming Soon" thing - when you hit the main page, your eyes go straight to the main article and its title - they then go across to the right, and there they see "Coming Soon" - hmmmm, since I hit the site every day, not really bothered what's coming soon - since the news is underneeath that box, people might miss it - you want "New Headlines" on the same level as the title of the latest article - then you think, ahhhh news, I like news, what news is there, well let's have a look - regular visitors may not function this way as they have their own well practised routines (I still do this though), but new ones might.

Other than that it's fine - oh, but what about when a headline goes onto 2 lines? When this happens the start of the 2nd line is underneath that little bullet, instead of level with the preceeding line above - any way to line them up? I think it would look better and help seperate the individual headlines more.

[Stinger]

Originally Posted by TheDerman

Get rid of the "Coming Soon" thing - when you hit the main page, your eyes go straight to the main article and its title - they then go across to the right, and there they see "Coming Soon" - hmmmm, since I hit the site every day, not really bothered what's coming soon

Why do you think that everyone is the same as you, and visits the site every day? I think the Coming Soon box is a very important way of getting people interested in what we have coming up.

For those of you who say that you don't visit the site much other than the forums...don't say that. Please. Doug and Marek and I spend countless hours every week making the site the most important source of adventure information on the Internet and to hear that people here don't even read it...is sad. Less than 50% of the stuff we work on gets talked about on the forums, so if that's what you're waiting for you're going to miss a lot of stuff.

Or to put it another way: we now pay for our web hosting, which costs money. This money will have to come from advertising revenue. Ad revenue is driven by user statistics. Our site statistics are separated from our forum statistics. The forum only exists as long as the site is able to exist. So, someone add up 2 and 2 and 2 and 2 and let me know what you come up with.

Bottom line: if you really don't visit the site at all, just lie and make me feel better, because it honestly, sincerely frustrates me.

- Evan

[Erkki]

Originally Posted by Stinger

Bottom line: if you really don't visit the site at all, just lie and make me feel better, because it honestly, sincerely frustrates me.

I won't lie to you but maybe this will comfort you: I don't visit the site much simply because I don't really play adventure games that much any more. After EMI the only one I've played besides the demos is BS3. So I have read the BS3 review and some news on it.

I may have exaggerated when I said I only visit the site when I read about an article in the forums. I still check the front page (including news) about once or twice a week, but I usually don't go further.

And I also read most of the underground reviews because I still play the independent adventures (more often than commercial ones). I will probably also read some of the Adventure Architect articles soon. I've read the Future of Adventure games and other articles from that week. And the Gabriel Knight feature. And also I plan to read the Sins of the Fathers review in a few days because it's sitting on my shelf and I'm looking for motivation for playing it.

I will probably start visiting the site more often soon, considering quite a few adventure games are being developed that I'm interested in.

[D.C.]

I pretty much visit the site everyday and I always glance at the news. I pretty much only look at the stuff I'm interested in and not look at stuff like Broken Sword Interview (due to the fact that I played and completed the game last month) or CSI 2 Preview (which I don't give a damn about.) The news that I'm interested in I usually notice. (Although I didn't notice the Sam & Max II: Freelance Police preview until I saw it at mixnmojo.com)

I know you didn't ask for suggestions on how to present the news but you could possibly do something like CNN does when there is breaking news... having a noticably different colour bar at the top of the site that will get peoples attention. Although that could be going overboard.

[TheDerman]

Evan - I don't assume everyone is like me - one of my points was simply that having a "Coming Soon" section is maybe a little pointless in some respects - by visiting the site every day, every other day, every whenever, you will invariably come across all new content at some point, so if it is in your plan to visit on a regular basis, knowing what's coming soon doesn't really mean anything - and most of the time the Coming Soon section only states things like "Tune in Monday for more content" - well, that's not very useful, regardless of this whole argument.

The overall point was that NEW HEADLINES would be better than COMING SOON in that position on the site - we read left to right, so I think we naturally go from the main article title, to the right, and some people could miss the news because it is not in the same level.

But anyway - maybe you don't remove it alltogether, just move it - personally I preferred those sticky paper clip type news posts that were above the other news headlines - I then knew that those were important items - that's only my opinion.

And I visit the main site all the time - I use the forum links at the bottom of the main site to visit the forum - that's a nice feature.

[Saff678]

Hey, I'm a relatively new member (see - post number 2) who has mostly looked at the site, not the forums, for a couple of weeks now. I find that the content of the News items is a bit strange. The most important/interesting things that show up are actually news - I like the demos, new screenshots, industry news, and even the interviews condcted by other sites. What interests me much less is that almost all of the bullets are for reviews of games from other sites - i just dont see a reason to display that, especially if there is more pertinent news. For that reason, I tend to rarely look to the news bar, because I don't expect anything good to be there.

[Stinger]

Originally Posted by TheDerman

personally I preferred those sticky paper clip type news posts that were above the other news headlines - I then knew that those were important items - that's only my opinion.

Those haven't gone away. Right now we just don't have any "Hot News" items. Although there are a couple games that we know about that will be officially announced soon, and we're VERY excited about...you'll certainly see them as "paper clip" news items.

- Evan