Cavalary (11610) on 2/21/2023 2:19 AM · edited · Permalink · Report

Crap...

Was just going through a list, saying I really should get to it before the switch, while I can still feel comfortable using the site, since I'll say again MG was literally the only site out of those that I frequently use(d) that I still felt comfortable using, not plagued by "modern" design, mobile/touch-friendly crap on the desktop site, feature removals (well, had been a few, but...) and so on.
So much for that.

Being able to go straight to a platform for a game and see only the information for that platform? Gone.
Poll? Gone.
Quick access to recently approved reviews and games? Gone.
Front page listing of few most recent games, reviews and maybe also screenshots only, not in a mess of other stuff? Gone.
Contributions by year listing? Gone.
Contributor leaderboards by year? Gone.
Contributor leaderboards by any category of choice, and possibly further by year? Gone.
Games rated and reviewed lists? Gone, replaced by a single messy, unsortable list with both, without skipping to places either.
Quickly see games and systems list on profile? Gone.
Large fonts and "targets" and lots of empty space? Most definitely.
Approver forum also seems gone?
And... Tired of checking...
Oh, "reading" single line breaks? Still not happening.

RetroArchives.fr (711) on 2/21/2023 2:22 AM · Permalink · Report

Where the fuck are the specs gone? It was invaluable data, and now it's gone? No way to know the number of players? No way to know the types of controllers? No way to know if the game was on a disk or a tape? No info about the graphic video mode? I'm sorry, but this new version is awful!

SubSane (1438) on 2/21/2023 2:27 AM · Permalink · Report

I imagine you'll get a lot of feedback, but I know this sort of thing is a ton of work. And I also know that web development requires constant work to keep up with the times. Thanks for your efforts and I look forward to using the new site.

P.S. That light/dark mode toggle is much appreciated!

Water Kirby (1) on 2/21/2023 2:28 AM · Permalink · Report

How can we view promo images in their original size, in the new updated MobyGames? Because I can't view promo images in their original size

Cavalary (11610) on 2/21/2023 2:53 AM · edited · Permalink · Report

Can't see detailed user ratings anymore either.

And now it seems links are to game IDs instead of tags, so all previous links pointing to MG game pages are broken... I'm sure webmasters all over the 'net will be thrilled with that.

... and how the heck are forum posts sorted? And no time listed either.

LuisChaves (142) on 2/21/2023 3:01 AM · Permalink · Report

I'm not one to really complain about this type of stuff, but gotta join the mob on this one and agree that the older look was easier to navigate instead of these new "make everything look the same because minimalism" trends. That said, who am I to complain when the change was premeditated and "peer-reviewed" ¯_(ツ)_/¯

UnderdogAnomaly (36667) on 2/21/2023 4:11 AM · edited · Permalink · Report

Are we unable to submit game credits still until the form is complete? The notice is still on the contribution form, and when I click the "Submit" button for credits, nothing happens.

On top of that, the castings and classifications disappear when you exit from the editor, even with saving.

Yuri Melkov (14666) on 2/21/2023 4:57 AM · Permalink · Report

Can you please leave the option to use good old MobyGames? This new one is practically unusable now :( No information on releases, no information on submitted covers, only 100 games displayed in 'Collection', does not work in older browsers etc. etc.

MAT (241254) on 2/21/2023 5:39 AM · edited · Permalink · Report

So far encountered these bugs...

1) User's Systems Lists

All my "Currently Have" systems are gone. I can only see "All Time Favorite" systems listed. Could be only the first group that someone has something added to is shown? I even tried adding it again, but added some then refreshed and it was gone again.

2) Mapping UL LI and moby tags to new MobyGames site got wrecked

Additionally, all the < moby game=... > links in game descriptions are no longer links. Seems like they're just disregarded but they do remain.

In fact, all UL LI lists in compilations were replaced with an asterisks (*).
See this for example: https://www.mobygames.com/game/45091/command-conquer-commemorative-edition/
This will require fix on tens of thousands of game entries, won't it?

3) User's Have Lists

Personal Game Collection is also buggy. It only shows 100 games when you click on it even if it says 500 or 2000 on the lists page. How can you see them all? It seems like random 100 titles are displayed.

Okay, realised only first 100 games are displayed in collection but based on alphabetical system list. Seems to be the same problem as with displaying systems where only first group in alphabetical priority is displayed and all other are invisible. Same here, on my Collection I can see games with 3DO, DOS, Nintendo DS platforms which are alphabetically first, but don't see any of PlayStation or Windows games because those platforms are alphabetically later. And there are no pages to click elsewhere to see the rest.

I hope you gets fixed fairly soon.

Tony Kail (17) on 2/21/2023 6:28 AM · Permalink · Report

I'm going to agree with all the previous messages. The old mobygames was fine as it was. It needed only a little fine tuning. Anyway my suggestions for the new one: a) give us again the option to rate a game with detailed ratings (gameplay, graphics, sound, etc). I don't like at all the minimalist version where I can only give 1,2,3,4,5. If I wanted to rate a game like this I would go to metacritic. b) The navigation through the site, especially when I'm browsing games by year, company or rating is actually more difficult now than before! The old site was perfect by itself in this part.

Zhuzha (3547) on 2/21/2023 7:34 AM · edited · Permalink · Report

I support the guys in criticism. And I will add that now it is not clear where to look for new games being added to the database. I would like to note that the search has also become worse: it is impossible to fix the category in which you want to search, you have to switch every time and wait for the page to reload. Sorry for the syntax, I'm writing through a translator.

Nathan386 (130) on 2/21/2023 7:40 AM · Permalink · Report

I know this redesign has taken a tremendous amount of time and effort. Although I'm not totally without complaints, many of the changes are good, and appreciated. Thank you for your efforts. I just wanted to say that first.

With that out of the way, I have two big requests: 1) Please restore the specs page, that was 90% of what I used this site for, searching through games for a platform and being able to pick out only the ones that supported 2 players or 4, local or online or LAN, ones that would run on my PC with a 486 vs ones that would need a Pentium, there was so much useful information! It's invaluable, so please restore it when you are able! 2) Please allow us to type in game attributes in the Browse > Games screen to filter by multiple different attributes. So many times I've wished I could select DOS games and then filter for: 486 or Pentium, SB or SB Pro or SB16 or AWE32, etc. Likewise, I've often wished to be able to exclude attributes, like including Glide but NOT DirectX, or include IPX but NOT LAN, or Tandy PSG/DAC but NOT AdLib/SB/MT-32.

Is there any chance these changes can happen?

Once again, thank you for your efforts. This site remains a treasure trove of information, even with some of it (temporarily?) inaccessible.

Danfer (34852) on 2/21/2023 7:54 AM · Permalink · Report

In the covers there is no longer any way of knowing what the original resolution of the scans is, so there is no way for me to know if I can contribute by replacing them with better quality scans than those already present.

But I'm still happy with the move to the new site the old one clearly had technical limitations and I'm hopeful that the new one even if it's not perfect now can be improved with time.

vedder (73746) on 2/21/2023 8:18 AM · Permalink · Report

Super excited to see the new site live! Hopefully all the new bugs being found will be ironed out quickly. If the bug fixing velocity of the beta period can be kept up I'm definitely hopeful everything will be running smoothly soon. I'll try my first few submission tonight!

Terok Nor (44640) on 2/21/2023 8:23 AM · edited · Permalink · Report

Found the following problems:

• List display limited to 100 items (as already noted by several others, I also reported it a week ago via the bugs form). This is a big one, since organizing games into lists is what I mostly use the site for.
• I see no option to edit the list name or description.
• Off-Topic Forum seems to be gone?
• Forum messages read/unread status was apparently not migrated. I see hundreds of unread posts.
• Number of posts in this thread is displayed as 1 total, and a negative number as unread.
• Post sorting in a thread is weird. Seems to be by posting time, but not always?
• Game Forums are not accessible from the game page. Trying to add a new thread in the Game Forums results in an error because of the missing game ID parameter presumably (there shouldn't even be an option to add a thread from there).
• Old site displayed forum posts from today and yesterday as "Today" and "Yesterday" instead of the date, which made it much easier to see new content at a glance. It also had the time when looking at recent posts.
• Can't browse older threads, only the newest ones are displayed, and I see no way to go to the next page.
• Old site had the option to see forum messages a user posted from their profile, I no longer see that.
• Old site had an option for date formatting, something like "God intended dates to look like...." IIRC. That's apparently gone, but was very useful for non US-users.
• You no longer see pending corrections when you submit a new correction. I remember how big of a deal that was on the old site, since it prevented lots of duplicated submissions. Now, again, I have no idea if someone else already tried to correct the error I found.
• Group Browser is much more limited: no sorting, only a very small number of games displayed on one page (old one had up to 100 IIRC?), and the table view was much more pleasing. I guess browsing groups should now be done through the game browser? But that is also limited to only 30 games on one page.
• Game Browser is missing the option to jump to a given page.
• Looking at my pending contributions displays everything in one page (in very large font size, too), which makes it very hard to find something quickly. Having a small list of pending items with details only available on request made that much easier.
• Sorting of my pending items is weird, it's not clear what it's sorted by.
• I can't seem to have game group submissions or developer sites auto-approved anymore.
• Looks like adding a new game from a non-scraped ad-blurb (print ad, flyer, box blurb, press release) is no longer possible since either scraping from a store or a description is required. In the old wizard, you could skip the description and then add an ad blurb in the last step. That's very unfortunate, since 95% of my new game submissions were from blurbs like that.
• Some submissions now require proof even if that doesn't make sense, like for a related site - the link itself should be proof enough.
• Safety checks for release dates seem to be missing. Made a typo and was able to enter 2003 for a PS5 game.
• No more funny game quotes at the bottom? :-(

Plok (252091) on 2/21/2023 8:37 AM · edited · Permalink · Report

All these minor complaints remind me of the xkcd comic about workflows...

What people hate most is change itself, even if it's deeply necessary. The fact we used Perl prevented nearly all outside help in resolving the old site's myriad issues. This new version took a lot of iterations over the years and is based on feedback from people who use the site the most - approvers and heavy-duty contributors. Teething issues are to be expected with every launch, but Reed and Tracy are quite responsive with bug fixing and will continue to do so. Unlike a certain previous relaunch (wink wink), this one was made not just to shake off ancient tech that kept progress as a distant dream, but specifically to increase workflow quality and potentially speed for both contributors and approvers. A lot of incoming feedback is valuable, I trust that any missing detail will be restored in a very short time.

The submission flow is incomparably sped up from the previous version where you had to click a billion times to move on before you even got to add the game to 5 groups in several open tabs. Drop-downs and search are a lot more versatile than before, and the foundation is there to build some new features and further improve what's already there.

UI/UX philosophies have changed since 1967, people, get used to it. You started using computers when they were a new and pioneering thing, then you followed games which were just released when you bought them, and now some people (not all of you, but you know who you are) complain about something just because it's new even though you scarcely use the site these days - what changed along the way?

Terok Nor (44640) on 2/21/2023 9:15 AM · edited · Permalink · Report

A suggestion: the quick search preview should display year and/or platforms. When I search for a title that has lots a different games (think Tetris, or Movie License #3879, or a game with three remakes), it's impossible to tell which is which. Same goes for adding a game to a list.

Still Alive (448) on 2/21/2023 9:26 AM · Permalink · Report

I really hope you guys fix the display only `100 games in lists bug. my main motivation for coming to this site was to make these useful collection lists and now they are unreadable at this point. major oversight there.

PoliticallyCorrupt (2564) on 2/21/2023 9:49 AM · Permalink · Report

Sorting game collections/lists by the order set by the user does not seem to be available anymore.

Vito Giovannelli (37) on 2/21/2023 10:36 AM · edited · Permalink · Report

Where are alternate titles ??? Is there a way to have access to old mobygame site ??

OmegaPC777 (8238) on 2/21/2023 10:53 AM · Permalink · Report

Why can't I submit screenshots for every game? Can that be fixed soon?

Rwolf (23841) on 2/21/2023 12:48 PM · edited · Permalink · Report

Collections list: apart from the max 100 items reported by others (now fixed), also editing a list property (e.g. private/public switch) gives me an error popup when saving the setting...it seems to work ok though.

As I previously wrote, the purchasing info in the lists are now assuming USD(?) currency, with a 10-exponential presentation, e.g. what was originally entered as a 150 SEK purchase is now presented as a $1.5E+2 purchase - a rather odd format IMO. (This only happens for values ending with a zero.)

As for the actual Game entries - where are the Cheats/Hints section hidden?

I like the Dark theme for the site, but could it be a user setting that is saved for the next login? (I'll take the risk of being eaten by a Grue)

(Also - did the Admin forum suddenly go hide itself somewhere?) <- Has been fixed; thanks!

One thing that I reported and which was acknowledged before was that the Firefox ESR versions does not work on the site, specific fields like the search bar are not visible. I assume most ppl use the latest&greatest browsers with gilded edges, which is fine on new PC:s - it's just that I get an extra operation to copy&paste scans and screenshots from the machines I use for older stuff, so it is an inconvenience. A list of supported browsers would be appreciated.

kristof dardenne (38) on 2/21/2023 1:27 PM · edited · Permalink · Report

Overall first impression is positive, but can we still view a clean table like on the old site (list-games) ?

OooOOOoOo

[ post deleted ]

Tim Janssen (151120) on 2/21/2023 5:06 PM · Permalink · Report

Congrats with this huge site update.

For now I am not really happy with the site-ergonomics when submitting magazine reviews. If something requires more mouse-clicks to achieve, it is not an improvement. However, I am sure these small tidbits will be ironed out in the coming months.

Pedro Ferreira (2983) on 2/21/2023 5:28 PM · Permalink · Report

It's not terrible but clearly the original layout was far superior. Really the layout didn't need updating, only the tech did.

Currently I'm showing 24 Pending contributions from over the year. I'm not sure how this update will speed up the workflow of approvals but I'm fairly certain I submitted covers for approval which seem to have gone AWOL in the update.

Anyway if anyone wants to practice the new approval workflow by going through my pending contributions none of these are new enough for me to jump the queue if you approve them. 🤔

piltdown_man (254201) on 2/21/2023 5:43 PM · edited · Permalink · Report

Just submitted my first game using this new system. What a change!
A couple of things didn't seem to work - inputting tech specs for a DVD game and a BBFC rating system but they'll get sorted out in time.
What did confuse me was being asked to prove things at every turn, I'm submitting a new game and, unless I misread it, it looked like I'm being asked for proof that the cover art for the new game is actually the cover art for the new game.
I know there's a ton of work that's been done to get the site updated and even though there are issues it is a hell of a lot better than the last effort which nearly killed the site.
Well done to all involved in the transition and good luck to all the approvers who will have to deal with incomplete, incorrect and partially correct submissions until the site settles down.

One further minor issue - the home page post by By MobyReed on February 20, 2023 still says that there have been 0 comments

Kam1Kaz3NL77 (603361) on 2/21/2023 6:15 PM · edited · Permalink · Report

• Cannot edit an existing WIP entry (tis an old one but still) -> dates/companies etc, cannot add NEW covers to that WIP entry (actually cannot add covers at all). There is no notification through email of an approved item ( I think PLOK approved 1 or 2 items, but no email)

• PS the "Abandon Submission" button is on the right, i almost abandoned every item i wanted to submit cause in the old situation it was SUBMIT on the right..... (if old habits die hard, my guess there will be times that people accidentally press the wrong button)

• Cannot scrape from Steam page like this one: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2214820/Atomic_Heart__Midas_Glove_Skin/ (making it http:// still doesn't work)

• Cannot add add new promo images to a scraped game, for instance https://store.steampowered.com/app/1946070/Ten_Dates, but cannot add itunes or so, cause there is no scrape function for that (used to be one)

• When you add new companies to a scraped entry it will not add them unless you add proff, but THEn if you add the proof, the release info is LOCKED and cannot be chaged again or deleted/altered in anyway, so there will be a lot of deletion of empty data i guess

• Trying to add product codes for itunes, which are now for some reason on the same page as the release info (understandable, but still strange), i cannot copy/paste them, cause then the page will refresh to blank page (release info page) and all my just submitted info is GONE -> frustrating

• In adding pictures, please make them grouped again with European countries / USA / Asia, etc OR make it possible to select more in one go. PS..... the Europen Union as country need to be disabled (had a discussion on the forum a long way back, but that one should NOT be applicable.

• with 1 game i made so many mistakes already, cause when adding release info, you cannot see for which platform it IS (so sorry for anyone that has to approve the game TEN DATES)

• If you are adding a new platform to an existing game, cannot finish it in time and try to rework it from your contribution status (which would normally be on the mobygames front page, but now only accessible from there), there's the error: No editor available for this object!

(will update this post as i go :P)

Foxhack (32137) on 2/21/2023 8:21 PM · edited · Permalink · Report

I can see an "Edit" link on every post on this site, but it doesn't work. I assume it's a bug from me previously being an admin / moderator here.

Apparently there's also a "Hidden" checkbox available to me as I type this. Probably related to the above. :)

Edit: As of now it says there's 1 post and -44 Replies. Something's borked. :D

cause a commotion! (4) on 2/21/2023 8:38 PM · Permalink · Report

well, I'd say the overall site design changes have produced something almost objectively worse on both desktop and mobile, and countless things have been obviously broken while many supposed improvements will never be noticed by most users, but the site still manages to be more useful and (barely) more readable than any other game database, so....congratulations?

Bock (169) on 2/21/2023 8:49 PM · edited · Permalink · Report

Many old links are now broken and not properly redirected, the fact that this was not among the top priority for a migration of such a long-running and large scale database really worries me. This is the largest database of credits and now all credits links are broken.

SpaceFanatic64 (530) on 2/21/2023 9:46 PM · Permalink · Report

So I'm just curious, is this the first ever overhaul MobyGames has ever gotten, or have things like this happen before?

Bozzly (1201) on 2/21/2023 11:48 PM · Permalink · Report

When I submit critic reviews, some of them come in two or more paragraphs, separated by spaces. When I look at the ones that were submitted and approved that way, the spaces are gone. What happened?

gingerbeardman (885) on 2/22/2023 12:37 AM · Permalink · Report

Bit of a shock! Congrats on the relaunch. I'm willing to waive the very many regressions and omissions on the understanding that somebody will be working on these faults as quickly as possible. I trust that the pace of process will be quicker, as you say. I had hoped with a new mobile layout that things would fit without the need for horizontal scrolling, but it's still not the case in many places. I don't like the Atari ads in the blue bar at the top. Finally, I'm astonished to see how long the pending items have been waiting. They're older than one of my kids! Anyway, let's keep the momentum up. Please let me know if there's an official issue tracker to which I can submit issues?

Morpheus Kitami (111) on 2/22/2023 2:56 AM · edited · Permalink · Report

Adding my own small voice to those expressing discontent. Doesn't seem like a wise move to me to change the UI design to the same generic trash every other game database has. It was nice seeing something that felt like it understood that a computer screen is wide enough to show a lot of info. One might resort to the lazy statement that Mobygames and its users should get with the times, but this place has a userbase that exists precisely because people appreciate having a UI that doesn't lazily fall for the latest trends. Were that a major issue, people would be using other games databases which have already gotten with the times.

That said, some more specific complaints:

-The forum is completely user hostile now. I have no idea what's going on anywhere beyond my ability to reply to particular posts. The previous forum was probably my least favorite aspect of the site in the past, and I don't know how you made it worse.

-I don't know why the front page needs a "most researched X". Its neat, but the first thing someone sees? I don't like how games added and games updated are mixed together now.

-I appreciate being able to search any combination of things now. Really. I love how you can specify when games are added or updated or something. I do wish that particular bit was put at the top rather than the side, since that's the most reasonable way to do it. I am guessing that in the future there's going to be an easier way to break down certain things? All the genres are sort of just dumped in one slot and it feels that it was dumped. Its unnecessary to see a game's cover before clicking on that game.

-Sort of dumped is sort of the theme for the game browser and games themselves. The previous GUI made things stand out. It also used less real estate. I could get all the information on a game without having to scroll down. Now I need to scroll down twice as much. Everything's the same width. It looks bland. The groups section look like user tags.

Kaminari (1082) on 2/22/2023 10:27 AM · Permalink · Report

What happened to the screenshots? It looks like the whole database has been converted to JPEG?

https://www.mobygames.com/game/199/golden-axe/screenshots/arcade/922748/

Vereina (785) on 2/22/2023 11:10 AM · edited · Permalink · Report

I see that there was already a shit ton of flak exploded over whether the overhaul is for the good or for the bad. I might be one of the few old-schoolers here who understands more than the most how criticial it is to upgrade the hardware and the coding in time to keep up with the growing database and the daily data flow to and fro the site. So my personal opinion is that I don't like it, at all, but I understand it.

I'm pretty sure that most of the gnaring issues will be fixed in under a month, and the rest will be hunted down in due time. I'm sure that over the time I will get used to the new cathegories and the way the new system works. Dark theme is especially appreciated by the by. Or that the ganre list now includes not just the main twelve of them, but all the sub-genres I was trying to filter the games out with, and was failing to locate, even if I dislike the drop-down menu and on-the-fly filtering instead of the cathegory selection. Or the ETA for approval... Right now, these times are horrendous, truth be told, but they could provide with some hint in the end whether I should expect a reply tomorrow, or I'll forget ten times in a row what it was all about.

It's some of the decisions behind the overhaul that make me grumble. For example, there is now paging limit in the database in 50 pages until you have logged in some contribution points. Okay, fine, the heavy-duty contributors won't even notice that limit. Barely regulars like me, well... Fine, I can sumbit a dozen of screenshot and spend an evening or two to write up ten pages of thorough reviews on the games I saw, played and did not touch on MG yet, log these 50 points and move on. That is if the approval system kicks in a higher gear finally. But majority of the visitors are not the contributors. They're just your garden variety internet user.

I myself found out about the overhaul when a kid in the History of IT course, while doing his research on the video game history, came back to me with a very confused face, and said that I lied about what MG offers. I called bullshit on that, and then he showed me that he could not anymore use the database to get the exact number of all the action games ever released according to our data, because it just said "10000+ entries" and there was that paging limit, while the old site allowed everyone to see the exact number of the releases for a specific genre, or year, or whatever you fancied. And now imagine it was just a random person, who suddenly got a weird question "how many Adevnture games starting with the "I" letter were ever published?" and he can't even get close to answering it, unless he contributes.

I can easily see where the idea came from - to serve as an incentive to actually join in and help to fill the database out, the so-called "gamification" and positive feedback loop are being shoved up every possible thing, they even were trying to make us turn classes into games one year, but I personally think that it would serve more as a ways to put people off, rather than to make them join and actively contribute.

So, with the most of the grumbling over, I'd like to make a few suggestions on what I've encountered so far, and taking into the account that there ain't going back:

1) It'd be very much appreciated, if there would be a possibility to first set all the filters in the game browser, and then apply them, instead of the system filtering out on the fly with every single one being selected. Most of the online retailers or places like NexusMods (for example) do have both options, so I know it could be done, but I'll be honest - I've no idea how hard it is to implement that specific thing.

2) It'd be appreciated if there would be a sort of a priviliges list somewhere in your profile, so you'd be able to see what different amount of contribution points per year does for you, so yeah, basically, an achievements list.

Thanks.

Vereina (785) on 2/22/2023 12:04 PM · Permalink · Report

Another thing that came to me as I lurked a bit through the site - the rating system overhaul. Five stars general rating. Okay, okay. Okay. Part of why I loved MG so much was because of the rating breakdown. I mean, a game that is generally great in my eyes, because it has superb plot, and gaming experience itself, can have shitty graphics that even my old eyes can't handle, so it'd have been noted in my reviews and in my ratings. Now there's just the general 1 to 5 rating.

I'd rather either have that previous breakdown rating return, or five star turned at least into the ten stars, for a more of a flexible rating just cus of the things I mentioned.

Infernos (48486) on 2/22/2023 1:34 PM · Permalink · Report

Okay, there's some definite improvements, some stuff that will take getting used to but not necessarily worse than before and then there's some things I don't like at all.

1) For Promo Art; the old site showed the resolution of Wallpapers this one doesn't. 2) Also animated GIFs seemed to have been killed off; some converted to PNGs, some don't show at all. From my experience, GIF were included in Fansite Kits/WebKits to promote the game via animated banners and stuff like that. 3) For Most Wanted; where's the option to search for games with missing product codes (barcodes and so on)? 4) I really liked the "New Games" and "Game Updates" feature on the old site to check out what's been added recently.

Furthermore, I can only agree with what other have already mentioned: x) I don't like hiding Specs under Metadata => Attributes. It's not like there's a lack of space. In fact, there's a lot of empty space x) Pending corrections no longer visible when submitting a new correction. x) Cheats/Hints section missing. x) Promo art not in their original resolution.

Rodrigo Girão (75) on 2/23/2023 4:19 AM · Permalink · Report

This new design is so modern in a very bad way. It hurts my soul to even look at it. Just like the new Wikipedia theme.

Andrew Orford on 2/24/2023 1:48 AM · edited · Permalink · Report

I'm not seeing any specific place to provide feedback, so hopefully this is an appropriate place. I was unaware of a new UI coming, and have mixed feelings about it so far, after trying to use the new UI. Here are the problems I've seen just from trying to do the usual stuff I do on the site (which is typically coming up with lists for games I want to play, as well as research on legacy systems for making my own emulation .DAT files, and I typically use the site on a 4k UHD desktop monitor.

• The Game Browser requires excessive scrolling because of increased vertical padding between entries.
• Going to Next/Previous Page in the Game Browser doesn't refresh to the top of the list, requiring even more scrolling.
• The Game Browser no longer has alternating highlighting for entry rows, making it much harder to quickly scan through long lists.
• The Details page has a "More" button for descriptions that are longer than some limit. Why? If we've already clicked through to the details of a game, we want to see all the details of that game.
• Games no longer show localized titles for other regions.
• The Release page shows release dates as a section heading, formatted in a "friendly" format. This makes it much harder to scan for release dates. It also doesn't make sense from an organizational standpoint, since multiple releases with the same release date (for instance, in different regions with different publishers, or in different formats) will all be different entries with the same heading.
• The Game Browser always defaults to "Moby Score" sorting, even if you've previously changed it to something else.
• Platform now being in a drop-down filter in the Game Browser is excessively long, which makes things harder to look for. If your drop-down menu has more than about a dozen items to choose from, you're using the wrong kind of UI widget.
• Similarly (and even worse), the Companies and Game Groups drop-downs don't populate at all unless you add a ton of additional filtering choices. This means it's now impossible to do something like showing the list of all game companies that released Amiga games in 1994 (for example).
• Date in the Game Browser is now split into 'from' and 'to' fields, which means that it requires more clicks to get a list of games released in a single year. Furthermore, I'm not sure why you'd want 'from' and 'to' capability while only being able to select years on those date pickers. It makes it harder to look at lists by year, while also not enabling you to set more interesting filters, like showing all the games released around E3 in 2015, or all the Switch games released within the first month of its launch. If you're going to force people to enter a date range, at least make the dates more granular. Ideally, have the option to choose either a single year or a date range.
• The Game Browser shows each game's released platforms even if you've added a Platform filter.
• It would be nice to have the option to disable game thumbnails in the Game Browser. They're too small to be easily discernible at UHD resolutions, and just add clutter and take up space.
• The forum doesn't seem usable in any way. I didn't really use it before, but I took a look through it when trying to find where to provide feedback on the UI, and it's impossible to see anything but the most recent 20 threads in any given section. That's not a forum, it's a curated comment section.

The rest of the UI seems okay for my uses so far. It's certainly not as bad as the UI changes Wikipedia made last month (what is up with sites with decades of history deciding to update to "modern"/mobile UI designs all of a sudden?). The Game Browser is what I use most though, and the changes basically make it now look like a carbon copy of every other game collection/database site out there. I come to Mobygames because it presents data in an easily parsed tabular format that I can easily scroll through. The old Game Browser view is literally the differentiating factor for why I come to Mobygames instead of other sites. Now that it's changed, I'm going to have to look around to see if one of those other sites better suits my needs. Hopefully some of my feedback is considered and acted upon.

Narmy on 2/24/2023 2:54 AM · Permalink · Report

Please go back to the old layout, or at least give us an option to choose not to use this new one.

Terok Nor (44640) on 2/24/2023 9:30 AM · edited · Permalink · Report

More issues:

• once I've gone past the starting page in adding a new game, I see no way to change the game title. I made a typo in the title and now can't fix it.
• product codes are no longer formatted with spaces between the groupings, like 7 90561 50521 1 instead of 790561505211.
• adding ratings during a new game submission doesn't work. I get the field for proof of my submission, but I can't enter the actual rating anywhere.
• it looks like I can only add one game to a group per submission? Just found a dozen games or so I want to add to a group, that now takes forever.
• the option of moving a game from one list to another is gone. that can theoretically be done from the game page (removing it from the one group, adding it to the other), but comments get lost that way.
• automatic spell check in submitted descriptions/blurbs is gone. that was very helpful in catching typos.
• Cover sorting is weird. I think it used to be alphabetical by platform, with covers of the same platform grouped together. Now I see for example Windows, Windows, Xbox, Windows, PS2, PS2, Windows, PS1.
• in case MobyLinks didn't work, people sometime used "moby search" instead. Those still work, but only open up the search results, even if there is only one result. IIRC before, it went directly to the game in question if there was only one result.

OmegaPC777 (8238) on 2/24/2023 6:06 PM · Permalink · Report

I don't know if I already brought this up, but I want it to be possible to add screenshots regardless if ones are submitted for other platforms (because preventing users from submitting screenshots when preexisting ones are present isn't really a good idea and should be fixed).

Gareth Williams on 2/25/2023 3:02 PM · edited · Permalink · Report

Screenshot upload dates gone, looks like a lot of the older ones have been removed too... :( and the uploader accounts with them!

gingerbeardman (885) on 2/25/2023 11:43 PM · Permalink · Report

New site feels distinctly slower than the old one. Is this to be expected? What performance difference has been measured?

mailmanppa (6542) on 2/26/2023 8:37 AM · edited · Permalink · Report

This whole new look is tragic and only made MobyGames mobile friendly easier to read but nothing more. The desktop version is "unfriendly" and hard to navigate. I also do not think that there is anyone who cares about lists of most researched games, companies, professionals right at the start when the page opens (in mobile version this is the first thing you can see and gives the impression like one got redirected onto some scum site with advertisement links.)

JP LeBreton (3) on 3/10/2023 12:31 AM · edited · Permalink · Report

Re: redirecting old links, I found a category of link that is still broken with the new site: game "screenshot section pages".

So for example, this link: https://www.mobygames.com/game/magic-candle-volume-1/screenshots

should redirect to this link: https://www.mobygames.com/game/1025/the-magic-candle-volume-1/screenshots/

but doesn't currently.

Hopefully easy to fix!

Duncan Robson on 3/10/2023 1:17 AM · Permalink · Report

The random game button was an occasionally useful feature for me. I saw the random page link under browse which can be changed to https://www.mobygames.com/random/game but both urls only seem to show commercial releases/developers.

Jeremy Harton (1) on 3/13/2023 12:44 AM · Permalink · Report

Thanks. /s

It looks terrible. More godawful modern design.