New Web Pages = Evil

Zero

Andrew has succeeded in what he does best - throughroly screw up something that was once good. Where the hell is the old EV page? I liked that page, and the new webmaster updated it often enough...but where IS everything? Hello? Earth to Andrew? You said we could download plugs we wanted in the add on page...um, THERE IS NO F*CKING ADD ON PAGE. These new pages are evil, riddled with advertisements that take forever to load, hard to navigate, a rip off of MacOSX's Aqua interface, and just plain ugly. You call all these scripts "really cool?"
I call them cumbersome, buggy, and unwanted. Don't give me that "we're still working on it" bs either, Mr.Welch. To put it bluntly, you've fcked up all our favorite game websites beyond repair, and, atleast for Escape Velocity and Override, I think most people would agree that we want the old pages back!

andrew

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Zero wrote:
**Andrew has succeeded in what he does best - throughroly screw up something that was once good. Where the hell is the old EV page? I liked that page, and the new webmaster updated it often enough...but where IS everything? Hello?
**

hehehe -- yep, I predicted it -- here's the first flame... and yep, it came from someone who gave zero feedback (is his nickname prescient?) as I posted progress updates and questions. In other words, Zero can whine/complain, but little else.

The past web masters did not update the pages often enough; the fell into disrepair, and people complained to me about them constantly. I decided to do something about the issue, rather than just sit on the sidelines and complain, and although the pages aren't finished yet, I'm already very happy with how they are turning out.

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Earth to Andrew? You said we could download plugs we wanted in the add on page...um, THERE IS NO F*CKING ADD ON PAGE. These new pages are evil, riddled with advertisements that take forever to load, hard to navigate, a rip off of MacOSX's Aqua interface, and just plain ugly. You call all these scripts "really cool?"

Apparently, Zero, you can't read. As an exercise, try going to:
http://www.escape-velocity.com/

...then scroll down, and look where it says clearly:

"Add-On Files - We have a really cool script for browsing, downloading, uploading, and describing the files in our archives; hang tight, it's coming. If you really want to see it (or really need to download a particular plugin), go here, but keep in mind it's extremely unrefined at the moment, and many things will look ugly or not work as you'd expect."

Now, to address your whines:

"No Add-Ons pages" Yes, this is clearly stated on the page, although it does provide a link which you can use temporarily to download plugins.
"The pages are evil" Well, uh, yeah, you must mean all of the embedded "666"s I put on the pages. No, you must just be childishly trying to insult me. Do you have anything substantive to say?
"Riddled with advertisements" There is one advertisement at the top of the nav bar; how is that "riddled"? As for "takes forever to load", the average size of the ads is about 30k. Assuming your modem gets about 3k/sec, that's 10 seconds it takes to download, and then it's in your cache from then on. A thin argument indeed.
"Hard to navigate" Yeah, I can see how it would be tough to navigate; I mean, the Nav links are all clearly visible on the right side of the page (unlike previous incarnations where they were scattered from place to place on each page). /end sarcasm
"Just plain ugly" I can't argue aesthetics with you; everyone has their own opinion of "attractive", except to say that I find the look to be a vast improvement over what it was before, and as I mentioned, the left part of the main page isn't finished
Oh, you're out of points. We got all the way to 6, and you've still said nothing substantive. sigh Predictable.

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I call them cumbersome, buggy, and unwanted. Don't give me that "we're still working on it" bs either, Mr.Welch. To put it bluntly, you've fcked up all our favorite game websites beyond repair, and, atleast for Escape Velocity and Override, I think most people would agree that we want the old pages back!

I think you're wrong. I also think you're acting childish, and you're not being particularly helpful. Tell me specificially what you don't like, and why, without tossing insults every other sentence and we can work together to make the pages better.

If you can't handle that, get lost.

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Andrew Welch / el Presidente / Ambrosia Software, Inc.

andrew

Just for kicks, I decided to see how much of the new Escape-Velocity.com our friend "Zero" actually saw before he posted his whine/bitch list. Let's have a look at the server log:

janus 991% cat access | grep 158.252.153.120 | grep -v ".gif"
158.252.153.120 - - (19/Feb/2000:13:00:52 -0500) "GET /games/evo/ HTTP/1.0" 200 16941
158.252.153.120 - - (19/Feb/2000:13:01:20 -0500) "GET /games/evo/ HTTP/1.0" 200 16957
158.252.153.120 - - (19/Feb/2000:13:01:39 -0500) "GET /games/evo/ HTTP/1.0" 200 16957

OK, so he's reloaded the main EV page 3x in a row -- apparently hoping something would magically appear. I wonder how much of it he actually READ before slamming the "Reload" button?

158.252.153.120 - - (19/Feb/2000:13:01:38 -0500) "GET /archives/reviews.html HTTP/1.0" 302 0

Now he's trying to get to an old page that doesn't exist anymore, by typing it in by hand.

158.252.153.120 - - (19/Feb/2000:13:02:06 -0500) "GET /games/ev/ HTTP/1.0" 200 17190
158.252.153.120 - - (19/Feb/2000:13:02:22 -0500) "GET /games/ev/weblinks.html HTTP/1.0" 200 25355

Ah, now he's going to check the Escape Velocity web page to see if it offers what he's looking for on the old site. He's checked out the web links page, too.

158.252.153.120 - - (19/Feb/2000:13:02:35 -0500) "GET /games/evo/ HTTP/1.0" 200 16957

Nope, it didn't, so he's gone back to the main Escape-Velocity.com page.

158.252.153.120 - - (19/Feb/2000:13:03:32 -0500) "GET /games/ev/webboard.html HTTP/1.0" 200 38518

Aha! Without checking ANY of the other new areas that Escape-Velocity.com now offers, he's headed straight to the web board.

158.252.153.120 - - (19/Feb/2000:13:03:57 -0500) "GET /webboard/Forum6/HTML/000267.html HTTP/1.0" 200 36378

Now he's gone to my "(ANN) -- The switch has been thrown!" post. This actually gives me hope, but either he didn't read what I posted there, his comprehension is low, or he just didn't care and decided to flame anyway.

158.252.153.120 - - (19/Feb/2000:13:06:14 -0500) "GET /cgi-bin/ubb/postings.cgi?action=newtopic&number;=6&forum;=Escape+Velocity+web+board HTTP/1.0" 200 5747

Well, that didn't take long -- this is him posting this topic to the web board. So, he saw the main EVO page, the main EV page, the EV Web Links, and he read one posting on the web board (which he apparently ignored) before he posted his diatribe. He didn't check ANY of the new areas that the sites offer. sigh

Yep, that's about what I'd expect from someone who'd write such an invective-ladden unconstructive post. Just goes to show you that ignorance is the main cause of conflict.

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Andrew Welch / el Presidente / Ambrosia Software, Inc.

ColdFusion

I gotta agree with andrew. Why must people complain? The EV site looks okay, it's got less messy graphics than the original, loads faster, and is better organized. And yes, the old site was never updated. We should be thanking andrew for taking an interest in us, not complaining.

Of course, there are a few problems. It doesn't look unified to have white around the top and bottom of the page, but I think andrew promised to fix this up. The top menubar and ads look screwy in my browser - but that's my problem. And how did andrew thoroughly screw things up? How is having a Mac OS look bad? Would you rather have it look like Windows 2000? The new website, while not necessarily better than the old website, certainly isn't worse. Don't criticize someone's hard work to help us.

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" The Zaphod Beeblebrox?"

"No, just a Zaphod Beeblebrox; didn't you hear I come in six-packs?"
-The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Andrew M

Ooh, how'd ya do that, andrew? The most I can get is a query:

Start: 2/19/2000 2:43:09 PM
;; Query: (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com")www.AmbrosiaSW.com(/url) ,type = ANY , class = ANY

;; ANSWERS:
ambrosiasw.com. 57451 IN NS ns2.netsville.com.
ambrosiasw.com. 57451 IN NS janus.ambrosiasw.com.
ambrosiasw.com. 57451 IN NS ns2.servtech.com.
ambrosiasw.com. 2961 IN A 216.42.24.71
ambrosiasw.com. 2961 IN A 216.42.24.66

;; AUTHORITY RECORDS:
ambrosiasw.com. 57451 IN NS ns2.netsville.com.
ambrosiasw.com. 57451 IN NS janus.ambrosiasw.com.
ambrosiasw.com. 57451 IN NS ns2.servtech.com.

;; ADDITIONAL RECORDS:
ns2.netsville.com. 171111 IN A 216.42.80.11
janus.ambrosiasw.com. 2810 IN A 216.42.24.71
janus.ambrosiasw.com. 2810 IN A 216.42.24.66
ns2.servtech.com. 168575 IN A 199.1.22.7

DNR Query complete 2/19/2000 2:43:09 PM

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(url="http://"http://www.blackrockmac.com/ajm/sig.html")~AM~(/url)

Alan

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andrew wrote:
**Just for kicks, I decided to see how much of the new Escape-Velocity.com our friend "Zero" actually saw before he posted his whine/bitch list. Let's have a look at the server log: