Retired skins

[MessengerDragon]

As most of you probably heard, the dino cave and blackout skins have been retired, but those people who used them a lot can still select them.

 

I have a suggestion: why not make it so that everyone could select them, just with a warning that they aren't updated?

 

I don't think it'll be to hard to implement, since it is pretty much in use already for those who used them a lot.

 

I don't see how this could hurt anyone, and it'd be very useful for those who decided they prefer one of the retired styles, updates or no updates.

[MyaMouse]

You should put this in the thread too

[MessengerDragon]

You should put this in the thread too

What 'this'?

[MyaMouse]

What 'this'?

Just the idea of not giving up the skins but not updating them

Besides, I'm pretty sure a bunch of people stalk new News threads

[MessengerDragon]

If you meant that I should post a link to this thread in the news thread, I've done it.

[Fuzzbucket]

TJ posted, when he first raised the subject,

 

Right now there are eight different site layouts. Often, testing new things on each one of those is more work than its worth, especially given the numbers (the vast majority of people just use the default site layout).

Your post has this underlying assumption that customizing the CSS for each skin is a trivial task. The skins are architected such that CSS and images are the only differences. If I don't take the time to style new things for each skin, it'll probably work, but it'll be a pretty terrible experience. Not "caus[ing] eye-bleed" is below the bare minimum in web design.

 

Would you be OK finding that there were things you couldn't do in the game, because the skin you were using hadn't been updated to allow you to ?

 

I think he did also say there was a degree of server strain, but I could be well wrong about that.

[MessengerDragon]

But those who used them a lot are still able to select them. I don't see why others shouldn't be allowed to select them as long as they are warned in advance about the fact that it isn't being updated.

[AnanoKimi]

Honestly because there is no point in making something that will no longer be updated available to anyone other than those who used it a lot and for specific reason. The only reason those who used it often still get to use it is because they have very valid reasons (lay out colors, layout style, layout background, etc) all of these which are preferences for specific reasons (darker colors make it less straining, sensitive eyes, background makes users less sick, allows for easier sorting).

 

Unless you were using one of the retired layouts for one of those reasons then there is really no need to make it available to those who had no need for it at all. Trivial preferences like "I want to see what its like" "I just like bouncing from layout to layout" are not valid reasons to make something retired available to everyone.

 

So I would say no. Those who still have it available have it available because it was their major preference over every other skin for one reason or another. If you had no overall preference for it then you have no need for it.

[MessengerDragon]

There are people who used the default because it suited them best. Then it was replaced with the new default which didn't suit their needs. So they switched to blackout/dinocave. If my experience is anything to judge by, the period between deciding they didn't want the new default and the time when those two skins were removed isn't enough for the site to consider them enough used that the user still gets to select them.

TL;DR If someone switched skins only after the new default was implemented, they don't get the option of selecting it.

Even if it is now the favourite of their existing skins.

 

If someone is using a retired skin, and find out about a new feature that has appeared, they might want to test it out and see if it makes moving to another, non-retired skin worthwhile. But if they will lose the option of going back to dinocave/blackout as soon as they select another skin, they might prefer not to lose their favourite skin in favour of the possibility of something being useful to them.

 

 

Sorry if I don't make any sense, I didn't have much time to write this, hopefully it is understandable enough.

[AnanoKimi]

People who actively use these layouts will still have the ability to choose them (including swapping to other layouts and back), but the designs will not receive any further updates.

 

I think this also includes any users who changed skins after the default layout was updated. If not then I believe TJ should make it so those actually currently using it have the ability to switch back should they need to switch to anything else regardless of whether they used it recently or have been using it for years.

 

Also I don't believe the retirement was based on how long a skin was used, but instead as of the moment of retirement, how many users were actively using it. If even after the default update, not enough users where using those now retired skins, then it still justifies their retirement and thus then unavailability to anyone not using it.

 

If any new users come to dislike the new default there are many skins like the currently retired ones (Portal 2 light, St Patricks Day, etc.) that can better suit their needs. So I still think it should be left as is.

Edited April 26, 2015 by AnanoKimi

[Snowwall]

Would you be OK finding that there were things you couldn't do in the game, because the skin you were using hadn't been updated to allow you to?

Well, the clock is unavailable already... Awkward. But it's a totally different brand of awkward than moving the mouse to top-middle of the page and realising "Account" is not there any more!

 

Frankly, I loved the old default and find it a pity it wasn't demoted to a non-default skin instead of disappearing. That familiar layout was left in two other skins, but St. Patrick's text colours are a little too light for me - at least Dinocave has more contrast.

 

So, I belong to the "Post a warning that the user might be inconvenienced, but let him/her choose their brand of insanity" camp, not the "If there might be a problem, the action should be impossible". Computers do more than enough of that already :/

 

 

I never thought anybody would be so annoyed with a long-ish list of skins that they would request retirement. After all, Account Settings are a place that's so rarely visited...

[MessengerDragon]

I think this also includes any users who changed skins after the default layout was updated. If not then I believe TJ should make it so those actually currently using it have the ability to switch back should they need to switch to anything else regardless of whether they used it recently or have been using it for years.

 

Also I don't believe the retirement was based on how long a skin was used, but instead as of the moment of retirement, how many users were actively using it. If even after the default update, not enough users where using those now retired skins, then it still justifies their retirement and thus then unavailability to anyone not using it.

 

If any new users come to dislike the new default there are many skins like the currently retired ones (Portal 2 light, St Patricks Day, etc.) that can better suit their needs.

I mostly used dino cave after the new default appeared. But I can't select it.

 

Portal 2 light has distracting images in the background, no other skins match the fun style of dinocave.

[AnanoKimi]

Did you change from it before the skin was retired? because if you cannot select it that means that you werent using it. Did you used to switch between skins for whatever reason?

 

I guess you could have the ability to pick your poison though I see no point in it if it will not be updated.

[Fuzzbucket]

There are people who used the default because it suited them best. Then it was replaced with the new default which didn't suit their needs.

This is the issue I have. If the old one had been retained as an option I'd have been a lot happier.

 

But as you only get to keep one of the now retired ones if you'd been using it for AGES - even if it was the one that worked for you after the old default was taken away - that IS hard. I wonder how long you had to have been using one of them to qualify to keep it. Thank goodness if TJ ever gets to St Pat's I should have been on it long enough.

 

Because the beautiful (I keep saying that, as the art is indeed stunning) new one is actually unusable by a significant number of players, and the old one was MUCH more usable.

 

@AnanoKimi

I guess you could have the ability to pick your poison though I see no point in it if it will not be updated.

The point is that - while the clock is very nice and all - MANY of us actually CANNOT use the new skin, where the old default was fine, and so we had to go look at the others after the old default was removed. And we could have used a bit more time to work out which alternative suited us best. Sure - my chosen skin won't be updated. But using it means I can still play. I'm kind of glad of that.

Edited April 26, 2015 by fuzzbucket

[AGYK]

What's actually going on here is a gradual full retirement of the skin.

 

TJ is letting those who actively use the retiring skins keep them because it would probably be too much of a hassle for those users to switch to something else. But gradually, as time goes on and people either stop playing or switch away from the retiring skins, the number of users still using those skins will gradually drop until it hits a point where TJ can reasonably fully retire them.

 

Given this, it makes no sense whatsoever for him to leave the skins open for everyone to play with. That would greatly slow down the rate at which people stop using the retiring skins (since as some people stop using them, others start). It would also make for headaches when, six months down the road, people who missed the memo about the skins no longer being officially supported start complaining that X or Y or Z is broken and they want it fixed.

 

The actual issue here seems to be more "the new default has a ton of issues and we need an alternative" than "we like these skins and want them back." I could see a couple of decent fixes here without needing to bring back the retiring skins:

* Fix the new default (stop the background image from doing that weird jerking behavior when scrolling - this is only noticeable when JS is on, btw; maybe compress the background image a bit to mitigate any lag issues; maybe make the links at the top a bit bigger to help out people with poorer eyesight)

* Create a new "accessible" skin, designed to have minimum background clutter and maximum visibility for important stuff (maybe a plain white or tan background, bigger font on the clock and the links at the top, move the Cave/Account/Dragons/etc. links back to the middle of the page and make them bigger)

[Fuzzbucket]

What's actually going on here is a gradual full retirement of the skin.

 

TJ is letting those who actively use the retiring skins keep them because it would probably be too much of a hassle for those users to switch to something else. But gradually, as time goes on and people either stop playing or switch away from the retiring skins, the number of users still using those skins will gradually drop until it hits a point where TJ can reasonably fully retire them.

 

Given this, it makes no sense whatsoever for him to leave the skins open for everyone to play with. That would greatly slow down the rate at which people stop using the retiring skins (since as some people stop using them, others start). It would also make for headaches when, six months down the road, people who missed the memo about the skins no longer being officially supported start complaining that X or Y or Z is broken and they want it fixed.

 

The actual issue here seems to be more "the new default has a ton of issues and we need an alternative" than "we like these skins and want them back." I could see a couple of decent fixes here without needing to bring back the retiring skins:

* Fix the new default (stop the background image from doing that weird jerking behavior when scrolling - this is only noticeable when JS is on, btw; maybe compress the background image a bit to mitigate any lag issues; maybe make the links at the top a bit bigger to help out people with poorer eyesight)

* Create a new "accessible" skin, designed to have minimum background clutter and maximum visibility for important stuff (maybe a plain white or tan background, bigger font on the clock and the links at the top, move the Cave/Account/Dragons/etc. links back to the middle of the page and make them bigger)

Given that we have always had a choice of skins - why should we not continue to have, actually ? Just not as many, perhaps.

 

But yes, the big issue is that the new skin does cause problems; it doesn't work right for some people - and it IS heavy on the eyes, even for me, who uses it as wallpaper as it IS pretty.

 

Yes - if it is to be sort of the only skin available - we do actually positively need a vanilla skin - and let us not forget - the old one was actually fine for pretty much everyone - that could be it ! Otherwise though - we need both a light and a dark, for people with eyesight issues. I can SO live without the clock, if that's a huge issue with other skins.

[AnanoKimi]

What's actually going on here is a gradual full retirement of the skin.

 

TJ is letting those who actively use the retiring skins keep them because it would probably be too much of a hassle for those users to switch to something else. But gradually, as time goes on and people either stop playing or switch away from the retiring skins, the number of users still using those skins will gradually drop until it hits a point where TJ can reasonably fully retire them.

 

Given this, it makes no sense whatsoever for him to leave the skins open for everyone to play with. That would greatly slow down the rate at which people stop using the retiring skins (since as some people stop using them, others start). It would also make for headaches when, six months down the road, people who missed the memo about the skins no longer being officially supported start complaining that X or Y or Z is broken and they want it fixed.

 

The actual issue here seems to be more "the new default has a ton of issues and we need an alternative" than "we like these skins and want them back." I could see a couple of decent fixes here without needing to bring back the retiring skins:

* Fix the new default (stop the background image from doing that weird jerking behavior when scrolling - this is only noticeable when JS is on, btw; maybe compress the background image a bit to mitigate any lag issues; maybe make the links at the top a bit bigger to help out people with poorer eyesight)

* Create a new "accessible" skin, designed to have minimum background clutter and maximum visibility for important stuff (maybe a plain white or tan background, bigger font on the clock and the links at the top, move the Cave/Account/Dragons/etc. links back to the middle of the page and make them bigger)

This is basically what i was getting at just in an obviously lacking manner. The point is not to get those skins back but to improve uopn the ones we have and in essence probably continue to reduce them until we have the ones that best suit people whilst leaving TJ with less work to do in testing every single one.

 

Yes having 7 different skins is nice but TJ has made mention that its a hassle so finding ways to improve the few we have and help reduce that would be our best bet.

[MessengerDragon]

Did you change from it before the skin was retired? because if you cannot select it that means that you werent using it. Did you used to switch between skins for whatever reason?

I was using it. I'm on it. But it is greyed out and un-clickable, because I apparently didn't use it enough.

[CursedFlames]

I was using it. I'm on it. But it is greyed out and un-clickable, because I apparently didn't use it enough.

This happened to me too.

 

I like the idea of that "accessible" skin too, I'd love faster page load times while hunting...

Edited April 27, 2015 by BananaGummyBear64

[Syphoneira]

Given that we have always had a choice of skins - why should we not continue to have, actually ? Just not as many, perhaps.

 

But yes, the big issue is that the new skin does cause problems; it doesn't work right for some people - and it IS heavy on the eyes, even for me, who uses it as wallpaper as it IS pretty.

 

Yes - if it is to be sort of the only skin available - we do actually positively need a vanilla skin - and let us not forget - the old one was actually fine for pretty much everyone - that could be it ! Otherwise though - we need both a light and a dark, for people with eyesight issues. I can SO live without the clock, if that's a huge issue with other skins.

 

 

 

 

If there was any chance of getting the plain old default scroll-skin back as it was, even without the handy clock, (much as I appreciate that, too,) I'd love the reduced lag more than even the gorgeous art on the new default.

 

I tried all of the other skins, before they were reduced, and found that none really worked for me, so I'll stick with the purty new one, as at least it doesn't bother my eyes or anything, but I'm already not a great hunter and the extra lag which the additional detail load seems to be adding doesn't help, lol.

[Fuzzbucket]

Fro hunting I mostly have to turn off page style anyway...

 

But the lag since the new skin is awesome (and not in a good way.) Last night I was just BREEDING. It was taking up to 3 minutes for the ACTIONS page to come up and then it had to load the dragons for me to choose from. It was awful boring... And in those cases there's no real hurry !