DM will never be the same it was when I was in college and able to drag my computer across campus to a lounge with all my buddies and frag them face to face.

I think a lot of the "it will never be like XXXX game" has a lot more to do with who and where you played, not so much in the game it is and such.

Halo2 to me is a GREAT game (minus a few nagging issues) but I have SUCH a horrible time playing it when I can't hook up with the xbl buddies I have. Quality of WHERE you play and WHO you play with is a big deal to me.

I think this game, and any other game will be the best it can be when you are in a good place with it.

this isn't close combat!!!!
close combat is a platoon/company level strategy game. not some cheesed up Squad Based FPS... ugh, yet another amazing title eaten and destroyed just so they could use the awardwinning brand name.

ugh.

Hey blue! glad to see you enjoy our servers.
thanks for the compliment!

I do web development for a living, and while I'm on more of the technology side,

I'll do my best to offer comments on information architecture and layout.

A general note first for everyone griping about resolution.

over half of the web-browsing world operates at 800x600 or LESS. Designing a website for 800x600 means that you will be safe in knowing that the LARGEST number of people out there will be able to see the site with out having to scroll horizontally.

So, do what you are meant to do with all of that high-resolution screen, and don't maximize your windows. this is a tangent, but it makes me laugh when I see people with high rez screens maximizing everything... kinda defeats the purpose...

anyway...

comments on the site design. top to bottom.

1. the bluesnews/ugo banner area is HUGE. takes up WAYYYYY too much space verticaly. The UGO logo isn't aligned with the blues logo, and creates a distraction in the horizontal read of the page. Compress the vertical space that the UGO/BLues logo take up, and do something with the blue swoosh things. they have no connection with the rest of the page and only enhance the vertical space being taken up on the top. You might even want to put an Advertisment up in that space, instead of cluttering the main body area as much. Some of the space in the time stamp might be reduced, or even moving the time

2. First Advertising row.
Either align the advertising left flush with the navigation bar on the left, or bring the advertising row down INTO the body area, where the top of the advertising is aligned with the top of the navigation item (stories of note) top. it sits in a weird float against that blue bar, and isn't aligned with anything. again, just visualy distracting.

3. The send news link.
Needs to be integrated elsewhere, sufferes from another fault that other items have on the site, in that it isn't unformly aligned with anything. it is centered for the browser, while almost everything else is aligned left to the browser. visual distracting, and also, more space that is wasted verticaly, that could be moved to another element. (possible solution, move the "date/time stamp" and the "send news" buttons to the top of the left hand navigation bar.)

4. rounded Items vs. square items.
the old design had a nice collection of "rounded" items that contained the navigation and header elements. there is an odd mishmash of square vs rounded now. again, just a matter of visual distraction.

5. Headline + Square Advertising area.
this EATS a huge amount of space, but if its nessisary to cater to the square advertising, then I guess its got to be there. I am unsure of the exact dimensions, but I know in the old design, you were able to indtegrate the square advertising with the body of the content of the site. this flowed much cleaner, and allowed the content to be closer to the top of the page, while having the advertising in place.

the headline/featured box at the top also takes up an inordinate amount of space. moving back to the horizontal style would save alot of space, and again, move the content closer to the top.

6. General alignment issues.
the blue daily bars seem to be mis-sized compared to the text that is beneath them on the horizontal. possibly putting them in the same table sizing that the text is in would help.


Thats all I can think of right now.
Bluesnews is one of the first pages I load every morning, and have always found it a wonderful source of gaming news and information. I hope that the site continues to prosper.

I understand the need for advertising, I just hope that things can be tidy'ed up a bit to make sure everything works the best.

FWIW: I was looking at the site in FireBird .6.1 and everything worked great.


Thanks again!

This comment was edited on Oct 25, 15:33.

Hoping for the best.

thank you blues for helping to take a stand like this. download exclusivity really hurts the community as a whole, simply because even a giant like fileplanet can't ever hope to match the worlds demands.

DRM
Microsoft is tyring to control the desktop, Longhorn will be the FIRST major OS release from MS that will have extensive DRM built in.
thats "digital rights management" they know gamers are people who are more liberal about where they get their 'things' from.
so, its a form of control. I think win2k is where I'm staying for the time being, and any future games will have to be on a dual boot box the way things are headed...

what the hell do any of these comments have to do with anything this article was about.

relevance?

ok, I read this article over the weekend over at salon.
what a tripe load of garbage.
this guy, a writer, who failed to really say what he did for the two games he worked on, besides his claim to fame for the failure of the SuperFly what-his-face from Daikatana, rants extensivly about how ION storm was a significant point in his life, and how the company was so so so badly maligned in the popular press and fan-base market.

Ok, LAST TIME I CHECKED! it doens't matter HOW much the press hates you. It doesn't matter how much bad blood there is on the internet about Jon Ramero's HairDO. IT MATTERS HOW GOOD THE GAME IS THAT YOU MAKE.

and face it. Daikatana, SUCKED.
It doesn't matter how life changing your job is at a game company, it doesn't matter how many burnt copies of bad trance electronica you got. it' doesnt matter that you ADMITTED TO SMOKING POT ON THE JOB IN YOUR ARTICLE!... it matters that you made a game that was worthy of all the hype and expectation you built up around it...

keep your pathetic drivel about how sad you were to see your game fail to your self... in fact, IT WASN"T EVEN YOUR GAME, YOU WERE A WRITER THAT HAD NO CONTROL OVER THE GAME, as is obvious by your own statements...

... maybe I should cross post this on Salon's message boards.

uh... the title is different, but the content of the post is IDENTICAL to the post 4 minutes before it.

?

Thanks!

that halo preview was absolute tripe.
I don't think I've ever seen anything as blatently "we'll get the janitor to watch some movies they've released, and have him write something up on it."

an example of how lame this is:
"There are other weapons to be found in Halo, and they're all extremely useful, but we don't want to ruin the surprise of finding them by describing them for you here."

in other words, we havn't seen EVERYTHING there is to be seen in this game, but we don't want to sound like were idiots. so, were going to sound like we KNOW everything there is to know about this game, but aren't going to tell us, cause were not cool enough.

blah, gamespot is completly full of it.

Notice how they have 3 enemies listed... same thing, their just watching the movies.

oh yeah, the vehicles page. has ONE VEHICLE on it, the jeep you can drive around in...
so, not only did they just skim the movies, they didn't do it well... I mean, I remember you being able to drive almost anything. The Tank, the flyer, the speeder bike.
GAH...
Ok, I'm done.

uh, actually NO.
the code didn't have to be rewritten, as it was being developed for the PC first, then for the mac.
and as the XBOX is nothing but a PC in a small box with controled hardware, it really isn't that big of a deal to reprogram for.

ok........ how in gods name do they store all of that? (100 terabytes + 12 terabytes/month!!!!) and how much does that cost?!?!?!?!

... 20 gig hard drive, aprox 50 dollars, X 50 -> 1 Terabyte= 2,500.00 USD

times 100, times 12 PER MONTH
wow.

ok, blizzard has this habit of making things already done perfect.
so... I have hope.

but geez... we have ENOUGH fantasy RPGs as it is...

what is the ETA on this game?
I had no idea it was this far along...

I'm looking forward to it

grrr... all you people with this game, I can't afford to get it yet...
gahhh, it's between max, and the D2 expansion.

I want to apologize if my comment last night was on the nasty side. I am a HUGE fan of this site, and will accpet almost anything that is done to help support it... but...
and it's hard to determine what it is, there are someforms of advertisement that crosses the line.
I think the Die Hard ad last night was rough cause it blocked the first articles, and it took TIME to pass, you had to WAIT for it...
most banner ads go unclicked when I see them, but the thing is, I DO look, cause everyonce and a while I see something worth clicking on. (the concept of advertising, I mean, who goes and buys a taco EVERY time they see a taco bell comercial)

anyway, yeah, sorry if my note last nght was nasty, blue, I lov ya. keep up the great work, and I for one will do my part (/me practices clicking) to keep you fed and housed

ok, I'm ALL for bluesnews making money... but, thats anoying.

http://www.alphex.com/personal/duran/bluesnews7.25.01.gif

to view what I'm talking about.
what you see is a screen capture of the blues site when this flash ad showed up.

basicly, I kinda want to know if this is something known about, or if it's something I'll have to get used too...

so, is there ANY future for multiplayer for this game?
can the engine be tweeked out for that?

I wonder if harrison ford has a loud speaker blaring the Indiana Jones music when ever he resuces some 'hiker' off a mountain top