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  • Subject: The New Hotness: Feedback
Subject: The New Hotness: Feedback

bah

Posted by: Banshee Barron
Posted by: stosh
Yea we have new tools, but we can't talk about them.


That stinks, I was really curious about what these things could be. Will we ever find out?
For the love of Halo Barron, get MSN messenger. You'll be surprised what the mods will tell you on messenger. Or rather, the amount of information you can get them to reveal to you.

  • 09.24.2004 8:35 AM PDT
Subject: Thanks for the feedback... Now it's my turn.
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  • Exalted Mythic Member

Thanks to the folks who have been providing actual feedback. As always we appreciate and value what our members have to say. To those who have nothing better to say than "this sucks", well perhaps it's time you move on to another game developer site that gives you free forums and a place of your own..... oh that's right, I don't think there are any.

First I'd like to remind everyone that the internet is dynamic. Things change. This is the FIRST RELEASE of the Column. This is complicated stuff we're talking about here... we met a feature list that fit within our timeframe and resources. I feel like we've delivered the core basics of the Column on new hardware that can now handle the load we expect in the future. We now have a solid base to build from.

It's funny how most of the old active members have good things to say while most of the more recent members have nothing but bad things to say. Who was here when the first 7th Column launched a few years ago? It wasn't instantly the site it came to be. It evolved and got better over time. Just like it will continue to do. Just like Bungie.net as a whole will do.

The fact of the matter is that the Column is a real pain in the ass from a development standpoint. It would have been WAY easier to not even have it at all. But that's not an option for us. It's important to us to maintain this system for peopel to carve their own niche into the community.

We obviously can't please everyone - especially lately as we have more and more obnoxious ungrateful members who want and expect everything and bring nothing to the table on their own. People work very hard to build these features, test them, make them work and frankly it sucks when all people have to say is "this sucks" or "give me more."

CHAPTERS/GROUPS/DATABSES/RESOURCES... who the hell cares!? Seriously. GIve me a break. If we rename Halo 2 are you going to not play it? potatoe po-ta-to. You want to call them chapters? OK! Do it. I'll edit the official FAQ now so all of these terms are acceptable. Ok?

THEMES - they will be back. We haven't finished the theme builder system yet. It will be released soon. The Bungie.net theme wasn't meant to be deployed. It's broken. And your chapters or groups can be more customized than before when it comes to skinning. The larger header and bottom graphic give you way more room for cool art in themes. You can also change colors and all the section title bars - exactly like the old site.

DATABASES - yes, it sucks we had to reduce the scope of this feature. And I'm sorry that some of your data got imported in funky ways. The alternative was to delete it all... which would have been WAY easier. I agree that not having easy access to your custom one is a pain. We'll make this better. I hope we can bring back the right side boxes and put links to these. Patience.

FRONT PAGE - someone is complaining that the front page doesn't have as much info on it? Umm... it's the exact same info. Granted the right side boxes are gone except for forums but we'll work on that. I hope we can bring back those elements in a future release.

TITLES - staff/administrators... someone is complaining about the names... read the FAQs. You can now create up to 15 security roles for yoru group and name it WHATEVER YOU WANT.

FORUMS - the new forums crush the old crusty slow forums on the old site. My only gripe right now is that there is no per thread viewing priveleges. I hope we can improve that later.

Here's a quick overview of what made the 7th COlumn on the old site (in my humble opinion):
* News
* Customizable themes
* Forum
* Databases for custom content
* Membership/security priveleges

Now the new Column has all of this.

Please keep the feedback coming but understand that nothing will ever be the way everyone wants it. All I can say is we will keep doing the best we can to improve the site however possible. However for the immediate future, our focus will be on finishing the Halo 2 stats and Clan integration so the basic Column is what it is for now (except for bugs and the theme system).

</rant>

  • 09.24.2004 11:25 AM PDT
Subject: The New Hotness: Feedback
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looks weird, but I thnk i'll get used to this. cool anyway =)

  • 09.24.2004 12:24 PM PDT
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lol toast...but really, Sketch has a good point. Why should we flame this new design after its release? After all, we aren't just a bunch of picky, self-centered pigs now are we? Besides, if new members start coming in and see this crappy attitude that some of us are portraying, they'll definately be turned off. We are people, and as normal people, we should learn to look past this medium (the 7th Column) that connects us to one another. besides, we'll get upgrades, tools and the likes in the future, as far as i can tell from Sketch's post.

So don't say it sucks. I've only been on the column for a year (i had a dif name b4 the .net switch, so don't flame) and I appreciate this community's resolve in past events...but where is it now? Stay strong, and Semper Fi!

  • 09.24.2004 1:35 PM PDT

bah

Quick question: Every time I create a new security level, I have to go and update all the databases to allow that new type to view them. Is there another way to do this? If not, I'm going to have a major headache clicking 15 boxes every time I make a news story. Make a "click all" button.

Most noticable is the FAQ section. Can there be a way to give visability based on the entire section instead of individual entries? As it stands, each entry can have separate visibility selected for it. While this may seem nice, I just made a moderator role for my chapter, and now I have to go back to edit all of these FAQs just so they can see it.

This makes no sence, and it may be that they can see it, but going off this statementremember that if you do not select one of the roles above, users in that group WILL NOT be able to view this articlemakes me think that I have to check all boxes.

[Edited on 9/24/2004 1:48:20 PM]

  • 09.24.2004 1:43 PM PDT
Subject: Thanks for the feedback... Now it's my turn.
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The cube had food and maybe ammo. And immortality.

Thanks for responding Sketchfactor. You must understand, I meant "this sucks" in the most positive sense of the phrase :) . It is like when my team (Michigan) loses. It sucks because I love them so much. As I said in my previous post, I appreciate this site and am not planning on leaving. I thought that you folks were more than fair with the databases, and except for eliminating the "Events" I had no problem with it at all.

It was the change of format on the front page that looked odd. Before you could get a good idea of activity in your chapter with little more than a glance. I get what you are saying about the same info being on the front page, I just don't agree. Unless I am missing something (which is quite possible) I am no longer able to see recent activity(unless it is news), who is online, or the last five posts on the forum. So far the feed back from our members has been negative. These guys love Bungie, and I hope that they take the time to come on here and share their concerns instead of just fuming about it. On the positive side, the forum set up is much better.

Heck, I was obviously expecting too much. I am grateful that Bungie didn't stop offering free chapters when they became somewhat of a problem. I'm not going anywhere, it will probably just take some getting used to.

C.T. Clown

[Edited on 9/24/2004 2:21:14 PM]

  • 09.24.2004 1:53 PM PDT

- Mike

I miss my activity log!

  • 09.24.2004 2:01 PM PDT
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  • Exalted Mythic Member

YES - as I said in my post, I definitely want to see the return of some, if not all, of the right side boxes in a future update. We'll get there. One step at a time. =)

And, in regards to the post about disagreeing with my statement about the front page - I think I said 'except for the right side boxes' =)

Hang in there peeps.

  • 09.24.2004 3:13 PM PDT
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Posted by: SketchFactor
Thanks to the folks who have been providing actual feedback. As always we appreciate and value what our members have to say. To those who have nothing better to say than "this sucks", well perhaps it's time you move on to another game developer site that gives you free forums and a place of your own..... oh that's right, I don't think there are any.

First I'd like to remind everyone that the internet is dynamic. Things change. This is the FIRST RELEASE of the Column. This is complicated stuff we're talking about here... we met a feature list that fit within our timeframe and resources. I feel like we've delivered the core basics of the Column on new hardware that can now handle the load we expect in the future. We now have a solid base to build from.

It's funny how most of the old active members have good things to say while most of the more recent members have nothing but bad things to say. Who was here when the first 7th Column launched a few years ago? It wasn't instantly the site it came to be. It evolved and got better over time. Just like it will continue to do. Just like Bungie.net as a whole will do.

The fact of the matter is that the Column is a real pain in the ass from a development standpoint. It would have been WAY easier to not even have it at all. But that's not an option for us. It's important to us to maintain this system for peopel to carve their own niche into the community.

We obviously can't please everyone - especially lately as we have more and more obnoxious ungrateful members who want and expect everything and bring nothing to the table on their own. People work very hard to build these features, test them, make them work and frankly it sucks when all people have to say is "this sucks" or "give me more."

CHAPTERS/GROUPS/DATABSES/RESOURCES... who the hell cares!? Seriously. GIve me a break. If we rename Halo 2 are you going to not play it? potatoe po-ta-to. You want to call them chapters? OK! Do it. I'll edit the official FAQ now so all of these terms are acceptable. Ok?

THEMES - they will be back. We haven't finished the theme builder system yet. It will be released soon. The Bungie.net theme wasn't meant to be deployed. It's broken. And your chapters or groups can be more customized than before when it comes to skinning. The larger header and bottom graphic give you way more room for cool art in themes. You can also change colors and all the section title bars - exactly like the old site.

DATABASES - yes, it sucks we had to reduce the scope of this feature. And I'm sorry that some of your data got imported in funky ways. The alternative was to delete it all... which would have been WAY easier. I agree that not having easy access to your custom one is a pain. We'll make this better. I hope we can bring back the right side boxes and put links to these. Patience.

FRONT PAGE - someone is complaining that the front page doesn't have as much info on it? Umm... it's the exact same info. Granted the right side boxes are gone except for forums but we'll work on that. I hope we can bring back those elements in a future release.

TITLES - staff/administrators... someone is complaining about the names... read the FAQs. You can now create up to 15 security roles for yoru group and name it WHATEVER YOU WANT.

FORUMS - the new forums crush the old crusty slow forums on the old site. My only gripe right now is that there is no per thread viewing priveleges. I hope we can improve that later.

Here's a quick overview of what made the 7th COlumn on the old site (in my humble opinion):
* News
* Customizable themes
* Forum
* Databases for custom content
* Membership/security priveleges

Now the new Column has all of this.

Please keep the feedback coming but understand that nothing will ever be the way everyone wants it. All I can say is we will keep doing the best we can to improve the site however possible. However for the immediate future, our focus will be on finishing the Halo 2 stats and Clan integration so the basic Column is what it is for now (except for bugs and the theme system).

</rant>


For the love of Halo thank you! I'm sick of all this complaining on this site.

  • 09.24.2004 3:41 PM PDT

=)

MSXL: The Last Honest Chapter

Sketch, you are so right. If you read my review, you see much more postive than negative. And I am gonna personally use the terms "groups" and "resources" as much as possible! =D

  • 09.24.2004 4:08 PM PDT
Subject: The New Hotness: Feedback
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A few bugs. Like I see that the old news, when some one approves some one elses news, the person's login who approved the news is in the place of where the writer should be. Another words it says "[insert person who approved it here] writes" when it should say "[insert person who wrote it here] writes." Next up is the contact info, when i pressed the submit button nothing happened. And the last thing I realized was disbanding, I founded a chapter and went to go leave(being the last member) and it won't let me, it just brings me to an error message.

  • 09.24.2004 4:35 PM PDT
Subject: Thanks for the feedback... Now it's my turn.
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I have been reading a lot so whats going on?

  • 09.24.2004 4:37 PM PDT
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my review had about the same in positives and negatives. To me, it seems about the same now except for the unnecesary name choices but like sketch said we can call them whatever we want. I'll stick with chapters. Themes will return so that will give chapters uniqueness again and there still is custom databases. Perhaps not as many but maybe that will make founders strive to make what little they have better than a ton. Quality over quantity. I appreciate the effort bungie and being the "First Release" in sketch's words I'm sure things will change...like the useless contact info database. Keep at it bungie.

  • 09.24.2004 5:26 PM PDT
Subject: elongated response

Tom Achronos
Bungie.net Overlord
twitter: http://twitter.com/Achronos

"I have no words that would do justice to the atrocities you commit to the English language, as well as your continued assaults on the concepts of basic literacy and logical reasoning."

Posted by: eek
I said I'd have a longer resonse when I explored and here it is.
...


Regarding the stuff you don't like.

1. Previously, you could have 100 databases with 1000 entries each. That's one of the reasons the old column crashed so often - we simply can't support that kind of load without charging you guys money for this.
2. You're complaining about a name change? I'm sorry, but... no.
3. The previous way was pretty much the same - sticky items first, then a set of stories. The only thing that has changed is that the number of news items after the 3 stickies is always 5.
4. Again, sorry about this, but this was a performance fix.
5. Uh, change the name if you don't like "Administrators". You can change any of the names of the security roles, except for the "NonMember" role.
6. You got the same news system the front page has. I'm sorry if you don't like it.
7. The bungie skin wasn't supposed to be deployed (it is broken and unfinished - that's not even its real name). It has already been removed from the list of themes to select. I suggest you not use it.
8. NO. This will NEVER EVER happen. I don't want to see Charizard's -blam!- picture as his avatar.
9. The Custom Resources navigation will probably be improved in some way (via a sidebar block system, most likely), but that will take a little while.
10. Sometimes, yes. More people used columns, though.
11. Maybe we'll add this.

Thanks for the feedback. Keep it coming.

  • 09.24.2004 5:48 PM PDT
Subject: Thanks for the feedback... Now it's my turn.
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  • Fabled Mythic Member

Yo Halo53, I'm real happy for you and I'ma let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best bungie.net profiles of all time. OF ALL TIME!

Posted by: SketchFactor
It's funny how most of the old active members have good things to say while most of the more recent members have nothing but bad things to say.


It makes sense, if you think about it. The older members like myself have been through change already. The older members can accept change and get over the loss of an activity log or an event system and start to use the custom titles and new forums. I mean we lost the event system. I used it but, so what? Use the forum! The forum has been improved GREATLY. Between the custom ranks/titles, the ability to sticky, make polls etc. It makes up for many losses. I think the new changes are awesome. I have found a couple bugs like in the FAQ's but I know it will be fixed. The one thing that upsets me now is the lack of themes but I know that the selection of various themes will greatly improve in the future so I have no need to worry. A couple things upset me but all of them are greatly outweighed by the positives.

Hell when I joined there were a lot less themes then there were right before the take down of the old column. There was a store discount for chapters, no .Net passports, no chapter limits, not as many databases available, (Music database is an example) the were less B.net forums. I remember the old truth and reconciliation, the old 7th column main page before members could post. The .Net passports were not originally linked to our gamertags. I've seen members come and go. Chapters become active and then slowly fade away. But I've still come here and so have the other old members. That's why we are old members. If we hated change we would have left and not stuck around. The new members that will become old members will either deal with it and get used to it, or those new members who don't mind change.

Great job Bungie team. I'm looking forward to the future of this site.

  • 09.24.2004 5:49 PM PDT
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I dont really like the layout and everything is too big. And It takes too long to get to the databases... I like the sidebar.... But other than that im glad they left us the databases we had already created.

[Edited on 9/24/2004 6:06:20 PM]

  • 09.24.2004 5:59 PM PDT
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  • Exalted Legendary Member

If your looking for an active clan who doesn't talk "trash", allow cheating at all, and has a good community then check out our site.

Clan O7AH

I have been around for a while and I am sure that everyone is well aware of Bungie's unrelenting "get the cheese at the end of the maze no matter how bad the shock" work ethic. With that in mind I know that you guys are busy as hell with Halo 2 and also the extensive stats sections that I have read a great deal about and that I am sure will kick ass. Well one thing that I want you guys to try to think and I am sure you have is that as hard as you work on all of this we (founders) also work pretty damn hard on our groups/chapters. So when we all were let back into our personal Halo/Marathon/Bungie testiments and we found that the place had been moved around a lot and we could not find the things we were looking for the first thing we did as you can tell by reading most of this is that we freaked out. After Sketch's quick slap to the face to let us know that everything will be ok I am sure that things will be. I just wanted to say that I think that people freaked out because we realy do care a great deal about what we have worked on. So now that all of us have our heads on straight again we can all collaborate on usable feedback and together we (Bungie, Founders, and Members) will hollow out a comfortable ass indention into this new recliner.

[Edited on 9/24/2004 6:38:19 PM]

  • 09.24.2004 6:04 PM PDT
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Posted by: Achronos

Regarding the stuff you don't like.

1. Previously, you could have 100 databases with 1000 entries each. That's one of the reasons the old column crashed so often - we simply can't support that kind of load without charging you guys money for this.
2. You're complaining about a name change? I'm sorry, but... no.
3. The previous way was pretty much the same - sticky items first, then a set of stories. The only thing that has changed is that the number of news items after the 3 stickies is always 5.
4. Again, sorry about this, but this was a performance fix.
5. Uh, change the name if you don't like "Administrators". You can change any of the names of the security roles, except for the "NonMember" role.
6. You got the same news system the front page has. I'm sorry if you don't like it.
7. The bungie skin wasn't supposed to be deployed (it is broken and unfinished - that's not even its real name). It has already been removed from the list of themes to select. I suggest you not use it.
8. NO. This will NEVER EVER happen. I don't want to see Charizard's -blam!- picture as his avatar.
9. The Custom Resources navigation will probably be improved in some way (via a sidebar block system, most likely), but that will take a little while.
10. Sometimes, yes. More people used columns, though.
11. Maybe we'll add this.

Thanks for the feedback. Keep it coming.


Thanks for the reply. About the name change, I know its just a minor thing I wasn't saying any more than its a small nuisance. Not a big complaint or anything I was just saying my opinion. I know that the databases had huge effects on your servers. I've got websites of my own and I respect that. Never the less it still is a con. Like I said though restrictions might make founders have to be more creative with what they have. As to all the other stuff I know you guys are working hard to make it better and update it as much as possible. Thanks for the great work and keep at it bungie.

[Edited on 9/24/2004 6:06:03 PM]

  • 09.24.2004 6:05 PM PDT
Subject: Regarding max Character limits
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Personally, I think the max character limit for the article section should be extended on articles to 50, 000 or if possible, 100, 000. There are a lot of eager writers out their waiting to put their great opinions into text formats, but when they paste their writings into the article section of their chapter, they cannot submit it due to excessive amounts of characters.

Right now, I have a story sitting on my desktop with 40, 000 characters. So, obviously, if I cut off 30, 000 characters, I'm losing a significant chunk of my story.

Now, since I didn't write much articles in my last chapter, I can't remember if the limit used to be 10, 000 or not.
So I ask that you raise the limit to something higher, perhaps 50, 000 or 100, 000 so writers can express their views without risk of having too much characters.

Please, if there is any specific reason as to why you can't change this please just let me know.

  • 09.24.2004 6:50 PM PDT
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  • Exalted Legendary Member

If your looking for an active clan who doesn't talk "trash", allow cheating at all, and has a good community then check out our site.

Clan O7AH

Some usable feedback..... If at all possible I would like to suggest some type of sorting system for the custom resources/databases. For example I have a Trivia Stats resource/database that I would like to be able to sort by most correct answers.

Thanks
-Compton.

  • 09.24.2004 6:55 PM PDT
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  • Fabled Mythic Member

Yo Halo53, I'm real happy for you and I'ma let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best bungie.net profiles of all time. OF ALL TIME!

Just paste 10,000 characters into 4 different entries in the same database. Piece of cake.

  • 09.24.2004 7:11 PM PDT
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  • still hates toast

ARTICLE CATEGORIES. WE NEED THEM. LIKE MAYBE 10. MAKE THEM OR DIE!!!!

MUhahaha

[Edited on 9/24/2004 8:02:11 PM]

  • 09.24.2004 8:01 PM PDT
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  • Exalted Mythic Member

Great posts Halo53 and Compton. Things will be kicking ass around here in no time.

Also, while the theme builder is being creating aspiring theme creators can get a jump on things. The biggest pieces of the theme are the header, footer and title bars. Grab a screen capture and load it up into an art program then just start working over the various pieces. You can also keep in mind color schemes for the other parts of the page.

We should have more theme(s) by this time next week. Keep in mind though it will take a little bit - the old theme collection took a few years to accumulate. To kickstart things we'll through together a theme contest once the 'builder' is ready.

  • 09.24.2004 9:33 PM PDT