Gosh there's [i]so much[/i] to talk about! Bungie sure did change quite a lot this time around. In this thread, I'll debunk a lot of the "crappy things Bungie did to their website" that you guys seem to be whining about, as well as interject my own personal opinion about the new updates regarding what the web team has done, and what could be done better. [u]The color (yes, the white)[/u] I've said it in a few other posts before, but I'll reiterate my thoughts again for the sake of completeness. I didn't think Bungie would take "going bright" so literally. We are gamers, and we generally are on this site in the wee hours of the night.Don't quote me on that. I don't have access to Bungie's Google Analytics account, so I can't say with certainty that this statement is true, but I'm just going with my gut. Speaking of Google Analytics, it looks like that's what Bungie's preferred poison is. I thought they'd surely use Omniture or at least a half dozen other web trackers on their site. All they added was Add This, which is basically Google and Facebook integration. Anyways! I'm getting off track. We are generally here during dark hours. Yes, I know [url=http://www.bungie.net/en-US/View/community/blog/News?aid=10129] Stosh said " Readability. Your eyes will thank you later."[/url] And in a way it does make sense. There have been loads of studies regarding eyesight and black text on a white background. But if we cared about our eyes, we probably wouldn't be gamers in the first place. We stare at LCD screens all day anyways, so what's the difference? What I'd like to see implemented in the future is the ability for members to customize the appearance of the forums. Give it a theme kind of feel that is unique to each user. I like the idea of [url=http://userstyles.org/stylish/]Stylish[/url], but I'd rather the website supports it natively. That way if I log in with different browsers or different computers, I get the same experience everywhere. And besides, runningturtle said [url=http://www.bungie.net/en-US/View/community/blog/News?aid=10129]one of the main reasons for change was "personalization".[/url] Why not add this little tidbit to it? [u]Forums, the proper way[/u] There's no chance of forums going away anytime soon. It's orderly and easy to navigate. I think this was everyone's biggest shock when first hitting the "forums" section. Many users have also put this into greater detail than I will, so I'll just link their very well argued arguments later. [u][b]The text box editor[/u][/b] The thing I'm typing in right now. Whenever you create a new post or reply, it's generally the same thing. It's good. I like how there's a second box exclusively for media. That makes organization a heck of a lot easier. I haven't thoroughly tested this thing, but does it support extended characters? That is perhaps one of my oldest and most hated annoyances of the old site. You could copy and paste a segment of text from a news article and post it, but wait! You have extended characters that you can't even see, but the system detected it! Users are either forced to run it through a separate filter to strip all the excess characters, or retype the whole thing by hand. What I would like to see is either support for characters (not equals, infinity, and other odd characters would be nice) or a native button that strips the characters with very little fuss. Better yet, you could just automate it so when a user hits "Post", it will strip encoding automatically. That's be pretty sweet! But you might want to warn the user "Hey! Your formatting is funky, things might get weird when this posts. Do you want to proceed anyways?" .... or something along those lines :D Also I want my preview button back. What were you thinking? [b][u]-blam!-[/b][/u] Thank you webteam!!! Seriously this issue has been [url=http://halo.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=979375&postRepeater1-p=1#981128]hotly[/url] [url=http://halo.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=40189092&postRepeater1-p=1#40192026]debated[/url] [url=http://halo.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=58921987&postRepeater1-p=3]over[/url] the last couple of years. I really hope you updated the back engine too so modifying this won't require a full site redesign. Words and their meanings change over time, so the system that filters that will need to be updated as these trends take place. Does it still have to be -blam!-? Could it be potatoes? Or -Blames Stosh-? [b][u]Permalinking posts[/u][/b] This should be easier. Is there a native button that allows us to do this now? This could be for both entire posts as well as individual user posts. I know the old version had this possibility, but I could never figure it out. This would be doubly useful, especially with infinite scroll. On that note... [b][u]Infinite Scroll is a good thing[/u][/b] Welcome to the mobile age, everyone. This site has been optimized for mobile devices. The current iteration runs horribly on small screens, but that doesn't mean it hasn't been tweaked. Bungie said they were going to add loads to this, so bugs that are in the current layout will be fixed. Infinite scroll has been new since the dawn of the iPhone. Your music scrolls indefinitely (at least, until you reach the last song). Calendar appointments, email, even Gmail has updated its mobile version to support infinite scroll. It's quickly becoming a de facto standard for mobile devices. It's a helluva lot better than hitting next page, waiting for the [i]entire fricking thing to reload[/i], and continuing. [b][u]Squares![/b][/u] The entire website has a very blocky design. That's a good thing. It plays nicely with mobile devices. With that being said, Bungie uses a lot of on:hover attributes that end up breaking the site on a mobile device. I have to click threads twice: once to have the on hover attempt to display and fail, and again to see the content I want. I really hope this gets fixed. Better yet, I really hope the web guys make a mobile version of the site. Or do something like [url=www.gvsu.edu]this[/url]. Drag the window so it's smaller. Do it now. Then get back here. As the screen size changes, the content of the website changes. It's pretty new and pretty cool. Oh and uh.. make sure we can get access to the forums without having to do any fancy weird stuff. I like talking to the folks here, even on my phone. [b][u]API[/u][/b] Make it useful and awesome and you and I are gonna be grreeeeaaat friends. KTHANKS! [b][u]Notifications[/b][/u] I think we can all agree that subscriptions and notifications are a great thing. We can pick up where we left off last time we were here. It's implemented well and is dead simple to use. [b][u]Pinned Topics[/b][/u] I never used them, but I felt like they were great resources for new members. If you're gonna do away with them, go for it. Just make sure the resources for new members are accessible and available for helping them break into our awesome community. [b][u]Saved Threads[/b][/u] Where'd they go? Writing this post would have been much easier and have far more references if I had em. I wouldn't have to search for every past post, and I do remember a few good ones that would help fortify my position. I just can't find em. I might just resort to bookmarking these things. That way I have more control and bungie can't just pull the plug on my archives. All in all, it's an awesome update. There's some things that could be better, as always, but I like it. I know a lot of guys are like "AHHH IT SUCKS!!!" But hey, that's half expected when it comes to technological change of any kind. The always on menu bar is clean and nice. It's much better than [url=http://nikon.bungie.org/images/newbungienet.jpg]the version that was on when I joined the site[/url]. The social integration is awesome. Personally I would never connect Facebook with my gamer stuff, nor my gmail account. But hey, that's just me. If others want to be young and stupid and let everyone know what stupid stuff they post, feel free to offer them the functionality. The way quotes are handled is really nice and makes the whole thing easier to read. It prevents "thread distortion". I also like how we can ignore certain users. The first person I ignored is Spartain Ken. Just for laughs, really. He's a good guy and I wanted to test the feature. I hope you guys listen to our feedback and enjoy the weekend. You've earned it. Oh and if you disagree with me, feel free to post about it.