New Kongregate Version: New Homepage Split Test page 3

For Recommended Badges, I think you should be able to scroll over it and a little pop-up will tell you how to complete it. Would be convenient.

As for this layout, pretty good, but Recently Played = Switched with Reccommended.
Also, Latest News, higher up please!

Originally posted by Tomiku:

…so apparently I’m in the half that sees it. Can I opt out somehow? I mean, I might like it eventually, but between my gut instinct that all change is bad and youtube’s horrible redesign I really don’t want to deal with another site I frequent being unfamiliar.

Yeah, youtube is being really weird for me but I kind of like Kong’s new layout, although it will take me time to get used to.

++ for new homepage layout
i really have to say i like it. =)

Wow, I really like the new homepage. Especially the recently played games list is great!

I think the new layout for the homepage looks cleaner, but I don’t like the shift in focus back towards established high rated games. Kong’s last few updates were pushing the idea of getting players to try more than just the very top rated games, and this seems like a step back from that. Mostly I don’t believe games with badges need so much extra promotion, either from the player point of view or on Kong’s side of it.

Originally posted by Tomiku:

…so apparently I’m in the half that sees it. Can I opt out somehow?

I want to know this too. I never asked nor was asked to take part in this, so I shouldn’t be forced to. Give us an opt-out option now!

Not sure if this was posted elsewhere, but has the whole “Badge of the day >>> Gamestop PowerUp rewards” thing been eliminated?

love the new homepage thing it looks really well done

Originally posted by Megadude2008:

Originally posted by Tomiku:

…so apparently I’m in the half that sees it. Can I opt out somehow?

I want to know this too. I never asked nor was asked to take part in this, so I shouldn’t be forced to. Give us an opt-out option now!

I agree. Please allow us to go back, because I honestly don’t like the new design. In fact, I even liked the old version (before 2011.09.26) better. Have you even considered allowing users to pick their favorite version?

Got to say, I honstely love the new design. The top games of the week/month are much better layed out and stand out more. Also, the latest played and recommended badges are a great touch. Very nice indeed.

I don’t have the new layout design, but since most of the people claim it’s good, I’d want it too. ._.

Wow, I like this update :D

This update is really really awesome. There is only one small thing to critique… and that is, in the sliding game displayer up top, the ‘Play Now’ button goes on top of the badge description. But I’m sure that can be super-easily fixed. In any case, I think all of it looks really good. As a developer, I really love the ‘Top Games this Week’ and ‘Top Games this Month’ obviously. But the Recent Games is epically nice too. And so is thew new format with pictures at the slider bar on the top. Having the picture integrated with the text is really awesome! And I love that you put arrow bars on the ‘Hot New Games’ and ‘Recommended Games’, those will help keep us busy =). And the Reccomended Badges are nice too!

So overall an absolutely awesome update… just fix the ‘Play Now’ button and things will be super epic =D.

Originally posted by CandyCastle:

I don’t have the new layout design, but since most of the people claim it’s good, I’d want it too. ._.

I have the same thing to CC :(

Everything else looks good except new homepage

Featured and highlighted games is now too small
Bring bigger version back. Stretch the page if necessary

I like recently played games feature though. No need to download buggy scripts anymore

EDIT: Bottom area of homepage looks now 1000% more awesome :)

Front page is too full, would rather have the recommended badges moved next to hot new/recommended games, whilst broadening the Featured Games box. Also, and this is a minor rant, the images in the Featured Games box aren’t clickable anymore. Everytime I go to the frontpage I’m like “Let’s play this game on the frontpage. Oh wait. FFUUU~~ gotta click the actual link instead T_T”.

I’ve got some stupid question… How does the Kongregate know what badges are to recommend for me?

Originally posted by saybox:

I think the new layout for the homepage looks cleaner, but I don’t like the shift in focus back towards established high rated games. Kong’s last few updates were pushing the idea of getting players to try more than just the very top rated games, and this seems like a step back from that. Mostly I don’t believe games with badges need so much extra promotion, either from the player point of view or on Kong’s side of it.

We’re actually trying really hard to show users more, and more varied games than with the old homepage. We’ve totally taken away “top rated” for registered users, and have added the “top weekly” and “top monthly” to more obviously call out great new games, as well as adding more slots in hot new games and recommended games.

I see what you’re saying with regard to the recommended badges, but even there we’re basing it off of your ratings so you’re seeing content that is personalized to you and not just ones we think are swell. I also think this is getting more important as time goes on, we have oodles of badges now, I know I can’t keep up with all of them so this is helpful in surfacing badges I’ve missed that I’d enjoy earning.

Or, as an alternative, at least make the recommendation engine not recommend games that we’ve already earned badges for. That would eliminate a ton of them.

That’s actually how it should be working. Are you sure it’s not? I know there are tons of games that I’ve rated highly and thought I’d earned the badge in, but when I went to check, turns out I hadn’t. You can also just hover over the points icon and click the [X]. The recommended badges group will never show that to you again.

Not sure if this was posted elsewhere, but has the whole “Badge of the day >>> Gamestop PowerUp rewards” thing been eliminated?

Not eliminated at all, just taken out of the featured games section :) You can see the badge of the day info below the ad on the right, and there’s GameStop PowerUp rewards on the right and in the footer, if you’re in the US.

I’ve got some stupid question… How does the Kongregate know what badges are to recommend for me?

Magic!

(or we use an algorithm using your ratings and the games our recommendation engine thinks you’ll like. It’s all based on your game ratings though.)

So overall an absolutely awesome update… just fix the ‘Play Now’ button and things will be super epic =D.

We’ll be fixing that :)

I wasent to happy when the last big update happend a quite while ago. But with all the small updates u’ve been doing every since, it has turned it rly nice, gj.

Thanks for that update, but I have a question : What’s the difference between API and badged games (in top rated games)? Some games with badges are considered as API and other not.

Originally posted by blackchips:

Thanks for that update, but I have a question : What’s the difference between API and badged games (in top rated games)? Some games with badges are considered as API and other not.

Game developers need to put our API in their game (it’s some code that talks to some code on our side) for us to be able to put badges on it. There are lots of games that have the API (if you can see high scores, it has the API integrated) that don’t have badges, but no games have badges that don’t have the API.

Originally posted by furrymessiah:

It has its pros and cons, I think.

I like being able to see the icons for the monthly/weekly games, but it de-emphasizes the fact that those games are in a contest.

The Recommended Badges thing is a cute idea, but I’m not fond of the way it doesn’t tell you the parameters of obtaining the badge.

Other than that, I like the new layout.

Regarding the monthly/weekly games, those actually aren’t the contest leaders. Those are the top-rated games for the previous 7 days and previous 30 days. While they will often be similar, the actual contest results are visible on www.kongregate.com/contests. Since we’re using a rolling 7 day and rolling 30 day high score, these “high rated” games should change around a lot and provide some interesting and potentially hard to find gems to try out.

I should also mention that games that are featured elsewhere (like with new badges or in the popular games list) won’t show up in these lists.

Originally posted by Megadude2008:

Originally posted by Tomiku:

…so apparently I’m in the half that sees it. Can I opt out somehow?

I want to know this too. I never asked nor was asked to take part in this, so I shouldn’t be forced to. Give us an opt-out option now!

It’s not a forced clinical drug trial, my friend. It’s a new layout on a free gaming site. “shouldn’t be forced to” really doesn’t apply. Websites try out new designs all the time, and place people into test groups. Many don’t even tell them that it is happening, but we like to be a little more up front with everyone (plus, you guys would figure it out pretty quickly anyway, haha).

As for all of the questions about “opting out”, and choosing between the various layouts, that would pretty much destroy the purpose of the split test. Also, when we do pick one, we won’t be able to maintain multiple layouts – they use different data sets that we would have to always try to keep in synch, as well as different asset sizes.

There is a bug in the recently-played page; it actually hides all games on the right column, showing some gray space instead (anyway I’m still a bit annoyed by the non-existant privacy concern that caused that page to be marked as private).

Thanks for answering, Phoenix. I’ll wait to see how it turn out, then.

Originally posted by Phoenix00017:

It’s not a forced clinical drug trial, my friend. It’s a new layout on a free gaming site. “shouldn’t be forced to” really doesn’t apply. Websites try out new designs all the time, and place people into test groups. Many don’t even tell them that it is happening, but we like to be a little more up front with everyone (plus, you guys would figure it out pretty quickly anyway, haha).

As for all of the questions about “opting out”, and choosing between the various layouts, that would pretty much destroy the purpose of the split test. Also, when we do pick one, we won’t be able to maintain multiple layouts – they use different data sets that we would have to always try to keep in synch, as well as different asset sizes.

Oh, I wasn’t trying to rage about it or anything, I was just legitimately curious; I have a problem with change and I don’t expect anyone to cater to me, I just don’t want to deal with it if I don’t have to. I edited my post shortly after to try and give some actual feedback. Unlike changes to certain other websites _coughcough I think I could definitely get used to this… eventually. ;P