1661

sorry, didnt see this for some reason, but I agree complete- its actually horrible

1662

EXACTLY , I am sad now that it won’t be in game :|

1663

If the color scheme is really hard on the eyes or stuff looks wacky, make sure your browser doesn’t have stuff cached from the old site.

1664

It’s actually the fuzziness of the pictures and in particular the fuzziness of the text used for the banner and the navigation buttons (e.g., “Home”, “Lore”, “Journal”) that I find bothersome. It’s not a browser caching issue. Just to double check I did a shift-reload, but it really is the graphics they’ve used for this new design.

It’s like they took a bunch of shots through a camera with the lens smeared with vasoline. Obviously not that bad, but that’s the basic idea. Everything is slightly out of focus. IMO it looks ugly and actually a bit unprofessional, like whoever did it used the wrong setting or wrong format when saving the images – I’m sure that’s not the case and it’s actually a stylistic choice, but that’s what my gut feeling is when looking at the website. YMMV. I’m glad Razagon posted though so I know I’m not a minority of one!

I’m not saying this to beat up on Stardock. I very much want this game to be a success, and I really like Stardock as a company. I’m just saying that as one single data point, I find this website redesign very unattractive. If others agree then Stardock may want to consider a redesign. If we’re a very small minority they should appropriately ignore us as cranks.

1665

Razagon…thats actually pretty cool - Like a russian version of Aragorn!

1666

I like the new design. Plus, it loads faster in my browser.

1667

That’s interesting ydejin. I don’t see fuzzy text on the Chrome browser, unless I don’t understand what you’re referring to, which is a distinct possibility. What browser are you using? I’ve got multiple browsers installed on my dev machine, ill try loading up the page in different versions because now you’ve got me curious!

1668

I just tried the page and while it isn’t actually blurry it makes my eyes think it is, if that makes sense. My eyes are trying to adjust to the image as if it is not in focus, I think it is the yellow “back glow” effect on the text that is causing it.

Dunno if that is the same thing others who don’t like it are seeing.

1669

Looks fine to me.

1670

It looks a bit fuzzy to me. Between that and the font used for the article text, it looks pretty cheap overall.

1671

I wish I could say the same. All Stardock’s forum stuff (still) works like crap for me. Every time I visit I feel like I’m using a baud modem & a 2MB SVGA card or something. I’m kind of impressed they’ve managed to make it all work so incredibly badly. Nothing else I’ve ever come across has been anywhere near as bad.

1672

Oh, no. The forums are still terrible. I was referring to the Elemental page.

1673

+1 to say I preferred the old style on the website (fuzzy impression, horrible background colour … gah)

1674

I dislike the art direction of Elemental (including the website). There is too much reliance on a blur of middle tones, pastels and neutral colours. It lacks any sort of dynamism or clarity and instead comes out as a boring monotone. I’d rather see a few daring decisions made- it looks like art direction made by a committee.
(Can I say it also looks like motel art now?).

1675

Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m seeing. My eyes do that with both the image and on the text used in the top navigation bar.

I’m running Firefox 3.68 on Vista 32.

It’s not a browser issue though it’s their choice for whatever they used to create the main banner and the images used for the navigation buttons. It’s a matter of sharpness. Probably if someone ran “sharpness” in Photoshop on the navigation button images they would bother me less. Although in general I strongly preferred the previous website in terms of color choices, art direction, fonts – pretty much everything.

The fuzziness issue really is similar to what Brad posted earlier in his journals about the difference between the “advanced lighting” and “regular lighting”. As Brad said in his journal, “advanced lighting” perhaps might better be referred to as “softness”. For me the advanced lighting choice looks rather blurry, like everything is slightly out of focus. The blurriness effect is particularly jarring when used on the website. The effect in the “advanced lighting” and “regular lighting” from Brad’s journal is much more subtle. The website is like someone took the “advanced lighting” / “softness” approach and went nuts with it.

1676

I’m probably so damn near-sighted that everything looks fuzzy to me, so I can’t tell the difference. What is this “sharp” you speak of? ;)

Now, will Elemental just come out already so we can start talking about the game again? Sheesh, no matter how much I stare at my calendar, the 24th doesn’t approach any faster.

1677

Brad came by the office to show the game off today. Have to say, after seeing the toolset in action, I’m sold. I expect remakes of all the Ultima games, player community.

1678

Sold just on the toolset, what about the game itself…?

1679

Yeah, the toolset is a cool thing, but I didn’t play many NWN mods, despite the many excellent ones produced, nor did I get into making my own. I want a good 4X MOMish game out of the box with Elemental, not a promise of better things down the line because of the toolset. If that’s the case, I’ll just wait until that excellence appears and buy Elemental a year later when on sale at Impulse.

1680

It actually was a decision (can’t speak to daring) to follow a particular style. I can’t remember the name of the style or if it’s one particular artist, but a very early post in the Elemental forums linked to artwork that Elemental based it’s style on.

So, in short, it’s a very clear specific inspiration, not a committee thing. As with all art though, it’s in the eye of the beholder. It doesn’t blow me away,but then in a long strategy game I don’t want my artwork to feel busy.