Welcome to GTPX

[Timppaq]

GTPlanet is home to the largest Gran Turismo community on the Internet, dedicated to the wildly popular racing series on the PlayStation consoles. With more than 2.6 million messages posted, GTPlanet consistently ranks as one of the largest online communities on the web, and we can only get bigger as the release of Gran Turismo 5 appears on the horizon in 2008.

Should that be modified.. ? (from the advertising text)

 

[clacksman]

Well I for one cannot stand the light background with such a small font size. Having to lean in and/or squint to read posts is not the least bit entertaining. This site is now harder to read than facebook, when previously it was among the easiest-to-read sites I went to/used.
During the couple weeks PSN was like this (white bg/ small text) with no black skin I almost stopped going there, I was just paying attention to my own two or three active threads. At that time I went through the customization options of Firefox with regard to colour and size which was a poor fix.

Needs inverted colours or larger font please.

 

[Watchman]

 

 

[Famine]

Well I for one cannot stand the light background with such a small font size. Having to lean in and/or squint to read posts is not the least bit entertaining. This site is now harder to read than facebook, when previously it was among the easiest-to-read sites I went to/used.
During the couple weeks PSN was like this (white bg/ small text) with no black skin I almost stopped going there, I was just paying attention to my own two or three active threads. At that time I went through the customization options of Firefox with regard to colour and size which was a poor fix.

Needs inverted colours or larger font please.

CTRL & +

Job jobbed.

 

[daan]

Well I for one cannot stand the light background with such a small font size.

You should Go Postal.

 

[alba]

Another one for you Jordan. Threads/Posts NEW icon. I can tweak the color if needed too. I just made two for those if you want to use them.

Threads:

Post:

(if you want to use regular text on it)

 

[MadMax]

Hi Jordan ,

I like the new look of GTP. 👍 👍

You wrote that you'd like people to tell if something was out of place.
Well I just noticed that the Search!-button on the top right of GTP doesn't work.

One other thing I noticed , I was checkinh your profile Jordan
and tried to see "Recent Visitors" names/avatars.
There is the triangle in a circle that can be clicked , it hides/shows the numeral amount of visits but no those names ect.
I'm not sure if that is meant to be just "amount of visitors" or is that part a little out of place/ wrong?



MadMax

 

[Vasco]

Nice stuff Jordan, it's amazing the changes that have happened over the years. Just a little thing that you probably won't change, but the "new" post icon on people's posts is on the right (next to the time and date). If that could somehow be moved over to the left (to the right of the "Online Now!" notification perhaps) it would make it a lot easier to identify which posts in a thread are new. Maybe it's just my laziness + widescreen monitor though

 

[G.T]

Awesome changes. Definitely getting used to this style quicker than your other versions.

I am also in favour in having the XBL and PSN (or even just PSN) network usernames visible again. I always found it useful to see who it was I was playing with.

 

[kekke2000]

The new site is like taking a good working perfect site and pour a can of awesome on it. I usually get a feeling of coming home when I go to GT Planet. But now my home has become a mansion. 👍👍👍👍👍

 

[opladener]

Lookin' good.
Thanks for all the work you put in to make this a nice place for us 👍

 

[Loon]

^^ This doesn't seem like it needed to be changed from where it was.

Also, showing our posts and threads instead of our game tags? Not an improvement imo because it was fine before, and showed something useful.

 

[hornet_burnout]

I think its useful to show thread/post.

But PSN ID is of the essence. Especially when we "all" get GT5 (some day...) and start playing online. XBL was mostly left blank or made a joke of, so that can stay off!

 

[clacksman]

CTRL & +

Job jobbed.

Still a poor fix, as avatar column grows (and pixelates). Any protips for that that don't include Going Postal?

 

[BlacqueJacques]

Nice work Jordon; a great website/forum to get up to speed with Gran Turismo; will get a premium membership any day now.

 

[Famine]

Still a poor fix, as avatar column grows (and pixelates). Any protips for that that don't include Going Postal?

Carpe Jugulum, I say. No Feet of Clay here - procrastination is the Thief of Time.

*thud*

 

[Jordan]

I noticed that PSN and XBL id's are now missing. Any reason?

I didn't like adding that info to GTP9 because I didn't see any need for it to be displayed in posts, and sure enough I never used it and was happy to leave it out for this revision. But, everyone uses the site differently and it seems so many people miss it I must consider bringing it back.

GTPX mmmm, me likey, likey vewwy much.

Jordan, how many version do you think you're going to develop in the future. Or is GTPX the last update?

[/end curiousity]

Asking me that question right now may affect my answer, as this process has become a monumental task and has taken a tremendous amount of time and effort to complete. With that said, I do enjoy it, so I hope I will be able to continue. I always get ideas and play around with mockups, and if something starts to feel right, I'll keep moving it forward.

Here is what I think you should do for the gaming part, Jordan. Obviously I think the posts part there was a nice idea in design but like other people pointed out, it encourages the spammer inside of you

If you want to use that, I've made two icons for you (14x14 transparent png), all ready to go:

I'll post my other things when I'm done, cheers!

Post counts returned because the site is getting so large, I've found it difficult to keep track of who's who, and providing that general indicator of activity mentally gives you one additional marker to associate with them. Sure, registration date could be used, but we have many older account holders who browse but rarely post, and that doesn't give me an indication of how involved they are with the community. Thread counts returned because I want to encourage people to make more threads. Contrary to popular opinion, good, fresh threads are the lifeblood of any forum, and (outside of the GT5 forum) I think we could use more.

Well I for one cannot stand the light background with such a small font size. Having to lean in and/or squint to read posts is not the least bit entertaining. This site is now harder to read than facebook, when previously it was among the easiest-to-read sites I went to/used.
During the couple weeks PSN was like this (white bg/ small text) with no black skin I almost stopped going there, I was just paying attention to my own two or three active threads. At that time I went through the customization options of Firefox with regard to colour and size which was a poor fix.

Needs inverted colours or larger font please.

The colors are almost (and in some cases, identical) to the previous layout, and if you're using your browser's "default" or "normal" font sizing, all fonts should be exactly the same size. Could you take a screenshot of what you see?

Hi Jordan ,

I like the new look of GTP. 👍 👍

You wrote that you'd like people to tell if something was out of place.
Well I just noticed that the Search!-button on the top right of GTP doesn't work.

One other thing I noticed , I was checkinh your profile Jordan
and tried to see "Recent Visitors" names/avatars.
There is the triangle in a circle that can be clicked , it hides/shows the numeral amount of visits but no those names ect.
I'm not sure if that is meant to be just "amount of visitors" or is that part a little out of place/ wrong?



MadMax

The search form appears to be working for me - what happens when you try to use it? I've removed the list of users who have recently visited your profile, so that little arrow is redundant now but there is no simple way for me to remove it.

 

[Robin]

Its looks really nice and clean but it will take a bit of getting used to like with GTP9.

The only thing I feel that would be better (as some other members have already said) is to have the Username and Custom User Title back in the side pane because if you have a title which corresponds to your Avatar is doesnt really read / relate well.

Also I am seeing members by there Avatar now and not their name which is quite confusing (first thing you see). Everything else is top notch, thanks for all the work you have put in Jordan 👍

Robin.

 

[Nicknamealguem]

Well, I think I would be lying if I would say I didn't like the update. I like it, it delivers some freshness to this place, although I preferred the simplicity and cleanness of GTP-9

The place I love this update the best is in the news section. I think that part of GTPlanet really needed some majors revisions, which were nicely done.👍

Has for the forums, I like the new layout and great call in the placement of the search box.
The new posts/threads icons are a bit confusing at first but I am sure it's something to get used to quick.

The only things that bothers me and that I will miss deeply from GTP-9 is the cleanness of posts, or, to be more precise, and has I am sure most had pointed out, the user names up there in the posts. Although, it gives a more modern look, it's quite difficult to keep track of who's posting what, has the user-name gets kind of lost in/between posts.

Other than that, it's a quite nice update. 👍

 

[Public'sTwin]

If there's any feedback that I'm considering, it's that there's not very much contrast in the layout as a whole.

While very aesthetically beautiful, it seems that long periods of browsing may start to hurt the eyes because of the preponderance of the whiteish-eggshelly-paste color which forms the basis of the site's template.

I think a small, subtle addition of something like thicker breaks or a dark border would produce less visual fatigue/eye strain, especially for those who view the site in fill-screen mode like I (and I would assume others, as well) do.

 

[Max_DC]

After a short " What the..." I guess I like it so far 👍

 

[DustDriver]

As I'm someone who doesn't like change, it'll take me some time to get used to the new layout.
But still, a lot of things look to be improved.

The only things I don't like with GTPX have been mentioned.

The changed location of the username and user title.
It looks more tidy and clean, but that's the problem. They don't stand out any more, and It's a lot harder to keep track of people posting in the thread.

There are a lot of people who change their avatars frequently, so that's not always a good recognition point.

I also miss the PSN user tag, since not everyone uses his GTP username on the PSN.

And adding the postcount on every post is a 'weird' choice as well, for lack of a better word.
There are a lot of members with an average post count which add more valuable posts than other users with a higher postcount.
As you said, you want more threads. But I wonder if showing the thread/post count, won't attract the kind of people who will make threads and posts, just to increase the number next to their posts?

 

[clacksman]

The colors are almost (and in some cases, identical) to the previous layout, and if you're using your browser's "default" or "normal" font sizing, all fonts should be exactly the same size. Could you take a screenshot of what you see?

Yes, once I un-Ctrl-+ it somehow to show what size I was seeing that made me complain.

Also daan was second and Famine third to get the reference baked in to my fake internet handle, well done to both.

 

[clacksman]

Cleared "todays history" in browser (Firefox, current) and it put the sizing back to complaint level small for me.

Text from in screenshot: "This is what I used to see for default font and size in the body of posts, now I only see it here in the quick reply box."

edit:
photobucket link
http://i598.photobucket.com/albums/tt68/91Bw/temp/gtplanetscreengrab.jpg

 

[Keef]

If there's any feedback that I'm considering, it's that there's not very much contrast in the layout as a whole.

While very aesthetically beautiful, it seems that long periods of browsing may start to hurt the eyes because of the preponderance of the whiteish-eggshelly-paste color which forms the basis of the site's template.

I think a small, subtle addition of something like thicker breaks or a dark border would produce less visual fatigue/eye strain, especially for those who view the site in fill-screen mode like I (and I would assume others, as well) do.

I agree that at first the light colors separating the post body, the avatar area, and the borders in between posts, etc, bother my eyes a bit as they try to define the borders. I may well get used to it with a bit of use, I've only been on the new layout for about 20 minutes so far. That just seems like a very noticeable difference from the previous layout.

Also, I apologize if I missed your reasoning, but I'm bothered by the positioning of the username, user title, and online status. Going along with my preference for small and tidy signatures I find that these being above posts make the comments feel more random and less like a conversation. It doesn't read like a book anymore. While it's easy it associate the name with the avatar, it's harder to associate the user title with the name and avatar both, especially because people typically wrote custom titles to describe their avatar. It's also harder for me to associate the entire post with the username and avatar to begin with, resulting in me not wanting to bother reading it. Now that I'm in the advanced reply mode I'm scrolling down to look at the posts and I'm very pleased with the dates, times, and names being on the left, and the posts being all lined up like conversational paragraphs in a book. In this case the simple gray horizontal bars help greatly to associate each post with their poster without hurting the conversational aspect that a forum should have. I much prefer that layout over the actual post layout. It would be completely different and might ruin the idea of the new design, but I think it should be changed back.

Chalk me up to wanting the Gamer tags back. I quite like the simple look of Alba's XBOX and PS3 icons. Having the icons instead of plain text also looks more professional in my opinion.

I do quite like the banner on top and the main links though. Seems like a light blue line just spruces up just about anything lol.

 

[Tommi]

The changed location of the username and user title.
It looks more tidy and clean, but that's the problem. They don't stand out any more, and It's a lot harder to keep track of people posting in the thread.

There are a lot of people who change their avatars frequently, so that's not always a good recognition point.

I also miss the PSN user tag, since not everyone uses his GTP username on the PSN.

And adding the postcount on every post is a 'weird' choice as well, for lack of a better word.
There are a lot of members with an average post count which add more valuable posts than other users with a higher postcount.

These are the same things I am not particularly fond of too, I really would like to see the username and title moved back into their previous locations.
Also, one small detail i'm not a fan of is the position of the search bar in the header, I think it would look a lot better lower down in line with the tabs and the 'advanced options' link just above it instead, to me it looks out of place and obscures the picture.

Other than that, fantastic job Jordan!.👍 I really love this modern, sleek look you've given to the forums, a vast improvement over GTP9(and that was great!).

Thanks. Here's to the future of GTP

 

[spyrrari]

As I'm someone who doesn't like change, it'll take me some time to get used to the new layout.
But still, a lot of things look to be improved.

The only things I don't like with GTPX have been mentioned.

The changed location of the username and user title.
It looks more tidy and clean, but that's the problem. They don't stand out any more, and It's a lot harder to keep track of people posting in the thread.

There are a lot of people who change their avatars frequently, so that's not always a good recognition point.

I also miss the PSN user tag, since not everyone uses his GTP username on the PSN.

And adding the postcount on every post is a 'weird' choice as well, for lack of a better word.
There are a lot of members with an average post count which add more valuable posts than other users with a higher postcount.
As you said, you want more threads. But I wonder if showing the thread/post count, won't attract the kind of people who will make threads and posts, just to increase the number next to their posts?

+1...

Further no complaints at all,great job Jordan...👍👍👍


spy.

 

[Speedster502]

I have to say +1 to DustDriver, I agree completely with what he says. After roughly 24 hours with the new GTP I have to say it's grown on me but the issues still stand in my mind.

Another thing I just noticed is that when you go into a Forum's subsection the Viewing Number has been taken away, any particular reason? I know it wasn't overly useful in many aspects but I quite liked having it especially for the galleries, like in the Photography section where it's quite interesting to know how many people have been and looked at your thread/work. But I understand that isn't particularly of much help to people.

 

[boiltheocean]

 

[Max Powers]

I like the update, I'm actually pretty surprised there is so much criticism on here of it, I remember it happening with every update, but never this much. I suppose with such a large and dedicated userbase, it will happen.

I for one don't mind the post counts being displayed. Some people here have such astronomical amounts of posts anyway that there is really no reason for people to compete for the most posts. Plus, like Jordan said, it's nice to see how active people are.

I guess the one thing that I liked which is gone now is the Gamer tags for PSN/XBL, but I can't say it's really that big of a deal to me.