The new dashboard is completely awesome! I love the next game button!

First of all i welcome the transition from Flash to HTML.
This makes it possible to tailor the site to my needs using browser extensions such as Stylish, GreaseMonkey, etcetera. (As a side note: tables for layout are really vintage.)

For the remainder of this post i will try to voice my concerns and point out the problems i perceive.
This should not be seen as critique on the work done, but as honest feedback which can be used to improve the overall site.

My biggest concern is that pages such as "My Games" and "Open Games" are going to be replaced by the dashboard page. Traditionally a dashboard is used to provide an overview of the status of different sections of a system. As such, a dashboard has a different goal than specialized pages, which means replacing these specialized pages with the dashboard will lead to a changed user experience.
Also, it is harder to add functionality to a dashboard page than to a specialized page since the space (above the fold) is limited. A dashboard is all about providing an overview, meaning less is more. Every added feature increases the complexity of a dashboard. On the other hand, adding a feature to a specialized page is a lot easier: as long as the features on that page are cohesive it will feel natural (It is more nuanced, but i will not go into information architecture here).

It looks like this transition is not well thought out. I think it would help if you created personas for the site and did some story mapping. People use the site in different ways and as a result they have different needs and expectations. Creating a one-size-fits-all solution will be a very daunting task.
I, for example, play only real-time multiplayer games these days. The only things that matter to me are an overview of open real-time games, creating games and playing them. I have no use for a dashboard, or notifications, or a button to go to the next game. For someone who plays mostly multi-day games notifications and an easy way to go from one playable game to another might be essential. Some value the social aspects more and are active in a clan and participate in the fora. The added value of the dashboard for any of these type of players is hard to see; in all cases they are presented with more irrelevant information which results in a worse signal-to-noise ratio than the previous situation.

Finally, most problems i see are related to consistency, visual hierarchy and attention to detail:

• Why are the headers of the sections "Tournaments", "Recent Blog Posts" and "Forum Posts" center-aligned, and those of the sections "My Games", "Promoted Games" and "Open Games" left-aligned? Why do they have a different font size?
  
  
• The links to show all forum posts or all games are placed inside their corresponding section, but the link "See past games" is placed outside the "My games" section?
  
  
• Margin and padding can be improved in many cases. There is barely any space between "Open Games" and the buttonbar "Multi-day | Real-time | Both". The flat icon overlaps the 3-d effect of the button it sits on. There is no space between the game name, the squares representing the number of players and the icons of the game.
  
  
• The style of the refresh page button differs from the rest of the page.
  

Like i said: i welcome the use of HTML.

*UPDATE*

After playing with the dashboard yesterday i concluded it is not for me (i tweaked it to my liking using Stylish).
After reading some threads it looks like there is not an entire team behind this game / site, but more like 1 or 2 developers. Feel free to PM me if you need some extra hands.

For the coming changes: it might be worthwhile to discuss them with the community before the work is started.

Edited 1/11/2015 11:52:22

This is awesome I can now open multiplayer on my phone, click on a game (thumbnail of a game) which will then open in the warlight app I love that. Next game button is equally brilliant.
The New dashboard would need more filters imo, including filters for open games.
The refresh page button is unnecessary imo, everyone know how to refresh a page->no need for it

I don't like that Warlight is suggesting I take my turn in games I am stalling. BACK OFF! I do like that it tells you how many players are in the RTL so I don't have to go there to find out no one is playing.

I'm personally not a fan of this update. This is taking one step forward, but taking five or so steps backwards.

The new dashboard looks way too clustered, and really does not appeal to the eye whatsoever. My main problem is that the dashboard is supposed to solve problems, but instead causes more. The current filters available are way too simplistic, and don't show the games I want to see.

The "Active games where I am not eliminated" filter needs to be added back into the system before I can like this update whatsoever. All current filters show too many games, or no games whatsoever. Also, the tickbox for saving filters as defaults isn't working. I've tried it multiple times already, nothing seems to be working whatsoever.

To summarize: Dashboard looks way too clunky, doesn't show what I need it to show at all. Current set of filters don't show the games I want it to show (*Active games where I am not eliminated), but instead shows games where I have been eliminated for months now, or doesn't show any game whatsoever.

Short comment to update.
Nice idea of update but its not comfortable to my eyes.

is there a legend somewhere to describe what the icons under the new games mean?

I agree with Aerburne.

This is taking one step forward, but taking five or so steps backwards.

Too cluttered, poorly designed as the rest of the people said. There should be an option to make whichever Multiplayer tab you wish to be default, I'm making it a habit to quickly press my games/open games. Speaking of which,

DO NOT GET RID OF MY GAMES! DO NOT GET RID OF OPEN GAMES!

If anything, get rid of Past Games and Dashboard. I think the effective solution to the Multiplayer dashboard is to make it include single-players games ongoing and recent finished ladder games, and make all this optional. Past Games, that's not such a major problem, just move it right a couple of tabs, it has no priority over my games nor open games, and I think most will agree.

It changes things. I don't like it. I'm going to insult you for improving this very enjoyable free game in a way that is not exactly what I would have done if I were you.

(I am going to bitch about something though, I don't understand why you had to remove the "active games where i'm not eliminated" option. Oh and...yo mama...something something...I'm not very good at jokes. Sorry. )

Things I like:

- Time and settings icon.
- Next game button.
- Map of the week.
- html.

Things that can be improved:

- More filters for games. Right now all the games with unread chat appears, even if you surrendered or the game finished o_O If possible improve the filters, so you can combine them, for example:
+ One option for only active games
+ One for unread chat
+ One for it's my turn
+ One for I didn't surrendered
etc but no "games where I am active and have unread chat", separate the options have more possibilities :)
The ideal would be to be able to enable each game individually but I guess this would be more difficult.

- Show/hide buttons for each part (my games, open games, coin games, forums info, blog info...)

I think that's all for now :P Thanks for keeping working on the game.

Edited 1/10/2015 16:00:49

{rp} Julius Caesar wrote:

Also, is this Mercer guy actually working for you or is an elaborate troll?

Look at his clan, "WarLight Staff". I doubt Fizzer would allow that clan name if it wasn't legitimate, besides, he himself is a member too (to the best of my knowledge, you have to confirm wanting to join a clan; you cannot be made a member without knowledge and consent).

(Also note I'm not a member of that clan, so this is not an official answer. :p )

Would like to add that I appreciate the work that was done, and especially like the shift to HTML.

To be more specific about my last point -- on how My Games are listed -- I agree that the key issue is the need to return "Active games where I'm not eliminated" as an option.

In terms of how they're ordered, options for a) how long it's been my turn (what I used before) and/or b) how long until I'll be booted, would be ideal IMO.

Most other items I either like, or I suspect I will get used to over time.

I think the changes are good. It's a little cluttered now but I think that will pass with time as I get used to it. Very happy! Thanks.

I dislike several things about that:

1) Dashboard is hella cluttered. Only thing I need from it is to let me browse real-time games, I don't want it to do anything else. "Promoted games" are really meaningless for me, but they stay as a form of some annoying ad.

2) Game is loading every time I join new game. Thus, it takes 3-4 times longer than usual to join a game. For me, its absolutely annoying.

3) Open games and my games are broken now. Removal of abovementioned filter is something that I can live with, but removal the short description of settings, mentioning turn time and teams and replacing them with a BLANK SPACE is something that I absolutely hate and don't understand why it was done.

4) Open games/my games tabs are gonna be removed? Really? Why god why.

Edited 1/10/2015 16:45:36

@Thor
Simply hover the pointer over them.

Edited 1/10/2015 16:55:33

I don't mind the idea of the dashboard. In fact, I like having everything together. But on thing is getting on my nerves about it;

Please stop shoving Coin Games down our throats....with the strange rules for the fees you take and the min/maxs they're just not worth playing. Naming them "Promoted Games" isn't helping, it just seems like you think we're all idiots and that "Promoted" games are somehow more important and so we should clearly be putting money in to play them. What percent of players actually bought coins so far? I'm guessing not enough to justify having the box displaying them shoved in our faces as if it's more important than the "Open Games" box, and we can't even collapse it.

I was optimistic about Coins in the first place, and don't mind coin games existing alongside the other games, but promoting them to the point of displaying them as the most important games is just too much. I know you're trying to make money off of this, but you're blowing it a bit out of proportion. First they were put alongside regular games on the open games page. Now they're ABOVE the open games. Next I expect them to be above "My Games" and have neon flashing lights around them like a cheap banner ad.

I apologize for the rant and for the sarcasm, I just really don't want this to get overblown, because doing so alienates the rest of the player base. As far as more level-headed feedback:

- Please make clicking anywhere in the box for a game open it, rather than having to target the title or map image
- Please put Clan forums on the page as well, it looks like you could fill more room on the left side anyway
- An alternative to that would be allowing clan leaders to keep a sort of "blog" that would show up on the clan's homepage as well as this page. You could limit the characters so it's not an eyesore, but this would be a huge advantage for clans in terms or organizing, news, and getting updates to clan-members without them having to navigate to another tab entirely, which many don't often have time for.
- Allowing us rearrange boxes and/or collapse them would make a world of difference. As to the coin games, I wouldn't care if they defaulted to the top of the page and even spanned both columns as a default to show new members, as long as I could move it somewhere else or minimize it.
- It would be nice to have an option (radio button?) where games would automatically open in a new tab, instead of needing ctrl-click or right-click
- Oh, and could the refresh button go somewhere else? like the top of the page? It just feels weird and out of place where it is now.
- If you won't update things like that, please at least leave the My Games tab alone. You could even get rid of the link to it, as long as we existing players could use it by using a direct address to it

Edited 1/10/2015 18:04:40

Just a quick review on my initial thoughts:

I like some of the features like the icons that give a description of each game, but there needs to be some things removed from the multiplayer tab. If this format remains I have to say that I'm going to severely cut down on my WarLight activity because the Multiplayer tab is far too cluttered and crowded for calm, casual play.

-ARC

I'm able to the games on my phone, but the play them.

WARLIGHT ON WINDOWS PHONE

please just give me my filters back

Some good features, some bad. It's not as bad as I thought it was upon first glance of seeing the hodgepodge.

Restoring the dot instead of the new dash would be nice. The dot is too hard to see.

"Active games in which I am not eliminated" was always my default setting before this switch; it would be nice to see that added back in. I don't need to see long-play games on the list in which I was long ago elimmed, but someone chatted and I never read it.

Also, a total of actives would be nice. I don't want to have to count the games by hand to see if I'm in too many and thus don't want to add any more, or am not in as many as I'd like and would like to go looking for some open games, tourneys, etc.

Finally, the scroll bar within the games list is a classic example of "don't know what you got 'til it's gone." I hope that comes back soon.