The Hidden Forest

The new portal design should be something like this:
http://www.thehiddenforest.org/port.htm

Visual, Functional, Simple. Yeah that would make a nice portal.

The VISUALS are VERY PRETTY, but IMHO the most important thing about "the portal" is to have ALL possible functions accessible from ANY page.

The old portal, the one before all the changes, was a 100% efficient from this perspective.

I know current is still a work in progress, but to get from A to B I need to keep going to the main screen to get somewhere else

That was true years ago, but imho nowadays all browsers have tabs. That's why you'll hardly ever see a website with those old deprecated frames on the left and side of the window with all the links.

Open the Portal Page as the first window then just right click open in new tab, avoid 1000 redundant links. I usually have the forum, and allaclone up just using different tabs.

The only thing I am not fond of with the new site is the fact that the news page is gone. I liked logging in to see what was happening on that front page. A little note that made me want to look for more info.

I voted no. I think the page is pretty, but it's too simple. From an artistic point of view, having a web site is like having a house. You want people to walk in, look around, admire the windows and shelves and lights and floor and the designs of the trim. You want their eyes to wander in wonder at every corner of the room, and with wide eyes and awestruck expressions....go into the next room.

Rerfu wrote:That was true years ago, but imho nowadays all browsers have tabs. That's why you'll hardly ever see a website with those old deprecated frames on the left and side of the window with all the links.

Open the Portal Page as the first window then just right click open in new tab, avoid 1000 redundant links. I usually have the forum, and allaclone up just using different tabs.

even with that in mind, I find new portal cumbersome. The display info doesn't fits onto 1024x800 screen, and I have to use individual links to get to separate parts of search, which use to be the same, etc.
Overall, I am sorry to say that, but as developer who CONTINUOUSLY uses the portal for quick searches for item ids, mobs, loot drops etc etc - the new system is FAR less convenient to use that the old one was.

Could leave the old portal up behind the scenes for developers in like a passworded portal/old directory? Unless web space itself is an issue.

I realize that one of the problems is finding a happy medium between programmers and users, trust me I've been on both sides of that.

Obviously, this is only a splash screen offering design and quick link to any main function. The real funcionality and navigation possibilities would be 1 click away inside the portal. You can always bookmark that.

Imo, an mmorpg portal shouldn't be a bounch of links with text and search fileds.

The poll isn't about voting on having functionality and usability or not. That will be granted either way.