News / NE4 Genesis

<p>Can you make an option to disable the whole visability of the ranking system? 


</p><p>I play this game for my own enjoyment and I show sometimes screens of it, I don't want to see the whole ranking stuff all the time, it annoys me already to be honest. Atleast an option to remove the ranking system from the forums would be a good improvement for those that don't want it. </p><p>Maybe that wasn't clear yet, but what I mean is, that I certainly won't enjoy it anymore because now it's only a competition about who is best --&gt; who has the most points. Sure competition is good for those that want that, but I don't want it, and I would be really thankful with an option to disable it from the forums, for those that want that. </p>

Now that I have had time to take this all in, I wanted to pass along my thoughts on the new site

Positives
1 - The site looks fresh and VERY professional. Really shows that this game is still going strong
2 - NEDB - What else can I say other than sweet!
3 - Submission process is very transparent to the submitter. You easily see whats going on with your submission and even discuss/ask/answer questions.
4 - Power Rankings - Wasn't sure how that was going to work and I'm still getting used to it
5 - Shares - Allows to give credit where credit is due.
6 - Awards - Nice to see how the Awards over the years mean something now.

Suggestions
1 - I have concerns that for our new or visiting guests won't know about spotlights, golds, designs, etc. Those are the staples and history of what NE is about. Yes you can find them in the NEDB but I think there should be some sort of direct links to the list (within the NEDB) in the ribbon bar to these 5 categories. When I've gone to other sites fir the first time, I wanted to see what they considered to be the best parks and in a vast majority, they had a link to them all on the fount page. All of the old NE home pages had this and I think we took a step back in that regard.
2 - I think I heard it referred to as "Cookie Crumbs" however when you are in a topic, the listing of the forum/subforum you are in is not listed under the ribbon. Yes you can use the "back" on your browser however if you are a few pages into the topic, you either have to hit back a couple of times or start over in the main forum.
3 - Not that I used it a lot however is NE Chat gone for good? It was fun to drop in from time to time

Aside from those two items, I am extremely impressed with NE4 and by no means is this meant as a complaint. You both have done more for this site than anyone I can remember.

Again well done guys

James

i get on my laptop shortly before my last day of Florida and this is what i find. i am very impressed; i actually really want to play again now. haha

though i have to say a few of my parks are missing. =P do you guys only take into account significant works? i have a couple parks/designs that i really liked, but they never won anything so are they just not included? i'm just curious.

love the new design and all the features, great work guys!

I say it a lot but, what James said. I agree with all his suggestions.

Congrats, guys. Good to see my rankings and point system ideas finally put into effect.

Wow, just found this. I know this is beating a dead horse, but archiving all of these parks is just . . . for lack of a better word, awesome. I may not always agree with the mindset of NE, but this tells me that you guys are serious and professional.

And now that I realized there are already five pages I'll shut up.

just a quick suggestion for the new posts page, i honestly think it would be much better if the quote of the first post was omitted and only the topic titles were listed with the poster of the most recent post. in its current state a lot of the page is taken up with useless information that is cluttering what is supposed to be a page streamlining information for you.

Bravo! all i can say is bravo. You have taken this community, game, and online gaming, to an entire new level. You should be overwhelmingly pround.


FK

Suggestions
1 - I have concerns that for our new or visiting guests won't know about spotlights, golds, designs, etc. Those are the staples and history of what NE is about. Yes you can find them in the NEDB but I think there should be some sort of direct links to the list (within the NEDB) in the ribbon bar to these 5 categories. When I've gone to other sites fir the first time, I wanted to see what they considered to be the best parks and in a vast majority, they had a link to them all on the front page. All of the old NE home pages had this and I think we took a step back in that regard.

yeah

First of all, I hate to see parkmakers go. Its such an important part of ne history- maybe it could be done in another way. For example, a parkmaker could be required to have some amount of points (say 1200), have released at least one spotlight or say, 2 golds, and get 70% approval by the accolade panel. Maybe they could get a shiny medal on their page or a special color for their rank number, nothing serious, just the fact that they are a parkmaker. I feel like parkmakers are just so ground in ne history that they should be around.

That actually is a pretty good idea.. The competitive element with the current and all time ranking remains and a separation between parkmakers is awarded like we had with NE Parkmakers.. How cocoa explained the procedure it's also pretty objective as you now can take a certain amount of points and additional requirements to be able to become Parkmaker.. As I said, I don't think it has any effect on the 'NE Parkmaker curse' because the current and all time rankings remain and so you can always strive to become higher up in the rankings..

I agree with phatage and rctnw about the bronze/silver/gold/spotlight thing in the ribbon.. Maybe a drop-down menu would work?

SF

edit; And is the 'sign in as anonymous' function gone? I can't seem to find it, but when I'm not at home I would like to be able to sign in anonymously..

^I agree on that one, and also I think parkmakers could stay, it could work the way cocoa described. If you attain a certain number of points along with atleast one heavy release like a spotlight, that would make you a parkmaker. On the other hand, I don't feel it's an elementary feature as the rankings already tells you who is the best players, both currently and all-time. But I'm all for including direct links to the various accolade categories.

just a quick suggestion for the new posts page, i honestly think it would be much better if the quote of the first post was omitted and only the topic titles were listed with the poster of the most recent post. in its current state a lot of the page is taken up with useless information that is cluttering what is supposed to be a page streamlining information for you.

this

Just noticed another "bug": When I view my profile it says I've made 1,186 posts or something like that, which is some 120 more than I've actually done.

EDIT: Checked sam's profile now and it says > 4k posts.

EDIT 2: Maybe it includes posts made in the Games & Polls topic?

I agree with sssammy and chapelz.. would be better to get rid of that..

and you're probably right sv, they don't match and the games & polls posts are probably included on the profile page..

Again on the spotlight/gold/silver/bronze being directly available on the ribbon; Maybe get rid of the Awards/accolade overview/contests links as they basically only redirect to subforums and are not really that important.. Then you could create like a drop down menu under 'Competition' or create a new category 'accolades' and put the most important ones under that (Spotlight/Gold/Silver/Bronze/Designs) with a link to the appropriate NE Database searches/filters..

SF

Splitvision, I just noticed, it DOES seem to include posts in the Games & Polls topic, as there are many more posts than I had before. (like 4 times more!)

^^I actually thought the accolade overview was a link to the various categories, maybe it would be better if it were. Maybe the explanation of how the accolades work could be linked to on the categories page instead?

NE4 is so awesome!
Great work, guys!

Still need to get a bit more used to it, especially the forums are totally different to me. haha

I have a question: Can I add logos to my parks? I noticed some are missing from me.

"MFG"

^^But then it would link to the ne database itself as there are no accolade category pages anymore as there were in ne3. The only way you could see all the Spotlights are to filter the database on Spotlights, so the only way to get a direct link on the ribbon is to link the filtered search (on Spotlights) from the ne database.

I also noticed something else that I'm kinda missing; the board statistics and functionalities that used to be at the bottom of the forum, like birthdays/online user list/last clicked user list/number of total posts/newest member/most posts today etc.. Is it possible to bring that back? I think it's basically a standard ipb feature..

SF

^I agree with Six Frags, I suppose that wouldn't work...still really awesome though. Especially the Archives!

(And please bring back the Birthday bar-thingy!)

^Don't get me wrong, I think it could very well work indeed.. I think a simple link in the ribbon linked directly to the filtered search of the Spotlights category could be very handy..

Just noticed that the awards a park got appear right next to the write-up on the release page! Awesome.
I just love how dynamic this whole new site is!

SF