4 ms·

I don’t know if it’s pure nostalgia talking here, but games sites back then were made to look fun like they were part of the game. Verses now when they’re a dul

by hnlmorg 10mo ago

I don’t know if it’s pure nostalgia talking here, but games sites back then were made to look fun like they were part of the game. Verses now when they’re a dull and corporate.

bsimpson 10mo ago
So many websites look like someone spent 10 minutes in Squarespace
asukachikaru 10mo ago
The manuals as well. Loved the WarCraft III and Diablo II ones. They were legitimately part of the game experiences as lore was told there. Now the publishers don’t even bother to include a single sheet.
- amatecha 10mo ago
  Heck yeah, when WC2 had just come out (and I didn't have it yet because I had a Mac, and the Mac vers came out like 8mo later), I remember poring over the manual and getting all up to speed on the game while anticipating the eventual Mac port. I was enough of a geek to scan some of the awesome artwork from the manual (we had a 300dpi scanner!) and print it out and then color it with felt pens. I still have my colored Death Knight kicking around somewhere (this artwork: https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Death_Knight_(Warcraft_II)?file=Death_Knight.png https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Death_Knight_(Warcraft_II)?... )
danaris 10mo ago
And these days it's worlds easier than it was back then to make sites with complex designs and game-like effects and animations.
password54321 10mo ago
When I first started learning about web design, I came across this popular book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Make_Me_Think https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Make_Me_Think And essentially you are taught to go against a lot of things you see in these examples and design things in the way modern websites are designed e.g. big call to action button, search bar on top and center, little clutter. Modern websites are meant to be more "simple" and "easy" as the web is now meant to be "accessible" to everyone rather than just for nerds.
- yunnpp 10mo ago
  Dude wasn't lying: he don't want to think. I bet he's all-in on AI and no-code now. "Don't Make Me Code! 10 tips for building passive income without writing a single line of code"
- hnlmorg 10mo ago
  I get why most modern sites are designed the way they are. I wouldn’t want my bank nor government websites to be cartoony. However game websites are going to be used heavily by people familiar with the game. Also, if the game UI is unfathomable then people aren’t going to like the game anyway. So you would expect any website that borrows from the game UI to also be discoverable. Personally I think a large part of the change was due to the shift to responsive websites. Back when everyone was using a 5:4 monitor you could get more creative and use things like absolute positioning. These days everything needs to be distilled down to the lowest common denominator because you cannot make any expectations about resolution nor aspect ratios. Add to that how the mouse cursor have been replaced with fat fingers, and you now require the site to be tolerant with input devices that cannot navigate fiddling controls. You could see the contrast back when sites first started doing a mobile versions of their site (before Google threatened to give poorer ranking to such sites).

by hnlmorg 10mo ago

I don’t know if it’s pure nostalgia talking here, but games sites back then were made to look fun like they were part of the game. Verses now when they’re a dull and corporate.

bsimpson 10mo ago

So many websites look like someone spent 10 minutes in Squarespace

asukachikaru 10mo ago

The manuals as well. Loved the WarCraft III and Diablo II ones. They were legitimately part of the game experiences as lore was told there. Now the publishers don’t even bother to include a single sheet.

amatecha 10mo ago
Heck yeah, when WC2 had just come out (and I didn't have it yet because I had a Mac, and the Mac vers came out like 8mo later), I remember poring over the manual and getting all up to speed on the game while anticipating the eventual Mac port. I was enough of a geek to scan some of the awesome artwork from the manual (we had a 300dpi scanner!) and print it out and then color it with felt pens. I still have my colored Death Knight kicking around somewhere (this artwork: https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Death_Knight_(Warcraft_II)?file=Death_Knight.png https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Death_Knight_(Warcraft_II)?... )

danaris 10mo ago

And these days it's worlds easier than it was back then to make sites with complex designs and game-like effects and animations.

password54321 10mo ago

When I first started learning about web design, I came across this popular book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Make_Me_Think https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Make_Me_Think And essentially you are taught to go against a lot of things you see in these examples and design things in the way modern websites are designed e.g. big call to action button, search bar on top and center, little clutter. Modern websites are meant to be more "simple" and "easy" as the web is now meant to be "accessible" to everyone rather than just for nerds.

yunnpp 10mo ago
Dude wasn't lying: he don't want to think. I bet he's all-in on AI and no-code now. "Don't Make Me Code! 10 tips for building passive income without writing a single line of code"
hnlmorg 10mo ago
I get why most modern sites are designed the way they are. I wouldn’t want my bank nor government websites to be cartoony. However game websites are going to be used heavily by people familiar with the game. Also, if the game UI is unfathomable then people aren’t going to like the game anyway. So you would expect any website that borrows from the game UI to also be discoverable. Personally I think a large part of the change was due to the shift to responsive websites. Back when everyone was using a 5:4 monitor you could get more creative and use things like absolute positioning. These days everything needs to be distilled down to the lowest common denominator because you cannot make any expectations about resolution nor aspect ratios. Add to that how the mouse cursor have been replaced with fat fingers, and you now require the site to be tolerant with input devices that cannot navigate fiddling controls. You could see the contrast back when sites first started doing a mobile versions of their site (before Google threatened to give poorer ranking to such sites).