Pull up a chair and let good ole' Moobeat explain.
A while back ago a very generous fan emailed me with a proposition to improve Surrender at 20. He offered to work with me to craft a better S@20 experience, one free from the chains of default blogger template. Knowing diddly squat about fancy beepboop website things, I graciously excepted FrostyNinja's offer and we began to hash out the details. This here what we decided on and I think it is a big improvement. Why don't we take a look at some of the improvements and new features?
One of the most prominent features is the new navigation bar at the top of the screen. This handy little device will help you quickly navigate to whatever sort of content you are looking for, instead of having to drudge through all of the old posts to get there. For example, say you wanted to see what the latest PBE update was, but you hadn't visited to the site a few days. You'd have a rough time trying to find that information and you'd probably channel that hatred into hating poor little Teemo. Now all you have to do it smack the button at the top and it'll take you right there. There is a button for each of the common types of content found here at S@20, but let's take a quick look at each category and what you can expect to find there:
HomeThis will lead you to an unfiltered list containing any and all S@20 posts. This is your best option for finding all of the most recent posts.
Red PostsThis will lead you to the very commonly posted Red post collections, featuring interesting tidbits from the Riot staff about all sorts of upcoming changes.
Live ServersThis will filter to posts specifically about updates for the live servers. Common content includes patch notes, new champion releases, skin releases, new feature launches, and skin/champion sales.
PBEThis will return a list of information pulled from each PBE update. This a a good place to find information about upcoming features, champions, skins, and other content that hasn't yet made it to the live servers.
LeaksIf you visit the leaks section, although not the most commonly updated part of the site, you will be privy to tentative information that wasn't exactly supposed to make it out to the public. Some examples of this would be all of the champions pulled from the 6-8 PBE update or the early reveal of Rengar's Bonetooth necklace.
eSports LeagueStarting soon, S@20 will feature more in depth and comprehensive coverage of the competitive League of Legends scene. This is something many of you have emailed me about and I'm glad to have a new staff member, Seranaya, on board to provide that for you.
ContestsThis one is pretty self explanatory, but it will filter you to all of the awesome contests and giveaways. I'll have a lot more of these coming up, many more than I have ever had in the past.
Another new feature is the site map located at the bottom of the page. Nothing fancy here, but you can find links back to the top of the page, a small ( yet currently incomplete) About page to give you some insight on the page and the people behind it, a donation link, and a direct link to the archive of site updates. My email address is also plastered down there.
Our last big improvement is the "Continue Reading" link at the bottom of posts on the main page.
This change is to address the issue of the the main page being too cluttered and you having to constantly mouse wheel down through all the long, yet wonderful updates. This will tidy things up a bit and hopefully shrink down average load times as you won't be sucking up bandwidth with all those extra pictures and youtube links. It's important to note that I have to go back and insert breaks in all the posts, but this is something I'm currently chugging through asap!In addition to these new fancy things, a few items have been moved around. You'll notice the social media buttons are now resting at the tip top of the page and the site archive, which is now a tasteful drop down menu, has been slapped right at the top of the side bar. Search bar is exactly where it used to be, one of the lone features to go totally untouched. What a trooper!
As always, I'm eagerly accepting your feedback and criticism, After all, this update is to improve the S@20 experience for you guys. The current design was in direct response to recommendations I received from my previous post. Feel free to leave comments below, tweet me, facebook me, or whatever! You can also interact directly with FrostyNinja over on reddit, where he is hosting a small AMA about the design process.
You also might be delighted to hear that I'll be doing contests and giveaways for the rest of the week in celebration of the new design. I'll have the first one up soon enough, but until then would you like a small peak at just a few of the items I have to give away?
P.S: We are aware the mobile version is a little dorked up right now. That is the next hurdle we will be tackling! Expect it to be updated soon, but in the mean time it is just a plain Jane sort of layout. Sorry for the inconvenience!
Bad-ass Captain Teemo!
ReplyDeleteTEEEEEEMO HAT THAT HAS TO ME MIIIIIIIIIIINNE!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteAww that teemo :3
ReplyDeleteThis is soooo good ! Great job ! Loving it ! :D
ReplyDeletesooo.....
ReplyDeletedo you'll update blog top all time?
with every new champ and skin?
Yes!
DeleteYou crazy, dawg. Nice new logo though.
Deletei declare pillow fight! For that teemo pillow!! Come at me!
ReplyDeleteyou should add a tad more border to the post. that teemo picture at the top is touching the side.
ReplyDeleteThat was the idea. As if he's popping out the side :P
DeleteThings look nice. As a web designer myself, though, I wish the CSS and Javascript weren't on each page. It would improve loading times and make things more clean to have them as separate files - if that's something that's even possible given the potential limitations of the S@20 host.
ReplyDeleteIt's Blogger's structure. Every bit of code is on the same file.
DeleteI don't use blogging sites/software outside of Wordpress code on privately hosted websites, so I wasn't sure. That's a shame but thanks for letting me know!
Deletei really need this pillow(kissen), what do you need :) omg soo cute <3
ReplyDeleteAnd it is VERY nice, congratulations on the overhaul. I've been visitting Surrender at 20 for a long time now, so well updated... Thanks for giving us an even better looking site, it looks amazing now, fits well to it's quality. ^^
ReplyDeleteVery sleek, looks great, I like the change!
ReplyDeletelooks good man
ReplyDeleteLooking good! :]
ReplyDeleteLooking fancy! Very well done!
ReplyDelete@MOOBEAT: Great job on the new design! I know alot of people are raging about it, but I really appreciate the devotion you have toward improving your site.
ReplyDeleteI don't like that I have to click a lot of links to get the new info and that I have to link different pages to get the different kind of news.
ReplyDeleteAltough I like the new design, what I liked the most about the old blogger design was that all the info was straight simple in just one post, and I could read the older ones just scrolling down.
I love it! Looks great and is much more user friendly. Thank you again for all the content you post. I get so excited when I see something new!
ReplyDeleteEverything looks so much better. Awesome!
ReplyDeleteIt looks great!
ReplyDeleteShiet! You must have payed a fortune for this design. It's freaking awesome!!!
ReplyDeleteWas looking for where I could compliment the new format, great job! :)
ReplyDeleteYup, the layout is much better now!
ReplyDeletelooks awesome, and oh my that teemo stuff looks great!
ReplyDeleteWhy was I never able to buy neither astronautilur nor pool party ziggs on PBE in the last days? i thought they put them off again today or yesterday?
ReplyDeletealso will the giveaway be open for EUW too? =)
@moobeat Is that a teemo hat and pillow i see... get to the contest alredy! I have to win those!!!!!! Also: I like the new style on the site altho it took some getting used too :)
ReplyDeleteThe line lengths are too long in the main body copy area of the posts though :(
ReplyDeleteIs there any way that continue-reading could be... not the default? I'm sure many people like it, but my love of S-20 over eg the leagueoflegends main site is that I don't have to guess in advance what I'm interested in reading.
ReplyDeletecoool tocmeee
ReplyDeleteI think the text is a little hard to read for the new version, possibly because the line spacing is so close. Other than that, the new features are nice.
ReplyDeleteSomething disapeared in the transition: the link on the right to the champion build simulator (http://lol.fanrealm.net/GNsSk5u4juaSTLUhYwl4/#stats)
ReplyDeleteI've tried to contact the guy who runs it but haven't got any responses for a little while. It also hasn't been updated to include Diana or Zyra. I got a few emails about this, shot Mokulu an email about it, no response, so I didn't put it up just yet. There is a banner ready to be put up when I get a message back from him.
DeleteAdditionally, I'm still working on creating a separate ( read as not in the banner ) affiliate section atm.
I just found this sight a week or so ago. I really liked how quickly you guys update with new info on League but it was really hard to read anything on the screen for long periods of time due to the pink on the edges.. for some reason that messed with my head. Super excited about the new lay out! please keep up the good work, cause I'm really growing fond of this sight!
ReplyDeleteNeeds more purple. I am displeased.
ReplyDelete