Giant Flash Ad of Suck

[Fyron]

What's with the giant flash ad that spans across the page every time it is loaded? It's getting really old, really fast. Reminds me of 1998 style ad banners, taking over the actual content of web sites...

[Annette]

What browser are you using, Fyron? The ad should only open if you click on the "click to save" tab in the top right corner of the page.

[capnq]

There was a discussion of several bugs with the new ad over in the Dominions 3 forum here (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=585553&page=2&view=collap sed&sb=5&o=14&fpart=1). ('The buggy "click here" ad', last active 3/13)

BTW, one only has to mouseover the ad to open it; clicking it opens a new tab/window (depending on your browser settings).

[Annette]

Yes, you're right. I apologize for the way I worded that. The ad page should not reveal unless you mouse over the icon in the top right corner.

[Baron Munchausen]

Fyron said:
What's with the giant flash ad that spans across the page every time it is loaded? It's getting really old, really fast. Reminds me of 1998 style ad banners, taking over the actual content of web sites...



You mean at this late date you're still not using adblock? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Fyron]

For me, the graphic starts out gigantic, then shrinks to the little page-corner thing after a second or so. User Agent String is as follows:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.8.1.12) Gecko/20080201 Firefox/2.0.0.12

Even with Flashblock installed, the box for the applet starts out huge before shrinking to a small box in the corner.

Baron Munchausen said:
"You mean at this late date you're still not using adblock? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif "

Adblock does not block flash applets. This prompted me to actually install Flashblock, however. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Captain Kwok]

For me, it's just a small tab in the corner, using Firefox 2.0.0.12/13.

[S.R. Krol]

Apparently a lot of folks are now beginning to use peel ads. Spotted the online comics Least I Can Do and now PvP doing them. What I found interesting was the comments Kurtz made about the peel ad. You can find the full post at http://www.pvponline.com/2008/03/26/peel-ad/, but I wanted to direct your attention to a quote from it:

"I have received 10-15 emails today praising the ad and how fun it was to use. That’s fan mail for an AD unit. That’s not just unprecedented it’s incredibly exciting. In balancing commerce with art you compromise and being diligent about your advertising not alienating readers. You have to come up with exciting ways to match products with your audience so everyone wins."

See, peel ads are fun! Not a giant dose of suck! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Ballbarian]

Sorry. Giant dose of suck in my opinion. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[capnq]

Scott Kurtz said:"In balancing commerce with art you compromise and being diligent about your advertising not alienating readers. You have to come up with exciting ways to match products with your audience so everyone wins."

From this, I deduce that PvP and Shrapnel have quite different audiences. (Of course, I could have deduced that from the fact that I stopped reading PvP years ago, but am still here.) Has Shrapnel gotten any positive comments on the ad at all?

[S.R. Krol]

capnq said:
From this, I deduce that PvP and Shrapnel have quite different audiences. (Of course, I could have deduced that from the fact that I stopped reading PvP years ago, but am still here.) Has Shrapnel gotten any positive comments on the ad at all?



Yeah, apparently that audience doesn't have grumpy old Linux gamers. /threads/images/Graemlins/icon17.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

I don't know if anyone has written in praise of it, so I can't really respond to that, but like most things I'm guessing the negativity isn't really all that bad...

[Fyron]

I am neither old nor a "Linux gamer," and I still stand by the assertion that the ad is (was?) full of suck.

[Annette]

Well, we listened,and we responded. We appreciate your feedback.

[Ballbarian]

Thank you Annette. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
(Shrapnel rocks!)

I feel a bit of sympathy for whoever the peel ad idea & implementation belonged to. I can see where it had the potential and intention to be a low key way to advertise, but as with many things that are cutting edge on the net you run into incompatibilities and inconsistencies between browsers and systems.

I have been developing a small web presence for the county that I work for and have found it very frustrating to maintain functionality of the site across different browsers and even versions of browsers. It can be a very trying endeavor.

[Hugh Manatee]

Fyron said:
I am neither old nor a "Linux gamer," and I still stand by the assertion that the ad is (was?) full of suck.



Early Onset Ornery Crotchety Bastard Syndrome?

Meh, the ad didn't suck that much, as far as I'm concerned shrapnel needs to get even more aggressive with the ad campaigns.

[Fyron]

On a semi-related note, the press release text no longer appears to line up properly with the bugler background image in Firefox 3 (at least, in Beta 4), for longer blocks of text. The text barely fits in IE7.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/593329-pr_not_lined_up.png FF3

It also happens in Firefox 2, but to a lesser extent:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/593329-pr_ff2.png FF2

[capnq]

In Opera 9.26, the "Leading Aerospace Company" looks the same as it does Fyron's FF2 version.

But seriously, Fyron, is this really the first you've noticed that, or are you actively looking for things to criticize? Excessively long entries have overrun the boundaries of the Press Release box ever since it was first added to the site. (ISTR that initially the text was clipped rather than overrunning.) Whoever writes the press releases has gotten better at being succinct with the titles; this is the first one in quite a while that has overrun.

[Fyron]

I had the image blocked in FF2 (to make it easier to read the black text on top of the darker parts of the bugler), and only noticed it in a fresh install of FF3, sans any extensions. But anyways, the updated rendering engine in FF3 is something to keep in mind, since it apparently spaces the text slightly differently.

[Annette]

We do tend to have some wordy titles for our press releases http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif We're currently working on a site redesign in which issues such as this should be eliminated. Stay tuned for more goodness coming!

[S.R. Krol]

Bear in mind that the press release text is aimed at email subject lines with no real thought of how they'll end up fitting in the little boxes next to the forum. But as Annette mentioned the new design should fix those issues.

[Tim Brooks]

Meh, the ad didn't suck that much, as far as I'm concerned shrapnel needs to get even more aggressive with the ad campaigns.




Yeah, we agree. Well the peel ad is gone. In its place the new forum design just has a 500 x 500 pixel ad in the upper right corner all the time. No flash though, so nothing to complain about there!