Probably in the minority here but I don’t think reverting is the right course of action. I’ve been around for a couple of BF website overhauls and each time I remember consternation initially.
Again in the minority but I do think the new website is more attractive (it makes the artwork pop more, for example) and they’re fixing unforeseen issues as they go - a little bit longer and I think the dust would have settled and all would be well.
I do think it’s good and right that Jason made a couple of statements addressing the feedback but ultimately the reversion to the familiar is only going to cause even more upset when the permanent change does eventually come.
I don’t know, I just think the better course of action would have been to iron out the problems and get it all sorted as quickly as possible. Obviously I’m not privy to the volume and specifics of the feedback they have received so that’s assuming it isn’t an overwhelming amount on simply the aesthetics, outside of the known performance issues.
Anyway, I like the new site even though, like every other corporate website in 2024, it is too damn BIG. It’s like people took the design lessons of crafting smart TV apps and applied them to everything. But if they don’t restore the wishlist function, I shall be very very cross indeed.
If subscriptions are gone, I also hope they’ll make the various exclusives available for separate purchase. Especially the subscriber-only Short Trips that were never on CD and aren’t out there.
I don’t particularly like the look of the new website, but it’s something I’ll get used to - that’s not what I’m put out about at all, and if they are getting a lot of complaints about aesthetics then I don’t think that’s a good reason to revert. Things change. We get used to it. The functionality, however, especially of the app, really does leave something to be desired.
That said, it does make them look very silly to be backtracking and reverting. I’m not sure any of this has been a good look for them as a company at all
But I thought the app was all sorted now? It certainly works fine for me at the moment.
The functionality of the site, aside from being a bit slower, isn’t something I’ve really noticed to be severely lacking either. Perhaps I use far fewer features of it than most but other than personally missing the ‘You’ve Got This’ sticker I honestly haven’t noticed anything that’s upset me.
But then I’ve read this thread with great interest and said to myself more than once, “I didn’t even know the old website had that!”
The app definitely is better than on first release, and though I’m disgruntled about loss of some filtering features and the playlist and stuff, I have been using it without issue and would have continued to, and I’m sure, given time, they’d have come to update it with all the features it was missing. I think it was just the sudden pulling of the plug of the old stuff to something that seemed quite inferior that was the sticking point for me, and I assume plenty of others.
I think the biggest annoyance I have with the new website is that I’m still missing my last two orders. Yes, I have backups of the released titles in those orders, but that they’re still not in my dashboard on the new site is very annoying.
The other two main annoyances with the new site are these. 1: the dashboard with all your purchased titles has result pages of 5 titles each, there’s no way to sort or filter your purchased titles on the website, and there’s no “page=2” in the URL so unless I search for a specific title, I have to scroll through 93 pages of 5 items each every time I want to browse through my purchases. 2: the “What’s New” page used to have all of Big Finish and the year/month in the URL. I could then go through month by month through all of their catalog and see what I was missing and just add the missing titles to a favorites folder. 3: And this is only slightly annoying (and to be fair, the old site didn’t have this either), but there’s no War Doctor Collection when there are collections for Doctors 1-13.
Oh bugger! I replaced the old password with the new one in my password manager, and since all of my passwords are randomly generated, I don’t remember my old one
I think reverting is a bad move, it would probably be easier to carry on with the new site and just fix the last few issues, but then if the new web developers aren’t being helpful (maybe they told BF they are busy now and won’t be able to fix the remaining issues for a few more weeks) then perhaps going back to the old site is the fastest way to resolve things for now.
I also changed my password in my password manager so will have to reset it again. At least I never deleted the old app.
I just hope this happens soon, and they release the pending releases, if this creates a whole lot more chaos then I won’t be pleased!!
Another apology. I just hope BF learn from this. It seems that a few things have probably gone wrong beyond their control but also some they could have dealt with better - particularly the way they communicate things to their customers.
You could say that the BF site is going through its Once and Future phase - it’s reverting back to an earlier incarnation! This means we’ll be able to celebrate a multi-website adventure for BF’s 30th anniversary, with the 1st, 2nd and 3rd websites coming back along with a previosly unknown Fugitive Website incarnation!
I get the stong impression that this isn’t an option. The web developers really do not appear to be in a position to fix things anytime soon - that is the reason why they have had to revert. We have already had 2 weeks of chaos and it really couldn’t go on much longer. There are also accessibility issues with the new site that may have legal implications.
