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3.0

Monday, April 26th, 2010 at 10:24am by

old header

We’ve come a long way since we launched in December of 2006 (with the above header), based on a stoned conversation between Axl and Vince at an Amon Amarth / Children of Bodom show in NYC.

We’re still working out a few kinks, but let us know what you think of the new layout. We hope you like it. Feel free to call us sellouts.

- VN & AR

  • Slaughterhouse

    Looking good!

    • Slaughterhouse

      After 2nd glance, I think all of the links to the reviews and interviews should be moved to the left and the main page centered more!

      • Slaughterhouse

        or to the right I guess

        • baalthazar

          loosk awesome!, but i would put the links of the other sites darker, i can barely read them…. i have to hover to read them well… and maybe put the links above recent reviews..
          other than that is awesome!

          • Brian

            I agree with the above. The off center thing is a little annoying. I would do one column on either side of the articles to make it more balanced.

        • Cryzthormagnusian

          I concur. Move the crap on the left to the right.

      • CJLsky

        I agree with this. But it wouldn’t be the end of the world if it didn’t get centered…otherwise, I dig it!

  • http://www.thedevilsdemons.com vp

    It looks really good. Well done.

  • Johnny

    i realy like it guys, good fucking job!

    • Johnny

      CAN WE GET FORUMS?!?!?!?!

      • Tayne Hughes

        i second this. please, please put up forums!

        • WowWee!

          No. Forums suck!

          • http://www.last.fm/user/M60Patton Patton

            So does metal, I say go for it !

          • Che Guitarra

            Forums do suck. And let’s be serious, would anything constructive come of ‘em? Fuck no. People would do nothing but argue about nothing, start threatening each others lives, eventually someone would roll up on another unsuspecting suckalos house, kill everyone inside, get arrested, then the rest of us would be accused of being in a cult or some shit… I’d rather just avoid it. Fuck the forums.

            On the other side, nice job guys. I like the facelift!

          • Tonberry

            Looks great, I like the darker red.

          • Tonberry

            Oops, meant to be a new post.

        • Amber Lamps

          FORRRRUMMMMMMMSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! do it now.

  • Double D

    I gotta say, it’s a little busy. A little too much shit on the page. I’m also not a fan of the words being all smushed together. I’m not gonna stop visiting the site or anything, those are just my 2 cents.

    • Fasshole

      Agreed.

      Was perfect as it was.

    • http://www.metalsucks.net Vince Neilstein

      what do you mean about the words being smushed together? send a screen cap please to news [at] metalsucks [dot] net and let us know what OS and browser you use.

  • bloodtasteslikeshit

    you guys need more banner ads. that would be real sweet.

    • C

      hahahahahahahaha

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Bobby-Tims/1313713879 Bobby Tims

    yeah some of the framing and everything needs to be worked out, it does feel a little cluttered. i don’t really like the way that everything is positioned to the left of center, maybe you can format some of the ads and everything to the left so the material is centered?

    other than that i like the style, good move.

  • bearbomb

    Looks good.

    Upcoming releases?????

    • Uglymicrowave

      agreed….do an upcoming releases section

      • Zap Branigan

        Agreed, this is something I’d definitely like to see on this site. I used it a lot when it was here previously.

      • http://www.myspace.com/somethinglikesweet CJ

        Definitely an upcoming releases section. Good call.

  • SP420

    Not bad, not bad. The right side seems a little cluttered though with the two columns. The subtitle below MetalSucks is…eh, too. It looks too static.

  • http://www.hibernum.net hibernum

    Looks good. Very clean and streamlined. One thought: there seems to be a lot of wasted space at the margins. Where there were ads, there is nothing. So it looks like the whole page was compressed to make room for nothing. Which is of course the most brutal gift ever.

    • Aaron

      What he said.

  • RayRay

    Looks good guys. I say the first post is about Bret Michaels??? Thats my guess

  • The Deformed B

    I do enjoy the new lay-out, although it takes slightly longer to load. the interviews and album reviews on the right being more noticable is nice, however some things seem out of place atm (for example, this chat box im typing in atm doesn’t fit into the background for it)

  • booortz

    The subheading (“Still reigning in blog”) looks really out of place because of the jaggy edges. Anti-alias, add some noise it or maybe a font that fits the theme of the page better. It looks too pristine and cut-out

    • http://farbeyonddriven87.tumblr.com Voltron Futura

      That’s called a serif typeface, but I agree with this to an extent. I think if the color were dulled to a cream or grey similar to the MetalSucks logo, then it would look a lot better.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Andrew-Zink/1457523384 Andrew Zink

    It looks like BULLSHIT

    GOD DAMNIT

    :p

  • booortz

    Also having two columns, side by side, in the right column, next to all that empty margin space, is really jarring. Maybe get rid of the pictures in the sidebars altogether, or at the least reduce their size considerably, so everything can be vertically arranged in a single column

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Rev-Dave-Ciancio/502857812 Rev. Dave Ciancio

    Looks great. Wanna re-design http://burgerconquest.com next?

  • MoshUntilPanic

    It looks the same.

    well basically. i like it though, especially the look of the comments section. although i do agree with people on the lopsided thing.

  • http://raiseyerfists.wordpress.com raiseyerfists

    This looks cool. I am seeing a problem on the category header. Dallas is still up there, must be some kind of typo.

    • Slaughterhouse

      Yeah, Dallas is still there and Paul is not????

  • Sin and Death

    WTF?

  • http://www.heavyblogisheavy.com/ Alkahest

    This is pretty sweet.

  • Sammy

    As a longtime MS reader and commenter, first I will say the biggest improvement is the server upgrade. For about a month is unbearable coming here only to have pages time out or not load.

    As for the new layout, I think I need to get used to it. Having the main content only take up about 60% of the width (work computer which isn’t wide screen) is a bit off-putting at first. However, the gray color scheme is easy on the eyes. Also, the tagline font underneath the Metalsucks logo: not close to metal at all.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Andrew-Zink/1457523384 Andrew Zink

    I think you guys should put way more ads. Maybe even add ad commercials and pop ups too. That would be sick. While your at it, post a great review on attack attack. That’s a damn good site.

  • Ryd1ZZ

    I like it!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Devon-Czekaj/550092101 Devon Czekaj

    It’s really busy. It’ll take awhile to get used to.

  • Lordassenfroth

    i think it looks great, i like the whole lopsided thing, and the comments look nice. once it loaded it ran way smoother on my computer than the old one did.

  • bubbles

    it wasnt broke. you fixed it; now it is.

    did you get any ux advice on this redesign? Cause two right rail columns doesn’t work. I suspect you will find this out when you check the traffic stats and click throughs.

    users are going to skip the rail sandwiched in the middle, is my prediction.

  • deeds

    awesome new layout! only problem is i have 1″ black vertical bars on both sides of my monitor… running a 16×9 resolution. not sure if this has been brought up.

    • MoshUntilPanic

      i second that!

    • http://www.metalsucks.net Vince Neilstein

      Email screen cap and your browser and OS configuration to news [at] metalsucks [dot] net please!

  • builtforsin

    Black/Red/Gray will never look good, ever. I feel the same way about metal t-shirts. Looks like blabbermouth threw up here.

    Border(s)
    Looks like some asshole just smashed some grunge brushes together.

    Links
    The brighter red link font does not contrast well against your headers/footers.

    Sidebars
    2 side bars (recent news/reviews)? WTF. It makes all the articles seem less important, which should be the main focus, always.

    Images – Repeating backgrounds
    I can see where all the repeating background images meet. Like to the right of the comments. Or on things placed over your main background.

    Google Chrome
    Chrome is splitting your footer. Between the bottom of your links and the “MetalSucks v3.0 | Contact: news [at] metalsucks [dot] net” part

    Any further criticism will be considered analysis work and procure a charge!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Taylor-James-Hamilton/1178820034 Taylor James Hamilton

    I think it’s pretty fuckin’ sexy. there are some good points here, but I think it’s fuckin’ sexy.

    • joshkid

      word. THIS is sexy.

      • Anselmowitz

        Yeap, no complaints here, if the new MS was a broad, I’d totally eat her asshole.

  • Ziltoid

    I like the colors in general. Unfortunately, the pure white background behind the article text looks awful next to the greyish white background. If anything, it needs the black border that comments have, because those look very nice. Otherwise, the right side is too cramped with interviews and reviews (maybe put them all in one column instead of next to each other?).

  • myke

    of my heavens this is a fancy web site now

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/William-Morley/618112437 William Morley

    The design and visual side is really sweet, but maybe some of the stuff at the top on the right could be split into one column instead of two and so you have to scroll down, that way the main feed could be more central. But seriously, that shit doesn’t really matter, it looks better than it did, thumbs up all the way.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Anthony-P-Stine/1314021455 Anthony P Stine

    It looks great. It’ll take a little getting used to but it definitely looks sharp.

  • Colin

    Looks pretty suave yo

  • Wardo

    looks pretty sweet…chingón!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Zach-Gates/14209777 Zach Gates

    It’s EXCELLENT. Far better than before. Don’t change a DAMN thing.

  • Noel

    yeeeeeees!!!! i can finally write on this site normally now! for the last couple months, id write, and it would not let me. i would have to type in the heading spot, then copy paste that shittttt! [thats how devoted i am, metalsucks! feel the devotion of ZIIIIM!!!! ...i mean noel...]

  • Sacajawea

    It’s a little busy, but not bad. At least it’s not as hilariously busy as this website.

    http://www.potufilms.com/

  • andy morales

    i like it!!!! nice job buddy!!!!

  • canea

    good job guys!

    i’m glad we still have a place to come and be critical assholes.

  • yetzer hara

    i like it a lot… it’s much sleeker and sexier now. the only criticism i have is that i can barely read the “other sites that suck” links until i mouse over them. i’d do black on gray instead of white.

  • Kasper Maigaard

    This is truly awesome. Especially the “recent reviews” and “recent interviews” parts stands out for me as the most noticable additions other than the layouts rendition itself.
    The clear indication between individual comments is nice.
    Only problems I can find is, firstly, that we’ve all grown used to the centered text and now it’s all been pushed a little to the left. It’s an annoyance but I guess we’ll adjust soon enough.
    Secondly (and I don’t know if I’m wrong here) I am having a hard time trying to make out whether the text has become narrower. I think it looks like it, but the pics in your old posts still fit so I guess not. Or maybe they auto-adjust. I don’t know.

    Overall: nice fucking job!

    PS: the “connect with Facebook”-function isn’t working for me.
    PPS: next, make a chat or a forum! Or both!

    • http://www.metality.net iRoar

      Chat

  • http://www.metality.net iRoar

    Congrats Guys!!!

    The site looks killer!
    works perfect over here on chrome and firefox.

  • Chris

    I like it, but I agree that it’s a bit busy.

  • Max Waldt

    I like the new layout but if I could change it I would take half of the clutter of the right side of the screen and redistribute it so that there is one column to the left of the posted articles and one to the right. Right now I just feel like there is too much going on with too small a space and I am just breezing over it.

    Also a very small error I noticed is at the bottom of my page there is a white gay between the half of the footer box, I am using firefox and will send a screen cap.

  • foobear

    I like it! Apperance-wise…

    Performance-wise (this wouldn’t be a proper comment without complaining eh?), it’s pretty slow. I think it’s got to do with filesize of the new graphics more than anything. After one page load, it’s not *too* bad (once the graphics are all cached).

    I’ve got two suggestions on making it load faster, though (because it wouldn’t be a proper complaint without a “Well what I’d do is…”):

    1) Use JPGs instead of PNGs for the header/footer/etc graphics, which should be a bit smaller. I know the header and footer have transparent regions to give them some asymmetry… but does that add much visually anyways? Besides, I think you could accomplish a similar look with JPGs anyways.

    2) Invest in a CDN service to host all of your “static” files (ie: images). I’ve used and recommend SimpleCDN.com to people, but, I don’t know if there’s a WP plugin for it? Unless you already do some mods to the WP codebase before you deploy, I recommend looking for a solution with a WP plugin.

  • http://thenumberoftheblog.com/ groverXIII

    I like it, for the most part… I do agree that the two columns on the right might be a bit much, and it makes it feel like the main content is narrower than it should be, especially with a widescreen monitor. I do really, really like the box around comments… that’s a nice touch. And I like the slightly darker colors.

    There is kind of a weird, not-quite-white box right below this reply form, around where the submit button is, that seems kind of weird. It’s approximately the width of the comment box. Not sure if others are seeing this.

    • http://thenumberoftheblog.com/ groverXIII

      A couple of other thoughts… I’d probably put a similar drop shadow on the sub-text in the header to give it a sense of depth to go along with the logo. You end up with a few weird tiling effects where some of the background images end up repeating. And when you reply directly to a comment it looks like the black outline ends up messing with the ” Click here to cancel reply”, “Leave a Reply”, and “Your Comment” text, which ends up looking kinda weird.

      Still, I know how hard some of this shit is to mess with. Overall, I think it looks pretty damn good.

  • pigchop

    You bunch of ungrateful heathens! People take the time to send in photos of themselves wearing your swag, and you don’t include them in your fucking logo? Swine. http://j.imagehost.org/0386/metalsuckslogo.png

  • WowWee!

    Looks good and I’m happy I’m not going blind anymore with all the white on the page.
    The only problem I see is that the posts and comments are all push to the left side instead of being centered.
    It would be pretty sweet if there was a upcoming release section and in the grey part I see a sad stitched mouth face.

    • Kasper Maigaard

      Haha hey YEAH there IS a sad stitched-mouth face!

  • pigchop

    How about making use of the gray area to the right of the comments – http://j.imagehost.org/0560/metalsucks-main-newbg.jpg

  • samthebrutal

    Nice, new, and shiny.

  • Cokane

    Very nice guys!This layout looks a lot more Metal than the old one haha I just wish i could find the log in button…

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Ben-Robson/1375985482 Ben Robson

    love the new layout. keep up the good work for years to come, dudes/dudettes/bobbi starr!

  • legkick54

    Center the main text and split your left side ad/promo/websites to ride one column each side so i don’t feel like I’m gonna fall off my chair reading this thing. Otherwise, top notch.

    • Alex_P

      Agreed, like with everyone else. Having reviews on one side and interviews on the other will look good.

  • wata

    A disturbing lack of pink,

  • legkick54

    I mean right side ad/promo/websites… See, five minutes of this off center business and I’ve developed adult delayed onset dyslexia. You’ll hear from my yenroutta…

  • joshkid

    Love the new layout guys! Great job!

  • http://www.metality.net iRoar

    OH OH!!

    I’m baked and just thought of this as your sub header!!!

    “A New Era Of Blog’Ruption”

  • Spanky

    It looks really good guys

  • guy from the internet

    The side content on the right takes absurdly long to load.

    This could be caused by a few things.

    1: bloated javascript

    2 (most likely): site is too graphic intensive. Giant background images are really bad practice, and it’s unfortunate that they’re becoming more and more popular. I took the liberty of cropping your current one into something smaller and more usable.

    link: http://i.imgur.com/2CPQD.jpg

    A quick heads up to the designer that there are in fact resolutions commonly used over 1600px wide. You need to expand the bg design to 2000px wide.

    I’m doing some quick math here with the images, and it’s pretty damning. The footer image is 300kb. The bg image is 500kb. The header image is 400kb. 1.2 megs per load. No wonder it’s slow.

    Take a look at your sister site, MetalInjection. No image in the design is over 50kb. Everything loads super quick.

    Other than that, design looks crisp.

    Cheers.

  • Josh

    Looks good, but as mentioned by others, it’s a tad too heavy. Optimize the images and make sure that main-newbg.jpg gets expanded to 2000px. For us with 1920 wide displays (and they’ll get more and more common for every day), the image doesn’t reach all the way through which looks like the obvious mistake it is.

    Other than that – good work!

  • Kye

    It’ll take a little getting used to, but I like it.

  • Doomed

    Metalsucks trying to compete with Metal Injection : 0
    I like the set up guys!

  • Ross

    New layout sucks. You have SO MUCH WASTED SPACE on the right side.

  • gojirasaurus

    Why is everyones username red like links used to be? kinda hard to tell who is hosting a link?
    and dont tell me to send a screencap or whatever i have no idea how to do that

  • Deth

    Layout doesn’t bother me as much as the load times for the right side items and the top “recap” of news stories. I think it’s moreso with the right side items because the slow load happens on every page. I have to wait 45-60 seconds just to be able to scroll without seeing doubles of everything.

    I’ve tried this on two seperate computers with the same result. One is a Windows XP work computer running IE7. The other my personal Mac. I used Safari, Camino, and Firefox.

  • Deth

    Just noticed two things – first, in regards to my comment above, it’s not slow page loading as much as it is general problems scrolling with all the right side material. I see doubles and page delays when scrolling down until I get past all of that. Once I’m below it, the page scrolls as normal. Tested in four browsers on two computers with the same results.

    Second, I do not see a “Reply” link on many comments. Some are there but most have disappeared. Again, same in all four browsers. Is this a new setting or option that members can control?

  • Me

    It reminds me of the liner notes and design for The War Within.

  • Sammy

    I just realized the “follow-up” option is missing. I wondered why I didn’t have a bunch of emails in my in-box.

  • Dustin
  • Chainsword

    pretty!

  • Oden

    Random comments / most recent comments could be listed on the right side so as one scrolls down though the stories the entire right margin is not blank and wasted space.

    And I would enjoy forums but the maintenance involved is a killer.

    Charge for forums? Premium members only, $20/yr?

  • Rachel

    Metalsucks, it “sucks!” I’m surprised no one has used that bad pun yet. I really like all the br00tal colors and the new layout.

  • twistedfreak

    Should move ‘Leave a Reply” to right under the article I reckon, but then I dunno you might get noobs commmenting the same shit some already has. Love the borders of comments tho, all looks real tidy. Keep it MetaL! \m/

  • Cody

    Looks pretty sweet and more brutal I think. The only thing I don’t like is the stroller thing at the top of the front page. Looks like you could just get rid of that and leave the right side bar thing.

  • 10000 Gays

    When you are on the main page “Home” is in Red, but then when you are on any of the other pages (i.e. interviews, reviews etc) the text stays white for all of the section headers

    fix that

  • dongreyface

    It’s not bad. I’m digging the new look of the comments page.

  • so7invictus

    hey look, waste of space here ——————————->>

  • Deaner

    I still think you should be able to jump to a specific date. If you missed all of Friday’s posts, they should be grouped together..

  • dederrdederr

    new layout sucks

    :D

    looks great guys. cant believe that the site has only been up since 2006. congrats

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jake-Ryan/596440962 Jake Ryan

    i think it all looks awesome. its just a much more awesome version of what you had before.

    although i wish you’d do something differen with the features at the top of the page. having a whole separate section for Eyal and Dallas seems silly because you guys have so many other guest bloggers now.

    so maybe have just one link labeled ‘guest bloggers’ or something like that?

  • BruisedMetal

    not bad

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Ashley-Rogow/1246980518 Ashley Rogow

    It’s alright, juts a few small things:

    a) the fact that the main content of the page (the blog entries) is off-center is really, really bothersome. Maybe it’s just to me, but it’s pretty annoying that as soon as you scroll a quarter of the way down the page, all of the content is on the left of the center, with all this blank space on the right.

    b) not a fan of the comment box style, it’s messy looking and not that necessary to have a really stylized comment box…

  • Subcon

    Awesome new look! Very visually appealing. I specially enjoy the lack of ad overload, and the ads you do have are subdued and professional.

    I concur with some of the above comments about moving the reviews and interviews columns to the left though, since most websites have navigation bars on the left. It would also center the site a little more. Right now I’m a little disoriented since it seems to lean to the left :).

  • Dwarfskeet

    WOAH!