GANZ has been warning users for several weeks that a new layout would be premiering on August 2. It requires that people set their monitors to 1024x768 to use the site properly. A followup message stated that the Webkinz site would be down from 5 a.m. to 1 p.m. on that day to implement the change. Great excitement was then heard in the land of the forums.
Naturally I didn't expect it up by the prescribed time and I was correct; it actually staggered from its server almost an hour later. And when it finally did it was buggy as all get out: the time on the clock would change, some things didn't have captions, some games didn't work, peoples' rooms didn't load, etc., all to be expected when launching a new website. Some people were redirected to a completely different site that had nothing to do with Ganz.
Since the majority of the users are young people, there were bound to be some complaints about things not working right.
"Complaints" didn't cover it. "Complaints" still doesn't cover it. There are still torrents of messages wailing about how the new format is "confusing" (it's not; it's actually arranged much better), that this is the worst thing that is happened to them in their lives and that the new format is so ugly that they will never use it again, etc. I suppose if I was their age using it I probably would feel the same way—I remember wailing and railing over canceled television programs and unpublished books and favorite store closings throughout my youth—but viewing it from an adult's perspective it's been hard not to smile a little. Oh, if this is the worst disappointment they will ever have in their lives!
They are right about one thing: Ganz sure didn't beta test this thing enough before premiering it! Some people are simply having trouble getting the new screen to work or appear full screen at all. When you get in, the Kinztime changes abruptly when the newspaper loads it jumped back an hour every time I loaded it in Firefox (it worked okay in IE), so that daily events were not coming up properly. Today when you clicked on a free food it never appeared in your dock. Some of the games are strange, too. Polar Plunge is funky; it doesn't "feel" the way it did before and goes too quickly in some places and too slowly in the other. When you play Wacky Zingoz the distance measurements do not show up on the placards and pennants. You only know how far you've gone after your score is posted. Sometimes when you play the Chef Challenge or Supermodelz Challenge, the judges' word balloons are empty.
However, for the most part I like the full page layout. I've had problems playing a couple of games, Go-Go Googles in particular and sometimes Candy Bash 2, where my mouse went off the partial screen being used and valuable game time was wasted while I switched back. The different choices of things to do are arranged in categories. You can always see the Logout button no matter what you are doing, and you can always access your pets without having to go to the menu.
One of the reasons for the expansion was to put in "ads." They are really only ads for Webkinz World itself—thank heavens, we're not seeing commercials for Oreos or Boniva here!—but they have some people smoking mad. I notice some of them are Webkinz versions of PSAs; they say things like "Fresh air is good for you. Go outside and play for awhile," "Brush your teeth," "An apple a day keeps the doctor away," etc. Obviously Ganz wants to show parents that they care about their children's well-being.
Alarms and Exhortations
