They've posted individual preview posts on pretty much all the games that are coming out. I'd wager they will leave that as is and later post a "out now" post with a summary in the style of the previous "coming tonight" posts.
Last week they did individual Coming Tonight alerts, but they labeled them as such. This week nothing like that. Some reviews say coming soon, but no specific Coming Tonight posts. Oh well.... Still an hour to go.
While I appreciate trying to change things up to keep things fresh, I as a European viewer kinda miss having the big 'Coming tonight' post detailing the big titles for the week up before they actually are on the appstore. It did tend to slip later and later the past couple of months, but still managed to be before they actually hit the European appstore most of the time. I realize it's impossible to cater to the entire world like this, the time difference is just to big between the US and New Zealand for that, but still, I kinda miss having it I find that the new 'Out now!' posts format is a total mess to read on the TA app, at least on the iPhone. Way to many links with long subtitles. The forum and appstore links really don't need to have their names spelled out as well, as the name is right above the image/movie of the game it's attached too.
Hmmm....me thinks it may have been because everybody on staff was probably too busy clicking blocks on curiosity's last level, hmmmm?
The idea behind the new format is because the way Apple's release cycle works is a little weird and games drizzle out basically over a twelve hour period with the first wave hitting New Zealand at around 6:00 AM my time and the final ones potentially coming as late as 6:00 PM or sometimes even releasing internationally simultaneously at 11:00 PM or later. The old way: I'd sit around, collecting links, and typically would publish a story around 7:00 PM once I had a reasonable level of confidence that I'd gotten them all. That story consisted of basically zero content between a forum link, an iTunes link, and me distilling the iTunes text or what I thought you did in the game based on a screenshot into a sentence or two. This made the story as a whole pretty worthless from a buying decision standpoint, as I can't even begin to guess how many times I wrote "Yeah I guess this is this week's physics puzzler from Chillingo" without getting any deeper into it than that. Keep in mind, nowhere in this process did anyone actually spend any time with the games. The new way: As games hit the New Zealand App Store we buy 'em, and spend a good 15-20 minutes playing the games. From there, we write in-depth first impressions posts of games as they appear. This not only allows our new game coverage to be significantly more timely, but it also gives readers something to base potential purchasing decisions on as you're reading real experience about real time we spent with a game versus the old way of "I guess this is a runner." By the time we would've posted the traditional "Coming Tonight" post, doing things this way, we've already gone incredibly in-depth with each and every one of the new games. Then, at 11:00 PM when all the games are finally available everywhere we post the "Out Now" roundup linking back to all these stories, providing a blurb from the first impressions, and the same forum links and iTunes links. All of the information from the old way of handling releases is there, with way more detail for readers to sink their teeth in to. It's a massive win/win situation and I'm kind of dumbfounded as to why people are taking issue with it. I'd think that any day of the week I'd rather read about real game impressions in as timely as possible manner than some super late roundup.
If I may make a suggestion Eli. I really like the idea of having first impressions, and do agree with you the points of why it is good. The format could be worked a little to make it a little easier on the eyes. I would suggest under the pictures, to do a text description first, then add the links underneath. And try to not use the game name too much in the links cause it is redundant. Also, I would suggest to take out the grey bar on the side of the text. With these small improvements, I think it would be more enjoyable and easy to read. Thanks.
This is just one person's opinion, but I miss the old "Coming Tonight" format. Yes, the descriptions were short, and often gave little information, but you could usually tell if the app would be of interest from the screen shot, video, knowledge of the developer's other apps, or things you've herd elsewhere I always looked forward to a little sneak peek of what was to come Wednesday afternoons. It was fun to have that little head start With the current "Out Now" there's no sense of anticipation. I have no desire to sit up till 11PM or midnight to see what's already released I might as well just peruse the list of new apps in AppShopper or App Advice. Yes, there's more meat to these reviews, but reviews can be done anytime I prefer to know ahead of time and have something to look forward to.
That's exactly what the forums are for. I hope you realize that every week I run a program that scans the App Store and gives me a list of all the new games released, which I then share with Sanuku to get posted on the forums. It's still not 100% accurate (there's some seriously weird stuff going on sometimes) but it's as close as anyone outside Apple will ever get. The posts in question (correct me if I'm wrong, Eli) are and always were a compilation of what the TA staff are expecting to come out as well as whatever is posted on the forums. So, if you want up-to-the-minute information on the coming games, you will find it on the forums, same as before the change.
Doesn't the front page get far more hits than the forum though? Either this is a move to get more members, or someone is happy to provide the more casual browsers with a weaker experience. Hell, I'm on the forum a lot and I still can't be bothered digging up new game posts half the time, I just head to the front page and link through.
I saw it, but I still can't say this way is much better. Before: Sit down Wednesday afternoon, navigate to TA, click all of the forum links in the "Coming Tonight" post. Now: Sit down Wednesday afternoon, navigate to TA, see two articles about endless runners, wait 8-10 hours for more articles to appear.
Usually I just go to TA homepage's side bar and click on all the [nz] tagged forum posts under the New Releases section. Much faster than waiting for any article if one is in a hurry to know what's coming.
+1 for this. I just liked the Wednesday coming tonight post. I can see the logic behind the change, but I too preferred the old way because it allowed some anticipation.
Bookmark these two links: iPhone/iPod touch: http://forums.toucharcade.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&f=2&page=1&pp=20&sort=dateline&order=desc&daysprune=-1 iPad/iPad mini: http://forums.toucharcade.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&f=24&page=1&pp=20&sort=dateline&order=desc&daysprune=-1 These are forum listings with the thread display view defaulting to sorting by the date and time the threads were posted. On Wednesday morning, every NZ game will be at the very top.