Imagine my glee, a long time Planescape enthusiast (ever since I first read the teeny tiny section on the Planes in the DMG of 1st edition) finding that Planewalker.com is alive and well after I'd lost it at least a year or two ago from my bookmarks.
Now... if only it were organized better...
I run through the website and I find dead links everywhere (linking back to the main page.)
For example, in the Gith section I click on this entry called 'Githzerai Language' and it leads me right back to the home page.
I go into the Features section and find not all the sections of the feature are listed on the main page. No, you have to click on the sidebar to get anywhere else.
At least it's a far cry from some of its subsections, which seem to lack any guides at all.
Still in the Features section, I open up the art gallery (Artist's Alley) and the stories (Chronicles) subsections.
Okay, the Chronicles bit is mostly all right. It has a short blurb on what the story is about, the author, the date it was posted, and the title of the story. Well, for most of 'em anyway, I note some lack it...
However, what I find deplorable is the manner in which the stories are arranged. I see several series, and yet for some reason someone decided to arrange them in ascending order. Worse, sometimes they're seperated from other members of their series, for no better reason than that there happened to be another story submitted between segments.
Why not create seperate sections for each artist?
Different browsing options would be nice, especially as more stories get added.
On a side note: I see my favorite set of stories from the old 2e site is missing. Shame I can't remember the name, it was the journal of a Tiefling woman who set out to explore the Outlands. Hell, inspired me to have my own characters create journals for the fun of it...
Moving on, the Artist's Alley.
Why oh why aren't there galleries for this for each artist? Thumbnail pictures for each picture? With the amount of custom artwork the site receives, I'd have hoped the list would be, y'know, bigger.
The PSCS is probably my favorite new feature, of the ones I've explored so far. (Though some things baffle me. +1000 gp for a material to make your crit threat confirmation +1? What's up with that?)
Not a lot of art, but then we're doing this for free here.
I was depressed to find there was no guide to Sigil Speak, something I yanked off the old Torment site ages ago. Was hoping to find an updated version. (If there is one, please let me know.)
I'm not too keen on the site layout in general. I don't like the bar on the right. Can't say for sure whether I like the simplicty or not.
In all, I believe I remember the original website with more fondness...
Speaking of which, this website has what it called an archives section, yet all I see is an obscure fiction site which has a lot of dead links.
I always like it when old planewalkers return, but I must say that this as a first post is kind of a anticlimax. This site was almost dead some years back. Its been almost restored to its former glory almost singlehandedly by one person, and one person alone; being Clueless.
Not many people have signed on to help out in maintaing this website as I recall, and even though she's been trying to tie together the loose ends as best can be done, its also been a time of innovation. See the Encyclopedia that gathers together almost every Planescape concept, person and location into a searchable database.
If you wish to go somewhere with this criticism, please help out.