Unity Learn Tutorials... What have you done!?!

Seriously Unity!? Seriously!? This is SO MUCH WORSE than it used to be!

https://learn.unity.com/tutorials/?k=["lang:en","tag:5814655a090915001868ebec"]&ob=starts

You used to be able to see all the topics neatly organized right next to one another. They ALL fit on one screen. ALL at once! You could pick a topic to view SO EASY.
Then each topic had ALL of it's tutorials listed neatly organized right next to one another. They ALL fit on one screen. ALL at once! You could a pick a tutorial to view SO EASY.
There were even categorized Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, and in order! Not "most popular"! You don't do tutorials in the order of what's "most popular"! You need to do them in the order they were intended to be followed! How can you have completely thrown that out!?

Now this!? What is this!?

I have to pick a topic from a tiny drop-down that only shows 6 possible choices at once. And once I pick one I have to cancel it to go to try and choose another one. The categories used to have icons... THAT was useful! Not these ugly new copy and paste gigantic thumbnails, PER tutorial.

If I select scripting, I can see 8 choices at once on a 1920x1080 screen. EIGHT! This is 95% completely unnecessary bloat! The thumbnails for each tutorial are ALL THE SAME! I don't want thumbnails! I want a tight, compact, navigable list of my choices! In order! You have taken 300 steps in the wrong direction!

Why!? Why!?

I know exactly the video I'm looking for, and I can't even find it! It used to be so easy Unity. Why would destroy such a beautiful thing with this ugly ugly monstrosity. Why!?

Please God tell me there is a "revert to old layout" button somewhere like there is on the asset store because that is the first and most important button I click every time I visit the store. Please someone tell me there is a button. What will all the new users do? This mess of bloat is horrible! It used to be so easy!

 

I can't even close this. What's underneath? The world may never know.

Wait, wait... I had to login to see this tutorial because now it's Premium!
Creating a screen space overlay is premium content!? That's one of the most basic necessities of any game...

 

You can still read the docs. This is only an extra explanation with video and audio. Those are a lot more work to create than text -- you have to practice the script, it might require a few takes, and editing video is a pain (compared to editing text).

In fact, this might be a psych experiment. Pretty soon people will be watching grainy video and audio full of hisses and posting "if this gets any worse, I'll go back to reading text like my grandma did".

 

It also motivates them to leave the docs vague and not updated, which is a neat side effect.

 

They don't need new videos though, they've had them for years, they are fine, I don't want new videos. I went through a lot of the old videos when I started Unity 6 years ago. Especially the scripting section, which I watched in it's entirety at least 5-6 times over the first couple years. I've also directed dozens of new gamedev enthusiasts to the old website because it was so easy to navigate and understand.

If you try you can certainly find "better" or more "in-depth" or whatever you need videos breaking into the various subjects of Unity. But sorting through Google or YouTube is always a pain and a time-sink, especially when you're starting out and you don't know where to start. The old Unity Learn site was really good for people in that position, it was plain, simple, ordered videos with accompanying text.

I have since found, that I can still direct people to this "course":
https://learn.unity.com/project/beginner-gameplay-scripting
which does at least have most of the original scripting tutorials in order, but it's so much harder to navigate, so much harder to even find, it's really disappointing to see something that was so useful be turned into such an ugly mess.

I've been working with Unity for 6 years and have been a full-time Unity developer for a year and a half now and don't need the tutorials myself, yes I use the documentation. But that's not where I want to send new people excited to make their first game, who show up every week without fail. I want to send them to the old roll-a-ball tutorial, and the old list of scripting tutorials to get started, neither of which are available now =[ (yes I know roll-a-ball is still a course, but it's equally wrapped up in all the silly new bloat)

In short, it makes it harder to be a Unity enthusiast. I don't see any real benefit to all the fancy bloat and "mark step as completed" garbage, it's just flash and gimmicks. Programmers and developers don't need flash gimmicks, they need concise and ordered information that is easy to navigate and understand.

This new site butchers both of those base necessities.

It just feels like they got a group of high school students together and said which website looks more interesting? When in reality Unity developers are adult, intelligent people, looking for information, not "interesting" websites.

 

That's not Unity's target audience though.

And Unity has been trying to gamify aspects of their website for a while now. They tried with the forums and failed, I'm guessing they're attempting to do that with the learn section now.

 

Do you really like those scripting guides? My impression is that people learned programming from various places, incorrectly remember it was all from the Learn section, then recommend people go there without ever taking a second look and seeing just how little they actually learned from it.

 

My apologies, I didn't actually watch the videos, I just assumed they were the same ones that they used to be... It looks like they re-made them all and no I don't like these new ones =/ Maybe I can find the old ones in a playlist somewhere..

You mean to say that's their "perceived" target audience right? When in reality they're selling a development engine, not a game. I don't understand how that concept eludes whoever is in charge of their marketing? I mean, a dry, grey black and white site listing the capabilities of Unity isn't the way to go, but this is the extreme opposite end of the spectrum and really leaves a lot of the "professionalism" that Unity3d.com needs nowhere to be found. Again, it looks like they're trying to sell candy to teenagers with pop music and bright colors... But who in the community actually wants that??

 

As best I can tell, the videos are the same as before.

My recollection is that Learn happened relatively late. At first Unity had decent but hasty docs and Forums. They started Answers for a more StackExchange format, which worked great -- pretty quickly most searches led to something on Answers. Then Unity became popular among people with no game design background, Answers got clogged with "where is the sky?" questions, and Learn was created.

So really, the audience for Learn was always non-professionals.

 

I found snapshots of the old website in the wayback machine, fun stuff.
Then:


And now:

 

I was disappointed to find that they had changed the Learn area. I don't know who is in charge of refactoring things at Unity and who they think they are helping, but IMHO they screwed it up.

The old way was better. The new way is something I avoid.

 

I have been searching for the intermediate scripting videos for an HOUR now and I for the love of God cannot find them. This is excruciating. First Lynda.com is killed in the same way with LinkedIn learning (equally bloated b*llshit) and now this. Man, this frustrates me incredibly.

 

not a fan of the web 2.0 mobile phone design. you could already watch the videos just fine on mobile if you wanted to, but I'd wager most people are gonna do it on a desktop, so not sure what the point the the redesign was. not to mention it takes a lot longer to load now going back to certain ones. sure, you can search but depending how fruitful the search was can be even longer or clunkier to get where you want.

this one https://learn.unity.com/project/intermediate-gameplay-scripting ?

it's under projects, then load more till you see it. took me a while to notice the menu up top at all.