View First New Post is back!

Ever since we first relaunched GameSpot in 2013, we've heard requests from our forum community to restore a feature that allowed members to jump directly to the first new post made in any forum topic that they had previously seen. Unfortunately, doing so wasn't as easy as flipping a switch, and so this feature wasn't ever brought back. Until now.

First off, let's take a step back: one of the reasons why we completely rebuilt GameSpot from the ground up was to eliminate the many, many deeply-rooted operational inefficiencies that were dragging site performance down. We were running on 15 year old technology at that point, and it wasn't pretty.

View First New Post was one such feature, as it was implemented in pretty much the worst way possible--each member had a record of every forum thread they'd ever read as well as what the last post in that thread at the time was stored directly in our database. To restore such a feature in a better optimized way for our relaunch was at the time deemed a fairly significant engineering task and ultimately we made the decision to put it on the back burner.

A few weeks ago, we finally had the opportunity to start work on this again, and I am pleased to announce that we've finished! Things are a bit different this time around, so here's how it works:

• If you are a registered GameSpot member, we'll keep track of what the last post in each forum thread you visit is for up to seven days from the last time you visit that thread
• This will work across multiple devices as long as you are signed into your GameSpot account
• On the main forum page or on each forum's homepage (example), if you've been to a forum thread within the last seven days, it will show you the number of new posts made in that thread since you last visited it next to the total number of posts (see image below)
• Clicking this number will take you to the first new post made in that thread since you last visited it

tl;dr there is now a way to easily jump to the first new post made in any forum thread that you've already seen in the last seven days.

In our haste to get this out, there are a couple known issues with this:

1. There are some situations where the count of new posts may display as (-1)
2. If you mouse over the count of new posts it will display a tooltip that is intended to tell you the number of new posts. This currently displays the total number of posts in the thread.

These issues will be fixed shortly. In the meanwhile, if you find anymore, please report them here and we'll take a look.

Thanks!

YOU GUYS FINALLY DID IT. THANK YOU.

I really want to commend you guys, but I really can't say how annoying it was that a basic internet forum option was missing for this long. It's absolutely vital to keeping threads alive, as a lot of my now-left friends mentioned. Still, thank you for finally implementing it. Keep us updated.

neet-o, GameSpot, one step forward ten steps back

this was like a feature we had prior to the big change couple years back, now we got it back, but so much else that worked maybe up until a few days or weeks ago suddenly doesn't, no notifications, posting controls disappearing, white backdrop on dark themed topic creator, comments not showing on articles, posts just not happening

Nice, shame it doesn't yet work on mobile devices. Is there any eta on when that (and other great little features such as post quoting) will be coming to the mobile side?

Thank you.

Seriously Gamespot, thank you so much! Losing this feature was a big loss in user accessibility and functionality, and seeing its return is heavenly. It still is a bit buggy though. Sometimes it'll take me to the last post, other times it'll take me to the 2nd to last page and a blue bar will come up at the top with "resume from where you were" button, which does nothing when clicked. But I presume these are initial bugs that will eventually be ironed out? Hope so, and I hope this is here to stay. Again, credit's due......so kudos. I had long given up hope this would be seen again and couldn't be happier to be proven wrong.

Much appreciated! :)

Finally!

@lamprey263:

- No notifications.
Which notifications are you referring to? Could you elaborate please (since there are a few ex: When someone @mentions you, when someone replies to you, when someone quotes you).

- Posting controls disappearing.
That's a new one. Can you send a screenshot to gamespothelpme@gmail.com?

- White backdrop on dark themed topic creator.
I can't seem to replicate this. Can you send a screenshot to gamespothelpme@gmail.com?

- Comments not showing on articles.
Those two things (new forum functionality and comments) shouldn't be connected. Which stories are missing comments?

- Posts just not happening.
Do you mean that when you "Post Reply" the post doesn't populate to the forums?

Also, while we're here, are you running any extensions?

I'm getting majority of notifications but I run into responses to me in forums without receiving notifications that comments were being directed at me. This has been an on-again off-again on-again problem. And surely I can't be the only one experiencing this.

White backdrop on dark themed topic creator.

I wrote about this not to long ago and got a recreation from administrative staff on this. Started out in Google Chrome, thought it was browser specific issue since GS was sucking so bad it took chrome like 45 seconds for a page to load even though I get like a 50Mbps bandwidth and 30ms ping from ISP. So I switched to Firefox and it helped speeds, but the white comment creator box stayed there as well.

Posting controls disappearing.

I wrote about this too a long while back, basically the use of page up/down buttons when cursor is in comment creator box, which I might do accidentally if I need to look up the page but forget to click outside the comment creation box, this results in the posting controls (like for bold, italic, buttons, video, URL, etc) to disappear. Mentioned it a long while back, only response I got was like "just don't hit pg up/dn when posting".

- - - - - -

anyhow, the point wasn't to say these problems happened, I already created numerous posts in the Bug Reporting Feedback Forums, I only mentioned it here in frustration that new features be implemented without tackling the growing issues

If there's one thing I learned in school, you don't leave the big tasks until last. But holy crap, I really didn't think this was ever coming. Big thanks to.... everyone that asked over and over again for this feature. You rock guys.

Awesome, much appreciated!