Origin Spotlight – Notifications and Homepage Updates [ Edited ]

[Straatford87]

 

Hi all,

Welcome to another edition of Origin Spotlight! Today we’ll be taking a look at a new notification system, and updates to Origin’s homepage that have just become available.

SAY HELLO TO YOUR NEW INBOX

A new notification system has been added so you’re always up-to-date on important events taking place on Origin. Just keep an eye out for the new notification symbol:

With this new system you’ll be able receive a notification in the event of:

• Receiving a gift
• Preloads for new games becoming available
• A new game release, if you’ve pre-ordered the game

 New game release? You'll be the first to know!

Receiving a gift is exciting - we're making sure that you're notified!

NAME YOUR NOTIFICATIONS
We’ll be expanding the types of receivable notifications in the near future. In the meantime, we would love for you to let us know which types of notifications are important to you – drop us a comment on the forums and we’ll be there to check ‘em out!

WELCOME HOME
My Home has received an update! But what is My Home, you ask? Good question – it’s your very own homepage in the Origin client.

To make sure that your homepage is relevant to you, we’ve given it a fresh new look and added a recent games menu – your homepage now shows the last four games that you’ve played, installed or downloaded. No more browsing through your library to try and find that one game. Just click and go!

Check out this (silent) video on how to jump straight from the homepage into your favorite games. 

INTERESTED IN NEW ORIGIN UPDATES?
We’ve got more updates on the way, so if you’re curious about coming Origin updates, remember that you can try them out early in the Origin beta via Origin -> Application Settings -> Participate in Origin client betas.

Up for a chat? We’re available for any further questions or comments you might have via the Origin forums. See you there!

[chropy]

Please new update get new THEME FOR ORIGIN
DARK THEME FOR ORIGIN THATS WILL BE VERY GOOD

[RedFoxxie]

Neat updates, I especially like the Recent games buttons at the top. Makes it easy to hop back into a game I've been playing recently.

If I can comment on the buttons a little though. It feels weird that they are different from the rest of the buttons on Origin client. They are basically at the moment huge image-like buttons where anywhere that you click them will execute its function. Usually on Origin, when you hover your mouse over an image-like button like this, it dims and you will get a second orange button in the middle you need to press in order to execute said function. Such as if there is news articles with an image supplied with it and you hover your mouse over this image, it dims out and you get a orange button in the middle saying "Read the news" . Clicking anywhere but that orange button won't do anything. I would enjoy if these Recent game buttons were similar in their function as well so that they would be images that dim when hovered over and a "Play" button would appear in order to keep the design consistent and to avoid misclicking.

All in all, good stuff. Keep it up.

[EA_Alex]

@RedFoxxie Thanks for the feedback.

As you've noticed, we're exploring an updated design style here.  One of the big problems with the orange-button-on-hover paradigm is that it doesn't work well on touch devices (that typically don't support hover interactions).  Furthermore, we wanted to make it more immediately obvious what clicking on the tile would do (via the orange text on the front of the tile).

The new notification center notifications also make use of this pattern (though you probably don't have any yet).  Moving forward, we're likely to make more use of this new pattern, and the orange-button-on-hover will probably be deprecated.  In the interim, there will be a bit of inconsistency.

Once you've had a chance to acclimate to the new style, let us know how you like it.

[Mug3nXK]

awesome update now next DARK THEME for origin client would be nice ....even for this website as well....youtube did it ...also everytime i get origin updates it keep re-enabling origin web helper service to automatic causing an error log to show up in event manager...also a better way to deal with offline play dont copy valve steam client horrible handling of offline play

[EA_Alex]

@Mug3nXK Hi Mug3nXK,

We've gotten a lot of community requests for dark mode, so it's definitely on our radar.

Next time you encounter the issue with the web helper service not updating, submit an Origin Error Reporter report, and respond back to me with the report #.  I'll forward it to the team that owns that technology to investigate what's happening there.

I'm not sure what you mean in reference to offline play -- what don't you like about the current model?  To enable offline play, you simply need to log into Origin once on the machine you want to offline play on, and make sure you launch the game once.  From that point forward, you should be offline play enabled for that game.

[Red_Hood_1810]

Hey @Straatford87 @EA_Alex

With every update, Origin keeps getting better and better. The new Notification system is good, and can be made better.
I would like to see a notification if a game on my wishlist is on sale, or if there is a sale on Origin Store in general.

The Home Page looks much better and actually serves a purpose now. But I keep getting a pop up that I have not set up my real name, even though I already have.

I would love to see some more customization though. Dark Theme is one of the most requested feature and we are still waiting for you to implement it. Also, the ability to set a custom box art/cover for a game is missing right now. Would be great to have them along with the ability to set more themes than just dark, for eg, set a theme based on the type of games we play.

[EA_Alex]

@Red_Hood_1810

The current notification system is just a starting point.  We're exploring what other kinds of notifications we can put into the notification area, and wishlisted games on sale is definitely one of the ones on our radar.  In fact, we have a list of about 13 more notification types we'd like to eventually roll out -- and I'm sure we'll discover more in the future.

I'll forward the note about your real name to the team that owns that feature.

Thanks for the additional feedback on your desire for additional customization options.

[RedFoxxie]

Alright @EA_Alex , that explanation makes a lot of sense. Touchscreens, indeed, would work with buttons like that much better. Fair enough. Of course one way you could implement both would be to have a Touch Mode basically where the buttons activate the way the current "Recent games" buttons work while otherwise it'd give you the orange button, but I understand it can be annoying having to include both as a function coding-wise.

Well, if we do go this route, then it would be nice if the buttons would in some way highlight themselves to give the feeling that it is a function button. Currently it does give a small "zoom" on the button when you hover over it with a mouse, but I'm not entirely sure if that's quite enough. Windows 10 for example highlights the toolbar buttons and desktop options with a light box with brighter edges. Much similarly to how the sidebar of Origin to the left actually highlights its functions and adds a little orange bar to which page you're currently looking at. Perhaps the outline of the buttons when hovered over could do the same, so that the outline of the buttons would become orange when hovered over since Origin is made of oranges. To be honest, this wouldn't be bad for the My Game Library, either, the orange outline. Kinda funny how those buttons do not zoom, either !

But yeah, the design other than that looks pleasing and I do not have really any huge complains here or anything. If I could really nitpick, the font on the Notifications, at least the one text I get atm that I have no notifications, is not matching with the rest of the drop menus you get such as from the browse games and deals. Then again notifications would probably be something one would want to have easier readability of with a larger font. I have to see how this works once I get actually more notifications to see how it works in practice. I'd also perhaps locate the notifications to the right side, either the top similarly to this AHQ page where you see for example messages on your inbox as a notification to the top right next to your name, or the bottom similarly to what Windows does with its system tray.

But yeah, thank you for your own explanation to the buttons. Makes me understand the design choice better. I'll get used to them

[Mug3nXK]

@EA_Alex Hi EA_Alex, ok nice to know a dark mode is on the to-do list but i m not to certain if you catch what i meant with the origin web helper service error, to give an idea when i disable the origin helper service from the client settings which set it as manual in windows services but once the client updates the client settings remain but in windows services it switch from manual to automatic which whenever i restart my computer generate an error log.

As for the offline play i was just pointing out how it is very similar to valve steam way of handling but with origin its a little better because even without internet (i have a gaming laptop and game on the go) i can still log-in and play, but i still have to at least login once with internet... but with valve steam if i am log out and/or just try to log back in without internet i cant ...and its a really horrible way of dealing with offline play since my machine has already been verified...the only client i know handles offline play perfect is GOG galaxy and well thats a no drm platform which is impossible here... but is it to much to as for a better way of dealing with offline play?