I don’t like it. I was pleased to finally get Membassador and now it’ll be gone and replaced with something stupid and childish looking. But this is Memrise, and this is expected at this point.
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Nooooo!
I want to be a crowned Meminence not an imbecile alien.
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have they actually paid david bowie’s heirs to be allowed to use the name ziggy?
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I can not relate to a childish alien-cartoon at all. All this new alien-space-theme seems random and unmotivated to me. The flower/gardens-theme was a beautiful idea and worth updating.
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I agree, the upper levels become unmotivating, as it is too hard to get them. With the suppression of the overall ladder (or is it still available somewhere?), the whole gamification idea becomes quite moot. After I had gotten through the easy ranks, it used to be motivating for me to set goals like “get to the first 2000 and stay there for a month”. Now the whole points and levels and so on are useless to me. At least the levels as they are now have cool names, something to brag with on our blogs and social media profiles and such (which are good publicity for memrise), Level 8 or 15 or whatever means nothing to me.
And how on earth did we get from the original awesome flowers with simple design and clear thought behind the analogy (Memrise beta) to some mutated spongebob characters?
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yeah, they definitely go here for the kiddies… I cannot imagine they believe anyone above 12 getting motivated (to pay or learn) by being depicted as a lila crab-jellyfish-lobster in a transparent jam can… at level 11 or 17… huh?
edit: I do understand you might have a gender problem, but you asked only a male designer to find sth gender neutral - amoeba aliens seem perfect;- ask some grown up, educated woman about, I doubt she’d say “jellyfish with antennas are so funny and motivating”… aha, and they want to learn Mandarin, Spanish and Latin. Ahaaaa!!!
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Some lower levels are unneccessary. If you level up after every learning/review section, that’s not a real achievement.
I didn’t really care about my rank in the beginning, it just changed every day.
In comparision, the Duolingo levels are more balanced from the very beginning.
But don’t copy DuoLingo pls. The fact they have a mascot doesn’t mean you have to have. Keep Memrise unique.
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keep memrise memrise
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Did anybody notice this bit in the blog post?
“As older users will probably know, the Memrise ranks were introduced back in 2012, when Memrise was all about mems and gardening.”
So MEMrise isn’t about mems any more???
There still seems to be a move away from mems afoot, if you ask me, that is maybe being covered up in this jellyfish goo …
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Hi @amanda-norrsken,
Thanks! I hadn’t read that blog post until now. Annoying, isn’t it?
How long do you think it will be before they replace the 'seed planting/plant growing/flowering" imagery? Sadly, it’s now completely out of place with the other design changes they’ve made.
The flower garden concept made much more sense to me but, then again I’m one of those “older users” being referred to!
PS: The author of that blog post should have checked their inconsistent use of the singular and plural:
Examples:
“Ziggy is the embodiment of all that is good in the multiverse: Hope, Joy and Knowledge. They’re your personal learning buddy, who’ll grow as your abilities grow, and change as you change.”
“In terms of what Ziggy can be? Ziggy is both Robin and Yoda. They’re a sidekick and an all-knowing mentor.”
Not to mention the clumsiness of: " Also, Ziggy is hella cute."
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Robin and Yoda… jezie creezie. Who’s Robin, some alien lobster in a new “marvel” blablah??? why should I care about Yoda? that guy speaking Japanese in reverse? why should grown ups with credit cards should care about robin and yoda???
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Just to dispel this… What I was trying to say was that now Memrise is more than mems. We’re constantly trying to figure out how to make Memrise better (a good example is what our language research team is doing currently). Mems aren’t necessarily going anywhere. 
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The use of is, they’re etc was intentional, as we’re trying to keep Ziggy as gender neutral
Also, Robin is Batman’s sidekick!!
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a sidekick of a winged male, and a male shorty trying to speak chen/zen-style and rotating a silly sword… so much so good about knowledge… no thanks, joy of learning and whatevers should be less childish and warrior-like. Not the whole world is hollywood - you’re trying to get away from sexism (just “trying”, you did not really make it) and fall into the trap of cultural blindness. Even Jackie Chan would be better…
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Thanks for finding the time to reassure us mem-lovers! I really really appreciate it.
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Yeah, that struck me, too! I have a teenage daughter who will hit 17 at the end of August and this is EXACTLY how she talks But I guess we are in the wrong demographic, Alan … It is a loooong time since I was a teenager!
As for the use of “they”, I can get my head around that
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I wouldn’t take lurkmoophy’s response to you as reassuring.
He very carefully wrote: “Mems aren’t necessarily going anywhere.” The word “necessarily” is a perfect example of a weasel word, which strips the sentence of all substantive meaning. According to his statement, mems could very well be eliminated, at some point in the future, but they aren’t announcing it yet.
If he had wanted to reassure you that mems are definitely staying, he could have more simply stated “Mems aren’t going anywhere,” but he deliberately didn’t make that simple declaration.
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You are absolutely right 
I scanned that reply too quickly …
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I’m putting myself a challenge: Overlord in 1 year from today.
Today’s date: 1/7/2017
Completion by: 1/7/2018
Current points: 5 million.
Points required: 95 million.
Pace per week required: 2 million.
Intermidate goal: Memperor (50 million) in 6 months
Let’s see how far I go. 
I think it’s possible.
Check back with me in one year time. 
If anyone wants to partake and compete let me know.
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Are you missing the bit where these ranks are about to disappear?
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