Is it only me pissed off that old lessons are gone?
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Iamvalando
Mar 10, 2020
0
#1
First they removed the old lessons from the app, and now they are gone from the desktop version as well. I am definitely not renewing my premium membership this year. Does anybody else think is not ok to remove them completely?
Iamvalando wrote:
First they removed the old lessons from the app, and now they are gone from the desktop version as well. I am definitely not renewing my premium membership this year. Does anybody else think is not ok to remove them completely?
No, that happened several weeks ago and many people noticed. Last week, chess.com agreed to bring back the old lessons.
https://www.chess.com/forum/view/community/the-old-lessons-are-gone-and-so-is-my-10-year-diamond-membership
https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/old-lessons-removed
Mar 10, 2020
0
#3
Well I don’t think all the lessons were gone just some. And others were shuffled around into different folders. And maybe I’m the minority here but I like the new lessons better than the old ones.
I won't renew my premium membership neither,
Any change which affects the users should be taken more carefully.
Anyone know where old lessons on first openings for white pieces ended up? Thanks.
They took it away, make them bring it back!
The old lessons are coming back. CEO Erik said this several weeks ago in one of the many other threads on this subject. (See post #2)
Mar 15, 2020
0
#8
I find the whole debacle really interesting. I think most of the Old lessons were just...bad. Either too much text --or not enough. Also many didn't really allow for as many "acceptable other" moves compared to the move that the lesson wanted you to play through. Overall a lot of them felt like glorified puzzles and not particularly instructive compared to the new stuff.
Obv some people felt otherwise. I'm curious if its a "vocal minority" here on the forums, or if most people actually liked the old stuff more and I'm in the minority.
Mar 15, 2020
0
#9
Gibbilo a écrit :
I find the whole debacle really interesting. I think most of the Old lessons were just...bad. Either too much text --or not enough. Also many didn't really allow for as many "acceptable other" moves compared to the move that the lesson wanted you to play through. Overall a lot of them felt like glorified puzzles and not particularly instructive compared to the new stuff.
Obv some people felt otherwise. I'm curious if its a "vocal minority" here on the forums, or if most people actually liked the old stuff more and I'm in the minority.
The problem is not whether old lessons were better or not. Old lessons are something that every single person who purchased a membership paid for. And now they are completely gone!! What would you do if you had paid for the new video lessons and all of a sudden they say, sorry, we are only going to do text-lessons? I assume you would be like, hey! I already paid for that! I want a partial refund! I am not saying that the new video lessons are bad. I also like them. I am saying I like to do the old lessons whenever I wanted. Sometimes I am not in the proper environment to watch a 5-10 min. video to start the challenges. Sometimes I am just at work or I do not have earphones to listen to the video when I am at a waiting room to see my doctor. That is when I would love to just take some time to read and kill the time. That is why I am so pissed to the extent that I already sent an email to customer support saying I won't renew my membership because it is not ok to sell something and then out of the blue take it away. It is unethical. They offered to extent my membership. I love the website in general. And I even think is worth paying a membership if you are completely new. But, again, for me, since I had them, it is like buying a software with online access to a hundred movies or files and then two months later finding out that they removed them.
Iamvalando wrote:
Gibbilo a écrit :
I find the whole debacle really interesting. I think most of the Old lessons were just...bad. Either too much text --or not enough. Also many didn't really allow for as many "acceptable other" moves compared to the move that the lesson wanted you to play through. Overall a lot of them felt like glorified puzzles and not particularly instructive compared to the new stuff.
Obv some people felt otherwise. I'm curious if its a "vocal minority" here on the forums, or if most people actually liked the old stuff more and I'm in the minority.
The problem is not whether old lessons were better or not. Old lessons are something that every single person who purchased a membership paid for. And now they are completely gone!! What would you do if you had paid for the new video lessons and all of a sudden they say, sorry, we are only going to do text-lessons? I assume you would be like, hey! I already paid for that! I want a partial refund! I am not saying that the new video lessons are bad. I also like them. I am saying I like to do the old lessons whenever I wanted. Sometimes I am not in the proper environment to watch a 5-10 min. video to start the challenges. Sometimes I am just at work or I do not have earphones to listen to the video when I am at a waiting room to see my doctor. That is when I would love to just take some time to read and kill the time. That is why I am so pissed to the extent that I already sent an email to customer support saying I won't renew my membership because it is not ok to sell something and then out of the blue take it away. It is unethical. They offered to extent my membership. I love the website in general. And I even think is worth paying a membership if you are completely new. But, again, for me, since I had them, it is like buying a software with online access to a hundred movies or files and then two months later finding out that they removed them.
But big companies do that all the time. They made a judgment as to what people wanted. It may have been wrong, but it wasn't evil. You are free to choose if you want to renew but you shouldn't act like it was some big scheme or that they ripped you off.
Did you complain when they added Puzzle Rush? No, of course not.
Did you complain when they added enhanced analysis? I doubt it.
How about Puzzle Battle? Did you demand that increase your subscription cost?
The old lessons are old. Some of them are 20+ years old. Chess.com was started by buying the old lessons and the chess.com name out of a bankruptcy auction back in 2005.
Certain parts of the functionality have been partly broken for years. I don't see that you made any previous complaints about the key squares function. Didn't it bother you?
Plus, they already posted several weeks ago that they heard the complaints and would be adding back the old lessons. Isn't that what you wanted?
Is there a reason you are still fighting?
Thank you for returning the old lessons
notmtwain escribió:
Iamvalando wrote:
Gibbilo a écrit :
I find the whole debacle really interesting. I think most of the Old lessons were just...bad. Either too much text --or not enough. Also many didn't really allow for as many "acceptable other" moves compared to the move that the lesson wanted you to play through. Overall a lot of them felt like glorified puzzles and not particularly instructive compared to the new stuff.
Obv some people felt otherwise. I'm curious if its a "vocal minority" here on the forums, or if most people actually liked the old stuff more and I'm in the minority.
The problem is not whether old lessons were better or not. Old lessons are something that every single person who purchased a membership paid for. And now they are completely gone!! What would you do if you had paid for the new video lessons and all of a sudden they say, sorry, we are only going to do text-lessons? I assume you would be like, hey! I already paid for that! I want a partial refund! I am not saying that the new video lessons are bad. I also like them. I am saying I like to do the old lessons whenever I wanted. Sometimes I am not in the proper environment to watch a 5-10 min. video to start the challenges. Sometimes I am just at work or I do not have earphones to listen to the video when I am at a waiting room to see my doctor. That is when I would love to just take some time to read and kill the time. That is why I am so pissed to the extent that I already sent an email to customer support saying I won't renew my membership because it is not ok to sell something and then out of the blue take it away. It is unethical. They offered to extent my membership. I love the website in general. And I even think is worth paying a membership if you are completely new. But, again, for me, since I had them, it is like buying a software with online access to a hundred movies or files and then two months later finding out that they removed them.
But big companies do that all the time. They made a judgment as to what people wanted. It may have been wrong, but it wasn't evil. You are free to choose if you want to renew but you shouldn't act like it was some big scheme or that they ripped you off.
Did you complain when they added Puzzle Rush? No, of course not.
Did you complain when they added enhanced analysis? I doubt it.
How about Puzzle Battle? Did you demand that increase your subscription cost?
The old lessons are old. Some of them are 20+ years old. Chess.com was started by buying the old lessons and the chess.com name out of a bankruptcy auction back in 2005.
Certain parts of the functionality have been partly broken for years. I don't see that you made any previous complaints about the key squares function. Didn't it bother you?
Plus, they already posted several weeks ago that they heard the complaints and would be adding back the old lessons. Isn't that what you wanted?
Is there a reason you are still fighting?
I think we're still fighting because until the old lessons are coming back, we are doubting about that really happen. Let us be suspicious about that. For some reason, there are not coming yet...
I only believe in facts, not in promises.
Mar 16, 2020
0
#13
If they’re bringing back the old lessons, can’t they bring back the old profile look as well?? How about the old homepage as well?
Apr 5, 2020
0
#14
notmtwain wrote:
The old lessons are coming back. CEO Erik said this several weeks ago in one of the many other threads on this subject. (See post #2)
I've been hearing that for weeks now. He also said we can access a majority of the old lessons we wanted. I've looked through many of the openings I used to study: the mcdonell attack, for example...and have been able to find nothing on them.
I don't need them just to be ported into new format. I want them being separated from trash lessons, like videos by Simon Williams. And separation should be done by careful rating, i.e. each lessons should tell us for what level it is and videos like given by Simon (fake London, Max Lange, King's Gambit, and other Kindergarten lessons) should not have rating higher than any random Video in this site. I even don't want to enter into Mastery Opening lessons now, because it already looks like a trash.
Also, please keep crones with you and return the previous scoring system.
It IS possible to access them.
Mar 24, 2025
0
#17
failingapbio wrote:
It IS possible to access them.
There were a number that were reinstated after the original change but some were not.
Martin_Stahl wrote:
failingapbio wrote:
It IS possible to access them.
There were a number that were reinstated after the original change but some were not.
I managed to access them. I pirated Chess Mentor: Deluxe Edition, installed a virtual machine for 32-bit Windows XP, and ran the installers along with Course Installer and the Supplementary Courses. It gave me the OG Sicilian and Kings' Indian Defense courses, as well as most of the original courses which I had before the new site came out. AFAIK, it works perfectly, although slightly clunky. Without course installer, it works even on native Windows 11 in compatibility mode. It was kinda hard to set up, but it works.
Mar 31, 2025
0
#19
Pirating content isn't the same thing. Some of the lessons had received updates after they were added to the website as well.
