Vroomvroom freeforums? Sounds like something made for Thomas the Engine fans.......nevermind.

 

 

I've always been committed to this place. It deserved it. Its why I'm so mad/sad. I wanted this place improved for years, I've suggested ways to do so for years, I offered my own assistance for years, I helped people on the forum for years, I kept things positive with developers for years, and it all comes down to this.

 

A complete and utter failure. All of that for nothing.

 

I hear ya. You always did. Just wasn't too aware anymore being out of the loop is all. You went that extra mile anyways, so that's something else, but I'd be lying if I said I'd completely given up on the place. I'd have happily come back in some capacity for Andromeda, if it turned out all right But I guess there goes that  :/

 

But If you need to vent or whatever, I'll stick a podcast or something on that paperweight I boot up every few weeks or so. Might even be around.  

Well, I think a lot of us saw this coming after off topic, so its hard not to just chuckle at it all by this point.

 

Which is sad, really. Off topic was a real sore spot at the time.  We went through the whole process then, sorting somewhere else to go, getting mad and rightfully so, shouting all about in some hope of things getting sorted. I know me and LPP spoke about it at length at the time, and with many others too. And I know it hit us pretty hard. There's a whole bunch of people I've met here who really  are super important to me. It was just a comfortable, unique space of like minded people, and I valued that a lot, with a lot of fond memories to boot. That opportunity just simply won't be there for others in the future, so a small part of me feels sad and burnt out that the space that provided that is good as gone. Who knows what might be missed? There certainly won't be anything able to replace it, even if some seriously questionable PR speak says to the contrary.  :/

 

But yeah. Like I say, we did our moving on a long time ago. I've kept up with pretty much all of those important people in our own space now. I haven't even been back here in a while, 'cept to check the odd PM. So its hard to get too worked up over.

 

But my heart goes out to everyone else. It is a big enough deal to get invested in, even if some would say otherwise. I hope you all manage to keep up with each other as best you can, and find somewhere nice to do so.

 

 

Oh and LPPrince, I didn't realise you'd kept up with things so much here, so that goes double for you. My business here about ended with this post and making sure my account doesn't go up in smoke with a joke Roman Reigns avi. X)

Not as good s the PMMM suggestion way back when, but it has merit. +1!

None too friendly unless confirmed through conformity.

What is being referred to here by "pointless banter" is talk that may be more suited to a private conversation rather than subjecting others to it on a thread.

 

Such is the nature of a community. Which this place once was.

 

It had social in the title and everything.

 

So asking people to outright refrain from doing that would be odd given those circumstances.

 

But we're not operating under them any more so I guess that's fine. Now that Bioware clearly doesn't want a community.  

You're glad you could spam the readership of BioWare games with your personal interests? 

 

Back in my day, that's what off topic was for.

 

Good times.

Yup. I'd been without proper internet for nearly two weeks, and I still instinctively checked up on the BSN through my mobile most days.

And all that did was make me sigh twice. Once at the frozen in time Off topic that's linked to via my phone's favourites. And the other after coming here and still finding nothing from BioWare.

There's probably a few more sighs in there for the posts somehow trying to defend Bioware's example of how not to PR in just 12 minutes, but hey ho.

I checked up on here again earlier on my mobile. As I'm following the thread, I got hit with 120-something notifications.

 

I thought, 'Oh hey, that's a lot of activity. Surely that means there's been an official response. Right?'

 

 

I was admittedly rather drunk at the time.

 

Which hopefully justifies me thinking such foolishness.

Checking in again...

 

 

And wow, not even a word from anyone?

 

Can't say I'm surprised, but still.

 

Guess I'll be back again later.

Heh, there's a few posts of mine I should probably go and grab as well.

 

Its a strange thing to have to do.

lol @ Dwarven machine guns.

 

Its surreal seeing things having dialled down round here. Off topic disappearing was jarring enough, and I'll admit to feeling pretty damn broken up about it for a good while after. I can say without a doubt that plenty of others did too.

 

But thanks to Vroom and everyone else, we've recreated almost everything that got screwed over, and it seems to be going along just fine. So I suppose its hard to feel quite so badly over it when I know that most wouldn't even come back given the chance. We're doing our own thing now.

 

That said, there's still some dependant on answer. And really, it would be a damn shame for future site members to not have what we had here.

 

And even I myself haven't cut all ties just yet. So just a reminder that we're still waiting on that response, Bioware. 

Its interesting seeing the other language OT forums catching onto this.

 

Hopefully they're as against this happening there as we are with ours and make themselves heard. 

There's so much potential for snark to direct at Bioware hidden within all these posts. Its getting hard to resist.

 

So many missed opportunities... but I'm trying to keep it civil now until we can reasonably expect a response.

 

Conal will definitely have enough on his plate for now, though we pretty much all know it shouldn't have been done right before going. I absolutely share in the apprehension.

 

The when of it can't be changed. But what was can. So we'll just have to hold out.

September 2nd:

"Hey, everyone!

After a lot of internal deliberation and discussion, we've decided to keep the Off-Topic section closed. We understand this may upset some members of the community, and for that, we apologise. However, we felt that it was in the best interests of the community as a whole to keep discussion focused on BioWare products. It is our hope that the community respect our wishes and thinks carefully before posting Off-Topic discussion in other areas.

That being said, we don't wish to restrict your conversations. For example, threads comparing BioWare games to their contemporaries are fine, provided they are posted in the right place and follow all other rules of the forums.

It is our earnest desire to improve the community and provide a better experience for all BioWare fans! We will continue to work hard on bringing new changes to the forum structure, as well as groups. We hope to keep the community updated when changes and improvements are made.

As for this thread, we sincerely thank everyone for their feedback and hope that we can continue to engage in strident discussion about the state of the community and BioWare games in future. We will certainly take everything you've said on board. However, seeing as this thread has been left open for a while, I'm going to lock it as there is nothing more that needs to be said. If you want, you can always contact us on twitter and reddit for further clarification or discussion.

Thanks,

The BioWare Team"

Prove me wrong, BioWare.

 

 I didn't know you could time travel Crusty. 

 

I'm kinda missing pre-release levels of interaction.

 

I'm just missing off topic levels of interaction.

 

 

The fact that they made such sweeping changes before such a thing is. Well moronic is the only word can think of.

 

Indeed.

Off topic still isn't back huh? *sigh*

Our community manager is at PAX, which runs till the 31st. So we can safely expect no official response till after that date.

I mean if you're gonna stay up, the conversation can keep going. Here, PMs, wherever. I've received a ton of PMs the last three days.

 

Not this time. Need sleep.

 

Wake me up when Pax is done.

Yeah dude, it IS late for you. Best rest(unless you're gonna pull an all nighter, I won't  ). If you're hitting the bed, cheers tho! And keep on sharing your opinion when you can friend.

 

Ugh, but I... can't sleep.... *zzzz* get to the VSN.... *zzzz* rally the forum... *zzzz* take off topic back...

I am soo tired. And I don't mean the sleepy kind of tired ...

 

I know the feel Fidite my man.

 

Its past 3AM, same as it was yesterday. 

 

I don't know what I'm doing.

I'm on my phone and thankfully do not see anyone signatures. Im afraid of what it would do to my loading times.

 

Oh, so you're not as blind as I am then? I was about to ask him the same question until I just caught sight of it.  

 

Prince has you covered.

You're breaking my heart about the end of the DA cycle. In however many years till a new one I'll be practically middle age.

What exactly is your title, anyway. What do you do at Bioware? I'm to lazy to look you up somehow.

 

See his signature. 

Frankly I started posting in this topic because I was personally alluded to as "the devs". Just like how I initially posted on the other forum because someone decided to call me out, based on their interpretation of my motivations. 

 

I am not formally tied to the community team, 2 days ago was the first day in approximately 2 months I talked to Conal (I asked him where the Feedback forum went since I was replying to a thread in it). 

 

The only real I had a formal conversation with the community team was 4 years ago when Priestly told us how he wanted us to conduct ourselves.

 

Yeah, I might have done that and I realise after what you've said its insanely dumb to band you all together under a term like that. You didn't even know this was going down till after it did. Sorry about that.

 

But I'll go back to what others have said already too: these sort of leaps of logic and silly assumptions are expected after how little we were given to go on.

 

The silence on the matter was quite deafening, and mostly still is, but I get now that you can't really do anything about that.

I'm pretty sure they knew it'd be divisive. No way they didn't.

 

Then you just wouldn't do it before leaving then so you can properly deal with the backlash. Simple.

 

Because otherwise that would be the alternative. Malicious.

 

I don't propose to know how this stuff goes down, but I find it hard to believe there can have been such a pressing schedule as to have to go through with this right there and then. Though with a 12 minute warning, who knows? 

I don't think you should even put PAX on your mind. Making the decision to do what they did to Off Topic right before PAX was odd timing but actually going there is fine and it was probably coincidental.

 

The 12 minutes is inexcusable though. That wasn't cool at all.

 

Perhaps. But you wouldn't follow through with a decision like that before a departure from your position if you had even the slightest inclination it would prove divisive.

 

And when I brought that up with someone else last, I was told: "do not attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity".

 

So I'll go with it being a goof rather than anything else.

 

Which honestly isn't quite so bad. And there's a chance yet to follow up on it properly.

As long as you acknowledge its your own illusion and not an actual timeline that must be met.

 

Of course!

 

I mean, all sense of dealing with rationality was blown out the water after the whole 12 minute warning, then leave for PAX thing.

 

My aggravation with the situation has peaked and passed. Its just a waiting game from here on out. 

No. Do not set any sort of ETA. Estimations lead to frustrations and false expectations that can't ever be met.

 

Yeah... still doing it. 

 

It at least gives some illusion of progress. I'll take that.

 

And I don't have any expectations left to shatter quite honestly.

 

If the day after PAX comes and goes without response... well whatever. Nothing that hasn't been done already.