153434 réponses à ce sujet

[coldwetn0se]

Does anyone know what happened to everything in the forums?

http://forum.bioware...ges-to-the-bsn/

 

 

[Illyria]

That is a mysterious post if I've ever seen one.

 

 

They deleted a bunch of them and then deleted all of the off topic forums and everyone is really, really, angry.

 

Huh

 

http://forum.bioware...ges-to-the-bsn/

 

 

 

Okay...

[Caddius]

*blinks*

Well.

I never used the Off-Topic thread, but my impression is that...they're displeased. And I'm not sure what the point of deleting it was.

 

Sorry about your cat, Elessara.

[midnight tea]

Losing a beloved pet is never fun, hang on there Elessara

 

As for the forum... well, I can understand why people are angry, even if I didn't use off-topic sub-forum myself - though I suspect this might be an attempt to perhaps regain control over forum/make it easier to moderate. And really, what easier way to do so than cut off-topic first, on a forum dedicated to a particular game/topic?

[Elessara]

Thanks everyone, I really appreciate all the kind words  *big hugs to all*

 

About the forums, wow I hadn't noticed a lot of that.  But then, I rarely go to any thread but this one  =x

[drosophila]

Thanks everyone, I really appreciate all the kind words  *big hugs to all*

 

About the forums, wow I hadn't noticed a lot of that.  But then, I rarely go to any thread but this one  =x

 

I'm so sorry. Fade hugs! 

[Illyria]

*blinks*

Well.

I never used the Off-Topic thread, but my impression is that...they're displeased. And I'm not sure what the point of deleting it was.

 

Sorry about your cat, Elessara.

 

Surely an off topic section would build a stronger community?  Which means getting rid of it is rather... odd.

[Caddius]

Surely an off topic section would build a stronger community?  Which means getting rid of it is rather... odd.

That's what I figured.  Off-Topic forum was a place for forumites that became friendly to hang out and chat about non-DA things, things less likely to bring the toxic hounds of hell down on their heads to burn down the thread and run off screeching about Cassandra's jaw being too mannish...

[midnight tea]

That's what I figured.  Off-Topic forum was a place for forumites that became friendly to hang out and chat about non-DA things, things less likely to bring the toxic hounds of hell down on their heads to burn down the thread and run off screeching about Cassandra's jaw being too mannish...

 

Well, maybe that's the thing? It didn't' help to dissolve the tension - the screeching still happened despite Off-Topic forum being there 

[Bayonet Hipshot]

The removal of Off Topic...Why Biower, why ?...I loved that place...

 

I feel like Flemythal now..."She was betrayed as I was betrayed ! As the world was betrayed !"

[thesuperdarkone2]

Funny how people who complain about Solas hating them seem to be more close-minded. My Inquisitors are open-minded and easily gain his approval.

[Illyria]

That's what I figured.  Off-Topic forum was a place for forumites that became friendly to hang out and chat about non-DA things, things less likely to bring the toxic hounds of hell down on their heads to burn down the thread and run off screeching about Cassandra's jaw being too mannish...

 

Hey, that can be backed up by science and charts and stuff.

[Caddius]

Hey, that can be backed up by science and charts and stuff.

*flips table*

That one troll has hacked Illyria's account!     Such persistence!

[Illyria]

*flips table*

That one troll has hacked Illyria's account!     Such persistence!

 

SOON ALL SHALL BOW BEFORE MY PHOTOSHOPPED IMAGES OF CASSANDRA.

 

WHERE IS YOUR MAKER NOW?

[Avejajed]

My assumption is its to give the moderators less forum to have to sift through. I think its the wrong move entirely if im being honest. Im glad we got rid of the "scuttlebut" I hated that word.

Better they would have kept off topic, pared down a bit, and instead reevaluated the moderators. I think that's the part of the BSN that needs fixed most.

Get rid of all the moderators. Employ new ones, from behind the anonymous screen names, and add several trusted volunteer posters as mods with limited capabilities, such as moving threads or adding spoiler tags, whatever.

[S.W.]

They removed the off-topic subsection? hoooo boyyyyy.

 

Spoiler

When I was sixteen, I was a forum moderator for a popular teenage fantasy book series. Most mods - hell, most admins - were fans, volunteers, we weren't employees.

 

The books were kind of crappy, aimed at teenagers, and if I'm going to be honest, a lot of the audience attracted wasn't the best because of those two factors. We also didn't have the luxury of DLC or regular updates during production cycles or anything to keep fans going. So the subsection related to book series were simply awful. Lots of petty arguments, vicious flame wars, creepy fans, spammy posts, prone to trolling. Generally, it was a pain.

 

A number of users ended up migrating to the off-topic forums the community was nicer, chiller, funnier, and more interesting. Sometimes it got very silly - the age range was between 12 to 25, averaging at 15/16, and this was the time when rage face memes and motivational posters were still popular. Still, it was a nice hub, and wasn't the off-putting aspect of the forum: in fact, it was a reaction to how unbearable the rest of the forum was. The long-time users - including, well, the entirety of the mod team bar two users - hated the book series. It was the OT section which encouraged people to stick around more, and it was there we became friends. Some of those friendships, six years on, and over three years since most of us left that forum, are still going strong - one of the south african mods had two british forum members visit over this summer, hell, I dated another mod off that forum for almost two years, and we're still very close friends.

 

This didn't last - the forum was owned by the owner of a fan website, who delegated it to the mods because he had a short temper, no sense of humour, and didn't like dealing with the place. Eventually he cracked down and declared the whole thing too unprofessional, was hurting the "brand image", and was off-putting for parents in particular. He called for a number of subsections to be removed, and requested that the website become completely family friendly (although off-topic didn't disappear completely - it was just toned down severely and became a lot more bland). In retrospect, I don't completely disagree with his decision - Mike was a total *******, but he owned a website, it's a business, you want to keep things on point and sell a product, at the end of the day. It's not nice but it's not as if he was just being unreasonable. Still, we didn't like the community that developed organically being torn down quite drastically - so all of the mods left, literally everyone, in a mass exodus. The owner wasn't actually dealing with the root problem - i.e. his fan website lacked content and weren't providing incentive to stick around - and secondly, disregarded the actual audience.

 

The forum, regardless, lived on. To be honest, when you're looking at teenagers who spent an unhealthy amount of time the internet, you usually have a high turnover when a bunch of them trot off to college and a) grow up massively, have opportunities to meet new people and do new exciting things in RL c) learn to work-life balance better and generally are pretty scarce, and d) outgrow the forum's demographic. The placed changed - it still exists, weirdly enough, I just checked for the first time in a couple of years, although it's a lot less exciting and creative than it used to be. The place lost a lot of traffic (and the fansite a lot of purpose/momentum) when the book series ended - really, that's been more of a blow to it.

 

A couple of lessons I learnt from this process:

- being at the centre of a small forum community doesn't necessarily mean you represent the core fanbase. it's a bit of an echo-chamber, really, unlike every other social media function on the internet. often, you often outgrow the fanbase, become something else entirely, and stick around for different reasons. I stayed in touch with many of those people for a long while afterwards via. facebook.

- developers make crappy decisions for you based on business motivations and - er, it sucks.

- this happens much more often when developers/owners are not personally invested in the forums (as they are now).

- cutting an off-topic forum does not improve the rest of the forums. That takes dedicated work and lots of updates and content. When there's no content, people get bored and troll the hell out of the forums (which is sort of happening in the ME:A forum, actually).

- that moderating a teenage forum about books with dragons in them teaches you multiple transferable skills which help you in the real world of work (no seriously, it was a crash course in doing tedious tasks efficiently whilst working together as a team, whilst constantly asking how you could improve this community for the better).

 

finally:

- forums are a terrible way to spend your awkward teenage years. I kind of wish tumblr was popular at that point in time, because it's far less of an echo chamber, introduces you to new ideas and new communities, and is more fun.

 

As you can see, this has a lot of parallels to what happened all those years ago.

 

I can sorta see why they're cutting the OT forum - I'm going to be honest, as a new user it's an intimidating place, with massive out-of-control threads, with a fair bit of casual sexism in some quarters (that's the reality of the gaming community at the moment, though), and I've never posted there and am not invested in it as a place. I think it's telling that most users here have thousands of posts - at my old forum, getting the most someone ever had was 11k. This was a forum that existed between 2004 to 2012, before it migrated to a new platform and wiped all the records. There also seems to be not that much fresh blood coming in, although I'm happy to be corrected if I'm wrong - although, in fairness, people are able to interact with BW in different ways now, and a forum isn't exactly the top of people's list when twitter exists.

 

Still, I just think this decision is going to cause lots of controversy on here and some upset, angry fans. Especially because this came about so suddenly. And my impression is that the community is more ingrained, tighter-knit, and closer here than at my old forum - because we're adults here, who understand work-life balance, and long-distance friendships are a normality for many adults anyway (pre-internet, I'm thinking too - my mum, for instance, has a number of good friends from her 20s/30s that she only sees once a year, and otherwise calls every week or so), so it's not as if there's a natural turnover in the way there was for my old forum.

 

Really, the bottom line is, if you want this to be an interesting, fun place without an off-topic forum, make more content. Release updates on what's happening. Dev blog posts. Maybe an 'art of the week' post. Competitions. Videos. MP events. Encourage and foster the community properly.

[Cee]

 As for the forum... well, I can understand why people are angry, even if I didn't use off-topic sub-forum myself - though I suspect this might be an attempt to perhaps regain control over forum/make it easier to moderate. And really, what easier way to do so than cut off-topic first, on a forum dedicated to a particular game/topic?

 

Yes, this. Some were also merged and others brought under the franchise instead of individual games. It's a streamlining approach that is often done for a couple of reasons, making it easier to moderate, as well as sometimes merging less active forums or redundant ones to make sure the one you're devoting moderation resources to is active. As for off-topic, I've never gone there, but some provide them and some don't. An off topic section can cost mod hours that are otherwise shifted from the general focus. I do think they're good a lot of the time, but I can't really say what this one was like.

 

 

Surely an off topic section would build a stronger community?  Which means getting rid of it is rather... odd.

 

Sometimes yes, sometimes it's a place for people to be troublesome. Other times it may be a spot that a community team sees as a resource drain since it's easier to keep a themed forum from being 'off topic' than off topic by nature that could require more eyes because it's not a single topic like we are in here.

 

I think they're good, but having worked on the other side of this stuff, community people aren't trying to be evil, really.
 

[Avejajed]

I think streamlining the forums is a positive, but the root of the problem is still the terrible moderating. making the forums smaller isn't going to help a bunch of lazy moderators moderate better lol.

Also there are way more troublemakers im the actual forum threads, not specifically in of topic. I know those guys honestly probably see less hate and vitriol than in general conversation threads.

I feel for the off topic stuff, though. I don't use that forum much but I know how easy it is to develop relationships with people in certain threads you frequent. Like my relationship with you guys.

[S.W.]

Edit: ToP!

 

Solas?

 

Solas!



SOLAS.
 

I think streamlining the forums is a positive, but the root of the problem is still the terrible moderating. making the forums smaller isn't going to help a bunch of lazy moderators moderate better lol.

Also there are way more troublemakers im the actual forum threads, not specifically in of topic. I know those guys honestly probably see less hate and vitriol than in general conversation threads.

I feel for the off topic stuff, though. I don't use that forum much but I know how easy it is to develop relationships with people in certain threads you frequent. Like my relationship with you guys.

 
^ exactly this. Active, dedicated mod staff which enforced a clear set of rules regularly is what's needed.
 
I feel really sorry for the OT frequenters. I'd be devastated if they decided character threads were too "controversial", for instance, and they deleted this thread I've only known you guys for a short time but you're all genuinely fantastic people.
 
It's no fun watching a community break apart.

[S.W.]

Actually, screw it, this is bringing up way too many depressing memories from years and years ago

 

 

Can we have more Solas please?

 

Spoiler

 

source

 

[coldwetn0se]

I was a lurker in a handful of off-topic threads, but I was an active poster on the Dragon's Dogma thread. Similar to this thread, it was a true little community. Some of the best belly laughs I have had, were from that thread. It was a great place to share our pawns, stories, screenshots, and more. Hell, we often did crossovers with BW characters (like the Solas and Dorian characters I made in the DD character creator).

It was a nice diversion, between BW releases, and when I just felt like bouncing around Gransys or BBI for a bit.

Not thrilled about this change.

On-topic:

[Bayonet Hipshot]

I was a lurker in a handful of off-topic threads, but I was an active poster on the Dragon's Dogma thread. Similar to this thread, it was a true little community. Some of the best belly laughs I have had, were from that thread. It was a great place to share our pawns, stories, screenshots, and more. Hell, we often did crossovers with BW characters (like the Solas and Dorian characters I made in the DD character creator).

It was a nice diversion, between BW releases, and when I just felt like bouncing around Gransys or BBI for a bit.

Not thrilled about this change.

On-topic:

 

The Orb = Off-Topic.

 

Solas = Off-Topicers.

 

RIP.

 

[Cee]

It might have been easier on people with a little more advance warning too. Some may only drop by every few days or less and they had no chance to save anything or leave messages or even give out their social media accounts if they hadn't already, etc.

 

The sad Solas pics are pretty appropriate.

[midnight tea]

Back to speculation bonanza, after reaching the mysterious hole in Western Approach with my mage Trevelyan.

 

Something just hit me - I picked the logbook of a warden mentioning how they reached an ancient thaig and then the thrum of the song collapsed the digging site. What I actually never really noticed was the title of that codex - and an interesting thing about it is that it's an... ANCIENT Warden Logbook.

 

Wait... so this hole is NOT recent? Did Venatori/current Wardens tried to continue an operation that was long abandoned by previous Wardens? Was them reaching and killing the Old God before darkspawn corrupt something they've tried before?

 

And that last sentence - "we'll have to find another Archdemon somewhere more solid". Huh... is it possible that some ancient Wardens might have inadvertently began one of the previous Blights?

[Cee]

The Wardens supposedly know the locations of the Old Gods but digging like that doesn't appear to be common practice. The timing on that logbook is vague enough that it is probably from between blights. The DAI Wardens were not exactly making rational decisions, but the Ancient Wardens may have simply been ignorant of what they were doing, perhaps?

 

Though after completing some of The Descent this whole underground and lyrium stuff....