Instead of making that poor guy give us nonsense about the reason for the closing, they should've just sent in the Rannoch Reaper to repeat "It is not a thing you can comprehend" over and over. Probably true too, actually. There's not many comprehensible explanations for this decision.
Actually, the Reapers aren't a bad metaphor here. They're destroying the world and insisting it's for our own good. Two peas in a pod.
They're being defeatist and painting themselves as the stressed out victims, when in reality they're just giving up while simultaneously screwing over their own fans. Giving up is giving up. It's pathetic.
To be clear I definitely do not consider myself a "victim."
One thing I always tried to be while on the forum was as honest as I could possibly be. In this case, I'm describing how over time I felt fatigue from remaining engaged with the forum and I needed to disengage for my own well being.
I can understand that you feel my disengaging with the community means I gave up on the fanbase but unfortunately it's not a perspective that I share. I'm sorry.
Allan, back during the ME3 ending fiasco you're one of the few Bioware people I knew even trying to engage in conversation, which I know wasn't easy at the time when emotions were running hard and despite the fact you weren't even on the ME team. For that I just wanted to say thank you.
Even if we were a pain in the ass I did respect you for whatever it's worth
Thank you.
And out of curiosity I just took a glance at r/dragonage and it appears they're not too thrilled with the possible influx of people making the move from here to there. The mods have their banhammers poised and the users act like they are preparing for war. It's not exactly giving off that 'warm welcome' vibe.
Charming. This is honestly one of the biggest barriers for me in ever even attempting to get into other, established off-shoot communities; many of them are very clique-ish. Even with Twitter, it seems like if you're not already inside the sphere of influence, good luck being addressed. There is absolutely a case to be made for a neutral playing field like an official forum provides.
Agreed.
One of my favorite things about this forum is the in depth discussion of game related lore - people will pick apart every bit of dialogue, every codex, every detail in any given scene and the conversation just takes on a life of it's own. Pages and pages of people dissecting the games with their tinfoil hats securely strapped on, happily theory crafting their little hearts out.
This was actually the reason I even joined the BSN back in the day, was the lore discussion going on. But nope, no more, Twitter and Reddit are much better alternatives. /s
Several of the closings over the years only fanned the flames here. First it was the tech support forums. Then the character forums. Then the devs mostly abandoned the place. Then the likable "named" (and I think non-paid) mods with personalities got replaced with ModBots. It's not all the players' fault.
I will keep shouting this until the end of time. Forums live and die by their moderation. There isn't one online community that hasn't dealt with toxicity, in all the forms it takes. A good moderation team, and I acknowledge they can be hard to find, makes the difference.
Your decision shows wisdom and foresight beyond understanding of mere mortals!
I salute you as you take yet another step that brings you closer to Olympus!
Yes, sadly, the groups will no longer be available. We know many people have used groups or other sections of the boards as a way to meet with their friends for a long time, so we want to make sure you have time to exchange information and transfer anything you might want to keep.
We will still have some private boards, which may be used for things like special projects or private betas, but I'm afraid we don't have any further information on that at this time.
As one of the Dev's that have more or less moved off of here, I am still sad.
That said I am sorry for all of those that are hit hard by this news
If you all are truly so sorry and sad for us, then prove it by not shutting this place down and tearing everyone apart from each other.
After great consideration, we are closing down the BioWare forums, effective August 26, 2016.
This wasn’t an easy decision.
Really? I'm shocked, sad and disappointed in the decision.
Our players are important to us...
In the past, our forums were the only way we could speak to you directly.
With so many great things so widely available, our developers today find themselves spending more time on other sites, and less time in our own forums. And to our fans and players who came to those boards looking to talk to us, it was a great disservice.
I'm uncertain what's being asked for, here.
There was a few of us who took part in the forum on our own time -- myself, Allan, John Epler, and maybe a handful of others. If we've stopped doing so, it's for our own individual reasons. Nobody told us to post, and nobody told us to stop.
Even when we did post, it was rarely as a means of explaining what we intended to do and then looking for feedback. I tried that occasionally, but generally even when I intended for my posts to be informational I mostly ended up getting drawn into arguments where I was forced to defend my position. Which you might think was useful, but usually that was not the case, considering it was most often against people with a particular axe to grind or who had a very set agenda regarding the kind of game they wanted to see...which is fine for them to have, but unhelpful when it has no relation to the game I'm actually making. Fans might pretend a project can be everything to all people, but designers do not have that luxury.
Insofar as "acknowledging mistakes" goes, there are always mistakes in every project -- things we think could be done better, or were just flat-out bad ideas, and we know why they happened the way they did far better than anyone. We had our own ideas about them even before the game was shipped. The forum is a great place for getting feedback (on mistakes as well as the things we did right -- we don't only look for the former), but we look for that kind of feedback from multiple places. The discussion regarding what we're going to do about them is going to be an internal one, however, and always has. Eventually that will get communicated out to the fans as things get decided, and maybe some of that will occur here? I'm not sure.
Mostly these forums exist for the fans to talk to each other.
As to whether the forum could also be used for the Community team to communicate with the fans more -- by all means, let them know what you think should happen. I imagine that's information the Community Manager would be interested to hear.
Gaming companies successfully have forums:
Leaving it to 'the community' is not a good call, it is a weak call, it is an unsupportive call.
This decision may have been taken with the best of intentions to stifle dissent, control disharmony
or simply to park the discussion of the invested and obsessed, somewhere else.
Our players are important to us.
we remain committed to our community
[we] will always be here to listen, share, and support you.
we will continue to seek out opportunities to interact and share in our combined love of games.
...
And maybe I need tougher skin? I'm probably not the best judge of that. I don't think I had soft skin, just more that my armor wasn't impregnable and for better or worse me posting somewhere was a lightning rod for people to derail threads to get my attention and vent their frustrations at me. So in that sense given enough time it just became, if not "stressful" then certainly much less fun.
I think what you need is someone who does that job for you on a forum.
This feels like a stab in the heart.
The BSN was one of the BEST places to gather together and have conversations that went far beyond the ordinary level of discussing game content. We could debate religion, culture, economics, even metaphysical subjects because of the broad scope of the worlds Bioware games had. Let me provide you with a few examples:
The whole discussion about the Chantry would involve discussing monotheistic religions and the traditional view of magic as inherently sinful.
The collectivism practised by the Qunari would lead to a discussion about communism, theocracy and xenophobia.
The forced exile of the Dalish would incite a debate over the erasure of small local cultures in favor of the expansionism of empires.
The nature of the Circles and the mage-templar dilemma was an opportunity to discuss Stockholm Syndrome and individual rights versus a legally established limitation of individual freedom.
Loghain's character evoked the debate on the self-made man and how blind patriotism can lead to injustice, martial law and the implementation of extreme policies.
The Exalted Council raised the discussion on the existence of a third party in international politics and how they affected sovereignity.
All those conversations will be lost and forgotten. Furthermore, the community will be fragmented after having to migrate to various forums and social media. You can't just bring those people back after taking such a radical measure as shutting down this place.
I hope Bioware intends to create a new forum where people can gather together once again to discuss DA4 and Andromeda. I don't know if you're aware of it, but most BW fans have a second life on the internet. What you're doing is terminating a public space where they can gather and meet.
BW, you don't know what kind of fans you have. They kept this place alive, even when there were no news or nothing to talk about. People who didn't even know what BW was about came here just to see what the fuss was all about. Why were people interacting years after the latest games were released? Now you're killing a loyal community that has grown independent and had a life of its own. You're shutting us down and reducing us all to mere consumers of a product. You're sterilizing the community. So be it. Just don't be surprised by the fans' reaction to it.
I actually still engage on places like Twitter. I actually find it easier to have conversations in some capacity due to Twitter's nature of not showing posts unless you follow the person and at least one of the people tagged in the message. So it's unlikely a random person will interject to derail something.
And why would a BioWare Developer/Employee ever follow a random Twitter user that is a fan then? I used to be on Twitter and literally got no response from anyone EVER, because I didn't have 1872463435463453645 Followers or wasn't some known Youtuber. So now what? There goes that whole "staying in touch" on Twitter theory.
If you all are truly so sorry and sad for us, then prove it by not shutting this place down and tearing everyone apart from each other.
These forums have been a wounded animal since its relaunch. Off topic being shut down was an infection setting into the wounds.
Put this place out of its misery Alan. You don't have enough persuation points to make this easy. So make it quick instead.
There isn't one online community that hasn't dealt with toxicity, in all the forms it takes.
Hell, you can extend this to just "communities". Being "toxic" is part of human nature and it's completely pointless trying to stop it. Not to mention that "toxicity" in the context of an online message board really just refers to someone being a bit of an ***hole and saying mean words. So, if toxicity is one of the reasons for devs/CMs not using their own forums, then they can stand to grow a backbone.
I will keep shouting this until the end of time. Forums live and die by their moderation. There isn't one online community that hasn't dealt with toxicity, in all the forms it takes. A good moderation team, and I acknowledge they can be hard to find, makes the difference.
But moderation of official forums are stymied by their status as "official"; once a community turns toxic, attempts to moderate with any force can be spun as a nasty ol' company trying to silence free speech.
If you all are truly so sorry and sad for us, then prove it by not shutting this place down and tearing everyone apart from each other.
I doubt any of them have any more control over this decision than I have over the prices in the store I work at.
Also T_T
Eh, I'll go back to 4chan I guess....I have no regrets here...Accept maybe making a enemy of the Romance nut jobs.....
But moderation of official forums are stymied by their status as "official"; once a community turns toxic, attempts to moderate with any force can be spun as a nasty ol' company trying to silence free speech.
If you don't keep clean the house it's gonna be dirty.
Really? I'm shocked, sad and disappointed in the decision.
I'm sorry Conal, I don't buy that.Most forums are for fans to talk to each other...Sure there can be issues, fans can be harsh, even toxic sometimes, but wouldn't any company want that feedback to be close to them, not remote or even worse, covered up?In this post, David Gaider discusses the pros and cons of BSN, and why indeed its purpose is for fans to talk to each other:So now the reason to close the forum is because devs not connecting with fans is a disservice?Regretfully I call BS on that notion.The decision to invest moderation time in a forum (even via volunteer moderators) is a choice.It is also making a choice to walk away, and in my view a poor choice.There are many reasons why a company sponsored forum has great value.At game launch it provides a place for the interested to congregate.Even after launch, particularly for the multiplayer communities it allows ongoing contact and communication.DAIMP had terrific support from Blair, Billy and Luke among others.The ME3 MP forum was vibrant at launch and is legendary in its tenacious conversations and the 'is anyone still here?' threads.So how will MEA MP be supported, from Twitter?It's all too easy to conclude that the reasons for closing BSN include:
- Too difficult
- Too toxic
- Too much about hair and gender politics
- Too much effort
- Too easy an avenue for MEA complaint (worrying)
Gaming companies successfully have forums:
- Bethesda can do it.
- CD Projekt Red can manage.
- Even Ubisoft can cope with the invective that gets thrown at them.
Leaving it to 'the community' is not a good call, it is a weak call, it is an unsupportive call.
This decision may have been taken with the best of intentions to stifle dissent, control disharmony
or simply to park the discussion of the invested and obsessed, somewhere else.
I'm sorry Conal, but those words do not align to these deeds, in my vie
I liked this post.
other than that, I don't understand why the forum has to shut down. can't members within the community run the forum after the devs leave?
If you don't keep clean the house it's gonna be dirty.
What?
You all come around eventually.
I was so hoping to convince you to play MP one day.
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