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Chambers
2015-09-16, 11:21 AM
Announcement. (http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/wizards-coast-community-forums-be-shut-down-2015-09-16)

Just shaking my head at this. You own the brand for the biggest/oldest RPG in the world, and you're going to force your customers to talk about your product somewhere else? How did they think this was a smart move?

Forrestfire
2015-09-16, 11:26 AM
Huh. That's definitely an odd choice... I need to go through and save a bunch of threads, because I relied on the WotC boards for a whole bunch of guides for 4e and neat old TO builds for 3.5. :smalleek:

JAL_1138
2015-09-16, 11:26 AM
WotC closing their forums...well that idea's as bright as a broken lightbulb...oy.

Mrs Kat
2015-09-16, 11:28 AM
In fairness, their forum system was terrible when last I used it.

Is anyone going to archive the handbooks and so on (I'm thinking of Treantmonklvl20 among others) before the forums are deleted for good?

TheCountAlucard
2015-09-16, 11:30 AM
In fairness, their forum system was terrible when last I used it.The same is true for me, albeit with the tiny asterisked "*eight or so years ago."

Plus I recall it being a somewhat caustic place.

ThinkMinty
2015-09-16, 11:32 AM
Plus I recall it being a somewhat caustic place.

That's kinda...everywhere compared to the Playground, to be honest. Facebook's pretty hostile, comparatively.

JAL_1138
2015-09-16, 11:32 AM
In fairness, their forum system was terrible when last I used it.


So convert to a better forum system and let users move content. There are plenty out there that work well, and presumably require very little money considering the nearly-no-budget sites using them.

Nifft
2015-09-16, 11:35 AM
Well that sucks.

It wasn't my favorite community on the 'net, but it had some value.

obryn
2015-09-16, 11:38 AM
It was useful for reference and archive. But man, I can't see this as good news for WotC if they can't afford to keep an active forum going.

JAL_1138
2015-09-16, 11:41 AM
It was useful for reference and archive. But man, I can't see this as good news for WotC if they can't afford to keep an active forum going.

Either that or someone at Hasbro demanded that they use more social media.

Joe the Rat
2015-09-16, 12:02 PM
What, there's too much diluting the natter between the forums and umpteen different social media channels? I mean, it's not like they need to do official announcements in the forums, and everything gets cross-linked anyway. It just seems an odd choice. I wonder how much influx we'll get from it.

Anyone want to do a quick scan and see how many other publishers are going "no official forum" these days?

LibraryOgre
2015-09-16, 12:53 PM
Either that or someone at Hasbro demanded that they use more social media.

I'd say that forums are a pretty social media, and not terribly different than most others, in some respects.

However, I haven't used their forums since they could be read on a newsreader and were going through the announcements about 3e, so.... I'm certainly not their target audience.

Anonymouswizard
2015-09-16, 01:19 PM
That's kinda...everywhere compared to the Playground, to be honest. Facebook's pretty hostile, comparatively.

I've personally never used the WotC forums, but yeah. You can occasionally find a forum as good as the Playground, but you have to be careful as they don't have the playground's regulations to avoid that slip.

Fun fact, I once pointed out on Facebook that it can be considered a forum/bunch of personal forums, and people have no right to tell me to go to a forum to discuss ideas. Soon after that I gave up, classified forums as the best part of social media, and mainly use Facebook to chat with friends who live far away and try to get groups started.


Either that or someone at Hasbro demanded that they use more social media.

Forums aren't a social media? I mean, we don't talk about such personal stuff as some people do on Facebook (I personally don't put anything on Facebook that I wouldn't mind turning up on here, but I've seen what some people do), but the GiantITP forums have always felt like a place to socially connect with many people over shared interests, like Roleplaying and what stupid things WotC are doing now.

In fact, the only advantage I see 'social media' having over forums is the slight chance of bringing new people into the hobby. Although I think GiantITP may have done as much work as Facebook on that front. :smalltongue:

Slipperychicken
2015-09-16, 01:27 PM
This looks like a way of externalizing the cost of forum maintenance. Other entities (like this site) are already hosting most of the discussion, and WotC can monitor them just as well (to see what we want, what we think, how we're using their products, and so on), so dropping their own forums is a way to cut costs without losing value.

ComaVision
2015-09-16, 01:54 PM
I wonder how often I'll be seeing "There used to be a guide for that on the WotC forums..." in the months after.

LudicSavant
2015-09-16, 02:03 PM
The WotC forums used to be a pretty damn vibrant community pre-Gleemax. Ancient history now. It was crippled by repeated changes that were so bad they seemed like outright, intentional sabotage. This just seems like a continuation of that.


I wonder how often I'll be seeing "There used to be a guide for that on the WotC forums..." in the months after.

Heck, I'm already used to hearing that a lot, since so much of the old, good material has been lost in their forum changes over the years. :smallfrown:

Lord Raziere
2015-09-16, 02:08 PM
The same is true for me, albeit with the tiny asterisked "*eight or so years ago."

Plus I recall it being a somewhat caustic place.

you don't know the half of it. the first online freeform roleplaying place I ever was in, was on there. it sucked. ran for five years on people doing but arguing over which of their overpowered characters should win when their level of power was "I'm godlike, I have only one weakness, and I'm not telling you what it is, guess it yourself.". to the point where my character, (dragon artificer wizard, 10,000 years old) who would be like, an overpowered mary sue or something anywhere else, constantly died to everyone else in the RP- 17 times in fact, thats more times than the Doctor or the Master has died! and then there was all the excessive terraforming and apocalypses.....I'm not sad to see WotC forums go, knowing it created Gleemax roleplay.

Knaight
2015-09-16, 02:10 PM
That's kinda...everywhere compared to the Playground, to be honest. Facebook's pretty hostile, comparatively.

I can think of three forums, and about six IRC channels that are far less hostile than the Playground just off the top of my head, without even leaving the RPG-nerd subgroup. WotC forums being far more hostile is not a point in their favor.

SaintRidley
2015-09-16, 02:16 PM
I honestly don't even care. I remember the shift to Gleemax over there losing my ability to log into my account, and that's about when I quit visiting them entirely.

Wonder what's going to happen to the stranded forumgoers.

Nifft
2015-09-16, 02:20 PM
Forums aren't a social media?

Some forums seem to be anti-social media.

LibraryOgre
2015-09-16, 02:22 PM
I can think of three forums, and about six IRC channels that are far less hostile than the Playground just off the top of my head, without even leaving the RPG-nerd subgroup. WotC forums being far more hostile is not a point in their favor.

I'd be curious to know which ones; PM me.


Some forums seem to be anti-social media.

I'll admit, I chuckled.

DigoDragon
2015-09-16, 02:31 PM
I wonder how often I'll be seeing "There used to be a guide for that on the WotC forums..." in the months after.

Could always migrate them over here, though I think a few already have counterparts in the Playground.

GPuzzle
2015-09-16, 02:39 PM
The 4e CharOp community is already developing a plan to move as many guides and builds as possible to ENWorld before the deadline. It's actually really impressive.

Awesomologist
2015-09-16, 03:02 PM
The 4e CharOp community is already developing a plan to move as many guides and builds as possible to ENWorld before the deadline. It's actually really impressive.

I would love to know more about this. The 4e guides (and recently the 5e guides) where my main reasons for going to the WotC forums. Once WotC seemed determined to kill 4e I spent less and less time there. I never cared much enworld as I always found their site to be an eyesore, but an archive of these guides will always be useful.

Solaris
2015-09-16, 06:55 PM
That's kinda...everywhere compared to the Playground, to be honest. Facebook's pretty hostile, comparatively.

Not to be ragging on this forum, because it is a good resource, but the Playground is just as hostile as most any other forum I've been on and sometimes more so; there are topics I don't get involved with because I know it's just going to turn into twelve pages of pointless bickering before it degrades into insults and namecalling that only sometimes skirt the forum rules. People may need to be more subtle in their insults and passive aggressive in their attacks here, but that doesn't change the fact that a lot of discussions here have as much vitriol in them as you'll find in the Youtube comments section.

Brova
2015-09-16, 07:50 PM
It was useful for reference and archive. But man, I can't see this as good news for WotC if they can't afford to keep an active forum going.

They can obviously afford to maintain an active forum. MTG is (technically speaking) "profitable as ****". Seriously, the game makes a quarter billion a year, has major tournaments every weekend, probably the best design team working on any tabletop game (possibly ever), and a huge fanbase. If WotC is shuttering their forums, it's not because they can't afford them.


You own the brand for the biggest/oldest RPG in the world

While D&D is certainly the oldest RPG in the world, it's probably not the biggest. Setting aside the fact that WoW is totally an RPG and makes substantially more than D&D does, 4e did a number to the brand. Pathfinder was beating them in the past and may still be. Unfortunately, the numbers are very hard to find.


Not to be ragging on this forum, because it is a good resource, but the Playground is just as hostile as most any other forum I've been on and sometimes more so; there are topics I don't get involved with because I know it's just going to turn into twelve pages of pointless bickering before it degrades into insults and namecalling that only sometimes skirt the forum rules. People may need to be more subtle in their insults and passive aggressive in their attacks here, but that doesn't change the fact that a lot of discussions here have as much vitriol in them as you'll find in the Youtube comments section.

Basically this. The internet is a hostile place. You can't make people not be aggressive, you can just make them be passive aggressive.

D+1
2015-09-16, 08:05 PM
1) It costs money to maintain a forum server and moderate them.
2) Forum participation may be down overall. Participation of obnoxious users may be up.
3) It costs a lot of headaches to moderate a forum, not just money.
4) They're yammering about social media and only proving they STILL don't grok how to make more monies from D&D on teh internets.

My guess would be it's as much or more about #1 as anything else. Still, letting participants find forum discussions elsewhere absolves WOTC of the NECESSITY of making petulant children and man-boy jerks talk nicely to each other. Now they can go elsewhere, be as vile as they like, and WotC doesn't get stained by it.

If it were ME suggesting this move to them, I'd advocate that it also frees them of watching players RELENTLESSLY picking apart their game rules and needing to plug the holes. That means still more savings in staff. DM's should be doing that anyway and WotC should never, EVER have placed themselves in the position of subverting the authority of an individual DM and letting players appeal to the greater authority of RULES. Back with 3E they dedicated themselves to supporting the rules like they supported MtG (which will always need lots of authoritative rules that ALL participants are subject to in competition). But D&D is not a competitive game, the rules are orders of magnitude more complex in their interactions, and they simply CANNOT be made to apply equally in all games.

I see almost nothing but upsides to the move. The only downside is that they can no longer tell players or DM's, "You're doing it wrong!"

BRKNdevil
2015-09-16, 08:31 PM
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/wizards-coast-community-forums-be-shut-down-2015-09-16

They plan on shutting the forums down so if you have something you want to save, do it now

Pluto!
2015-09-16, 08:48 PM
I don't think WotC has hosted the biggest discussion board for any of their products for over a decade.

It doesn't seem unreasonable to cut the costs to maintain word-of-mouth social support that their users have proven themselves willing to foot the bill for anyway.

Battlebooze
2015-09-16, 09:00 PM
Wow, WotC really is amazingly bad at dealing with their customers.

R.Shackleford
2015-09-16, 09:19 PM
So not sure if this is a good or bad thing but...

Can we now start saying that 5E killed the Wotc forums?

steppedonad4
2015-09-16, 09:20 PM
All digital content ever produced by WotC has been poorly received. Mostly because it's deserved it. Given how small their budget is and how limited their staff are now, I'm not surprised that the forums are being thrown in the trash. Can't say I'm sad to see them go as they were always poorly managed and maintained and built, in my opinion. Then again, I also don't like the idea of all the information and power over D&D conversation now being held in the hands of independent, third-parties like EN World and even sites like this one. It's nothing personal, it's just that every privately owned website has a private agenda and community with a strong bias. I don't think that is, ultimately, good for D&D. It's good to have such sites as alternates to a primary voice controlled by the company itself, but not as the sole source.

Ciraq
2015-09-16, 09:25 PM
I am not a fan of the direction they are taking with the web site. I was a huge fan of the online character builder in 4e, and used it to keep up to date characters sheets for the players in my campaign. The fact that they are now endorsing cumbersome third-party applications is disappointing, to say the least. I am not surprised that the forums will be following the same trend. I am hoping that a lot of the older information from inactive posters is somehow archived.

R.Shackleford
2015-09-16, 09:26 PM
All digital content ever produced by WotC has been poorly received. Mostly because it's deserved it. Given how small their budget is and how limited their staff are now, I'm not surprised that the forums are being thrown in the trash. Can't say I'm sad to see them go as they were always poorly managed and maintained and built, in my opinion. Then again, I also don't like the idea of all the information and power over D&D conversation now being held in the hands of independent, third-parties like EN World and even sites like this one. It's nothing personal, it's just that every privately owned website has a private agenda and community with a strong bias. I don't think that is, ultimately, good for D&D. It's good to have such sites as alternates to a primary voice controlled by the company itself, but not as the sole source.

I'm not an avid forum goer but from what I gather the Wotc forum has always been quite toxic.

The charop and guide builders were awesome (used them as reference more than a few times) but when you get away from there (from what I've been told and shown) things turned crappy real fast.

Temperjoke
2015-09-16, 09:34 PM
Part of the problem for companies is that it's expensive to maintain an official forums area. I mean, you have to maintain them, pay for moderators; it adds up very quickly. Companies also don't necessarily get a lot of benefit from them either. I mean, someone makes a ruling or announcement that a group doesn't like, and the place goes up in flames. They don't need a forums to make announcements, they post them directly. They don't need forums to get feedback any more, there's reddit, twitter, facebook, independently-run forums, hell even comment sections on the announcements. Not to mention, their forums aren't exactly the best designed. They probably had a sit down and decided that the cost of all the updates and running it was outweighed by the benefits of dropping them.

Elkad
2015-09-16, 09:41 PM
Their reasoning sucks. You can't search twitter for discussion on a rule point, or a class design.

At least they should just lock the forums and leave them up as an archive.

MeeposFire
2015-09-16, 09:43 PM
I'm not an avid forum goer but from what I gather the Wotc forum has always been quite toxic.

The charop and guide builders were awesome (used them as reference more than a few times) but when you get away from there (from what I've been told and shown) things turned crappy real fast.

Funny I always thought that this forum was a lot more toxic than anything I remember from the WotC forums. There are so many times I think I should just not even look at this place but I have to admit the off chance of seeing something new makes me come back. Heck if it was not for the web comic I would probably frequent there more often.

Actually I take it back as every time they updated their lay out I ended up hating it more and more. I did not hate the community but the layout of the forums just did not work with me. At one point they looked very similar to this layout which I liked but over the years little things just kept annoying me about it.

I miss the old OP forums...

Naanomi
2015-09-16, 09:46 PM
I lost most of the fun optimization stuff I was a part of in the last forum update, nothing on there now I'll miss too much. Still a shame to see a community die

R.Shackleford
2015-09-16, 09:51 PM
Does anyone know if any good 4E guides have been saved to other sites? I tend to refer people to guides written better than I could ever do it and Wotc foru was one of the main sources for them.

Daishain
2015-09-16, 10:00 PM
Huh, that's going to screw with my thread. Something approaching half of the guides up there are hosted on those forums.

steppedonad4
2015-09-16, 10:26 PM
I'm not an avid forum goer but from what I gather the Wotc forum has always been quite toxic.

In my opinion the problems there stemmed primarily from their methods of moderation. They would simply delete whole swathes of conversations which angered everyone participating in the thread. Moreover, much like at many forums, there were certain elements who learned how to tow the line between trolling and not being moderated. So they would antagonise people, get those people banned, and in essence control the conversation towards their own ends. It's also one of the biggest problems with ENW, in my opinion, although I think that's compounded by a lot of cliques there who either have moderation power or influence, either due to real-world friendships or simply long-term established personalities that are given the benefit of the doubt over any dissenting contributors. Essentially, the favouritism there is intense.

Then you have the RPGsite. The less said about that place the better.

Despite having a downvote brigade that definitely targets certain posters (yes, I happen to be one of them, but I also have other accounts where I say essentially the same thing, only with different language and either get upvoted or left alone, which I feel says everything about the voting activity there), I find reddit to be the best source of open discussion, primarily because it's the least moderated of the options. Moderation, in my opinion, only ever seems to lead to cliques, favouritism and extreme limiting of discussion towards a certain accepted community bias. This makes for very dull, one-sided, and unimaginative, uncreative discussion.

Maybe WotC could make an 'official' reddit sub? And not moderate it. At all. That would be awesome.

animewatcha
2015-09-16, 10:38 PM
Usually we can find builds and guides either here, brilliantgameologists, or enworld. There any such on the community forum?

MeeposFire
2015-09-16, 10:47 PM
Huh, that's going to screw with my thread. Something approaching half of the guides up there are hosted on those forums.

Also using guides was a lot better there than here. Here if a guide is is not used for a while you have to technically do an illegeal thread necro. There it was not an issue AND they had all the guides stickied in a special thread at the top of the OP forums. It was very helpful for sure.

I think my overall most favorite thread was the homebrew your own vestige thread. I actually have a number of vestiges on that thread including Starscream, Spinal Tap, and others. I should reacquire those before they are gone for good.

P.F.
2015-09-16, 10:53 PM
Will this affect the value of my Magic card collection?

supersonic29
2015-09-16, 10:57 PM
That's a bummer. Even if they discontinued use of the forums, surely it wouldn't impact their business notably to keep text archives up of the forums. Guess I need to go copy the diplomacy jumplomancer thing (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/1141886)...

Edit: Oh! And basket weaving (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/1121371)!

Pex
2015-09-16, 11:04 PM
I had quit the forums when 4E came out and they gutted the 3E forums. 3E conversations became less interesting as those who still liked it moved on to elsewhere, probably here and/or Paizo. WOTC mainly cared about the 4E forums. Since I didn't play the game, WOTC forums were no longer for me.

Namfuak
2015-09-16, 11:10 PM
Do they have an API or something? Or are they just shutting it down with no reasonable way for someone to actually download a significant portion of it?

Curmudgeon
2015-09-16, 11:11 PM
This is going to take a lot of work. There are some invaluable resources there, such as

Lists of Stuff (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/1068066)
Alternative Class Features (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/1151316)
Master Player Race List (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-general/threads/1078216)
Master Template List (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/1117261)
MIC items by function (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-general/threads/1215836)
Special Materials Index (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-general/threads/1776531)
Forms for Alter Self (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/895676)
Bunko's Bargain Basement (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/1066486)

Extra Anchovies
2015-09-16, 11:37 PM
I've copied the Lists of Stuff and uploaded it as a pdf here (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B45yUXNEdMTuUUtyTWhKT0dIMjg/view?usp=sharing) (with the links fixed to archive.wizards). Feel free to share the link, put it in your signature, etc. Let me know if it works and is in a convenient format; if it does and is, I'll do the same for the other items Curmudgeon mentioned. It's pretty much just the raw text of the list for now; top priority is saving stuff but if I have the time I may organize the re-hosts in a google site or some other similar format to keep them all in one place.

The Glyphstone
2015-09-16, 11:46 PM
Great Modthulhu: Merged with the existing thread on this topic in Roleplaying Games, as this is a pan-edition issue.

atemu1234
2015-09-16, 11:59 PM
Great. Time to fire up httrack again. If I succeed, is there anything stopping me from posting it all as a downloadable on google drive?

animewatcha
2015-09-17, 12:10 AM
What about saving particular pages to the webarchive?

Totema
2015-09-17, 12:14 AM
I don't have as much to say as a D&D player, but for Magic: The Gathering, the WotC forums were pretty much dead.

Slipperychicken
2015-09-17, 12:20 AM
watching players RELENTLESSLY picking apart their game rules and needing to plug the holes.

That's actually a positive thing for them, believe it or not. Getting constant feedback like that helps them understand the consumer and learn to meet their needs better, which in turn leads to higher satisfaction and probably a better position in the industry. 5th edition D&D seems like a good example of this; WotC took more than a decade of feedback into account and used it to release a greatly improved product which many of us prefer over prior editions. Most companies know the value of such feedback and pay out the wazoo for it, but many of WotC's customers put their thoughts and experiences online for free. Nitpicking at WotC's products and suggesting improvements is probably the best thing we can do for them; it helps them get better, and it shows that they have passionate consumers who want to see the brand improve.


Also, if giants like WotC can make big expenses like playtesting and customer service (such as regular errata, revisions, advice columns, etc) required to compete in the tabletop RPG market, that can raise another barrier to entry and make it harder for smaller players to challenge them. If they get us used to a constant cycle of feedback and service, then anyone who wants to take their market-share will need to compete with that.

goto124
2015-09-17, 12:22 AM
Seems that the main reason is 'why spend money and effort on servers and forum moderation when they're plenty of alternative places to share information and opinions'.

EDIT: An elaboration:

Part of the problem for companies is that it's expensive to maintain an official forums area. I mean, you have to maintain them, pay for moderators; it adds up very quickly. Companies also don't necessarily get a lot of benefit from them either. I mean, someone makes a ruling or announcement that a group doesn't like, and the place goes up in flames. They don't need a forums to make announcements, they post them directly. They don't need forums to get feedback any more, there's reddit, twitter, facebook, independently-run forums, hell even comment sections on the announcements. Not to mention, their forums aren't exactly the best designed. They probably had a sit down and decided that the cost of all the updates and running it was outweighed by the benefits of dropping them.

tiornys
2015-09-17, 01:39 AM
There's been some amount of CharOp guides moved to ENWorld (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showwiki.php?title=4E-Character-Optimization-Guide), but the majority still need to be moved. I might have to figure out how to wiki and pitch in on that.

NeoPhoenix0
2015-09-17, 02:15 AM
wait, I think the wild shape bible i use is there, though i have found almost everything else I use on another site. Such as the lists of stuff on brillientgameologists.

Kurald Galain
2015-09-17, 03:47 AM
Wow, they're taking down their entire forums? I wasn't expecting that!

If people are compiling guides on Enworld, then the Utility Belt guide (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?97322-Guide-to-the-Utility-Belt-Wizard-Batman-4E-style) could be useful.

Zweisteine
2015-09-17, 06:48 AM
To everyone who is saving materials in a publicly accessible way (i.e. web archive or something):

We really need a thread to index everything that has been saved already, so we can figure out what's left.

I'd make it myself, but I'm too inactive to do any sort of maintaining of threads...

R.Shackleford
2015-09-17, 07:51 AM
In my opinion the problems there stemmed primarily from their methods of moderation. They would simply delete whole swathes of conversations which angered everyone participating in the thread. Moreover, much like at many forums, there were certain elements who learned how to tow the line between trolling and not being moderated. So they would antagonise people, get those people banned, and in essence control the conversation towards their own ends. It's also one of the biggest problems with ENW, in my opinion, although I think that's compounded by a lot of cliques there who either have moderation power or influence, either due to real-world friendships or simply long-term established personalities that are given the benefit of the doubt over any dissenting contributors. Essentially, the favouritism there is intense.

Then you have the RPGsite. The less said about that place the better.

Despite having a downvote brigade that definitely targets certain posters (yes, I happen to be one of them, but I also have other accounts where I say essentially the same thing, only with different language and either get upvoted or left alone, which I feel says everything about the voting activity there), I find reddit to be the best source of open discussion, primarily because it's the least moderated of the options. Moderation, in my opinion, only ever seems to lead to cliques, favouritism and extreme limiting of discussion towards a certain accepted community bias. This makes for very dull, one-sided, and unimaginative, uncreative discussion.

Maybe WotC could make an 'official' reddit sub? And not moderate it. At all. That would be awesome.

Reddit definitely has that issue, no question, I typically use that site for the front page and to get my daily dose of News. That place can be the best part of the internet and be the worst part all at the same time.

I wouldn't be surprised if we see a good, unofficial, d&d specific forum pop up eventually. Maybe ran by one of the 3rd parties that will be working on 5E stuff.

Or maybe Paizo will swoop in and make a D&D specific forum, just out of spite (we are better than you mwuahaha) and some advertisement dollars on the side.

atemu1234
2015-09-17, 07:56 AM
To everyone who is saving materials in a publicly accessible way (i.e. web archive or something):

We really need a thread to index everything that has been saved already, so we can figure out what's left.

I'd make it myself, but I'm too inactive to do any sort of maintaining of threads...

Same. Possibly one specific to subforums?

KorvinStarmast
2015-09-17, 08:06 AM
From a "time invested to benefit accrued" perspective, forums are rarely a winning proposition for a small company. My visits to the WoTC D&D forums were very unsatisfactory, so I stopped visiting.

They can use their website to support their product, and let the forum function be hosted elsewhere. I'd say it was a smart business decision if they were unable or unwilling to sink man hours into forum maintenance and function.

A couple of years ago, a non profit whose forum I used to visit finally decided to get rid of the forum. (James Randi Educational Foundation). They had been through that in the early 00's, and chose to keep it. After the leadership changed and they did another analysis of what the forum did for the foundation's efforts, they chose to let it go. I was sorry to see it go, but I understood why they did it. Non profits have to keep a hard eye on budgets to stay viable.

The features forums once brought seem to have other avenues as our electronic age spawns other means of connecting to the fan base. Note how Crawford and Mearles use Twitter to answer questions. Who needs a forum?

Sian
2015-09-17, 08:50 AM
This is going to take a lot of work. There are some invaluable resources there, such as
Lists of Stuff (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/1068066)

Minmaxboards (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=1412.0) have a more updated one



Alternative Class Features (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/1151316)


Theres quite a few of these floating around, personally i'm using the one on Brilliant Gameologists (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=7908.0)



Master Player Race List (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-general/threads/1078216)


Minmaxboards (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=1281.0) to the rescue

Solaris
2015-09-17, 09:16 AM
What about saving particular pages to the webarchive?

Or posting them here?

Person_Man
2015-09-17, 09:22 AM
Part of the problem for companies is that it's expensive to maintain an official forums area. I mean, you have to maintain them, pay for moderators; it adds up very quickly.

Speaking as someone who has professionally managed IT contracts and stood up several forums, I disagree. It's actually pretty cheap to create a forum using off the shelf software (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Internet_forum_software). You only need a small number of paid moderators (though they do need to be knowledgeable, professional, well trained, etc), or a few friends and/or trusted community members to be volunteer mods. (For WotC, they could probably post an add on Craig's List for unpaid interns to do it and get 1,000 resumes in one day). The sys admin is usually the most expensive staffer, but you can usually get away with a part-time subcontractor from overseas (as long as your website doesn't attract hackers).

The big cost is often marketing to attract enough users and build a community, but WotC has never had that problem, since its products are popular.

The caveat to that statement is if you have a corporate team that demands difficult branding/graphics and/or additional functions that require custom coding and/or government usability/security mandates. Then you could easily run up huge costs for marginal benefits. (See also: Gleemax).



Companies also don't necessarily get a lot of benefit from them either.

You are absolutely correct about this. But I would argue that in this case, its a really dumb move for WotC for a variety of reasons, though I don't have the time right now to write up a memo explaining Marketing 101 at the moment.

R.Shackleford
2015-09-17, 09:47 AM
You are absolutely correct about this. But I would argue that in this case, its a really dumb move for WotC for a variety of reasons, though I don't have the time right now to write up a memo explaining Marketing 101 at the moment.

For a company that is not know for their consumer - company relationship you would think they would try a bit harder to stay on friendly terms with the hard core and casual sides.

It does seem that since 4e came out that Wotc wants to pretend that hard core gamers don't exist for D&D but they exist for MtG.

Now they are alienating both.

steppedonad4
2015-09-17, 10:33 AM
It's actually pretty cheap to create a forum using off the shelf software (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Internet_forum_software).

I hate sites that constantly try to reinvent the wheel. WotC's latest incarnation was terrible. Whoever they paid to build that forum software needs to give the money back.

Sol
2015-09-17, 11:03 AM
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/wizards-coast-community-forums-be-shut-down-2015-09-16

They plan on shutting the forums down so if you have something you want to save, do it now

what a strange decision

supersonic29
2015-09-17, 11:21 AM
To everyone who is saving materials in a publicly accessible way (i.e. web archive or something):

We really need a thread to index everything that has been saved already, so we can figure out what's left.

I'd make it myself, but I'm too inactive to do any sort of maintaining of threads...

This. Someone who knows how to do so tactfully ought to make an indexed archive thing.

Also, is Little Red Raiding Hood 2.4 (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/1659301) anywhere but wizards? 2.3 is on brilliantgameologists, but it doesn't appear they ever updated it.

Edit: Oh, and it's a formality as the information is elsewhere, but if anyone is attached to Pun-Pun (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/1013486)...

Kurald Galain
2015-09-17, 12:03 PM
Edit: Oh, and it's a formality as the information is elsewhere, but if anyone is attached to Pun-Pun (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/1013486)...

Wow. That's a good example of how horribly messed up the WOTC forums became when they let a third party handle them...

Pex
2015-09-17, 12:16 PM
Announcement. (http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/wizards-coast-community-forums-be-shut-down-2015-09-16)

Just shaking my head at this. You own the brand for the biggest/oldest RPG in the world, and you're going to force your customers to talk about your product somewhere else? How did they think this was a smart move?

The same brilliance they had in gutting the 3E forums when 4E came out adding to further alienation of 3E fans. Why stop such a success?

obryn
2015-09-17, 12:29 PM
Wow. That's a good example of how horribly messed up the WOTC forums became when they let a third party handle them...
First all of the adventures and supplements, now the forums (without even a licensing deal). The future of D&D is in WotC handing off all the work to contractors. 6e will probably be written by Green Ronin or something.

LibraryOgre
2015-09-17, 12:38 PM
3) It costs a lot of headaches to moderate a forum, not just money.


A-****ing-men. I may sig that.

Fyndhal
2015-09-17, 02:22 PM
Forums have always been a centralized location to get information. Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr are just too haphazard and impossible to Search. Definitely a loss.

Looks like I'll be spending even MORE time here. :)

Knaight
2015-09-17, 04:36 PM
First all of the adventures and supplements, now the forums (without even a licensing deal). The future of D&D is in WotC handing off all the work to contractors. 6e will probably be written by Green Ronin or something.

If it is, my optimism about design quality actually goes up. Green Ronin doesn't have a CCG that eats all of their best designers, they aren't a subsidiary of a Hasbro-like entity that has vastly more profitable lines, and they've done some good work in the past.

Chambers
2015-09-17, 07:04 PM
I was going through my FR books in preparation for the next chapter of my RL 5e game (putting them through the old Ruins of Myth Drannor), and I reread the introduction to the Grand History of the Realms. That book alone should be on the top ten reasons list why Wizards should keep their own forums.

TheOOB
2015-09-18, 02:06 AM
While I'm sad to see all the accumulated knowledge go, I understand why it's happened. The forums have been terrible for years, most everything good that happened there happened almost a decade ago. Forums are really niche now, and cost money to run, not just for servers but for moderators and community staff as well.

Nightgaun7
2015-09-18, 03:38 AM
Whelp, unable to do anything for the next 3 weeks. Uh...bugger. An incredible amount of great info there, hopefully others will get it all and make it aaccessible.

oxybe
2015-09-18, 04:19 AM
I would say I'm sad to see it go, but I honestly haven't been on there in years, chased out by the vitriol around the time 5th ed was being started on and eventually being unable to login entirely due to the forum being unable to send an email to reset my password.

The Tygre
2015-09-18, 04:30 PM
I've... seen things you people wouldn't believe. Hrmph.

Forums in flame wars off the alignment questions in the sub-forums.

I watched homebrew material glitter in the darkness near the 3rd edition web portal.

All those... moments will be lost... in time.

Like... tears... in rain.

Time... to die.

Janus
2015-09-18, 06:09 PM
I've... seen things you people wouldn't believe. Hrmph.

Forums in flame wars off the alignment questions in the sub-forums.

I watched homebrew material glitter in the darkness near the 3rd edition web portal.

All those... moments will be lost... in time.

Like... tears... in rain.

Time... to die.

You've written a man's post, sir. It's too bad the forums won't live! But, then again, who does?

Hawkstar
2015-09-18, 06:19 PM
That's actually a positive thing for them, believe it or not. Getting constant feedback like that helps them understand the consumer and learn to meet their needs better, which in turn leads to higher satisfaction and probably a better position in the industry. 5th edition D&D seems like a good example of this; WotC took more than a decade of feedback into account and used it to release a greatly improved product which many of us prefer over prior editions. Most companies know the value of such feedback and pay out the wazoo for it, but many of WotC's customers put their thoughts and experiences online for free. Nitpicking at WotC's products and suggesting improvements is probably the best thing we can do for them; it helps them get better, and it shows that they have passionate consumers who want to see the brand improve.
But the echo chamber of their own forums is probably what lead to their atrocious marketing of 4e.

D+1
2015-09-19, 12:03 AM
Their reasoning sucks. You can't search twitter for discussion on a rule point, or a class design.
Q.E.D. Lots of forums to search everywhere else for that, and DM's need to re-learn the ability to make their own rules decisions and annotate their games to suit themselves.

IMO.

Dimers
2015-09-19, 01:22 AM
Lots of forums to search everywhere else for that, and DM's need to re-learn the ability to make their own rules decisions and annotate their games to suit themselves.

Making rules decisions and developing sets of houserules is a process potentially enriched by others' reasoning and ideas. I find myself a much better decisionmaker for having seen discussion of the tier system, for example. Before I read that concept, I would automatically rule in favor of "realism" (which of course favors classes that explicitly break reality). I'd accelerate a problem, and it would cause cascading consequences in my games. With input from forums, I've seen an approach to rules decisions that makes the game better for myself and my players. Similarly, I'm fond of the fortune cookie die roll rule, something I would never have run across without an active discussion community.

As for "lots of forums to search everywhere else" ... not if others think the same way, especially when copycatting a major content provider who apparently don't think their own product needs so much discussion.

Salbazier
2015-09-19, 01:45 AM
Well, that is just dumb.

As for saving things from there, there's bits here and there that I would want for posterity but they are from long time/can't be arsed to find the links/many would have been gone due the previous re-organizations anyway. So whatever.

Chambers
2015-09-19, 05:50 AM
I've... seen things you people wouldn't believe. Hrmph.

Forums in flame wars off the alignment questions in the sub-forums.

I watched homebrew material glitter in the darkness near the 3rd edition web portal.

All those... moments will be lost... in time.

Like... tears... in rain.

Time... to die.


You've written a man's post, sir. It's too bad the forums won't live! But, then again, who does?

If I could Favorite posts here, these two would get little hearts. Well done.

WickerNipple
2015-09-19, 10:22 AM
I wouldn't be surprised if we see a good, unofficial, d&d specific forum pop up eventually.

Aren't we on it?

TopCheese
2015-09-19, 10:32 AM
Aren't we on it?

For multiple reason I won't go into, not really.

It's pretty good and has a few great posters but it has many issues.

Also, as soon as the comic is done do you really think this forum will stay around? Unless the giant will have use for it I don't think he will want to keep supporting it.*

*assumptions.

napoleon_in_rag
2015-09-19, 11:19 AM
Part of the problem for companies is that it's expensive to maintain an official forums area. I mean, you have to maintain them, pay for moderators; it adds up very quickly. Companies also don't necessarily get a lot of benefit from them either. I mean, someone makes a ruling or announcement that a group doesn't like, and the place goes up in flames. They don't need a forums to make announcements, they post them directly. They don't need forums to get feedback any more, there's reddit, twitter, facebook, independently-run forums, hell even comment sections on the announcements. Not to mention, their forums aren't exactly the best designed. They probably had a sit down and decided that the cost of all the updates and running it was outweighed by the benefits of dropping them.

You are right.

At the end of the day, the WotC forums don't make any money for WotC against the expense of running it. Reddit, Twitter, FB, the other forums are free advertising for WotC. You post one update on social media and everyone shares it with each other.

endur
2015-09-19, 12:09 PM
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/wizards-coast-community-forums-be-shut-down-2015-09-16

They plan on shutting the forums down so if you have something you want to save, do it now

Yet another incredibly stupid move by WOTC.

Even if they don't like the way the forums are going, they should not delete the incredibly valuable content on the forums.

TopCheese
2015-09-19, 12:13 PM
Yet another incredibly stupid move by WOTC.

Even if they don't like the way the forums are going, they should not delete the incredibly valuable content on the forums.

Well, stupid on a public relation side of things with regards to D&D gamers. Hasbro probably doesn't want to spend money on it AND doesn't want a toxic astmosphere related to one of their products as it could eventually come back to haunt them later with PR for buyers of their other brands.

I'm kinda hoping/expecting Wotc or D&D will be under a new owner for 6E. MtG will not be, don't ever see them giving that up, but D&D...

MrConsideration
2015-09-19, 02:25 PM
This seems like a silly move to me - how much can a forum cost, really, in comparison to other outgoings at Wizards? It seems defeatist and damaging to pull the rug out from under an established community. I met my first gaming group by posting on the WotC forums. I personally only dip my toe in the Wizards forum, normally at the end of a Google search for a specific idea, or guide, but I can't deny that it's a focus for the community and the first place D&D gamers are going to congregate.

What's the alternative D&D forum? Are they ceding that territory to Paizo? Is it Giant in the Playground?* Conversations on Facebook or Twitter aren't moderated, or easily referenced, or as substantive, as forums. If people kick off on the forums about changes on the boards, who cares? People are capable of kicking off on Twitter or Facebook too.

I have an inkling forums are something of a dying media across the board.

* I hope not. This forum has a good atmosphere I wouldn't want diminished.

hiiamtom
2015-09-19, 03:22 PM
I'm pretty sure the dev team has been pushing social media and streaming, which is honestly the first place I look for D&D related entertainment.

I love private forums, but most people just don't anymore and have moved to reddit, image boards, and twitter for most things. Even the MtG spoiler sites are dying, and with ad blocker it is kinda hard to make the same communities you used to.

Kurald Galain
2015-09-19, 06:04 PM
What's the alternative D&D forum? Are they ceding that territory to Paizo?

Enworld, presumably.

Frankly, Paizo's forum interface is almost as bad as WOTC. It makes me wonder why; PhpBB has been the de facto standard for community boards and has a lot of thought and development put into making it userfriendly; so why on earth would both Paizo and WOTC avoid using that?

TopCheese
2015-09-20, 03:28 PM
Enworld, presumably.

Frankly, Paizo's forum interface is almost as bad as WOTC. It makes me wonder why; PhpBB has been the de facto standard for community boards and has a lot of thought and development put into making it userfriendly; so why on earth would both Paizo and WOTC avoid using that?

I've been checking enworld out more often, its not to bad and it seems a lot of old wotc stuff is popping up over there.

Maybe they both thought if they made their forums bad enough people would switch themselves and they wouldn't have to go through a "shutting down phase" and lose street cred?

So flanking weird.

GilesTheCleric
2015-09-21, 12:35 AM
I've set up an index of WotC 3.X material in our subforum, here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?444041-Threads-from-the-Wizards-forums&p=19847657#post19847657). It includes directions for how to easily transfer posts from WotC to any other BBCode-based board.

Feel free to post links to saved material (from other sites or that you've posted here), or to PM me links and I'll add them.

Capac Amaru
2015-09-21, 01:08 AM
I'd hazard a guess that feedback/focus groups were saying that the forums were intimidating to new players. They still want forums to exist, but they dont want them readily accessible from their main hub (wotc.com) because they dont want potential customers turned off by 45 page long threads about martial vs caster power, or how to jam eldritch blast into every character build.

GungHo
2015-09-21, 12:58 PM
Enworld, presumably.

Frankly, Paizo's forum interface is almost as bad as WOTC. It makes me wonder why; PhpBB has been the de facto standard for community boards and has a lot of thought and development put into making it userfriendly; so why on earth would both Paizo and WOTC avoid using that?

+1 on Paizo's site being weird. There are a lot of "company store" sites that are simply horrible. They don't need to all be PhpBB, but that should be the minimum standard for features and interactivity. I don't need (or want) animated avatars, but don't bother if there's no facility for things like rich text or simple quoting.

Anonymouswizard
2015-09-21, 03:23 PM
I'd hazard a guess that feedback/focus groups were saying that the forums were intimidating to new players. They still want forums to exist, but they dont want them readily accessible from their main hub (wotc.com) because they dont want potential customers turned off by 45 page long threads about martial vs caster power, or how to jam eldritch blast into every character build.

Yeah, it takes me a while to get around to trying out official forums, partially due to this, partially because it's hard to know if having every book is expected or not (I've found the Onyx Path forums very good for this with people quoting books that disprove my points, while when I tried the Shadowrun forums people thought I was being stupid because I didn't own one splat [I don't care what it says on the rulebooks, core-only means core rulebook]). It's part of the reason I hope the Giant keeps these forums going for as long as possible.


+1 on Paizo's site being weird. There are a lot of "company store" sites that are simply horrible. They don't need to all be PhpBB, but that should be the minimum standard for features and interactivity. I don't need (or want) animated avatars, but don't bother if there's no facility for things like rich text or simple quoting.

It's weird how a lot of forums seem to value style above substance. I don't care if you support 2Mb avatars with strobe lighting if I can't quote posts or style text. All in all, I'd prefer an okay-looking forum with basic features over one that supports lots of flash but misses out on some key functionality.

J-H
2015-09-21, 05:15 PM
Great choice... oi.

Reddit-never been there
Twitter-Shamus Young @ Twenty-Sided has a Twitter feed beside his blog. LinkedIn loves to talk about Twitter. I haven't logged into my Twitter account in 5+ year.
Facebook-Not a good discussion forum
Tumblr-What does Batman's armored car have to do with this?

atemu1234
2015-09-25, 11:39 PM
I've... seen things you people wouldn't believe. Hrmph.

Forums in flame wars off the alignment questions in the sub-forums.

I watched homebrew material glitter in the darkness near the 3rd edition web portal.

All those... moments will be lost... in time.

Like... tears... in rain.

Time... to die.

Blade Runner?

Solauren
2015-09-29, 04:39 PM
i am currently in the process of downloading the entirety of the Published Worlds, and Previous Edition Categories (General, Archieve, Character Optimization)
(I have no interest in 4E or later, so I'm not going into those rule sections right now. I might after I have what I'm after)

I already downloaded the category thread listing pages last night, and I wrote a program that is currently pulling out the information I need to generate the thread links for each page (Automated website downloaders are horrible for downloading web forums)

i.e
http://www.examples.com/Forum-1/Thread-1
http://www.examples.com/Forum-1/Thread-2
http://www.examples.com/Forum-1/Thread-3&aPage=1
http://www.examples.com/Forum-1/Thread-3&aPage=2
..
http://www.examples.com/Forum-1/Thread-3&aPage=147

Once that's done, I'll download all the threads, as they stand that day (I should be done downloading by Friday I think)

After that, I'm going to look into putting them online as part of a larger project I'm at the point I need external assistance with.

GilesTheCleric
2015-10-14, 03:54 PM
There are only 15 more days left to mirror material. The Index of 3.X WotC Threads (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?444041-Threads-from-the-Wizards-forums&p=19950795) has a list of content that has already been mirrored, as well as suggestions for content that has not yet been.

gadren
2015-10-14, 09:24 PM
Any tips on the quickest, easiest way to save threads? There are a lot of 4e guides I still use to this day on the WotC forums...

GilesTheCleric
2015-10-15, 05:09 AM
There's directions in the index thread. In short: There's a windows program you can download, or you can do it by hand (copy+pasting then adding formatting, or running the HTML through an HTML-to-BBCode converter. There's one linked).

GilesTheCleric
2015-10-27, 05:50 PM
There are only two days left to mirror content.

LudicSavant
2015-10-27, 07:48 PM
There are only two days left to mirror content.

I still haven't seen much material exported, so it looks like it's going to be the Gleemax move all over again with only a small fraction of things being preserved.

Nifft
2015-10-27, 07:59 PM
Any tips on the quickest, easiest way to save threads? There are a lot of 4e guides I still use to this day on the WotC forums...

Wayback Machine is the easiest way to save a thread.

Paste the URL of the first page, then once that is saved click through to all the following pages.

GilesTheCleric
2015-10-28, 10:03 AM
Using the Wayback Machine is indeed the easiest, but it makes searching very difficult for future users. Without a direct link to the content or knowledge of exactly what they're looking for, it's tricky to find what you're looking for. The benefit to mirroring content to other forums is that it becomes both searchable (ie indexed by google/ other sites), and it is once again open for comment and updating.

There's approximately 24 hours left to mirror content. There are instructions on how to do so in the index thread (link in sig).

Ralanr
2015-10-28, 12:15 PM
A lot of guides are going to be lost/never updated.

This is a sad day. Not really sure how mirroring actually works.

GilesTheCleric
2015-10-28, 11:19 PM
There are instructions at the top of the index thread. In short, you copy the text from WotC, and paste it to another forum. If you're on windows, there's a handy program you can download that helps with the formatting.

Ralanr
2015-10-28, 11:35 PM
There are instructions at the top of the index thread. In short, you copy the text from WotC, and paste it to another forum. If you're on windows, there's a handy program you can download that helps with the formatting.

Oh. Well now I feel silly.

Knaight
2015-10-29, 01:19 AM
Oh. Well now I feel silly.

It also doesn't hurt to save a copy to your computer, for anything you really personally want. The file sizes involved are honestly pretty small.

GilesTheCleric
2015-10-30, 11:56 AM
Oh. Well now I feel silly.

No need to feel silly. The typical use for the term "mirroring" is to describe hosting content (usually something downloadable) on an external site for redundancy and resiliency. What we're doing is similar, except that we are the external site, and in six days there won't be any redundancy once the original is gone.

Edit: I suppose I should also make it more obvious that the deadline has apparently been extended until Nov 5.

GilesTheCleric
2015-11-03, 04:07 PM
The deadline has been extended (until Nov 5, most likely). That means there's now two days left to mirror content.