There's an entire topic on the reason. Oh wait, it is this very topic. Please read it, the first 2 pages should be enough to clear up where that came from.
Not really. I've heard several reasons thrown out, and it's not all that clear which one is the most important to you. It's also not like there's broad agreement on this even from the people who agree that the forums pose a problem. Here are the main reasons that have been given so far (by various people), as I see them:
1. There's too much bickering and negative interaction.
2. People are sharing too much IC information OOC.
3. Effort that goes into the forum takes away from effort that would otherwise go into the game.
4. (Related to the previous point) People feel like they must participate in the forum when they shouldn't have to.
In your response to my PM, you cited a form of point number 3, leading me to believe that it was what concerned you most. Then, just now, you said point number 1 was the main reason you closed the Local boards. The reason I want to understand is that, obviously, I oppose the decision.
Points 1 and 2 can be dealt with by better moderation, to the extent that they are problems at all. There's no evidence for point 3, and I don't think you're going to get the desired result out of this action (that people suddenly start to put all the effort they were putting into the forum into the game). Point 4, well I don't know what to say about that. Why should people feel like they have to participate? It's a forum for discussion about a shared interest. As you've pointed out, only a fraction of the community participates. Since the majority that doesn't seems to be doing just fine, I don't know why anyone would come to this conclusion. It's not the like the frequent forum-goers are running everything in the game; far from it. Most of the big-shot rulers on established islands hardly ever post here if they've ever come here at all. Clearly the forum is not a key to success in Battlemaster.
I guess I'm just unhappy that you've taken away something I enjoy, for reasons that seem to me to be rather arbitrary. It seems unjust to do that just because some people, what, don't like it?
Then they don't have to come here. If I don't enjoy Battlemaster, I'll stop playing. If they don't like the forum, they can stop reading it. I don't see what's so hard about that.
