Once upon a time, people sought out that experience in-game through tournaments, guilds or travel.
They still do, or don't, according to their temperament. I never bothered a lot before the forum, and I still won't now that the Local board is gone. Other people will, and have been all along.
I don't think you're going to see much benefit from closing the Local board in the game itself. The game needs more players to generate more interaction. That's not a problem you can magically solve by chopping up the forum. As you yourself have pointed out, only a small portion of the player base posts on the forums on a regular basis, so your anticipated benefit will have to come entirely from their characters. Considering that players like Indirik and Anaris are already quite active in the game, I don't see where you're going to get your hoped-for increase in IG message traffic from.
