While I am one of those frequent posters, I don't like the idea of closing down the forum, or even parts of it.
But back to the forum, and the talk that it leeches IG communication. I'm not sure I agree with this. I write a lot here... like, a lot... too much. But in any case, I'm never on IRC anymore. When I started playing, I was on IRC 100% of the time, or just about. And for quite a while. I write more and more on the forums, and less and less IG... but is that really the forums' fault, as some would suggest? I don't think so. IG, the realms are getting smaller and smaller. Whenever they grow a bit, they then often break up again. This is especially true for active nobles. Often, the general noble count will rise... but it'll be a bunch of people who barely ever (if ever at all) initiate discussions of their own or even reply to others. Though I still spend a lot of time on BM, I actually spend a lot less now than I did when I started playing back in high school, where I could easily spend the whole evening reading and writing letters, chatting on IRC in-between. But if so much of the time I do spend on BM is spent on the forums, it's because there's nothing interesting to say IG. On the forums, one talks with hundreds of people. IG, each character can write to 30 or so nobles, out of which only 3 or so ever really seem chatty, and in most cases even if agendas overlap for some things, they remain conflictual for many things. So who do you write to? You can try to reach foreigners to enlarge your discussion pool, but this faces the same problems. Getting rid of the forums would not magically transform all of that activity to the game, much of it would simply be lost or redirected to IRC (which is often said to be no less hostile than the forums).
I agree with this 110%. Closing down the forum is not going to solve this problem, nor will it inspire people to put more effort into the game. If anything, it will result in
less interest in the game, as talking about it here keeps people engaged and inspires passion.
We need more passion about the game these days, not less, even though passion also inspires conflict.Whenever you get players of a competitive game bumping elbows, naturally there's going to be some friction, but with a few exceptions I really don't think it's as bad as people make it out to be. Sure, people argue plenty on the Local boards, but that's human nature frankly, and I don't think it gets personal very often even when it does get heated. I'll be honest with you, I think that a lot of the people complaining are actually the ones who have trouble separating IC from OOC. Some people just don't like conflict, period, and can't handle disagreement. Maybe that's a chauvinistic assumption for me to make, but seriously - the number of times that people actually start hurling insult at each other as opposed to just disagreeing is not all that high compared to the total volume of discussion going on here. Actual flame wars don't start every day, and when they do they usually don't last long before the mods step in or cooler heads prevail.
I think you're stifling a vibrant community here by shutting down the Local boards. If it wasn't for them, I'm not sure I would have even started playing again after I paused all my characters last fall. Coming here to the Local boards and reading about what was going on everywhere kept me engaged with the community and eventually inspired me to return to the game and start playing again; I really don't think I would have reached that decision without that influence.
Closing down parts of the forum is a huge overreaction to a problem that I frankly don't think is nearly as bad as people are suggesting. Moreover, even if the problem did exist, this would be the most ham-fisted, cut off your nose to spite your face possible solution to it. Solving the problem of player disagreements by simply keeping them from talking to each other isn't solving the problem at all, It's just draining more life out of a game and community that needs all the life it can get.
