But for your more typical player--say someone who spends an hour between the game and the forums--it would make a HUGE difference if they spent that entire hour writing letters instead of spending 30 minutes in the game and 30 minutes on the forum. Imagine what battlemaster would be like if all the effort put into the forums, went in the game. Think about all the interesting plots, religions, etc, that would spring from having that energy redirected. I simply don't have "time" to play the game much because of the time I spend on the forum; and that's bad for the game. My characters are far too quiet. I even have an open character slot because I didn't want to split my "30 minutes" between 4 characters anymore. The people I play with deserve that, at least.
So, out of the hour (say) that you have to play each day, you consciously choose to take time away from the game to spend on the forum? How interesting. Why do you
choose to do that, especially if you acknowledge that it's bad for your game and your characters are too quiet? Doesn't really make any sense, unless of course you find the forum to be more interesting than the game itself. Do you?
Personally, the time I spend on the forum comes after I have finished whatever it is I'm doing in the game; if time is limited, the game gets what I have until I've done what needs doing, then if I have time and feel like it I check out the forum. I would be very surprised if a large number of the players who post on the forums frequently would say that doing so takes away from what they'd otherwise give to the game, especially considering that the most active forum posters are also some of the most active players in general. People like Chenier, Vellos, Indirik and Anaris are hardly the sort of players who make drone characters or aren't putting sufficient time into the game. Taking away the Local board on the forum isn't going to change anything for them, other than to take away a venue for discussions that they evidently enjoy participating in. What an amazing victory for the community. By the same token, it's not going to magically breathe more life back into the game since the players who post a lot on the forum are already putting as much into the game as they're prepared to. To think otherwise is likely wishful thinking.
Seriously, the people who post here all the time aren't the ones who could stand to be putting more effort into the game; by and large, they are already the most passionate, committed and active players the game has left. All you're doing by shutting down the Local board is taking away something that they enjoy and making it harder for us to get to know each other and talk about the one passion that we all share: Battlemaster. Seriously, no one has yet been able to articulate any demonstrable, concrete benefit that is going to come out of this decision. The only thing you can honestly say for sure will happen is that there will be a little less arguing that might lead to flaming, but that's a pretty natural side effect of taking away people's ability to express themselves at all. "A few people are mean to each other, so let's punish everyone by forbidding them from talking about the subjects that they're most interested in! No passion, no arguing! Everyone wins!"
