BW closing all game forums except SWTOR

[Rolodome]

At least for MMOs, I still consider forums essential. Look at WoW, Wildstar, ESO, FF16, they all have a forum. An MMO is very intricate; there's pretty much an infinite amount of knowledge you can have about the game. Outside of forums and guides, I don't see a good way to document it. Reddit does not have an easy way to search, and any Twitter or other social media is too short-lived.

 

For me, the forum is about discussing boss strategies, class rotations and quickly finding information about bugs. Without the forums, Reddit would come in second but it fails to offer what the forums can IMO.

 

The other BioWare games are not actively maintained; they have some DLCs but once released, they stay that way. MMOs are constantly evolving and as such need to keep a constant channel of feedback open.

*shrug* I can see the argument for it. I just know the march of technology doesn't always give a **** about such things.

 

People would adapt if it really came to that. Forums being used for MMOs weren't born out of a standard. They were born out of a need and forums were able to fill that need.

[benmas]

eric can we get an ETA on season 7 rewards teaser and when the season will end?

[DarthSpuds]

Hey folks,

 

Just to reiterate what the blog stated, these forums aren't going anywhere .

 

-eric

 

Well, until they do that is.

 

If Bioware can make the decision to close the forums for other active games then there is no reason at all (given the references in that blog to "other forms of contact") to assume these forums will be retained for any length of time.

 

Personally I saw this writing on the wall some years back; but the chances of me switching from forums to the various (anti)social media platforms are zero.

 

All The Best

[Hudlar]

I'm sorry to hear this, since I found the Mass Effect and Dragon Age forums very interesting and helpful back in the day. Still, they could get pretty toxic, especially when the games had been out for a while and there wasn't much new to talk about. I guess BioWare finally decided that it wasn't worth the time, money, and aggravation to host their own forums. I'm a little skeptical about the idea that Twitter and Tumblr(!) are good substitutes for forums, though. Reddit, maybe, though that depends a lot on the moderators.

[Knorlac]

Well, until they do that is.

 

If Bioware can make the decision to close the forums for other active games then there is no reason at all (given the references in that blog to "other forms of contact") to assume these forums will be retained for any length of time.

 

Personally I saw this writing on the wall some years back; but the chances of me switching from forums to the various (anti)social media platforms are zero.

 

All The Best

 

Same here, I don't use any of those outlets..hell I don't even have a FB account.

[Transcendent]

Well these are "legacy" games, so I'm not surprised. And frankly, many companies are moving towards Facebook/Twitter as their official "Forums."

 

Shame I refuse to sign up to those.

[AmarantKando]

Hey folks,

 

Just to reiterate what the blog stated, these forums aren't going anywhere .

 

-eric

 

Great news Eric! So when will we finally see a Dev post in the pvp forums again? There are loads of people waiting for some long overdue answers.

[Alssaran]

I can kind of see why they are doing this. I can only speak for myself, but I don't consider forums for Mass Effect and Dragon Age to be that essential. I know they are nice for the community to discuss opinions and plots, but reddit can fill that gap. And as we know from Musco over here, deevelopers can also check reddit and chime in with some feedback/commentary - if they really want to. And let's be honest: Mass Effect 3 has been out for four and a half years by now. Most of the important plot stuff that had to be discussed has been discussed. The few times I visited the Dragon Age and Mass Effect forum, I found the most popular threads to be some weird discussion about sexual identities and romance options.

 

Keeping that in mind, I can see why taking down all but the MMORPG forum might be something a company would do. It's much more cost effective to wave people over to reddit and tumblr as a means of communication, and a Mass Effect/Dragon Age reddit can have almost the same functionality as a forum - personal messages, commentary functions, screenshots, stickies, and some other stuff. But all at the additional benefit of not paying as much for moderation, support, and sometimes even hosting them.

 

As for this forum here, I don't know if they'd close it before the game is shut down. Seeing that this is an MMORPG, I can see the justification for keeping this forum around. It seems the others have outlived their use though.

Edited July 29, 2016 by Alssaran

[Jerba]

I can kind of see why they are doing this. I can only speak for myself, but I don't consider forums for Mass Effect and Dragon Age to be that essential. I know they are nice for the community to discuss opinions and plots, but reddit can fill that gap. And as we know from Musco over here, deevelopers can also check reddit and chime in with some feedback/commentary - if they really want to. And let's be honest: Mass Effect 3 has been out for four and a half years by now. Most of the important plot stuff that had to be discussed has been discussed. The few times I visited the Dragon Age and Mass Effect forum, I found the most popular threads to be some weird discussion about sexual identities and romance options.

 

Keeping that in mind, I can see why taking down all but the MMORPG forum might be something a company would do. It's much more cost effective to wave people over to reddit and tumblr as a means of communication, and a Mass Effect/Dragon Age reddit can have almost the same functionality as a forum - personal messages, commentary functions, screenshots, stickies, and some other stuff. But all at the additional benefit of not paying as much for moderation, support, and sometimes even hosting them.

 

As for this forum here, I don't know if they'd close it before the game is shut down. Seeing that this is an MMORPG, I can see the justification for keeping this forum around. It seems the others have outlived their use though.

I first thought the same as you did, but after reading the comments over there, I feel that it is a wrong decision to shut down the forums.

 

True, the games have been out for a while and there wasn't much dev interaction there anymore, but a forum like that builds the fanbase. It ensures that the DA/ME franchises won't die out if they don't release a new game for a few years, and creates a stronger attachment with the company.

 

From my understanding, the decision to shut down the forums came from EA, they probably had to cut down costs. It does cost money to host the forums and to hire staff to moderate it, with no immediate revenue being generated. As one of the commenters put it, it is a question of "How much does BioWare value their community?" Are they willing to spend money on it or not?

 

The community will certainly not die out as there are plenty of DA/ME fans who never visited those forums, but it will have a negative impact on the game and the company, I'm sure of that. It's gonna be interesting to see how the ME:A launch will be without such a forum. Yes, you can post news via Twitter or a dev blog, and you can use metrics to guess player feedback, but I'm not convinced this can replace a forum.

Edited July 30, 2016 by Jerba

[benmas]

You all complete me. Also these sweet Rakghoul smilies!

 

-eric

 

so you have time to do...this but not tell us when a teaser for season 7 rewards will be released or even acknowledge that you are working on them

[Rolodome]

I first thought the same as you did, but after reading the comments over there, I feel that it is a wrong decision to shut down the forums.

 

True, the games have been out for a while and there wasn't much dev interaction there anymore, but a forum like that builds the fanbase. It ensures that the DA/ME franchises won't die out if they don't release a new game for a few years, and creates a stronger attachment with the company.

 

From my understanding, the decision to shut down the forums came from EA, they probably had to cut down costs. It does cost money to host the forums and to hire staff to moderate it, with no immediate revenue being generated. As one of the commenters put it, it is a question of "How much does BioWare value their community?" Are they willing to spend money on it or not?

 

The community will certainly not die out as there are plenty of DA/ME fans who never visited those forums, but it will have a negative impact on the game and the company, I'm sure of that. It's gonna be interesting to see how the ME:A launch will be without such a forum. Yes, you can post news via Twitter or a dev blog, and you can use metrics to guess player feedback, but I'm not convinced this can replace a forum.

It's ballsy, that's for sure.

 

I can't help but wonder if it's part of a larger communication policy and they're doing it to move away from the anonymous toxicity of game forums. Maintaining a few forums can't be that expensive. There are people who aren't even part of a company and they keep forums running with bits of ad revenue and some volunteers.

 

I don't know if this particular decision came from EA or BW, but...

 

I get this vibe from EA, in general, that they feel listening to fans directly is a stupid thing to do, since they are getting isolated opinions, rather than "average" ones (that might be a bit more hyperbolic than intended... the vibe is not that they don't want to listen to individuals at all, but more that they think basing much of anything on it is likely to lead them in the wrong direction). It's also just a perception I have based on what I've seen them do, not a statement of fact.

 

That said, it's not a philosophy I entirely agree with, but I can understand its place in the game industry and I can certainly understand its place in business. They are looking at charts of numbers and sales in the thousands or millions. They aren't a few guys sending emails back and forth, trying to entertain each other. The problem I have with it is when it results in a feeling of disconnect between the developers and the audience.

 

From what I understand, MUDs (the predecessor to MMOs) were traditionally a more fumbling, interactive exchange between creators and players (many of which were both), and obviously a lot of that is lost when things get super large-scale and streamlined as a business.

 

Thing is, when there's a disconnect, it feels a bit like there's these gods that rule the universe and they sort of change the rules when they feel like it, but they aren't willing to be candid about why, or if they are it sounds like a prepared statement. Like they're just factory workers answering to some higher god and that god doesn't care what we think. Whether that's objectively true is, in this case, beside the point; it's about the perception.

 

Although silence works fine in industries like film, it's different here. In film, you create the product, you release it, and then it's out there and no changes are made once it's released. With MMOs, you're making all kinds of modifications to the very fabric of how the world works. So it becomes uniquely important that communication is strong. Otherwise, you have people feeling like up is going to become down the next time a patch hits. Left wondering when their favorite part of the game will take some strange modification that they never asked for.

 

It's uniquely destabilizing, to put it succinctly.

[AKHadeed]

Dangit, this means I'm going to have to do something USEFUL when I feel like burning time but don't want to commit to anything.

 

...Or find someplace else to lurk.

[AllisonLightning]

It makes me sad, I'm quite nostalgic of those forums and can't understand not keeping them in at least a read-only capacity, especially when Origin doesn't even have a forum capacity, last time I checked. It was something I was looking forward to doing, reconnecting with Mass Effect fans in the lead up to Andromeda. Now, I feel ten times worse than when the bug/issue section on those forums was destroyed and turned into Answer HQ. It's a mistake, I remember the fun I had with people and it's different being part of a community compared to this.

 

Oddly, the community was warmer and although I hadn't been there for a while, I could always go back. Most of the old guard at Bioware is gone though... I'm disappointed more than anything else by this.

[Yermog]

Naw it's more like Gilligan's Island. We're all trapped here because the Devs can build a radio out of a coconut but they can't fix a hole in a boat.

 

~ Eudoxia

When I read this I was drinking water and it almost went up my nose. Thank you for that.

 

Also, Eric, thank you for not shutting down these threads either. I'm a little sad we're loosing the ME and DA threads because I loved some of the conversations we had there, but I'm very happy that these are staying around. Gotta get my nerd talk in with those who understand my strange love for pixel characters.

[ElsaSilverDragon]

Naw it's more like Gilligan's Island. We're all trapped here because the Devs can build a radio out of a coconut but they can't fix a hole in a boat.

 

~ Eudoxia

 

Why am I laughing ? This perked me up today let me tell you, I for one use these forums to help fix bugs on my system at times

[Celise]

so social trollworking sites are how BW will communicate with their playerbase outside of anything official with exception to swtor?

 

what would even compel me to even consider plastering my real life all over a social trollworking site for?

[SerraShar]

so social trollworking sites are how BW will communicate with their playerbase outside of anything official with exception to swtor?

 

what would even compel me to even consider plastering my real life all over a social trollworking site for?

 

apprently it work for them , that's where they get their ''we saw what our fanbase wanted and we did....etc'' and ''the statistic don't lie..that's what the fanbase want!''.....wich I betcha they are getting from tweedle and facenuke and elsewhere and certainly not from here .

[Tsillah]

so social trollworking sites are how BW will communicate with their playerbase outside of anything official with exception to swtor?

 

what would even compel me to even consider plastering my real life all over a social trollworking site for?

 

To be fair, these forums are very slow, including SWTOR. I think it's not an unfair assessment that nowadays forums are not used by many people anymore because of these new media. Add to that the fact that BW doesn't communicate much here so it really is rather one way. Might as well do that on facebook. And well, chances are that you might get noticed more on these media because it is rather much more in the open.

 

At the same time though I do admit that forums do have certain advantages and so I am glad there still is a forum, but I can understand that companies spend their time on other media now and that is just the times we live in I guess. I just can't help but think that more people would post here still if there was a more 2-way communication going on here, but that's another topic.

[Jerba]

I get this vibe from EA, in general, that they feel listening to fans directly is a stupid thing to do, since they are getting isolated opinions, rather than "average" ones (that might be a bit more hyperbolic than intended... the vibe is not that they don't want to listen to individuals at all, but more that they think basing much of anything on it is likely to lead them in the wrong direction). It's also just a perception I have based on what I've seen them do, not a statement of fact.

 

That said, it's not a philosophy I entirely agree with, but I can understand its place in the game industry and I can certainly understand its place in business. They are looking at charts of numbers and sales in the thousands or millions. They aren't a few guys sending emails back and forth, trying to entertain each other. The problem I have with it is when it results in a feeling of disconnect between the developers and the audience.

 

From what I understand, MUDs (the predecessor to MMOs) were traditionally a more fumbling, interactive exchange between creators and players (many of which were both), and obviously a lot of that is lost when things get super large-scale and streamlined as a business.

 

Thing is, when there's a disconnect, it feels a bit like there's these gods that rule the universe and they sort of change the rules when they feel like it, but they aren't willing to be candid about why, or if they are it sounds like a prepared statement. Like they're just factory workers answering to some higher god and that god doesn't care what we think. Whether that's objectively true is, in this case, beside the point; it's about the perception.

 

Although silence works fine in industries like film, it's different here. In film, you create the product, you release it, and then it's out there and no changes are made once it's released. With MMOs, you're making all kinds of modifications to the very fabric of how the world works. So it becomes uniquely important that communication is strong. Otherwise, you have people feeling like up is going to become down the next time a patch hits. Left wondering when their favorite part of the game will take some strange modification that they never asked for.

 

It's uniquely destabilizing, to put it succinctly.

I agree with you. Forums are only visited by a small part of the playerbase, and it is dangerous to listen to feedback when a quiet minority posts it. For a company like EA that purely cares about sales numbers, they need to make sure that any feedback accurately represents the playerbase or its wasted investment.

 

I also agree that the forums strengthen my confidence in the game. An MMO is not a game you play for a few weeks and then drop; it is a game you can play daily for years to come, invest tons of time and money. Therefore, you feel very strongly about things that may seem minor to other players. And you need a constant reassurance that all the investment was not in vain and be motivated to continue subscribing.

 

You have an interesting theory about EA's policy, and there may be some truth to it.

If you look at SWTOR's twitter, they follow the very traditional model of only posting marketing information. There is the EA Help center which has some FAQ but I doubt any player is reading it (even though the information in there is top-notch), and Customer Service will respond to questions in tickets, though the response time is slow.

In contrast, Battlefront is more modern, they respond to individual players, which sort of ensures that players feel their feedback is being heard (whether this is actually true is debatable), but this is the way for a company to communicate in the 2010s: Hire some low-paid staff to post short tweet replies, never overpromise and be vague but at maximum efficiency. Obviously, those tweets are the wrong place for any more specific questions. It is fine for a casual game like Battlefront, but interistngly enough, they also have a forum for lengthier discussions.

Dragon Age and Mass Effect are following Battlefront's model of responding to players' tweets.

 

Which brings me to the point of casual players vs. hardcore players. Casual players don't check the forums, they are usually behind on the news and are confused when something happens they didn't hear about. Hardcore players have intricate game knowledge and very specific discussions on the forums that are not understandable by outsiders. But a community thrives on both of them. I consider myself a hardcore player, and very often I answer players' questions in fleet chat (on the German servers it is more civil than in the US). When you have players who wonder "Shouldn't the patch have come out today?" "Why is my ability X missing?" "Where do I get X?", only hardcore players can answer them.

This is the same type of things the employees do with the Battlefront twitter except it's done by the players for free, and it is always up to date because players can check the Dev Tracker while they are playing, and you usually have multiple players reading over it who will correct you if something is wrong.

It doesn't take much money to foster this type of community (do some moderation, and post updates to bug reports), but I feel it to have a postive impact on the game. Maybe just a minority posts on the forum, but many more players are lurking and just taking what they read here and spread it to other players.

Edited July 30, 2016 by Jerba

[Jerba]

I found a dev post on the Dragon Age subreddit which confirms what I suspected: The BSN forums were managed by the Edmonton studio, and the SWTOR forums are managed by the Austin studio. So the closure of the BSN forums has zero impact on how the SWTOR forums are being handled.

If Musco's post wasn't enough, we have even more assurance that the SWTOR forums are here to stay.

 

I think I can give you a little insight into that :

SWTOR is a very distinct project from the rest of Bioware, they had separate forums, separate logins, a lot of separation because it was an MMO primarily developed out of our Austin Studio.

Edmonton specifically (I can speak to it because there is where I work) doesn't deal with a lot of SWTOR stuff, but we did manage the BSN, the new forums, and DA Keep. Dragonage/Mass Effect/Bioware websites tended to be grouped together because its our team in Edmonton that was primarily responsible for them, things are different for SWTOR because they had their own team.

I know its not much information, but hopefully it explains a little bit why things are handled differently for SWTOR.

[Tsetso]

I found a dev post on the Dragon Age subreddit which confirms what I suspected: The BSN forums were managed by the Edmonton studio, and the SWTOR forums are managed by the Austin studio. So the closure of the BSN forums has zero impact on how the SWTOR forums are being handled.

If Musco's post wasn't enough, we have even more assurance that the SWTOR forums are here to stay.

 

So basically - "Blame Canada"

[adormitul]

Its disheartening I had awesome discussions about lore and well who is stronger threads in Bioware forums but I will never has such things again as you can not have such things on Twitter as people do not like this kind of talks.

Also where can I find out news about the BG2 mod for NWN2?

[GetPloughed]

did u read everything at this page? they dont close swtor forum because this game is still up. they closed mass effect, dragon age and legacy bioware title. this are old games...means they dont need forums anymore.

its like win xp...no support anymore.

 

There is a new Mass Effect game coming next year, the forum will still be closed. They have a new IP and a new Dragon Age game likely coming in the next few years, the forum will still be closed.

 

And at the end of the day it's a forum, if BioWare can't afford to keep them running even for 20 year old games, they aren't in great shape anymore.

[Celise]

apprently it work for them , that's where they get their ''we saw what our fanbase wanted and we did....etc'' and ''the statistic don't lie..that's what the fanbase want!''.....wich I betcha they are getting from tweedle and facenuke and elsewhere and certainly not from here .

 

So they are ignoring some player feedback over other player feedback. if they are intentionally attempting to bias their feedback instead of using all their social tools including the forum to get some constructive means, then why the hell did they even bother trying in the first place in having any type of player feedback for?

 

To be fair, these forums are very slow, including SWTOR. I think it's not an unfair assessment that nowadays forums are not used by many people anymore because of these new media. Add to that the fact that BW doesn't communicate much here so it really is rather one way. Might as well do that on facebook. And well, chances are that you might get noticed more on these media because it is rather much more in the open.

 

At the same time though I do admit that forums do have certain advantages and so I am glad there still is a forum, but I can understand that companies spend their time on other media now and that is just the times we live in I guess. I just can't help but think that more people would post here still if there was a more 2-way communication going on here, but that's another topic.

 

5%-10% of the community probably, but that is still a few hundred players that won't have their voice when it comes to posting ideas, suggestions and feedback on current and future games.

 

The forum i use exclusively because it is not such a security risk like social trollworking sites when you post your details. i trust BW/EA to protect my info more than i do with facetroll for example any day.

[DAmethystDragon]

Depressing news. There is still a lot of community involvement in keeping at least one of those games alive (Neverwinter Nights), and the BioWare forum is the primary communications hub (with incredible amounts of knowledge and information recorded there which will be lost if it can't be salvaged by volunteers).