[UPDATED] WotC To Close Forums - Including D&D and M:tG (aka "Welcome New Forum Members to EN World!

WotC has announced that it will be closing its forums, which they refer to as a "former foundation of our community". The forums will close on October 29th. Of course, WotC's forum members are welcome here at EN World (although the expectations are a little different, so please do check the rules if you sign up!) The forums have been around for nearly two decades, in various incarnations, but WotC cites the rise of social media platforms as the reason for the closure.

Here's the announcement in full.

Choosing to retire a former foundation of our community was not an easy decision, but we feel that we must adjust our communications structure to reflect where conversations about Wizards of the Coast games are taking place.

Social media has changed significantly over the last ten years, and discussions about games aren't exclusive to company-hosted forums. The majority of community conversation takes place on third-party websites (such as Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and many other fantastic community-run websites), and it is up to us to evolve alongside our players.

We encourage past and current users to retrieve any information you want to retain from the Community Forums for both Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering. The shutdown will occur on October 29, 2015, at 10:00 a.m. PT. We want to provide enough time for our forum members to move their content, and we recognize that given our forum's vibrant user base and extensive history, this may take time. Any information still on the forums on the cut-off date will be deleted.

Thank you to all of our past and current forum users. You helped build our community into what it is now, and we look forward to continuing to interact with you on our many active social platforms.

WotC's Trevor Kidd had a little more to add.

"I could hop onto all the forums having this discussion or I can say it here and let it disseminate. I'm choosing the former. Moving away from running our own forums doesn't mean we think longer conversations or fan sites/forums aren't good or necessary. They are both good & necessary. From what I'm seeing, they flourish and you enjoy them more when they are run/managed by fans.

DnD & RPGs in general are all about story telling & talking with friends. It makes sense that we want to share those stories. So, it's vital that we have places to share those experiences & stories, like forums & fansites. But it's not vital that #dnd run those.

Closing our forums does not in any way lessen our interactions. We'll still be talking & lurking in your social media & fan sites. And the idea that forums are going away because dnd &/or magic are doing poorly - that's ludicrous! Both are doing very, very well.

We'll still be talking with you here, and elsewhere. Enjoy your new forum homes and don't forget to migrate your treasured content!

On the topic of losing forum content - it's tough, I agree. Once we knew we were going to close the forums, we also knew we weren't going to maintain the community site indefinitely, so we opted to pull the band-aid off quickly rather than let it linger."

Welcome to new members!

If you're a refugee from WotC's forums, you are very welcome here. You can register here at EN World by clicking here. You'll find out community busy and vibrant, and generally welcoming. We've been here over 15 years now, and there is tons of useful content here and lots of great resources which you're welcome to explore. These include:

• Forums.We have forums for 5th Edition, Homebrews/Houserules. Character Builds, Older D&D Editions, Pathfinder, and more.
• Gamer Search. The world's largest gamer search database: find roleplayers near you!
• Downloads. There are thousands of items in the downloads area, including hundreds of character sheets.
• Features. Useful features like the D&D Pronunciation Guide, Hot Games Chart, D&D Product Schedule, and a history chart of the game.
• Reviews. A system which collects and aggregates reviews on the latest products. For example, Out of the Abyss is currently trending at 79%!
• News. And, of course, constant daily news on the news page, all about tabletop RPGS, including D&D! There's no better way to keep up with what's going on!

(Announcement spotted initially by Critical Hits on the Twitters).

 

[Mistwell]

It lacks nuance, and doesn't really contradict what I said. They all use Facebook - 1 billion people do! - but not necessarily for functions that other apps provide. The primary FB usage is event organisation and invitations in that age group. Not social updates or pictures.

If you have something objective to back that up, I'd like to see it. Given the study says a fair portion ONLY use Facebook, and those who do use more than one use FB primarily, it seems like the data does contradict what your saying baring some other source that backs up your claim with contrary data. I mean, event organization and invitations don't take a more time than social updates and pictures really, do they? It should be the opposite - most time should be spent on social updates and pictures, as the rest is rarer. So we shouldn't see a huge disparity between time spent on FB vs those others if that were the case.

Nobody stops using FB completely, because everybody is on it. So you use it if you're arranging a birthday or something, and the Facebook Messenger is very usefu as an easy replacement for texts (though it's competing with WhatsApp for that). But kids don't use it for social updates, because their teachers and parents are using it for that. Sure, you can manage lists and privacy settings, but that's work. So FB gets used for certain things, and Snapchat/Instagram/Tumblr get used for other things.

But they're using it more than anything else - spending more time using facebook than using anything else - and not using all those other platforms nearly as much, or at all, as FB. Seems to contradict what you're saying.

But yeah, everybody uses FB for *something*. But their usage of it is becoming more and more specific, with many functions being done better by other dedicated services.

If that were the case, we'd probably see more usage of other apps than FB on a time-spent basis, and we wouldn't see for instance on 14% using Tumblr by 71% using FB. Seems really hard to reconcile this with your claims - which is why we'd need some data to back you claims and see if there is some other way to reconcile them.

 

[Morrus]

If you have something objective to back that up, I'd like to see it. Given the study says a fair portion ONLY use Facebook, and those who do use more than one use FB primarily, it seems like the data does contradict what your saying baring some other source that backs up your claim with contrary data. I mean, event organization and invitations don't take a more time than social updates and pictures really, do they? It should be the opposite - most time should be spent on social updates and pictures, as the rest is rarer. So we shouldn't see a huge disparity between time spent on FB vs those others if that were the case.



But they're using it more than anything else - spending more time using facebook than using anything else - and not using all those other platforms nearly as much, or at all, as FB. Seems to contradict what you're saying.



If that were the case, we'd probably see more usage of other apps than FB on a time-spent basis, and we wouldn't see for instance on 14% using Tumblr by 71% using FB. Seems really hard to reconcile this with your claims - which is why we'd need some data to back you claims and see if there is some other way to reconcile them.

I might be missing a nuance of your data, but I'm not seeing time spent as a metric in that graph; I'm seeing number of people. As far as I can see, it isn't distinguishing between someone who uses it once a week to arrange a night out, and someone who posts a photo of every meal.

I agree that my impression is anecdotal, and I only stand by it as far as I can see your data doesn't contradict it. If your data contradicts it, I'll go with your data over my experience. I'm just interpreting that graph I see, and seeing it does not contradict my anecdote. As I said, I think most everybody uses Facebook, but not necessarily for status updates and photos.

What I think would be interesting is seeing how email fits into that. I still use it a lot, but I have a hell of a time getting replies from folks 10 years younger than me. My impression is that it's usage is dropping rapidly.

 

[Greg K]

No I meant I've been gone from EN World for that long. I have no idea how long Hussar has been here...

Well, glad to have you back!

 

[Nightfall]

Well, glad to have you back!

Good to be back Greg.

 

[Campbell]

Will there be a 5e Scarred Lands?

Onyx Path Publishing is developing a separate Scarred Lands game. We don't know much in the way of details yet, but it won't be using Storyteller or Storytelling systems.

 

[Nightfall]

Uhm Campbell, *points to his signature* That's why Mist was asking. Before I went a-wandering, I was kind of the unofficial 'official' Scarred Lands Sage and guy that posted "SCARRED LANDS!!" like every 20 seconds.

Looking back, I can see why that got annoying.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

It would be better if there were more subforums here like in the WotC forums, otherwise this one forum will get flooded with new threads. Also a "Ask a quick question" stickied thread would be nice as well, so you don't need to create a thread on every single question.

 

[Clockwerk66]

Hello everyone!

I just registered to this site earlier this morning, and I'd like to say that I was also a fairly regular browser of the character build guides in the WotC forums as well. Good to know that we won't be losing them, as I find them very useful when creating my own characters.

I look forward to exploring fully what ENworld has to offer!

 

[Michael Morris]

This news saddens me. Work on the vbulletin version of the WotC forums was my first paying gig as a programmer and landing it was what convinced me I could make a living programming rather than driving a truck.

 

[discosoc]

I just joined, but man this site is slow.