Is it time to re-integrate the specific games sub-forums?

[Morrus]

So, we may not be able to turn it into a single discussion - the news items themselves are simply a separate beast.

We can still take non-edition-specific threads in the rest of the forums, merge them, and move them to General when they come up. You may still have some separate discussion associated with the news item, but would I be correct to guess that the volume there is much lower than that seen in the related forum threads?

It is; but it would benefit EN World immensely if that wasn't the case (for various complicated reasons, but it's in the site's interest to have well populated news threads).

Which is one of the reasons I agree with Whizbang - we benefit more from good solid threads than we do from several fragmented threads; and we benefit more from that being on the news page than from it being buried in a forum.

 

[Morrus]

We have a perfect example of the problem right now.

The new Pathfinder MMO has:

2 x Pathfinder forum threads
1 x General Discussion thread
1 x News item thread

Making four in total. I fully agree that some kind of solution needs to be found to this; this is seriously inefficient and counter-productive.

 

[Morrus]

OK, I've found a way to do this. We can merge the threads just fine (and they leave nifty redirects behind).

It's a little tricky, because it if it involves a news item we have to change the posting time/date of the news item to ensure that the news item becomes the first post in the newly merged thread - otherwise we'll have random posts appearing as news items on the front page. This would be bad.

I have tried it with the WoTC layoff threads. Let me know what you think.

 

[Deset Gled]

Seems to me if you simply took the 4e, 3e, and general forums and put them together it would be a big mess and very difficult to sift through. You have to have some organization.

Give it time. You'd be surprised how some things work out after you let things cool down a bit.

There was a time when ENWorld was pretty much forced to have separate forums for 3e rules, 3e house rules, and 2e and older legacy stuff. The arguments of real rules vs house rules were livid and full of malice, and many people claimed (just as you do) that it would be too messy to mix 3e and previous editions.

Then, after 4e came out, traffic died down to the point where it didn't make sense to have all those different forums, and they were merged into one Legacy forum. And, lo and behold, that forum gets along just fine. People specify in the thread if they're talking about a specific old edition, or talking house rules vs WotC rules.

I'm not guaranteeing that 4e and 3e will live happily in the same forum. Maybe it will eventually make more sense to merge 3e with pathfinder, and do something else with 2e and earlier stuff. I don't know the best way to handle it. But I can guarantee you that the situation will be extremely different after 5e is released.

 

[Mark CMG]

I have tried it with the WoTC layoff threads. Let me know what you think.

That seems to have worked well enough.

 

[S'mon]

Well, I don't think 3e and pre-3e D&D should be in the same sub-forum. It effectively means there is nowhere on enw to discuss pre-3e D&D, or the retro-clones.

I'd suggest having pre-3e versions of D&D in General, and either make Legacy into officially the 3e forum, or merge 3e with Pathfinder - or are there 3e fans who hate Pathfinder?

I think it makes sense to keep a 3e/Pathfinder forum and a single 4e forum.

I like rpgnet's 'General' vs 'd20' forum divide, mostly because it lets me stay in d20 and have bit of protection from the ravening fiends who lurk in General. Thankfully not an issue on enw! But I think a three way split General-3e/PF-4e is best for ENW.

 

[IronWolf]

I'd suggest having pre-3e versions of D&D in General, and either make Legacy into officially the 3e forum, or merge 3e with Pathfinder - or are there 3e fans who hate Pathfinder?

I posted a long post once about a year or so ago about not combining those two forums. It isn't so much that the 3.x/Pathfinder types don't get along as much as it makes rules discussion and build discussion more difficult because of the subtle changes between the systems. They are similar enough that it can be difficult to pick up which system someone is talking about, which can perhaps make subsequent response posts irrelevant to the system at hand.

Plus, with the continued rise in popularity of Pathfinder it certainly seems to warrant its own forum these days.

EDIT: Here's my old post when this came up:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/meta/286346-recombining-forums-3.html#post5291650

 

[enrious]

I posted a long post once about a year or so ago about not combining those two forums. It isn't so much that the 3.x/Pathfinder types don't get along as much as it makes rules discussion and build discussion more difficult because of the subtle changes between the systems. They are similar enough that it can be difficult to pick up which system someone is talking about, which can perhaps make subsequent response posts irrelevant to the system at hand.

Plus, with the continued rise in popularity of Pathfinder it certainly seems to warrant its own forum these days.

I agree with the above points - it's not so much that 3.5 people hate Pathfinder (although some do) or that Pathfinder people hate 3.5 (although some do), it's that things could be very, very, very confusing for people asking for help/advice.

So I'd say:

Legacy - ODD/1e/2e/clones
3e
Pathfinder
4e
5e *


*I keed, I keed.**

** Or do I?

 

[Morrus]

We're not gonna split out the forums more, folks. We might combine some, but we're trying to move away from craploads of quiet forums in favour of fewer busier forums.

 

[S'mon]

We're not gonna split out the forums more, folks. We might combine some, but we're trying to move away from craploads of quiet forums in favour of fewer busier forums.

Cool. I like busy forums, and I like not having to click a dozen different forum links, or worry if I'm posting in the wrong forum.

Edit: I particularly like not having a RAW-forum vs House Rules forum split.