Opinions, please! Is this forum valuable to you as a separate forum?

[BSF]

I think there should be a couple of changes!

General will always have cycles. Right now, General moves slowly because there is much more traffic in the 4E forum. But I think it will begin to pick back up after June. Especially if you guys merge the 4E forum into General!

I do agree with placement though. It would be nice to have the forum a little higher on the list.

I also think it should be non-D&D games. I think it would be great to have a forum for D&D and a forum for everything else. EN World is a D&D site, that is somewhat accepting of other games as well. It would be cool to have a forum where you can look for anything/everything that isn't D&D.

I can see some people complaining that it relegates other games to some sort of secondary status though. Like a subforum banishment area. That is why the forum should also be moved up the list. Then non-D&D games are being highlighted in a subforum for all the people looking for alternatives, without having a non-D&D thread churned off the first page or two very rapidly.

 

[dmccoy1693]

My preference: One forum would consist of 3.5 and its variants (True20, Pathfinder, Modern20, etc) and another forum for 4E and its variants (Star Wars, My Little Pony RPG)

 

[Wicht]

My preference: One forum would consist of 3.5 and its variants (True20, Pathfinder, Modern20, etc) and another forum for 4E and its variants (Star Wars, My Little Pony RPG)

I think this is what I would prefer as well.

Seems like the logical way to go.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

My preference: One forum would consist of 3.5 and its variants (True20, Pathfinder, Modern20, etc) and another forum for 4E and its variants (Star Wars, My Little Pony RPG)

That might be a good approach.

The D&D 3.5 Core Rules As Written might become less relevant, as Pathfinder and other derivates will rise in popularity. So it makes sense to unite them into one forum.

Then, 4E and its derivates should have its own Rules forum.

In addition, there might perhaps be a room for "non-D&D/d20" games? Or is this too small? Maybe it should be promoted a little more. I wouldn't mind if EnWorld would become a home for other games, too, unless this makes the forum members and atmosphere worse.

Anyway, there should also be a General Discussion forum, that doesn't cover rules but fluff, opinons and similar stuff.

The House Rules forums could be acceptable for all D&D and OGL related stuff...

 

[Ghostwind]

I'd like to see a restructure of the category placements, such as:

* General Discussion
* 4th ed. Discussion
* OGL/Pathfinder Discussion
* D&D Rules
* House Rules
* Plots & Places

 

[Aus_Snow]

Tricky, the way things seem to be turning out.

An OGL/Pathfinder/3e forum, or something to that effect, would (I think) be a good idea. There does appear to be a lot of ongoing interest in, and support for, these systems. Plus, OGL is pretty broad - a lot of systems and settings would go here.

A General, of course. A D&D rules, for 4e. A D&D house rules, for 4e. And the rest of the forums, like Publishers and so on.

That's how I would prefer it, I guess. So, just like now, but with an expansion and relabelling of this forum, so that it's the catchall for non-4e things (except for totally non-d20/D&D-related games, which I suppose would still be in General, as always.

 

[arscott]

Just chiming in to agree with everyone:

Keep the forum, it's slow right now, but hey, so is general. It'll probably pick up roundabout the time that the GSL goes into effect.

Put the non d20 games here too. It'll move more traffic this way, and probably get more meaningful responses for those threads.

Don't really care about placement on the list, though. I don't think that being behind the rules forum hurts us any. And once that big clunky 4e preview box goes away, we'll be above the fold, right?

 

[Vigilance]

I like this forum BECAUSE its a bit on the slow side.

I dont check the forums every 4 hours and would hate to miss a thread Im interested in (or even one directed specifically to me- as has happened in the past) because it moved off the front page.

 

[bento]

I like the separate-ness of the OGL/ PF form from General.

I think the bigger problem is General - you can look through many of the threads and see that some of them might fit elsewhere on the site better.

Besides, isn't the 4E Forum going to eventually become the General forum?

 

[Michael R. Proteau]

Honestly I think the general forum is misnamed and possibly redundant. It's not really a general forum, it's a leftover forum. Genral implies any topic is ok, but that is not the case. 4E has to go in one place, rules in another, media in another, OGL games in another, etc. etc. Plus there is already an off-topic forum, so realistically what is left to go in the general forum? What is boils down to is that it is a D&D non 4E non rules forum. That's not really general is it? It should refelct that name, because otherwise it is a catchall forum for what doesn't belong in other specific forums, a role which off topic already fills, so it is really either misnamed (if a D&D forum) or redundant (if a catch-all/leftover forum).

It is also a bit off putting to someone coming to EN World the first time. General forums on many sites are the first place you explore ot give you a sense of what the discussion on the site is about, but it can't do that because so much of th conversation is shunted over to other niche forums. It also leads to newcomers posting something in the general forum that belongs somehwere else and getting chided for it, leaving a bad first impression of the site from the experience.

If you are going ot have a general forum it should be a general interest forum that allows for posts on a variety of topics, and for that reason I voted that the OGL forum be merged with the General Forum. However, if you are reorganizing, a complete rethinking and renaming of forums might be in order too.

A general D&D or better yet a fantasy gaming forum that deals woith fantasy games without necessarily being game or system specific. Don't label it as just general, but put the parameters of what it actually is in the forum title. Then have a separate 4E D&D forum and a 3.x/OGL forum since the adherents of the two systems seem to be setting themselves on different sides of an argument and having so much trouble getting along with one another. Discussion in each of these should not be limited to only crunch/rules or only fluff, but a single forum (for each system) for all aspects of the game and that particular system. Have tags within each forum so posters can label threads as rules specific, campaign specific, fluff specific, adventure sepcific, product specific, etc.

Move off topic and media forums closer to the top so newcomers can see these and know they exist, giving someone a better grasp of the forum landscape at initial glance when coming to the site. These should cover most of the general interest forums of gamers coming to a gaming forum.

Then have the more niche specific forums, publishers, press releases, job opportunities, story hours, marketplace, etc.

Encourage the use of thread tools, reminding posters to subscribe to threads they are interested in making it easier for them to follow these threads even if they move off the front page quickly due to higher volume in these threads. Maybe move it form being a drag down menu option to having a new tab to go with submit reply and preview post. Add 2 options (sumit and subscribe to thread as one option and subscribe to thread as a second, so those who want to post can subscribe with a single click, and those reading/lurking can subscribe with a single click as well.

Just some random thoughts in response ot the question, though I suppose technically it should go in the meta forum.