[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).

 

[UngeheuerLich]

the mtg forums are also shutting down... and magic is the cash cow... so I would not take it as any sign of dnd dying soon...

 

[Umbran]

Saying it doesn't remove the posts from the very first page. Which, being on the very first page, sets the tone far more than the reprimands four pages in.

Yunru,

We ask posters to not argue over what moderation should be done in-thread. By our rules*, if you have an issue with moderation, we expect and require you to take it up in PM or e-mail with one of the moderating staff.

In this case, just to speed this along: We don't make a habit out of rewriting history. By general policy, we only remove posts in pretty egregious circumstances, and try to keep a light hand in editing posts as well. Those things were said, and we're not going to try to make it look like they weren't. Yes, we have some folks who can behave poorly at times. Some of them have now pretty much outed themselves to you. If they're willing to stand up and let you know at the very start, well, that's probably useful to you.

We now return you to the thread. Any further discussion of moderation, please take to e-mail or Private Message. Thanks.



*The Rules. Also linked at the bottom of every forum page, for your convenience.

 

[Morrus]

We're totally just repeating each other, [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION]!

 

[Jester David]

:_(

 

[Yunru]

I get it, I get it, Imma stop moaning, things aren't going to change.
And I found the ignore button.

Umm, productive stuff...

Welcome everyone I know from WoTC that wasn't off-put. My guides have all been carried over (unless I missed one (if I did TELL ME)). So there's that.


(Although it'd be nice if the rules listed what moderation consists of, to stop people having incorrect assumptions)

 

[akr71]

Another member of the Exodus here. I hadn't really noticed the 'toxic environment' over there - well, that is to say I've been involved in other forums over the years (mostly for beer brewing, my other hobby) and I've come to expect trolling and general rudeness on forums from time to time.

As a grown adult, it is far easier to ignore idiots than stoop to their level, IMO.

I was a relatively new member over at WotC. I only joined in Jan as I just recently got back into the game. I played last in the late 80's (high school). After xmas, my family saw the starter box and wanted to give it a try. Now I DM for them, a group of work friends and my daughter talked me into DM'ing for her and her friends.

Thanks for the welcome!

 

[Mistwell]

on the WOTC forum I would once in a while start a tread colecting awnsers to questions posted to Mike Mearls and Jeremy Crawford from twitter.
Is there interest in me doing that here or doies Enworld colect the questions and awnsers from twitter in some ther way ?

Nobody does it here. Your threads on that are awesome. Yes, please do that here. If you can bring over your prior posts, that would be great as well.

 

[Jester David]

Anyone know a good method of searching the WotC fourms/blogs and saving stuff? I'd like to preserve as much of Unearthed Wrecan as possible...

 

[MoutonRustique]

Anyone know a good method of searching the WotC fourms/blogs and saving stuff? I'd like to preserve as much of Unearthed Wrecan as possible...

!

That is indeed of great worth! All the "wrecana" could probably constitute a very interesting "blog" - I know he had one, but there were also mountains of stuff all over the forums.

 

[Corpsetaker]

I see the closing of the D&D forums as a negative sign of things to come. I believe they shut down the MtG forums in order to take some of the focus away from the D&D forums closing. I also see this as a way to limit the amount of information and discussion that went on.

Facebook and Twitter are poor substitutes for a discussion board because of the way they are setup and their limitations. Twitter is usually limited in word count and Facebook isn't great for lengthy discussions between lots and lots of people.

I thought the point of the new strategy was to get the brand out there, you don't do that by shutting down your forums and going with a more "limited" form of communication. Gaming forums are not a thing of the past, they are still much used by gamers for in-depth discussions. All you have to do is go by the Paizo boards for proof of this.

I feel like there is something going on that isn't positive, just my opinion. I think this move could come back to bite them in the rear.