[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).

 

[Chaosmancer]

Thanks for the welcome. Hopefully I get used to the odd designs here, the posts for example all look like text messages to me (on a laptop). But, such is life and opinion

 

[LordManshoon]

Newcomer/refugee here. I used to be a frequent poster on the WotC forums until their chaotic board transition a couple years ago. After that, I mostly lurked, except to post the occasional word about Forgotten Realms lore or Magic:the Gathering. This place seems very expansive and it'll take a little while to adjust, but I already like the layout a lot more and I have high hopes. Thanks for having me!

 

[guachi]

Text messages? Enworld looks basically like all the other forums I read. Which isn't to say you are wrong. It's just that I don't notice anything different with the enworld forums compared to other forums.

 

[Banjodruid]

Thanks for the welcome. Hopefully I get used to the odd designs here, the posts for example all look like text messages to me (on a laptop). But, such is life and opinion

I Like the customization on background colors for the basic profile page. If I could get the rest of this forum to not be white with black text I'd be in heaven.

Probably more important is that this place is active. There is so much dust on the wotc forum that I would break into fits of sneezing every time iooked at it.

 

[jeffh]

Yunru,

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.

And I, for one, greatly prefer it this way.

Everyone is talking like the WotC forums are totally unmoderated, but that's not entirely true. When the mods do step in, it's in a very heavy-handed manner. Posts or even entire threads simply vanish with only the vaguest of explanations (usually obvious boilerplate), and the posts removed are not necessarily the most obvious candidates for moderation in that thread, much less the forum as a whole. Further communications from the mods are either non-existent, or so utterly tin-eared it would be better if they had been.

This is what prompted my own departure from the WotC boards, where I was until a few weeks ago a regular in the Rules Q&A forum on the Magic side. The only further specifics I'll add are that when someone is, in part, complaining that you're censoring too much stuff, it takes a very special sort of mind to conclude that the appropriate response is "censor more things".

I don't agree with every moderation decision I see here but at least I get the sense they're made by human beings it is possible in principle to reason with. WotC seemingly goes out of their way to give the impression that the mods are unthinking, uncaring machines, and then wonders why they're not well-liked.

 

[hbarsquared]

I Like the customization on background colors for the basic profile page. If I could get the rest of this forum to not be white with black text I'd be in heaven.

If you scroll all the way to the bottom of the page, you'll see a selection box in the banner. I highly reccomend the "Legacy" style. Black background, orange and white/grey text.

Many of us here at ENWorld prefer this style. This is also a reminder, and a head's up for newcomers, that posting in black or grey text is not encouraged, since those with the Legacy style find it impossible to read your posts.

 

[Banjodruid]

If you scroll all the way to the bottom of the page, you'll see a selection box in the banner. I highly reccomend the "Legacy" style. Black background, orange and white/grey text.

Many of us here at ENWorld prefer this style. This is also a reminder, and a head's up for newcomers, that posting in black or grey text is not encouraged, since those with the Legacy style find it impossible to read your posts.

Oh!!! That's infinitely better! Thank you captain!

 

[Jack Daniel]

The nostalgic part of me can't help but feel sad about this news. I once upon a time used to be very active on the WotC forums, first under the name Shaolin_Ninja (oh, God; you guys remember the Castle of Fun?), then as Jack Daniel.

You want to know how active? If I close my eyes, empty my mind, and type a random string, even to this day muscle memory almost virtually ensures that that string will be boards.wizards.com, which I have been known to occasionally type instead of a username or a password when I'm being especially absent-minded.

Then, you know, Gleemax happened, and, well, 'nuff said.

 

[Yunru]

I prefer reborn personally.

 

[Evenglare]

I don't buy the forum's are out of date nonsense. Reddit and 4 Chan are some of the most visited and influential sites on the net, they are basically simplified forums. Are they cancer to the internet? Absolutely, but don't give me nonsense about them being out of style or out dated. Social media may be able to get information out and about, but the very nature of it means that one things are said it simply gets buried within a couple of days.

I understand the closure. Hell, I'd have done it a long time ago, but the reasoning is laughable at best.