[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).

 

[billd91]

It was probably done about seven years too late. The conventional wisdom in business circles these days are that corporate hosted web forums are a net negative for any sort of brand trying to deal with the general public because they almost always become overwhelmingly negative and there are far better ways to deal with the public. I can see why more old school nerd interest brands might still be holding on to that model since I think in general that audience is a bit more savvy about what is going on. I still think that EN World and other independent forums are a far better way for fans to talk about WOTC games and is far better equipped to handle it. I look forward to seeing some new blood here and on the other forums I frequent from the change. I think it is a healthy development overall.

I can kind of understand the issue of negativity. All you need to do is look at any newspaper's or other news source's website and see where they have reader comments turned on. If you think gamers are bad with negativity, you haven't seen political stories or crime stories. They're abysmal. That said, there has to be a better way to handle customer relations and service than super-ephemeral social media. Even there, to avoid negativity, they need to diligently moderate.

If they'd rather curate a forum with a smaller footprint (like a special interest page on Facebook), then maybe they should consider sponsoring a forum or set of sub-forums on places like ENWorld. If they're interested in a presence on reddit, I assume they'll designate a moderator there anyway. Why not do that here and other major sites?

 

[Shasarak]

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 ?

Those threads were cool and informative, so I would be interested.

 

[Bawylie]

Those threads were cool and informative, so I would be interested.

Same

 

[jbear]

Being a 4e fan, I used the WotC forums to check out cool 4e builds pretty often. I don't think I ever posted there though, that I recall. Maybe to ask a question or two ... not sure. I may have signed up for the 5e playtest ... my memory fails me. In any case, I do hope someone has the time and passion to rescue the cool stuff that people have worked on over the years.

As for the possible influx of posters coming over to ENWorld, welcome to you all. I am certain you will find lots of treasures here on these boards as well. It's disappointing that the posts immediately following Morrus' warm welcome were edged in tone. I can understand people's fears that some of the negativity apparent on the WotC boards might transfer over here, and need to express the importance we generally all hold that such a thing doesn't happen here at EnWorld, because it is one of the main reasons we choose to spend our free time reading and posting here. It would be a lie to say that EnWord is completely free of 'toxic' posting. There have been flare ups both with the arrival of 4e and 5e which personally turned me away from regular forum discussion posting on both occaisions (the latter being the lesser). I really don't want to spend my spare time feeling bad about a hobby I absolutely love basically. I usually just read news stories and post in the pbp forums now. If there is the odd discussion I find particularly interesting I'll throw in my two cents. So, yes, we all have our warts over here too. But as others have said, people do make a genuine effort to argue politely, the mods here are super active, and always fair and clear. Morrus has already jumped in on the welcome being not so welcoming, so I'm certain that'll be the end of that.

So again, a genuinely warm welcome to anyone new who decides to join us here at EnWorld.

 

[Yunru]

Folks,

Please leave off the WotC-forum bashing, please. It is 1) Moot at this point, 2) Rude, and 3) Makes you look pretty bad. Keep the thread respectful, everyone. Thanks.

Edit: Oh, Morrus beat me too it by a longshot. The idea still holds, however.

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.

 

[Morrus]

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.

We very rarely remove posts here; instead we explain why they're an issue. It's been how we do it for 16 years, and we find it works well for us.

One thing you will need to get used to, though, is that we don't allow in-thread discussion of moderation. That's the orange and red text. It derails threads, and it makes the moderators' job intolerable. For that reason, if you have a problem with a moderator's decision, you need to PM that moderator directly (or raise a non-specific issue in the Meta forum). That's a pretty strict rule. Again, it works very well, and it also stops people piling on and perpetuating an issue which has been dealt with. If that doesn't work, you can always drop me a line directly.

So, let's get back to discussing the thread topic at hand! And welcome to the boards! Like I said, some things work a little differently here, but I'll do what I can to make you guys welcome. But for your part, remember I'm just a guy, not a corporation. That's the main difference you'll see here.

 

[Yunru]

Very well, if that's the initial impressions you wish to set, far be it for me to stop you

Just as long as ENWorld isn't going to spontaneously shut down too.

 

[SteveC]

A sad day. I used the boards like other 4E fans to look at builds and game options all the time. It's another sign of the Shuttering of WotC's tabletop support, I suppose.

I'd also like to welcome the new folk to EN World. We have a few jokers over here, but that's nothing that a sound use of the ignore function won't cure.

Just remember the "Eric's Grandma" rule and you're golden.

 

[Morrus]

One piece of history for the new guys. About a year ago, a whole bunch of people were mass-banned from WotC's forums and ended up here. Some are still here, and post cool, interesting stuff. A mean-spririted minority went about deliberately trolling the members of this forum (and even set up a teeny forum elsewhere from which they coordinated the trolling). That minority is no longer here, but that's why you'll see some people a bit wary - they're worried this will happen again.

 

[Yunru]

There's wary and then there's openly offensive, which IMO is unacceptable... at least until I can find the Ignore button. >_<