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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lojak" data-source="post: 7681173" data-attributes="member: 12470">First, welcome to everyone coming over to EN World.  I am a professional lurker and almost never post but this really a great community and is very well run.  I think anyone new to this board will really enjoy it.However, Hasbro's decision to eliminate the forums reinforces the perception of Hasbro creating a divide between the fan community and the game producers that just feels wrong for this particular hobby. I think there is a lot of value to the sense that the devs are fans of D&D both in its current and past iterations. We know many of their names. We know many of their resumes. We used to get direct communication from them in the form of Dungeon and Dragon magazine articles/editorials, UA articles, and even forum posts. It feels like a lot of that is going away and we are left to form and manage our own community (which I know we can do but its still different).I still think Mike Mearls and the other guys working on D&D are fans of the game and see that they have a responsibility to the community and as stewards for the hobby. I doubt they had much input into this decision (since it seems to be Hasbro wide). But it still creates a contrast to the approach of Paizo where they use their forums actively to build community and solicit feedback. Even if I like 5e better than Pathfinder, I admire the way that Paizo goes about their business and I defintely get the sense that they are fans of their own game and the hobby. The divide between the devs and the gamers is much smaller there.The official forums had their issues but they were still the single greatest game resource for D&D left after the books themselves. There was tons of great ideas and advice in the DM subforum about running games or insipiring ideas. There were tons of great discussions and handbooks about buildling characters. If I had a rule question, I could usually find a thread over there where someone had asked the exact same question (even if sometimes the issue got discussed and argued to death). If I was considering making a 4e Ranger (as I was recently), I could find a lot of information about how the class plays, comparing essentials v. non-essentials, etc. Heck, there was a thread where some artists would literally create art for your character concept for you just because they enjoyed doing it. All of that was good for the game.I am getting old and its likely pure nostalgia. Still, they have eliminated Dragon magazine, they have eliminated Dungeon Magazine, they have stopped publishing settings, they have stopped publishing crunch books, they got rid of the char builder and the other insider tools, etc., etc. etc. Its just sad to see a hobby I have always enjoy appear to be dieing.  Okay, enough doom and gloom.  I know I am over-reacting and I am really heartened by the efforts people are making to save some of the great content from the official forums.  Thank you to everyone involved in those efforts and to Morrus for providing this place.</blockquote>

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