WoTC closing fourms.

[TopCheese]

Yet another incredibly stupid move by WOTC.

Even if they don't like the way the forums are going, they should not delete the incredibly valuable content on the forums.

Well, stupid on a public relation side of things with regards to D&D gamers. Hasbro probably doesn't want to spend money on it AND doesn't want a toxic astmosphere related to one of their products as it could eventually come back to haunt them later with PR for buyers of their other brands.

I'm kinda hoping/expecting Wotc or D&D will be under a new owner for 6E. MtG will not be, don't ever see them giving that up, but D&D...

[MrConsideration]

This seems like a silly move to me - how much can a forum cost, really, in comparison to other outgoings at Wizards? It seems defeatist and damaging to pull the rug out from under an established community. I met my first gaming group by posting on the WotC forums. I personally only dip my toe in the Wizards forum, normally at the end of a Google search for a specific idea, or guide, but I can't deny that it's a focus for the community and the first place D&D gamers are going to congregate.

What's the alternative D&D forum? Are they ceding that territory to Paizo? Is it Giant in the Playground?* Conversations on Facebook or Twitter aren't moderated, or easily referenced, or as substantive, as forums. If people kick off on the forums about changes on the boards, who cares? People are capable of kicking off on Twitter or Facebook too.

I have an inkling forums are something of a dying media across the board.

* I hope not. This forum has a good atmosphere I wouldn't want diminished.

[hiiamtom]

I'm pretty sure the dev team has been pushing social media and streaming, which is honestly the first place I look for D&D related entertainment.

I love private forums, but most people just don't anymore and have moved to reddit, image boards, and twitter for most things. Even the MtG spoiler sites are dying, and with ad blocker it is kinda hard to make the same communities you used to.

[Kurald Galain]

What's the alternative D&D forum? Are they ceding that territory to Paizo?

Enworld, presumably.

Frankly, Paizo's forum interface is almost as bad as WOTC. It makes me wonder why; PhpBB has been the de facto standard for community boards and has a lot of thought and development put into making it userfriendly; so why on earth would both Paizo and WOTC avoid using that?

[TopCheese]

Enworld, presumably.

Frankly, Paizo's forum interface is almost as bad as WOTC. It makes me wonder why; PhpBB has been the de facto standard for community boards and has a lot of thought and development put into making it userfriendly; so why on earth would both Paizo and WOTC avoid using that?

I've been checking enworld out more often, its not to bad and it seems a lot of old wotc stuff is popping up over there.

Maybe they both thought if they made their forums bad enough people would switch themselves and they wouldn't have to go through a "shutting down phase" and lose street cred?

So flanking weird.

[GilesTheCleric]

I've set up an index of WotC 3.X material in our subforum, here. It includes directions for how to easily transfer posts from WotC to any other BBCode-based board.

Feel free to post links to saved material (from other sites or that you've posted here), or to PM me links and I'll add them.

[Capac Amaru]

I'd hazard a guess that feedback/focus groups were saying that the forums were intimidating to new players. They still want forums to exist, but they dont want them readily accessible from their main hub (wotc.com) because they dont want potential customers turned off by 45 page long threads about martial vs caster power, or how to jam eldritch blast into every character build.

[GungHo]

Enworld, presumably.

Frankly, Paizo's forum interface is almost as bad as WOTC. It makes me wonder why; PhpBB has been the de facto standard for community boards and has a lot of thought and development put into making it userfriendly; so why on earth would both Paizo and WOTC avoid using that?

+1 on Paizo's site being weird. There are a lot of "company store" sites that are simply horrible. They don't need to all be PhpBB, but that should be the minimum standard for features and interactivity. I don't need (or want) animated avatars, but don't bother if there's no facility for things like rich text or simple quoting.

[Anonymouswizard]

I'd hazard a guess that feedback/focus groups were saying that the forums were intimidating to new players. They still want forums to exist, but they dont want them readily accessible from their main hub (wotc.com) because they dont want potential customers turned off by 45 page long threads about martial vs caster power, or how to jam eldritch blast into every character build.

Yeah, it takes me a while to get around to trying out official forums, partially due to this, partially because it's hard to know if having every book is expected or not (I've found the Onyx Path forums very good for this with people quoting books that disprove my points, while when I tried the Shadowrun forums people thought I was being stupid because I didn't own one splat [I don't care what it says on the rulebooks, core-only means core rulebook]). It's part of the reason I hope the Giant keeps these forums going for as long as possible.

+1 on Paizo's site being weird. There are a lot of "company store" sites that are simply horrible. They don't need to all be PhpBB, but that should be the minimum standard for features and interactivity. I don't need (or want) animated avatars, but don't bother if there's no facility for things like rich text or simple quoting.

It's weird how a lot of forums seem to value style above substance. I don't care if you support 2Mb avatars with strobe lighting if I can't quote posts or style text. All in all, I'd prefer an okay-looking forum with basic features over one that supports lots of flash but misses out on some key functionality.

[J-H]

Great choice... oi.

Reddit-never been there
Twitter-Shamus Young @ Twenty-Sided has a Twitter feed beside his blog. LinkedIn loves to talk about Twitter. I haven't logged into my Twitter account in 5+ year.
Facebook-Not a good discussion forum
Tumblr-What does Batman's armored car have to do with this?

[atemu1234]

I've... seen things you people wouldn't believe. Hrmph.

Forums in flame wars off the alignment questions in the sub-forums.

I watched homebrew material glitter in the darkness near the 3rd edition web portal.

All those... moments will be lost... in time.

Like... tears... in rain.

Time... to die.

Blade Runner?

[Solauren]

i am currently in the process of downloading the entirety of the Published Worlds, and Previous Edition Categories (General, Archieve, Character Optimization)
(I have no interest in 4E or later, so I'm not going into those rule sections right now. I might after I have what I'm after)

I already downloaded the category thread listing pages last night, and I wrote a program that is currently pulling out the information I need to generate the thread links for each page (Automated website downloaders are horrible for downloading web forums)

i.e
http://www.examples.com/Forum-1/Thread-1
http://www.examples.com/Forum-1/Thread-2
http://www.examples.com/Forum-1/Thread-3&aPage=1
http://www.examples.com/Forum-1/Thread-3&aPage=2
..
http://www.examples.com/Forum-1/Thread-3&aPage=147

Once that's done, I'll download all the threads, as they stand that day (I should be done downloading by Friday I think)

After that, I'm going to look into putting them online as part of a larger project I'm at the point I need external assistance with.

[GilesTheCleric]

There are only 15 more days left to mirror material. The Index of 3.X WotC Threads has a list of content that has already been mirrored, as well as suggestions for content that has not yet been.

[gadren]

Any tips on the quickest, easiest way to save threads? There are a lot of 4e guides I still use to this day on the WotC forums...

[GilesTheCleric]

There's directions in the index thread. In short: There's a windows program you can download, or you can do it by hand (copy+pasting then adding formatting, or running the HTML through an HTML-to-BBCode converter. There's one linked).

[GilesTheCleric]

There are only two days left to mirror content.

[LudicSavant]

There are only two days left to mirror content.

I still haven't seen much material exported, so it looks like it's going to be the Gleemax move all over again with only a small fraction of things being preserved.

[Nifft]

Any tips on the quickest, easiest way to save threads? There are a lot of 4e guides I still use to this day on the WotC forums...

Wayback Machine is the easiest way to save a thread.

Paste the URL of the first page, then once that is saved click through to all the following pages.

[GilesTheCleric]

Using the Wayback Machine is indeed the easiest, but it makes searching very difficult for future users. Without a direct link to the content or knowledge of exactly what they're looking for, it's tricky to find what you're looking for. The benefit to mirroring content to other forums is that it becomes both searchable (ie indexed by google/ other sites), and it is once again open for comment and updating.

There's approximately 24 hours left to mirror content. There are instructions on how to do so in the index thread (link in sig).

[Ralanr]

A lot of guides are going to be lost/never updated.

This is a sad day. Not really sure how mirroring actually works.

[GilesTheCleric]

There are instructions at the top of the index thread. In short, you copy the text from WotC, and paste it to another forum. If you're on windows, there's a handy program you can download that helps with the formatting.

[Ralanr]

There are instructions at the top of the index thread. In short, you copy the text from WotC, and paste it to another forum. If you're on windows, there's a handy program you can download that helps with the formatting.

Oh. Well now I feel silly.

[Knaight]

Oh. Well now I feel silly.

It also doesn't hurt to save a copy to your computer, for anything you really personally want. The file sizes involved are honestly pretty small.

[GilesTheCleric]

Oh. Well now I feel silly.

No need to feel silly. The typical use for the term "mirroring" is to describe hosting content (usually something downloadable) on an external site for redundancy and resiliency. What we're doing is similar, except that we are the external site, and in six days there won't be any redundancy once the original is gone.

Edit: I suppose I should also make it more obvious that the deadline has apparently been extended until Nov 5.

[GilesTheCleric]

The deadline has been extended (until Nov 5, most likely). That means there's now two days left to mirror content.