Gearbox simply introduced that the corporate will quickly be closing down its dialogue boards, and inspiring all customers to as a substitute migrate to utilizing particular person recreation Discords for their neighborhood wants. I’m as soon as once more right here to say it is a very silly concept.
A discover on the boards—which have existed of their present kind since 2015, and for lots longer earlier than that—explains that they’ve already been locked right down to read-only and can quickly be wiped totally, with customers having 30 days to “save any content material you need to preserve”:
We’ve had many good years of conversations on the Gearbox Boards. This has been an ideal place to attach with all of you and a haven for wonderful discussions, builds, and help. Through the previous yr, we observed lots of our neighborhood members want to have interaction on our different social platforms—and that’s nice. We love speaking to y’all and preserving the neighborhood going there.
the place the conversations are happening and suggestions is expressed, we need to proceed that dialog on our social channels the place a lot of the neighborhood is getting their info. Our Help staff will proceed to obtain your suggestions and considerations by help.gearbox.com.
As of July 19, 2022, we’ll flip classes to Learn-Solely. This implies members will not be capable of create posts on the boards, however of us will be capable of learn earlier posts. This may present 30 days to save lots of any content material you need to preserve earlier than it’s closed. Later this summer time, you’ll discover a brand new Gearbox web site and the boards will disappear totally.
Thanks for years of chats, guides, help, and for making this an ideal neighborhood. We stay up for persevering with the dialog with you.
This was, is and can endlessly be the dumbest fucking development in online game neighborhood administration. I perceive boards have gotten much less widespread, and that their glacial tendencies current plenty of challenges. The need to shut boards down when confronted with declining use and perceived advances in expertise is pure and fully comprehensible.
However shifting that performance to Discord isn’t the reply! Discord and boards are, as I’ve defined in depth beforehand on this web site, totally completely different websites with totally completely different functionalities!
Discord is nice for speaking within the second. It’s a spot for real-time conversations (or at lease these just a few hours outdated in the event that they’re not as busy), a flowery solution to handle a number of chat rooms and voice comms, and if that’s what you need—and hundreds of thousands of individuals all over the world do, for a great deal of wants and needs—then nice!
Boards aren’t the identical although. They’re nothing prefer it. Boards are extra deliberate, extra thought-about, and whereas they’re removed from good—I’m certain you may submit a billion examples of individuals being neither deliberate nor thought-about on boards—the purpose is that they’re extra everlasting.
Boards create a document, an archive we will search by, in order that each time we need to revisit points, or discover assist with an issue, or see what was occurring throughout a sure time, we will try this. There’s a paper path, and whereas typically that results in embarrassing takes on television reveals and recreation reveals, different instances it’s offering an infinite assist with technical points or components of a recreation you’re caught on.
G/O Media could get a fee
Online game publishers and studios, I’m begging you, when you actually should discover a solution to migrate your communities and their legacy to a brand new platform or service, please discover (or make!) one that’s extra appropriate to the duty.
