XShagrath said:
If you just want DLC news and the like, then that's posted all over the web and on twitter in a much easier to find place than a forum. The thing that's great about this thread is the discussion of the DLC and all things RB-related.
NeoGAF is a place to discuss the gaming industry and gaming. The fact that news is posted elsewhere is irrelevant; many, many, many more people read GAF than post here, by a factor of ~50:1. Clearly people are still interested in coming to the site for news and information despite other avenues being available, and containing everything in megathreads is awful for this purpose. News not only gets posted, it gets discussed, hopefully with some thoughtful and interesting responses, and not just by the people who are hardcore followers of the IP. So let's not treat it like it's only worthwhile to have everything split into megathreads.
I read GAF both as part of my responsibilities and outside of them for many hours every day, and I'm happy to get my gaming news from GAF (and, if I can't, to strive to make it more viable to do so). When I have no idea what's going on with Rock Band 3 because everything's centered in this thread and only the extremely devoted sub-community can follow it effectively, that's a problem. There wasn't anything at all about the awesome RB3 Squier Strat real guitar pro mode posted outside of this thread, and I actually found out that there was an e3 video presentation about it by looking at wikipedia, which was disheartening. Look at the thread I made after I saw the vid: loads of people who were seeing it for the first time despite it being a two day old video that was probably posted in the official thread somewhere (...who knows?). People blown away and people speculating on the price and comparing it to other tech. New threads for significant new info is good.
I understand that the thread flies pretty fast when we get talking, but we're a very passionate sub-community. There's new RB-related info pretty much every day (DLC announcements, small RB3 tidbits, RBN stuff). Does each and every little thing need its own thread? Would one thread with a constantly updated OP suffice? I'm confused.
Yes, making a new thread for each new DLC announcement would be pointless and would clutter up the gaming forum, for a game that gets DLC so frequently (for other games, like MW2, it's appropriate). The posting guidelines sticky thread goes into this. It may make sense to have a separate thread specially for rock band DLC announcements, so they're not just dropped into the abyss here, and perhaps separate threads in addition to that for major signings ("OMG THE WHO FULL ALBUMS" etc.). Beyond that, significant news about upcoming games, like the one today about showing off the RB3 Squier Strat or other pro mode info, any other significant features that are shown off, and anything else that warrants having eyeballs on it should get a new thread. It's something you have to feel out.
I'm not killing the rock band OT (currently). I have nothing against you guys forming a mini-community around the game and my objective is not to make you miserable. I just want to preserve the news aspect of the gaming forum. An easy way to work with this is so just post a link in here to any new rock band related thread that's formed. I do that with the Mixed Martial Arts official thread on the off topic forum when I create an event thread (e.g. UFC 105 or whatever), and all the MMA thread regulars know what's going on and move relevant discussion to the new thread for the duration of the event. Works fine.
Btw, putting major work into updated OPs isn't really the way to go either. People inherently don't pay much attention to them once a thread is rolling, so it's mostly a waste of time.
