• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

BioWare Shutting Down Official Forums, Cites Social Media as Alternative

Ralemont said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH9F76PtigY
Click to expand...

PoorChoices said:
On the one hand, it's understandable because that place was a retched hive of scum an villainy. On the other hand, it gave us this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9C9OKMyZng
Click to expand...

We're losing many great posts on the 26th of August.

Loch Doun said:
That's a dumb reason (excuse) for shutting down a forum. I wonder what the real reason is...
Click to expand...

I always hate it when online communities get shut down, their reasoning behind it is also pretty bizzare, especially with the next Mass Effect game coming soon.
Maybe they'll start a new forum for the new Mass Effect game?
 
Loch Doun said:
That's a dumb reason (excuse) for shutting down a forum. I wonder what the real reason is...
Click to expand...

Easier to operate and moderate, I imagine. Same reason why Ninja Theory shut down theirs. I imagine more companies will do the same. I expect sites like Capcom-Unity to be shut down eventually.
 
Alpha Phoenix said:
My thoughts, too.
Click to expand...
Gaider pretty much said it was because they didn't want to continue having time and money spent moderating it and the devs pretty much stick to social media for questions anyways. Dev interaction is half the reason people even stayed there.
 
As someone who regularly participated there during the releases of the original ME trilogy and DAO/DA2, I won't really miss it. It became a hive of negativity, mockery and just all around shit.
 
Loch Doun said:
That's a dumb reason (excuse) for shutting down a forum. I wonder what the real reason is...
Click to expand...

I'd guess the real reason is that Bioware's relationship with their fans basically fell apart after DA2 and ME3. They want to break up that community.

But its a shame, because you could still have a decent conversation there. For all the "toxicity", there was much more chance of that than at Neogaf, where any mention of Dragon Age just brings mockery.
 
Aw, I remember there being a thread on preparing the worst possible way to play through Mass Effect 1 and 2 when there was still hope that it would matter.
 
Blobbers said:
Like an analysis on what Tali's sweat tastes like?

sweat.jpg


sweat3.jpg
Click to expand...

"So, so far we can tell that Tali would not smell nearly as bad as those filthy humans, her sweat's a drug and natural performance enhancer."

Where the lies tho
 
I hope they realize that part of what ME3 MP so fantastic was the discussion between the balance crew and the community. They worked really hard and while the disagreements were plenty the game was better off. Destiny (a game with vastly more resources and MP focus) is crap in comparison. Other EA games have been pretty good, but forgetting the key detail of ME3 MP's clear and consistent communication really hurt.

Can't stress enough how important communication and consistency were important to ME3 MP's longevity. Far more important than the loot grind. As important as the excellent free DLC.

Still blows my mind that ME3 MP is a measuring stick I apply to 'real' MP games.
Especially, Destiny.
'Wanting.'
 
Wulfram said:
I'd guess the real reason is that Bioware's relationship with their fans basically fell apart after DA2 and ME3. They want to break up that community.

But its a shame, because you could still have a decent conversation there. For all the "toxicity", there was much more chance of that than at Neogaf, where any mention of Dragon Age just brings mockery.
Click to expand...

Pretty much. They don't want a rallying point if ME4 turns out to be shit. It's much harder to coalesce on general social media.

The ME3 and DA2 responses resulted in this outcome. Not to say the responses weren't justified, because they definitely were, but from a PR standpoint this was inevitable.
 
Loch Doun said:
That's a dumb reason (excuse) for shutting down a forum. I wonder what the real reason is...
Click to expand...
That is probably the real reason.

Company website forums are dying off in general. They're a waste of time to run and moderate, and they're used by a very small number of customers. Most of what they provide is being absorbed by general social media like Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit.
 
shinobi602 said:
As someone who regularly participated there during the releases of the original ME trilogy and DAO/DA2, I won't really miss it. It became a hive of negativity, mockery and just all around shit.
Click to expand...

The one thing I will miss is the Character Build discussions. That was the one decent area to have quality discussions about the gameplay.
 
Ralemont said:
It started with Dragon Age 2 and the terrible harrassment BioWare employees suffered from misguided, mean-spirited fans (the most infamous example being to call a female employee "Hamburger Helper" and ridiculing her looks).

Mass Effect 3's ending was that x5, with death threats, calling for jobs, general mean-spirited posting, dumb posts, everything you can think of.

Since then the forum's been plagued with neurotic jilted ex-lovers who can't move on from whatever BioWare game they happen to have hated lately and insist on posting their hatred in every single thread regardless of the OP content, even years after the fact.
Click to expand...

This is a pretty good summary. I posted a lot there between DA:O and DA2's release and it was fun at the time, but then everything went to hell. After ME3's release I left for good and I don't miss it. It's incredibly toxic now.
 
They actually reference that sweat post in the Citadel DLC. When Tali is trunk at the party she mumbles random shit and one of the things she says is something like "It tastes like sweat, why would you even ask that?!"
 
Alpha Phoenix said:
So.. uh, as someone who has been there for a good while, I guess that's to be expected.
Click to expand...

Yep. I pretty much went there increasingly less and stuck around for the off-topic forum. Once that went, so did I.

Even migrated there from the original Mass Effect 1 forums. That said, I imagine most of the fanbase will either migrate (or are already on) Tumblr I'm guessing.
 
PoorChoices said:
On the one hand, it's understandable because that place was a retched hive of scum an villainy. On the other hand, it gave us this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9C9OKMyZng
Click to expand...

In retrospect, the stanry roo meme was racist as fuck.

I completely forgot why 4channers were shitting on TOR when it came out as well. I think this came at the heels of that Bioware writer being harassed out of a job. Man, those were pretty shitty years for Bioware.
 
Hope someone backs up the Mass Effect Lore forums. Lots of valuable information there that can be used for writing realistic ME erotic fan fiction.
 
chaobreaker said:
In retrospect, the stanry roo meme was racist as fuck.
Click to expand...

We don't need retrospect to know it was racist as fuck at the time. I laughed and I felt bad for laughing.

I completely forgot why 4channers were shitting on TOR when it came out as well. I think this came at the heels of that Bioware writer being harassed out of a job. Man, those were pretty shitty years for Bioware.
Click to expand...

While social issues are always at least "part" of the reason that 4chan shits on something, it was also partially thanks to mods like Stanley Woo that it reached that point with Bioware.

I think most people saw DA2 as a step back for the franchise, and Mass Effect 2 was tonally (and gameplay wise) very different from 1. If you tried to present any criticism on their forums or any opinion that wasn't positive or blind praise, you had a 50/50 chance of it either being shut down by fanboys telling you you were wrong, or Stanley Woo locking the topic for trolling/harassing/etc.

So when TOR came out (after back to back disappointments for people), 4chan just went all out with it. It didn't help that launch TOR had it's own fair share of problems (many of them QoL stuff that other MMOs had already figured out), eventually culminating in the servers that were almost ghost towns before the server merges/transition to free to play.

The "TORtanic" as it were was 4chan's favorite thing to watch slowly sink before EA/Bioware saved it via F2P.
 
I am very concerned about game mods and game modding information that would be lost upon the forums closing. Is anyone doing anything to preserve it?

Thank goodness Mod Nexus has expanded to cover most of these games in recent years.
 
natsuyasumi said:
I am very concerned about game mods and game modding information that would be lost upon the forums closing. Is anyone doing anything to preserve it?

Thank goodness Mod Nexus has expanded to cover most of these games in recent years.
Click to expand...

The forums weren't really very supportive of modding anyway, these days.

I think the hosted mods would actually be on the old "Bioware Social" site rather than the current one anyway
 
https://forum.bioware.com/topic/574907-concerning-our-forums/?p=20411714

We actively follow and seek out what our players are saying, whether its here or on other websites, blogs, or social media. We also get the odd handwritten letter, and we read those too.

Closing these boards does not mean that stops, nor does it mean we expect you to give us 144 character reviews or feedback. We encourage all of our players to talk about our games in the way that best suits them and the discussion they are wanting to have.

Sometimes that's on Twitter, sometimes that's via a blog, or Reddit, or community forum.
Click to expand...

Twisting the knife.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Highguard Shutting Down
3 4 5 6 7
338
2K
Arsic replied
French studio 'Spiders' is shutting down (Greedfall)
2
82
313
March Climber replied
RPG about Gaming and Social Media (Social Split)
News 
14
265
Fermbiz replied
Arcade1up apparently shutting down
41
1K
Uncle Moe replied
Comcept shutting down (Mighty No 9)
16
540
CamHostage replied
Top Bottom