BioWare Shutting Down Its Forums

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There is an announcement in the Bioware forums today that says, come the 26th of next month, the majority of the company's forums will be closed. You will still be able to read them until the 25th of October but the servers will be taken offline after that. The forums for Dragon Age and Mass Effect are among the forums being shuttered. :(

So it is with a heavy heart that we will close our public forums on August 26, 2016. We will maintain some private boards, and may use these in future for beta feedback or other special projects. Because we know there is a lot of information on there you may want to keep, the public boards will remain in a read-only state until October 25, 2016. After that date, they will be taken down.
 
I can see a lot of companies shutting down their forums. They get greater reach with twitter and Facebook. It is not worth trying to police a bunch of crazy people, and being held accountable for the random garbage they post there. Please don't shut down the [H] forums!
 
It's an extra cost they really don't need, enthusiast-run forums tend to end up better run and with better info anyway. The only thing really lacking might be official announcements, but we mostly know those to be canned PR statements from some intern as opposed to people who might actually be qualified to speak about an issue.

I do like DA, but have to admit that I've never been to the forums anyway.
 
That's really unfortunate. I've been a member of those forums since the Baldur's Gate days and while I haven't used them in a while, it was a great way for the community to engage with the development team and give feedback and suggestions.

To be honest though, I definitely feel that the forums and the company in general have gone downhill since the EA buyout.
 
Seems silly, I always thought forums were the only way to actually hear developer feedback and engage in a real conversation. Especially when it comes to MMOs, and it certainly won't translate over to Facebook or Twitter or any other social media platform.
 
delita said:
Seems silly, I always thought forums were the only way to actually hear developer feedback and engage in a real conversation. Especially when it comes to MMOs, and it certainly won't translate over to Facebook or Twitter or any other social media platform.
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Well the Old Republic forums are staying online, so I think they agree with you on the MMO front. What they are saying is the devs get more and better feedback on social media now. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
Shmee said:
Well the Old Republic forums are staying online, so I think they agree with you on the MMO front. What they are saying is the devs get more and better feedback on social media now. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Maybe I'm behind the times, or old school then. Because I have never once in my life used Facebook or Twitter to attempt to communicate with a game dev.
 
delita said:
Maybe I'm behind the times, or old school then. Because I have never once in my life used Facebook or Twitter to attempt to communicate with a game dev.
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I have never used them at all other then read a few things on there mostly for some golden keys for borderlands but I don't have an account for either of those and probably never will.
 
soo does this mean that STAR WARS THE OLD REPUBLIC or SWTOR as well is going down too its a BIOWARE MMO GAME !! if im not mistaken ? but BIOWARE and EA teamed up to make that game well it looks like its time to put away my swtor poster for a collectors item one day :( it always seems that everything EA TOUCHES always in some form turns out to be crap if not now then down the road . I'll never buy another EA game ! and have not for years !

SHAME ON YOU EA GAMES STICK TO WHAT YOU KNOW AND THATS EA SPORTS !!
 
zeeDj said:
soo does this mean that STAR WARS THE OLD REPUBLIC or SWTOR as well is going down too its a BIOWARE MMO GAME !! if im not mistaken ? but BIOWARE and EA teamed up to make that game well it looks like its time to put away my swtor poster for a collectors item one day :( it always seems that everything EA TOUCHES always in some form turns out to be crap if not now then down the road . I'll never buy another EA game ! and have not for years !

SHAME ON YOU EA GAMES STICK TO WHAT YOU KNOW AND THATS EA SPORTS !!
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No, SW:TOR forums aren't going down. Just all the other Bioware forums, DA, Mass Effect, etc.
 
Stiler said:
No, SW:TOR forums aren't going down. Just all the other Bioware forums, DA, Mass Effect, etc.
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yeah i can see why seeing how thay have star wars battle front going from ea there gonna MILK THIS CASH COW Called STAR WARS ,
 
Stiler said:
No, SW:TOR forums aren't going down. Just all the other Bioware forums, DA, Mass Effect, etc.
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SW:TOR wasn't even developed by Bioware, it was developed by EA's Austin studio (that they call Bioware Austin). The studio was formed after EA bought out Bioware and really isn't connected to Bioware's original operation in Edmonton, AB.

Honestly, after the acquisition all the talent has quit. All that remains is the name and even that's been stretched to the extreme with EA branding a bunch of unrelated studios as "Bioware" despite there not really being any connection.

Shutting down the forums is definitely a cost saving measure. EA saw the bills and said, that's something we can afford to lose.
 
Quix said:
SW:TOR wasn't even developed by Bioware, it was developed by EA's Austin studio (that they call Bioware Austin). The studio was formed after EA bought out Bioware and really isn't connected to Bioware's original operation in Edmonton, AB.

Honestly, after the acquisition all the talent has quit. All that remains is the name and even that's been stretched to the extreme with EA branding a bunch of unrelated studios as "Bioware" despite there not really being any connection.

Shutting down the forums is definitely a cost saving measure. EA saw the bills and said, that's something we can afford to lose.
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It's sad too, I remember when EA/Bioware first announced the buy out, all the comments about "staying independtly run" and nothing changing.

Sure enough, just like about oh.....virtually every-other developer EA bought things drastically changed. The founder of Bioware left, a lot of the top talent left. After David Gaider left last year I don't know how well their future rpgs are going to turn out, at least the fantasy ones/dragon age. He was one of the few lead writers that was there from long ago that had stuck around until now.
 
Shmee said:
I can see a lot of companies shutting down their forums. They get greater reach with twitter and Facebook. It is not worth trying to police a bunch of crazy people, and being held accountable for the random garbage they post there. Please don't shut down the [H] forums!
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Twitter/Facebook aren't forums, they are advertising and have horrible interfaces and restrictions for actual conversations. Seriously, "social" media has few actual uses: advertising, yelling, "harassment", slander, death threats, and letting people know when you are taking a shit.
 
Shutting down forums is just a PR move to remove any possible bad public information that gets associated officially with the company.
 
Gotta love EA. This goes great together with them shutting down game servers so you can't even play the game you've bought.
 
It's a shame. Forums are probably one of the best venues for curating in-game knowledge outside a Wiki (and probably better than a Wiki for "guides"-type content).

But yeah, they take a LOT of effort to police.
 
pcgamingwiki.com, read, use, and if you feel like it donate. One stop shop for all video games.
 
delita said:
Seems silly, I always thought forums were the only way to actually hear developer feedback and engage in a real conversation. Especially when it comes to MMOs, and it certainly won't translate over to Facebook or Twitter or any other social media platform.
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IMHO, Facebook, Twitter and other social media are useless for this purpose.

Nothing beats a dedicated forum.
 
Next step, flooding third party sites that replace the void with copyright infringement lawsuits and take down requests.
 
Was not even aware that they had forums. As long as my Dragon Age: Inquisition game continues to work, all is good. (I have it both for the PC and my XBox One.)
 
A lot of offerings have really craptastic forums. Some of the ugliest, slowest-loading, worst forum software possible.

Like Cryptic Studios. They've moved forum software like 3-4 times and the software they have now is absolute SHIT.
 
Official gane forums are almost always terrible. No real loss here.
 
delita said:
Maybe I'm behind the times, or old school then. Because I have never once in my life used Facebook or Twitter to attempt to communicate with a game dev.
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I never in my lifetime attempted to communicate with anyone using facebook or twitter. Those are useless ad platforms not suitable for two way communication. They're suitable only to set up your personal echo chamber with like minded people, which gets nothing done.
 
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