As know-how advances, and on-line communities shift to adapt, we take it as a form of default proposition that new websites and platforms must be higher than outdated ones. Actuality, in fact, has totally different plans.
Take Discord. It’s a fantastic platform! An enormous enchancment over older concepts, and a handy mixture of plenty of outdated messaging and communications providers. If you wish to hand around in a room with buddies, in a spot you may each sort and discuss to one another, it’s good!
Discord excels as a way of real-time communication, for individuals speaking within the second. What Discord will not be good at, nonetheless, is being a long-term repository of data, the form of place you may ask a query, get a solution then have that reply stay simply accessible for months, years and even many years to come back.
So it sucks that corporations proceed to shut boards, that are glorious repositories, and attempt to shift these communities to Discords, that are completely ineffective at it. I stated this in 2021 when Bethesda did it, I stated it once more in 2021 when Eurogamer did it. I stated it final yr when Gearbox did it and am now saying it once more in 2023. It’s essential cease this shit. These are apples and oranges.
The newest firm to make the error is Amazon, which made the choice to shut the boards for each New World and Misplaced Ark, and transfer these communities wholesale to Discord. Right here’s how the choice was introduced on Misplaced Ark’s boards:
As we proceed to discover new and wonderful alternatives to fulfill and interact with our gamers there will probably be instances the place we’ll consider our present methods of partaking gamers. Boards are a venerable staple of the historical past of on-line gaming and have served as the first level of contact for players and builders for fairly a while. With the launch of our official Misplaced Ark Discord together with the options, performance, and accessibility for gamers we now have made the choice to embrace Discord as our main engagement platform for Misplaced Ark shifting ahead. To assist us add as a lot worth as doable to our Discord server, we will probably be sunsetting the Misplaced Ark boards which is able to enable our employees to give attention to offering high quality engagement alternatives in a central, and simply accessible platform.
Our plans on Discord are continuously evolving and we will probably be seeking to make the most of the platform to the fullest extent. We will probably be discovering methods to have engagement alternatives that embody all facets of Discord comparable to stay voice, gameplay streaming, stay chat, and discussion board threads. It can additionally provide simpler and extra intuitive entry to neighborhood run initiatives like Searching for Group, Guild promotion, and so forth.
Additionally, you will discover us investing time into rising our presence on the Misplaced Ark subreddit, so remember to hold a watch on the market as effectively.
What does this imply for the boards now?
Beginning Could 1st, we will probably be eradicating the flexibility for customers to publish to the boards however we will probably be having them stay seen in order that any kind of content material that customers want to save will probably be accessible for them. Throughout this time we will probably be cataloging the entire historic suggestions that gamers have left, assuring that sentiment and suggestions left will not be misplaced.
After that course of is full, we’ll give one ultimate reminder that the boards will probably be lastly sundown, at which level our URL will probably be redirected to our Discord 2.7k and different social media pages.
Thanks all on your continued ardour round Misplaced Ark! We look ahead to you all becoming a member of us on our official Discord. There are lots of superior concepts we’re going to be engaged on to assist develop the fandom of Misplaced Ark that our groups are excited to roll out to everybody.
See you in Arkesia!
No! A lot of what you stated there’s bullshit! And anybody who has used each a discussion board and Discord is aware of it! Boards aren’t only a place for individuals to make preliminary contact with a developer, they’re locations the place somebody can ask a query, get it answered formally then have that reply simply searchable for 1000’s and even thousands and thousands of individuals going forwards. Discord, even with its current “discussion board thread” characteristic, is simply nowhere close to nearly as good for this.
What sucks right here is that followers don’t need this, this has been made clear repeatedly (on this case too, as PC Gamer’s assortment of detrimental suggestions exhibits), but it surely simply retains taking place as a result of corporations presumably see it as a solution to save a tiny sum of money and sources.
It’s very enjoyable to know that main publishers are spending a whole bunch of thousands and thousands on advertising however can’t hold a discussion board open. Very wholesome trade. Stick with it, everybody.
