Re: Why are traditional Forums dying?
Originally Posted by
Dismounted Feudal Knight
A few times a year TWC has a 'what's to be done' conversation. These conversations need to work around an absent owner; only the Second(?) Coming of GED can bring us necessary forum features and integrations that would bring this site technically up to speed with modern forum design. At that point TWC needs to be able to thrive while forums are not at their peak.
What I'll say is this: a dismissive attitude to competitors who have ate a great deal of TWC's share is not going to get TWC anywhere. Those who've moved on from TWC have their own complaints: that it is slow, old, and yes, inconvenient. On reddit and discord they have centralized logins with (mostly >.>) consistent UI design that they've learned and become familiar with. With that familiarity they have access to countless communities with little effort, often just a quick search. I think the issue of inconvenience here is lack of familiarity with those platforms, not failings of them. Where you would call them childish they would call this forum obsolete, stuck in the past with dismissive attitudes towards new solutions and then wondering why it's so far behind. TWC is endangered in everything from casual conversation to serious modding projects, a majority of which have moved on to a combination of Moddb and Discord or integrating with Steam.
It is not productive to dismiss them out of hand, but it may be useful to discuss their differences and what TWC can do to survive, dare I say, thrive in spite of them. To get anywhere this needs people with achievable ideas and the will to make them happen, as well as a humbler attitude in the face of most of the series from classic games to the latest releases typically being based elsewhere. That in any depth is a topic for our (due?) seasonal Q&S thread.