Since it looks like the days are numbered for this board...

[Thyme]

Wow, This sucks arse!!!

Most of the time when I DONT play AO (Which is alot these days) I hang out on forums to stay in touch with all the RP thats going on. It also keeps me in touch with my close AO friends that I enjoy goofing with. The only reason my AO account hasnt been closed thus far -- is this forum- (Sorry Templus. )

I fear that shutting these boards down is like stabbing themselves in the eye.

Dang FC not everyone wants to PVP.

Leave the RP boards up!!!

[AiymaNeut]

Originally posted by Vixentrox
./puke

That's what I think of the forum shutdown.

Certainly couldn't have said it better myself.

Besides, how much maintenance does an RP forum require? Sure, someone has to step in now and again to douse water on the sporadic OOC flame-wars, but that happens perhaps once per month if that? Any suggestions we make are obviously from an OOC perspective, and usually go to either the "Suggestions", "Next Patch" or "World of..." forums (oh wait - nerf, nerf, nerf).

The same can be said with the "Story Discussions" board.

[Dabblez]

This is terrible news indeed. Apart from entertaining (if that is the right word) the veterans, this message board is one of the key ways for new players to find their way into the roleplaying scene.
And while we could all migrate to a new forum, as we sort did in 2001, at a time FC had shut down all the forums, what are new players to do?

I wonder, if the time has come for some sort of chatbot for roleplayers, something in game to help keep communications open and make it easy on the players?

[Arila]

Suxxor!!!

Seems like Funcom dont care about us anymore

More time for the fan sites? I had my old site listed, but it got removed for no reason. Makes me wonder if its even worth to have fan sites...

[Demenzia]

Well damn!

That's simply... plainly stupid... Isn't this this forum *also* sort of a "beginner's Corner' for new *RPers* too?

Damn, if I had never taken a look at the RP board, I'd probably be... certainly somewhere else, certainly nor playing anymore, and certainly having never even RPed in AO. Prolly sure, also, I'm not the only one in this case.

Now if we are to be scattered on top of it...

If I had time I'd be happy to moderate myseld, dammit. Oh well. Who gives a crap, huh.

*feels disgusted, goes back drawing*

[Fixerben]

Ok, Look people, I say if refocusing Funcoms attention improves the ingame aspects of the Anarchy Online, I am ALL FOR IT! I wouldnt whine about someting that is going to make the in-game better. Because it really needs help more than the damn forums do. So Cz I support you, dont feel bad.

Just because they change the Forums doesnt mean that we cant RP. What is your problem?

[Ditzie]

The problem, Benj?

The problem is that not all of us are in-game all of the time. This board is used to advertise events, introduce player-run story lines, introduce new players to the r/p community.....................................!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[AiymaNeut]

The problem, Benjacrat, is one that FC is taking the bigest heat for - dispersion. The "official" forums were a place where everyone could essentially meet and chat - clan, neut, OT - a place for party announcements/weddings/etc., and just general stuff that you may not hear in-game, but which nonetheless helps to foster a "community" spirit among all of the RPers.

And Demenzia is 100% bang on - how did you learn about RPing in AO? I would guess that a great percentage learned about it through this very forum. It will definitely be far more difficult to increase the RPing base if potential new RPers walk around blindly, become frustrated and quit.

[_____________Kasimir]

I just wanna say something..I don't post here a lot but I read a lot..and I know a lot of you by reputation if not in game. I'll miss this forum a great deal, and I'm furious at FC for this decision. Here's to hoping they change their minds at least a little.

*hugs* to all

[spookiepants]

Originally posted by Benjacrat
Ok, Look people, I say if refocusing Funcoms attention improves the ingame aspects of the Anarchy Online, I am ALL FOR IT! I wouldnt whine about someting that is going to make the in-game better. Because it really needs help more than the damn forums do. So Cz I support you, dont feel bad.

By their own admission, the maintenance of the forum was done by one person (CZ). I doubt that CZ's skills include being an ingame bug fixer/developer. So the death of the forums will ultimately add nothing to your in-game experience.

[Praecautus]

The forums are useful to allow people to meet up and arrange stuff and to make their presence known to the rest of the community. Yes there are other forums, but this is the official RP forum. It doesnt look good, IMHO, to ditch it and seems to show Funcom not supporting RP in AO.

[AiymaNeut]

Blix - even though Cz was the only one maintaining the forums, by his admission devs/designers/FC still spent a great deal of time reading the forums to see what was going on. I'm not commenting on the validity of this statement, nor on whether or not I think it has been shown.

Benjacrat - Blix is right; this will free up more time for Cz and will improve FC-to-player communications, but remember that, aside from patch materials, et al., the people who run/volunteer for these boards are not the in-game events team. They actually nerfed them from the AO Live Team webpage a couple of months ago.

There are obviously benefits to FC for doing this, but on net, the costs to them accruing both now and in the future will far outweigh any benefit they derive from this action.

[_____________Kasimir]

Originally posted by Blix


By their own admission, the maintenance of the forum was done by one person (CZ). I doubt that CZ's skills include being an ingame bug fixer/developer. So the death of the forums will ultimately add nothing to your in-game experience.

I'm just bumping this in case anyone else misses the point.

This is an excuse, plain and simple. I understand CZ not being able to take the workload..my guild's forums are smaller then this and we have more mods by far..but how this affects gameplay fails to occur to me.

[Tax]

Originally posted by Maxflier
This truly sucks.
My opinion.

dont think I could have kept it as short or sweet


I agree 100%

[Lauri]

</rant on>

This is pretty much the next to the last straw for me.

AO has kept me in its sway for months now for one major reason: Roleplaying. Okay, no big surprise, lots of people can say that. Coming back last year and finally finding good RP after 6 years of MMORPGing was like discovering "gold in them thar hills."

Life was great, Roleplaying flowed like wine, antagonists and protagonists bounced the ball into one another's court with glee. Rivals fought, lovers danced, soldiers gave their lives for <insert here>.

Then, like some perverse flower, the petals began to fall. One by one, little things, really. Slowly they'd pile up on one another, more and more, the flower wilting. New blooms came and went, but still, that one flower continued to decay.

Another petal falls.

It's disheartening enough to see the boards, one of the most impressive, professionally run boards based on a MMORPG, being slashed into very little, but I personally find it insulting that the Roleplaying board was not listed as one that would remain. An indirect slap in the face to this hurting community in an attempt to better the community? Slightly ironic. But most of all, disappointing.

</rant off>

What now? We scatter to other boards like lost animals in need of a new watering hole? Wonder constantly what's going on at the other boards? The beauty of this forum, right here, this Roleplaying forum, is it has.. or had, the feel of an official lounge. A supported lounge where "anybody who's anybody" would at least visit from time to time to see what's going on in the RP world of Rubi-Ka. The familiarity with one another here, I dare say, is irrepleacable... and as much as I hate to see it ripped apart and scattered.. I do at least think, it's salvageable.

If the board goes.. what's our plan of attack?

[Nevver]

Originally posted by sezmra
If the board goes.. what's our plan of attack?

I say we start shooting Clanners until they agree to leave our board standing! This may take months and months and cost millions of Clan lives, but it is a sacrifice that I am willing to make!

((Bliqz started a thread asking this very question.))

[MissMaul]

Ok...I am REALLY pissed off right now.

Seriously. Words cannot EXPLAIN how pissed off I am; I want to hurt something really badly.

Funcom, when you nerfed half the planet, when you were silent about fixing Baboons for almost a year. While communities of various professions fell to the ground around us, the RP community mainly stayed strong. We stood by you, gave you our $13 every month (or, in some cases, $26) and now you screw ALL of us over.

I know tons of people who would have been jumping at the bait to do community service and moderate some boards for free game time. But no, instead of taking the obvious way out, you slapped us all in the face and said "No, bad, go RP somewhere else because the constantly-leaving PvP community is SO much more important."

All I can say is, you guys really screwed up this time. You're deleting ALL of my favorite boards, actually. According to the article, World of Rubi-Ka and Suggestions are going bye-bye, too. And if RP is going, I can bet 50k credits that the Social forum is going too, only proving that Funcom does not care about anything except these two things: a) Keeping the 12-year-old whining PvPers happy at the expense of everyone else and b) Your monthly $13.

Seeing as they nerfed the Suggestions forum, it also proves that they never really cared about what we had to say; they were just keeping us happy and letting us pretend they did care.

No, I'm not leaving yet, but I'm REALLY close to doing so.

Thanks, Funcom.

Thanks for nothing.

[____________Bonefish]

Plan of attack? I don't believe there will be one. As you quite rightly said, as this forum closes what's left of our bruised, battered, and depleted RP community will scatter to the four winds, these I believe being RPCentral, the RP forums on AO Stratics and AO Vault (ack, IGN, nooo), and some will basically go nowhere.

Ultimately, the end result of this is going to be to kill off the larger offworld RP community, and make the onworld community that much harder to "live" within. There will be a lot of confusion, a lot of "who are you" conversations when people would otherwise known from 'watching the gridnews' (reading the forum), and an awful lot of "I never heard of you, bite me" conversations.

Oh, and buh-bye to the press releases issued on this forum when Funcom doesn't approve for release on the main site.

Our part of AO, the best part, the maturest part, the role-playing part, as it's life hangs in the balance could really of used a hand pulling it back up and onto it's feet with some strong STORY content from the MMORPG that used to bill itself as different, with it's 4 year storyline.

But no, instead we get this kick in the face, here, at the end.

No bang. Just whimper. And a lone bell tolling the game's descent into PvP and level-mill junkidom from hell.

Bah. /flip


Plan of attack? I've not been shy to talk about it of late. This latest turn of events does nothing to improve that situation.


Sorry Nina, but I couldn't be positive about this.


Seeya around everyone.


(in a galaxy far far away... www.swg-rp.com)


Garret "Bonefish" Silvestrini
Director - SPARTA
Chairman of the Omni-Tek Security Council

Founding Member of the Omni-Tek Security Council (OTSEC)

The Omni-Tek Security Council is dedicated to ensuring the company’s security and interests against all threats, coordinating any action deemed necessary to protect corporate assets and personnel.

garret.silvestrini@ot-sparta.org | www.ot-sparta.org

[Nevver]

If Meeshmowr is angry, then something really is messed up!

[Dabblez]

Now, now Bonefish, we survived the orginal message board nerf, we can do it again. But it remains an outrage.