As expertise advances, and on-line communities shift to adapt, we take it as a type of default proposition that new websites and platforms ought to be higher than outdated ones. Actuality, in fact, has totally different plans.
Take Discord. It’s an ideal platform! An enormous enchancment over older concepts, and a handy mixture of a lot of outdated messaging and communications companies. If you wish to hand around in a room with buddies, in a spot you may each kind and discuss to one another, it’s good!
Discord excels as a method of real-time communication, for folks speaking within the second. What Discord is not good at, nevertheless, is being a long-term repository of data, the type 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 firms proceed to shut boards, that are glorious repositories, and try 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. You must cease this shit. These are apples and oranges.
The most recent firm to make the error are Amazon, who’ve 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 satisfy and have interaction with our gamers there will likely be instances the place we’ll consider our present methods of participating gamers. Boards are a venerable staple of the historical past of on-line gaming and have served as the first level of contact for avid gamers 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 have now made the choice to embrace Discord as our major engagement platform for Misplaced Ark shifting ahead. To assist us add as a lot worth as attainable to our Discord server, we will likely be sunsetting the Misplaced Ark boards which is able to enable our employees to deal with offering high quality engagement alternatives in a central, and simply accessible platform.
Our plans on Discord are consistently evolving and we will likely be seeking to make the most of the platform to the fullest extent. We will likely be discovering methods to have engagement alternatives that embody all facets of Discord similar to reside voice, gameplay streaming, reside chat, and discussion board threads. It can additionally supply simpler and extra intuitive entry to neighborhood run initiatives like On the lookout for Group, Guild promotion, and so forth.
Additionally, you will discover us investing time into rising our presence on the Misplaced Ark subreddit, so be sure you maintain a watch on the market as effectively.
What does this imply for the boards now?
Beginning Could 1st, we will likely be eradicating the power for customers to publish to the boards however we will likely be having them stay seen in order that any kind of content material that customers want to save will likely be accessible for them. Throughout this time we will likely be cataloging all the historic suggestions that gamers have left, assuring that sentiment and suggestions left is just not misplaced.
After that course of is full, we’ll give one closing reminder that the boards will likely be lastly sundown, at which level our URL will likely be redirected to our Discord 2.7k and different social media pages.
Thanks all on your continued ardour round Misplaced Ark! We stay up for you all becoming a member of us on our official Discord. There are numerous 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 may be bullshit! And anybody who has used each a discussion board and Discord is aware of it! Boards aren’t only a place for folks to make preliminary contact with a developer, they’re a spot the place somebody can ask a query, get it answered formally then have that reply simply searchable for hundreds and even hundreds of thousands of individuals going forwards. Discord, even with its current “discussion board thread” function, 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 collection of negative feedback shows), however it simply retains taking place as a result of firms presumably see it as a option to save a tiny amount of cash and sources.
It’s very enjoyable to know that main publishers are spending a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands on advertising and marketing however can’t maintain a discussion board open. Very wholesome business. Stick with it, everybody.