Why did they get rid of so many useful sub-forums that we had in Beta?

[SturmovikDrakon]

I had to post this here since it would probably get sent into the void of the second page on the official forums, in hopes someone from SOE actually reads this

I'm talking about sections like World Design, Weapons & Attachments, Audio, Interface & Store. All of them had some fun and interesting discussions going on, especially in regards of World Design where people threw around concepts for environments and bases.

They even got rid of General Discussion, and because of this everyone seems to have converged into the Gameplay Discussions where so many good threads just get lost in the traffic.

I tried asking Higby, Smedley and co. but no one answers

[JimmyOmaha]

Had the same feeling last night, made a post and indeed it descended the forum quickly haha. I'd like to see a new player section on the official forums, as well as forums for specific servers.

[Hamma]

It seems like they always do this when a game goes from Beta > Release. Kind of lame.

[SturmovikDrakon]

Originally Posted by Hamma

It seems like they always do this when a game goes from Beta > Release. Kind of lame.

Could you ask them about this if you ever get the chance? You'll probably get answered sooner

[VelRa]

The new forum categories seem consistent with the change in development phase. Less categorized according to how the development team is tasked and more categorized according to how the game is experienced. Presumably this makes it more difficult for the relevant developers to use the public forums to tap into what players are saying about their specialty, i.e. Cleg no longer has a convenient World Design subforum. I think this is a good thing. Public forums make for horrible community voices.

[SturmovikDrakon]

Originally Posted by VelRa

The new forum categories seem consistent with the change in development phase. Less categorized according to how the development team is tasked and more categorized according to how the game is experienced. Presumably this makes it more difficult for the relevant developers to use the public forums to tap into what players are saying about their specialty, i.e. Cleg no longer has a convenient World Design subforum. I think this is a good thing. Public forums make for horrible community voices.

This is where I disagree
As I mentioned above, because of this everyone converged into Gameplay Discussions and due to the traffic, relevant and well-thought out threads get sent to die, while people whining and circle-jerking about the in-game store/cert prices/faction balance stay at the top, whereas they could have had a section of their own like they used to (Interface & Store). I can't make a thread about audio bugs without it just getting pushed down in a few minutes, and I can't exactly trust the moderators to deliver every single thread to the proper developers

I mean, they even got rid of General Discussion, and off-topic isn't exactly the same thing

Also, I can't understand how you can say something like this

Presumably this makes it more difficult for the relevant developers to use the public forums to tap into what players are saying about their specialty, i.e. Cleg no longer has a convenient World Design subforum.

And then proceed to say it's a good thing that they can't

[VelRa]

I guess it's just that through many years of lurking official forums I've been jaded into believing nothing good ever comes of them. But you're right in saying that strong threads exist and, I agree, there should be some way for them to get noticed.

[MercDT]

I really hope they bring them back soon since I've seen many threads on there with good ideas...