Quote from: Monkey Boy;416043OK. You've lost me. Someone asked the question about logging in to ENworld. I visited the site to check it out. Read the general forums and found nothing beyond the usual DDI whine fest. Checked meta and found Morrus' response which I posted. Maybe I should have attributed the quote to Morrus but given it was a sentence I couldn't be bothered.

Calling everyone stupid is Settembrini's way of contributing to the board.

Hm.

I have contributed to enworld in the past once or twice... that was back when I was reading it more often - these days I find it a convoluted mess.

Currently I am paying to be a member of reddit, although that's because I find the site an interesting experiment and want to see where it goes.  Plus, I got a free monocle.

Maybe I should send a thank you note to the admin that put me on a temporary ban a few years ago. I walked away and never went back.

Quote from: Insufficient Metal;416067Calling everyone stupid is Settembrini's way of contributing to the board.

It's what Germans do.

Quote from: Aos;416429It's what Germans do.

That, or they invade your country. Well, before they learned that winning a financial battle was just as rewarding with none of the international trouble, of course.

Will the place become like a "dead mall" ?

http://www.deadmalls.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_mall

Quote from: ggroy;416614Will the place become like a "dead mall" ?

http://www.deadmalls.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_mall

One of our malls was dead.  But since we had that huge flood in '08, it is now the home of most of the county government offices and the library.  It's a zombie mall, but not in a cool way.  

As for EnWorld, I doubt it will become unpopular any time soon, paywall or not.

I think ENworld has had a serious identity crisis since the effective end of D20's dominance as a movement in the gaming world.
It was one of the biggest forums at that time because it tapped into the biggest thing going on at that time. Ever since then, its basically been running on pure momentum, and trying to decide what its for precisely.

RPGPundit

Regarding the paywall, I could care less about Search not working for forum posts. I do think that having to pay to search for Reviews is BS, though. I'd be kind of annoyed if potential customers couldn't search for reviews of my product unless they paid a fee to EN World.

Quote from: RPGPundit;416925I think ENworld has had a serious identity crisis since the effective end of D20's dominance as a movement in the gaming world.
It was one of the biggest forums at that time because it tapped into the biggest thing going on at that time. Ever since then, its basically been running on pure momentum, and trying to decide what its for precisely.

RPGPundit

This.

Quote from: ggroy;416614Will the place become like a "dead mall" ?

That's an interesting way to think of message boards with declining activity. Thanks. Which brings up issues of their archival - what if I want to reread some thread in 2025? Will there be an archive somewhere on the net? Or will it be mostly "bulldozed over"?

Quote from: RPGPundit;416925I think ENworld has had a serious identity crisis since the effective end of D20's dominance as a movement in the gaming world.
It was one of the biggest forums at that time because it tapped into the biggest thing going on at that time. Ever since then, its basically been running on pure momentum, and trying to decide what its for precisely.

Yeah; I agree with that. The community was badly split between the 3e/4e audience, and beyond the direction of D&D, the change from the open gaming model to closed and proprietary also had an impact. One of the reasons ENWorld was big (bigger than WotC's D&D section) was that 3rd party publishers allowed a lot of different way to approach D&D and d20, and serve as a sort of meeting ground for people who had an interest in something outside the "core experience" imagined by the parent company. Today, it doesn't have as much of that spirit, even if it isn't as one-sided as the RPGNet d20 section.

Quote from: Melan;417186That's an interesting way to think of message boards with declining activity. Thanks. Which brings up issues of their archival - what if I want to reread some thread in 2025? Will there be an archive somewhere on the net? Or will it be mostly "bulldozed over"?

If past experiences are any indication in that regard, the latter is most likely.