Hi everyone, I am getting back into the game after 3 years or so. Back in the day I loved the forum, it was my go-to place to get insight on rules interactions and faction gossip. Not to mention seeing and sharing painting. Getting back into the game with N5 for the last month or so, I notice that searches for rules interactions etc don't bring up recent threads (as in, N5 threads). Rather, I get a lot of N3 and N4 posts which are no longer relevant. This could just be because the edition is still young? My questions: have most people moved over to a different platform? If so, where? Before I do my 'old man yells at cloud' schtick, I want to check the temperature by asking folks who have been present the last few years. In my mind, the forum is superior in at least two ways: 1. Indexed by search engines (good for quick rules checks online). 2. Has actual CB staff and play testers present to give close to if not definitive answers. If there are other reasons to love the forums, please share them below. Likewise, if you think that Discord or whatever else is preferable, please also share why. I would like to understand as my local Infinity scene starts to build itself back up.
I believe that most of the information release has moved to Discord. While I prefer the forums, the lack of stability (multiple outages), moderation, and members has made this place a ghost town. Only a small group of dedicated members post regularly here. I hope as part of CB influencer initiative, they update the forum and promote its utilization more.
New players tend to congregate on Reddit, because it's accessible and discoverable. Veterans tend to congregate on Discord, because it fosters a sense of liveliness, connectedness, and community. CB's own staff use Discord instead of the forums to communicate with the player base, which I think speaks volumes as to the state of the forums. I like the forums, but it suffers from substantial issues that serve as barriers to a lively community. New accounts aren't approved quickly, the forums go down frequently, and the approach to moderation has (up until fairly recently) let aggressive negativity proliferate. All three of these factors have caused existing and potential membership to go elsewhere to find their community.
Thanks so much for the insights. Big sigh I guess. But it leads me to my next question: can you help an old man find the Discord server in question!? (I may be playing up the age stuff for humour)
This is the unofficial discord, AFAIK, https://discord.com/channels/118301609146056709/118337969001070600 Discord, bluntly speaking, is appalling. It is marginally better than twitter or X or w/e we call it or Facebook. You will need to sign up to a discord account first.
I personally hate discord because it's so impermanent and incredibly hard to track conversations. If you leave for a couple hours, multiple conversations have come and gone in the same thread and I am completely lost. There is no good way to keep single threads separated, everything melts together and comes and goes incredibly fast without staying in a fixed place anywhere. For example, there would be no way for me to post my painted armies in the same way as here on the forums in their own dedicated threads. It all just vanishes into the endless scroll of the discord aether.
I dislike the Discord format too, expecially for clear discussions. I'm not versed enough into that platform, but there SHOULD BE a way to create something like a subfolder or a showcase, i remember i saw it somewhere...
You have multiple ways to organize Discord convo in a better way these days: - Forums - Threads But they are still mostly unused, because... reasons? ^^"
They are not convenient to use and usually get lost the same way everything in Discord is. Each medium has its own merits, Discord is a stream, great to have conversation on the fly, almost impossible to track down past conversations or continue from where you left. And there is nothing wrong about that it serves it purpose well enough.
