Forum Set Up ... Change WOW to sub-forum vice General Discussion default

[Khatovar]

New people to multiboxing don't decide to multibox and then decide what game to play, they play a game and then decide to multibox it. The nature of this site is determined by what people are posting about, and frankly WoW has always been what people post about. There have been other times where a large number of people flux over to other games, such as when Rift/SWtoR/Aion came out or when people just got sick of something else WoW did, and that lead to the formation of the subforums for other games because everything was mixed into the General forum and it was pretty messy.



From my experience with these forums over the last several years, the current flurry into other games could totally die out by the end of the month, or shift focus to a different game, or even back to WoW if they revert or adjust the /follow change. And while I'm not against a WoW-specific subfourm in theory, despite the work one or several of us mods would have to do, how could we possibly keep up on the fluctuation of choosing which game is active enough to be featured as the coveted "catch-all" general discussion?

What about all the other WoW-specific sections of the site? Do we create dozens of subforums for class composition for each game to be fair? What about the Dungeons and Bosses forums {which I already had something in mind for}? Macros and Addons? PvP, Screenshots and Movies?

Even if we just added a WoW subforum, someone will have to go through 524 pages of General Discussion to filter all the WoW discussion into a WoW-specific subforum because not all discussion here is just about WoW. Just on the first page alone, there's discussion on our Multiboxing Reddits, a question about DC Universe multiboxing, a discussion about Vanguard and several on what to do that's not WoW or not Multiboxing WoW. Most of these wouldn't belong in a WoW-specific subforum.


Changing the focus of this part of the forums isn't really going to have any impact other than changing how many clicks you have to go through to get to certain posts. Especially considering that the subforums for all other games are above the General Discussion, so you have to scroll past them to even see the discussion here. Yes, you play Rift now and so do a number of other people. And many people are going to EQ2. Others are going back to SWtoR and EVE and many others aren't going anywhere, looking to tough it out with WoW. Yet others are going for games that aren't multiboxed at all.

WoW is the default game because that's what people are and have been talking about for years, not because of it's position in the forum. I've been through several other games and the biggest issue from my personal perspective as both a boxer and a mod here is that other games really do lack the amount of community, content and information that WoW has; not just here, but anywhere. People don't discuss other games the way the WoW Fanbase does even from a single player perspective, nevermind from a multiboxing perspective. It was an utter nightmare to dig up the scant amount of information we had for the few EQ2 guides we had because everything out there was archaic and if you weren't already playing, you had no idea if the information you were looking at was outdated and abandoned or just unchanged since the beginning of time.

So, while I may agree with and even volunteer to work on such a massive overhaul of the forums, content becomes a huge issue. No one wants to section off and create new subforums that only end up with like 4 threads in a year.

If you want to draw people to a different game, start talking about it. Build a multiboxing community here for the game of your choice. Write up guides, talk about your achievements, make people aware of how fun or challenging you are finding your game to be. Post Dev comments, track patch notes and discuss them. Blog about it. We have been requesting multiboxing-related news and posts for ages because it builds excitement in the community. Give us stuff to feature and discuss on the main page of the site, in the Commons, on Facebook, Twitter and Reddit. Give me stuff to update the Newbie's Guides with. This is a multiboxing community and the popular topics have always been what you, as members here, decide to talk about.

Let me make it clear, I am only a single mod. All I do is face-stomp spammers, move posts and put fires out. People in charge of the actual format of the site like Lax and Co. might agree with an outright shift of focus or they might think there's no need or even decide on something in between. But it's going to be an easier sell and/or transition if the community is actually active in building up the information and discussion of other games. Just yesterday I proposed a few changes that I'm waiting for the light to change on, so I am not adverse to putting work in if there is work to be done. Go give me stuff to do.