Rip BSN OT boards, you will be missed.

Let's see how things will go after the locking of OT boards.

Don't Feedback the Troll

Inb4 what you did there I see 

They did.

12~15 minutes ... so what happened was they posted the announcement, got some coffee (and possibly popcorn to munch in preparation to the inevitable), came back and hit "LOCKDOWN".

Figures, goddamn sadists. 

Still a week notice would have been appreciated. 

Now BSN is even more pathetic than the Killzone forums.

So what forums are still active over there?

I do occasionally lurk in ME2 and 3 forums..

I cant even troll the bsn, I am still temp banned. Thought it ended sooner but I was mistaken.

Stupid bot mod clowns.

The Orb= Off-topic

Solas=Every single one of us.

(Credits for Habits Honeypot)

It's worth noting that the bad or inadequate decisions of the BSN, as well as its user generated quirks and trends had a shape in forming communities such as this. I don't think a "regular forum" would've had the same level of cohesion. Here, there is unity in the face of adversity as well as unity over shared interests. For what it's worth.

By The Revanchist, a sincere letter to Bioware:

"Dear Bioware,


I highly doubt you'll ever read this post. If you do, I somehow suspect you will simply dismiss it as yet further proof of how "toxic" the community is, since you're so entirely convinced of this fact already. It is pretty obvious you consider this community "toxic" because it is not filled with mindless, unending praise for you and your work. You always insist you want feedback, the reality is you really don't. The only feedback you want is "omg your so awesome Bioware, we love you so much! thank you!" How do I know this? It's in your actions, it's in your inaction's, it oozes from you like a puss weather you realize it or not. But for any fan whose been around long enough the evidence is as clear as day. Prior to Dragon Age 2, Your Community Managers, your Moderators, your Dev Teams, everyone was highly active here. You would go on and on for whole pages, gleefully talking with the fans about your upcoming projects. You would regularly respond to questions posed to you. You never hid the fact you couldn't answer everything, and we were fine with that. There was always those weird outsiders like "Tali's Sweat" and etc. But by and large, You had a good, friendly, healthy relationship with this community.

Then Dragon Age 2 actually came out, and for the first time basically ever the overwhelming response was not "omg Bioware you are so amazing! Thank you for the game!" Bioware listen to me very carefully. Criticism over something you worked your ass off on for years hurts, it really really hurts. I get it. I really do. I worked my ass off on an attempt to write a novel. It was universally panned by everyone who saw it. I felt like crap afterwards, and I had a bit a chip on my shoulder. This is a natural feeling to have when something you did and were passionate about is not met with unending love and support. Were there people who took their criticisms too far? Yes, absolutely. But Bioware understand that those came from misguided love for you and your previous work. If people don't love it or care about it, they wouldn't waste their time telling you how they feel about it. Your initial response was understandable. You felt wounded, taking criticism is hard. No one denies that. The mature response is to take some time, calm down, and attempt to calmly debate and discuss those criticisms with the ones making it. Instead you just dug your heels in, still feeling offended and defended your creative decisions in broad strokes. No doubt at this point, your PR department stepped in and took over the responses to the community. Every answer we started to get was very impersonal and robotic, PR speech at it's finest*. I'm not sure your aware of this Bioware, but PR speak just makes people MORE upset. Because you are no longer talking to us like people, we feel like we're being treated like just a statistic. This PR Wall that came down on your end just needlessly escalated the problem. Confusion turned into Anger as we felt we were no longer being listened to despite all those years of you telling us you loved us and always listened to us. Eventually the strong, passionate feelings died down to a dull roar and debates and discussions mostly returned to normal... well mostly normal. Your presence in the Forums were noticeably less than they were before...

Then of course, Mass Effect 3 happened. I will freely admit, as my Signature implies I was one of "those people". I freely admit I still am. However no matter how unbelievably angry I was, I never made any threats of death or violence. All those people who did that should be ashamed of themselves. In your shoes I am not sure how I would respond to things like that, I suspect I would ban them and simply move along so mature discussions could begin. However you never did. Your PR response to us did nothing but fan the flames, and escalate the problem. Were people upset by the ending? Yes they absolutely were. However, the fan base was only whipped into a frenzy because of you, your stonewalling of our complaints. You dug in and went into Siege mode and refused to even acknowledge our complaints as intelligent. You whipped the Media into a frenzy to assist you in painting us like entitled little ungrateful brats who were too dumb to appreciate the wonderful art you had given us. You had blatantly lied to the entire world with your pre-release PR material and when you were called out on it, you instead deflected it and continued to insist we just didn't understand. The vast majority of your fans just wanted answers in the beginning, they wanted to have a dialogue, a chance to talk to you and try to persuade you to give us something else. But because of your wounded pride, combined with those psychopaths who made threats to you, you instead decided the fanbase was now the enemy, and no longer worth your time. You had a Charity for sick children shut down because of your wounded pride, you started banning users wholesale, you changed the forums rules to make banning us for our complaints easier. It was clear to all of us. We were now your enemy. It is only natural we don't meet that with a smile and a "thank you Bioware". You no longer ever said a word to us, you were as cold as ice. DAI's media Campaign only reinforced this perception. Only a handful of you ever bothered to say anything. Everything was very carefully worded, controlled, white-washed with PR speak. In the end the game you gave us was still totally different from what you showed us. "Alpha Footage and Subject to change" you said. OK that's fine, from now on just don't show us anything until it's set in stone, like Bethesda does.

Your behaviors, your actions, the way you conduct yourselves is a large part of the reasons these Forums are now "toxic". Long ago before DA2 these Forums were an overall nice place to hang out in. Did the fanbase contribute to it's decline? Of course. But so did you. Of course you'll never admit that, We are after all the enemy now. We have been since ME3. These forums are full of people who do not endlessly heap praises upon your shoulders, full of people who are rightly skeptical due to past experience. People who feel burned due in part to your past behaviors. This is the "toxicity" you insist fills your forums, people who question and criticizes you due in part to your past several years of actions and behaviors. Yes, the communities reactions over Jennifer Helper were outrageous and wrong on every level. The majority of us made it clear those people did not speak for the whole. Many of us were right there with you, defending her integrity and dignity. But you seem to only remember the haters, the awful people who derided her in the first place. These forums are full of good, honest decent people. But just because we sometimes disagree with you, does not mean we are a bad community. If we didn't care, we wouldn't still be here after all these years of getting nothing from you but silence and heartless PR responses. All of this, combined with a lack of community management and moderation have ensured these Forums slowly decline into the abyss. As some have suggested, perhaps that is your intention, so you no longer have to deal with people who disagree with your artistic vision, with people who call you out when you make mistakes, or lie to us. If that is what you truly want, it truly speaks volumes about you and your new attitude.

If you honestly, truly, still care about your fans and their feedback, as you keep insisting with PR speech. You'll revert these forums changes and stop messing with them. You'll get more forum moderators, and you'll get a Community Manager who actively engages with the community. If you don't do these things, then you really, truly don't care. If that is the case, then stop saying you do, and just be honest. We will respect you more for your honesty than we will for your continued false appeasement. If anyone at Bioware took the time to read this, thank you for your time, and thank you to anyone else in the thread who reads, or likes it. That is all I have to say on this subject. "