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I am currently writing an article for my blog, but I need some help with it and I was hoping the Dakka community could help. I am trying to remember exactly (approximate) when GW ended their online forums? As well I am looking for by some miracle anyone has some old screen shots of the interface I vaguely remember it being an evil step child of Reddit/4chan.

To make this thread a little more interesting I am also curious about what peoples opinions were of it and any good stories. I barely used it at the time, but I got some nostalgia going on at the moment.

thanks!

according to the way back machine, some time between 2006-2007

http://web.archive.org/web/20060830113614/http://uk.games-workshop.com/forums/

If you're investigating the history of 40K forums, don't forget about Portent and Maelstrom. They were the heavy hitters of long, long ago.

There is a reason why the official forums were nicknamed "the Eye of Terror".

That said, the moderators were very good. It's just that the forums were infested with 12 year olds.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
There is a reason why the official forums were nicknamed "the Eye of Terror".

That said, the moderators were very good. It's just that the forums were infested with 12 year olds.

And adults who behaved like 12 year olds.

 cyphertheory wrote:
according to the way back machine, some time between 2006-2007

http://web.archive.org/web/20060830113614/http://uk.games-workshop.com/forums/

Duh Way Back Machine!

and Eye of Terror as a name for it pretty good hehe

My enduring memories of it, although I spent relatively little time on there
- format was terrible. Compared to the other stuff that was around at that time it was badly designed, poorly presented and didn't work well. Wouldn't be surprised if the reason it was dropped was because it so desperately needed an upgrade and they just decided not to bother. Definitely don't think it was because of bitching/moaning as has been suggested by some, most forums had a lot better nature back then (with a lot less negative comments) than they do these days.
- busy mods but not that busy, I would say probably less busy than Bolter and Chainsword from before that time or Warseer. I seem to remember a tremendous amount of 'wow space marines are cool!' posts, I suppose the age of users was quite young (who presumably left after a while because the interface was so poor)
- certain topics were specifically banned - hilariously, there was a specific, numbered rule which forbid the mention of Squats!

 tastytaste wrote:

 cyphertheory wrote:
according to the way back machine, some time between 2006-2007

http://web.archive.org/web/20060830113614/http://uk.games-workshop.com/forums/

Duh Way Back Machine!

and Eye of Terror as a name for it pretty good hehe

There's no White Dwarf section, that's because it was removed ahead of the rest of the forum because of all the moaning about its quality. It would have been fun had their forums been up when all their legal actions began, or Spots the Space Marine. The way they shut their Facebook and Twitter suggests a real bunker mentality that can't face criticism.

The format was horrible, really really horrible.

Whilst people complain about there being a ton of 12 year olds and adults who acted like 12 year olds there was a few good posters, I remember a really good discussion about building an ANZAC Imperial Guard army.

Ahhh..... Back when the worst thing about 40k was the triple wraithlord build. I miss those posts on the old GW forum!

 stormwell wrote:
The format was horrible, really really horrible.

Whilst people complain about there being a ton of 12 year olds and adults who acted like 12 year olds there was a few good posters, I remember a really good discussion about building an ANZAC Imperial Guard army.

Certainly it wasn't all bad but the signal to noise ratio was low at times.

@Howard A Treesong -- GW absolutely can face criticism in social media, but it only counts as valid if the critics have the right attitude.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 stormwell wrote:
The format was horrible, really really horrible.

Whilst people complain about there being a ton of 12 year olds and adults who acted like 12 year olds there was a few good posters, I remember a really good discussion about building an ANZAC Imperial Guard army.

Certainly it wasn't all bad but the signal to noise ratio was low at times.

@Howard A Treesong -- GW absolutely can face criticism in social media, but it only counts as valid if the critics have the right attitude.

Kirby looks for attitude in his critics, not skills. They can be taught how to skillfully critique the HHHobby by a local GW black shirt.

It 'twas a silly place.

As mentioned, painful interface, and there was quite a bit of complaining (which was quickly suppressed by the mods).

On the upside:
FAQs posted and updated on the forum
Frequently the Dev team (chambers, sawyer, jervis, etc) would post on the forum, answering rules questions, etc.

Paul 'fat bloke' Sawyer still posts regularly on the Warlord Games forums, along with Rick Priestly

 Cruentus wrote:
Frequently the Dev team (chambers, sawyer, jervis, etc) would post on the forum, answering rules questions, etc.

I think 'frequently' is somewhat subjective... That was one of the common complaints about the forums, is that it would go for weeks with no sign of any of the Devs, and then one of them would buzz through the Games Dev forum, cherry pick a couple of threads to reply to, and then be off again faster than you could say 'But, Squats...???'

Some of the worst rules lawyering I've ever seen took place on those old forums. Much of it is like our Congress: full of people full of their own opinions refusing to listen to everyone else because they fully believed everyone else was full of it. Reason, common sense, and, most of all, civility, were sorely lacking.

There were some good things about the forum, but it was no place for a reasoned argument.

My story;

The designers asked for input for FAQs.
I posted the 91 (IIRC) page document that described the various real honest to God rules issues that the game had at that time (made by Yakface and friends) in the 40K and Games Developers sub-forums.

Both were locked and deleted within the hour, and I received a warning from a moderator. Go figure.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:


There were some good things about the forum, but it was no place for a reasoned argument.

Hence why the topic of Squats was banned on the 40k forum

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Some of the worst rules lawyering I've ever seen took place on those old forums. Much of it is like our Congress: full of people full of their own opinions refusing to listen to everyone else because they fully believed everyone else was full of it. Reason, common sense, and, most of all, civility, were sorely lacking.

There were some good things about the forum, but it was no place for a reasoned argument.

I have to agree in my case as I met some great people at the forums, which led me to this place which I now call my home for all types of information, so to speak

Steelmage99 wrote:
My story;

The designers asked for input for FAQs.
I posted the 91 (IIRC) page document that described the various real honest to God rules issues that the game had at that time (made by Yakface and friends) in the 40K and Games Developers sub-forums.

Both were locked and deleted within the hour, and I received a warning from a moderator. Go figure.

Same thing on the White Dwarf section. They asked for input and promised that improvements would be seen a few months down the line as they write issues months ahead. So some people wrote hugely detailed and reasoned description of the problems with the magazine and how to improve it. 6 months later and nothing had changed and the WD people stopped visiting. People got increasingly upset after having their time wasted, being ignored, being misled with false promises of improvement so GW deleted the section. Sort of like how they deleted their Facebook and Twitter when they didn't like criticism there. The problem with the GW forums was that the interface was horrible, not like these forums with individual posts and user profiles and a nice layout. Also the moderation was patchy and they had a lot of silly rules. They never invested in it or took any pride in it, so it was letting their website down a bit so it's understandable that they deleted it.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:

Steelmage99 wrote:
My story;

The designers asked for input for FAQs.
I posted the 91 (IIRC) page document that described the various real honest to God rules issues that the game had at that time (made by Yakface and friends) in the 40K and Games Developers sub-forums.

Both were locked and deleted within the hour, and I received a warning from a moderator. Go figure.

Same thing on the White Dwarf section. They asked for input and promised that improvements would be seen a few months down the line as they write issues months ahead. So some people wrote hugely detailed and reasoned description of the problems with the magazine and how to improve it. 6 months later and nothing had changed and the WD people stopped visiting. People got increasingly upset after having their time wasted, being ignored, being misled with false promises of improvement so GW deleted the section. Sort of like how they deleted their Facebook and Twitter when they didn't like criticism there. The problem with the GW forums was that the interface was horrible, not like these forums with individual posts and user profiles and a nice layout. Also the moderation was patchy and they had a lot of silly rules. They never invested in it or took any pride in it, so it was letting their website down a bit so it's understandable that they deleted it.

It was removed for a financial reason as well. Let us not forget that this and other services such Black Gobbo, bits department, specialists games getting kicked into a dusty corner (before being completely discontinued this year), were being deleted at an increased rate starting at 2006.

The best online thing GW ever did was a semi-regular article posting on their website called The Black Goblin.

 malfred wrote:
The best online thing GW ever did was a semi-regular article posting on their website called The Black Goblin.

Black Gobbo*

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Some of the worst rules lawyering I've ever seen took place on those old forums. Much of it is like our Congress: full of people full of their own opinions refusing to listen to everyone else because they fully believed everyone else was full of it. Reason, common sense, and, most of all, civility, were sorely lacking.

There were some good things about the forum, but it was no place for a reasoned argument.

To be fair, that sounds much like YMDC.

The old GW forums also had a lot of terrible fanfiction. I used to try to 'rehabilitate' some of the custom chapter ideas. My basic methodology was to basically say that the more unique, canon-breaking things you have, the less plausible the idea.

I'm surprised 2006 was when they actually got the plug pulled, I could have sworn it was earlier than that, around the time of the NA Shopping Cart ban (2003?).

Ah, the good ole Eye of Terror.

Forum design well out-dated, dev promises never kept.

I got flamed by Andy Chambers on a Sisters thread though and that's always good for a smile

Mithrax wrote:
Ah, the good ole Eye of Terror.

Forum design well out-dated, dev promises never kept.

I got flamed by Andy Chambers on a Sisters thread though and that's always good for a smile

Now that's a story I want to hear!

Mithrax wrote:
Ah, the good ole Eye of Terror.

Forum design well out-dated, dev promises never kept.

I got flamed by Andy Chambers on a Sisters thread though and that's always good for a smile

Andy was kinda known for being a dick to the fans after he'd had a few...

--Chris
www.chrisvalera.com