Is it just me?

Now don't take this as a complaint or a disguised doom thread: it's not meant as either, I'm genuinely wondering if this is just my impression or if there's some objective aspect at work.

So. Are the new, merged forum just less fun than the old EU one? Maybe it's just that I've not gotten used to the new layout and sub-forum divisions, but ... even so, I can't shake the feeling that the forums are more ... lackluster than they used to be. They just seem flatter, somehow. Not in the sense that there's less heated discussion or flaming -- it's not that I'm missing. They just feel a little ... "filled but empty".

So, is it just me? Am I going crazy? (Okay, that second question is rhetorical -- of course I am -- but the first one is genuine.)

Of course they feel different. You lost your sense of identity when you went from a comfortable small watering hole where you knew mostly everyone to an open beach side bar where you see a face you know only every so often and it's mostly filled with strangers and people looking for one night stands...

Im still getting used to the feel of it too. At the moment i usually use only the For Fun sections and the ATs, everything else gets overlooked by me unless im after some kind of information [like im looking for inspiration to redo my old supergroup base].

Blue is right though about that we no longer all know each other, but we slowly are again! There are some new posters who i think are great and some which i think are basically "stuck up", so slowly getting used to what people are good or bad

Dont like the french servers being all the way over there though, used to like popping in to them and saying hi [or salut!] *wipes a tear from my eye*

I think it's better. Two years ago I would of said it wouldn't of been but now was the right time.

I don't feel quite as at home as I used to on the new boards, and no longer read or post anywhere near as much as I did. I don't think it's the larger community though; it's the horrible colour scheme, and the crappy vBulletin software that seems more buggy than UBB was!

Due to some awkward decisions at work, our current browser software isn't capable of handling the new boards very well. Which is a shame. The colour scheme is a but... dull. And I do miss the fun discussions we EU types used to have on a regular basis.

I know we should use the Euro lounge for that purpose, but it doesn't entirely feel right to do so, and due to the time-differences between us and our NA-server counterparts, it can be tricky to keep up with things on the forums.

I'm certainly not about to stop posting, though, but RL has prevented me from doing so much recently.

I don't really mind the colours, I can read it well enough. I do find it irritating that there is so much forum! With all these categories looking at the front page unfolded it is a bit overwhelming. I mostly have only the For Fun section open because it contains the three sections I visit most(general, suggestions, comic) but I find it a bit irritating if I want to read a thread in the Player Questions forum to have to unfold an whole other section.

I also feel that I'm missing a lot of posts just because of the sheer number of replies and with other stuff I have to do(like working and stuff) I can't keep up.

While the old forum had some serious drawbacks, you could, at a glance, see if there was something new in the sections. The new forum seems too "big" and anonymous and while we sure could duke it out it was never really bad because we knew each other.

Now, getting a -reputation/disapprove or comment feels so much more evil somehow because some unknown person bullies you when they don't even bother to actually read whatever you wrote.

I for one, have basically given up on the forum because it feels so pointless. I gave it a try a few days ago on the suggestions section and got trashed again pretty much for no reason.

...I'd just rather log on and chat for a while (since I've pretty much given up playing until I see some content) or do something useful with my time.

...so see you all again in I17/GR or another game!

Also, that freaking log-in bug on the forum, is so ... oh... well... you know...
Did they actually pay for this system? They should get a refund!

I think the new forums are much better - there are way more people around, so that gives way more opinions and ideas to read about.

Plus, we have pictures, picture sigs and COLORS!

I'm a bit in two minds about the new forums. I like all the new functionality and the boards themselves run smoother for me too. I did disable signatures though, because some of those sig banners take a good 10-20 seconds to load for some reason.
What I don't like are the bugs: 'Go to last unread' working randomly at best, read posts getting marked as unread again, getting logged out at my home pc when I've logged in from another pc, ...

About the atmosphere, well it sure got a lot bigger. Did it get better? sometimes. More people means more experience and opinions being shared on topics (good), it also means a worse signal-to-noise ratio (bad). The bigger a forum (any forum) gets the more nonsense you have to wade through. From my experience this seems to grow exponentionaly instead of linear with the board size. On the old EU boards everything about the same subject tended to be centralised in 1 maximum 2 threads, here it appears to be the norm to start a new thread for every slight variation/update on the subject, even when there are 2 others threads about the subject on the same page.

I do like the more direct acces to dev posts and comments, and since information is the biggest reason I use these forums the changes are an overall positive for me.

I only posted 7 times on the old forum but it still felt like home. These new forums feels like just we're visting mad old auntie Annie and I dont want locked in the attic again. Why are we at annies again why cant we go home, I wont tell anybody I promise.

Don't fear the Americans - we're quite friendly

I don't think they're that bad, I seem to be posting a lot more on the new forums. Yeah they're a bit big and I did get lost in the Tanker section for awhile but there's a lot more to see and do here imo then there was on the old forums.

There just seems to be a bad case of Wall Of Text over here at times. I'll be following a thread and suddenly it's full of 2 pages of 2 posters posting essays at each other. Although TechBot is doing a good job of defusing some of them.

Something else I've noticed since the merger too. Avatea now talks to us even LESS than before (if that's even possible).

Seriously, take a look at the community digest. There's been no mod posts of ANY kind in the EU lounge for weeks and weeks... Nada.. Hardly any in the general discussion channel either...