Originally Posted by
Phal
When I first came to the CoC forums I had just started playing Clash of Clans a few months beforehand, and being the avid gamer that I am, was in search of other clashers to share information with and learn from. I had been a casual farmer, or one could say a "weekend warrior" but was enjoying the game so much that I wanted to learn as much as possible by sharing experiences with others and by learning new strategies from more knowledgeable / experienced players. And the forums were not lacking in any of these things.
New posts about discoveries, strategies, thoughts and ideas, advice from veteran players and so on were frequent and alive with active constructive discussion. Many such threads helped me tremendously with my transition from a weekend warrior to a daily farmer, and when I was ready, helped me figure out how best to make the transition from farming to trophy pushing.
Ultimately these forums helped me understand the game mechanics in depth, learn many strategies that have stayed with me still, and even opened my eyes to several whole new aspects of the game that I didn't even know existed. While other sub forums were very useful, the General forum section was always the most active and information packed section.
I don't know when, and I don't know why, but something changed big time (and let me be clear, the LAST thing I'm interested in reading is poeple's consirocy theories of how SC did this and that to ruin the game, thus causing the forums to change the way I have. This post is NOT about the actual game, which I still thoroughly enjoy, it is about these forums, and specifically the General forum section).
Now General may sometimes still have a helpful guide or an interesting constructive debate in a thread here and there, but it immediately gets flushed off of the first page by the absolutely ridiculous FLOOD of posts of people complaining about whatever the hot topic is at the time; people making new accounts to double post the exact same complaints, people just blatantly bashing supercell / making empty threats to quit the game - and of course all of which have the same excuse, that if we (the forum-goers as well as SC mods) don't see their complaint / threat / jumble of nonsense constantly, then the game will die because everyone will stop playing.
In the little bit of discussion I do see involving game mechanics, strategy, and so on it usually consists of or at least ends in a divide between farmers and trophy hunters or TH10s and everyone else - both sides furiously explaining that the other side could not ever hope to understand how much harder they have it and so on.
Where did all of the knowledge-hungry people go? Where have the weekend warriors seeking information go? Where have the helpful veterans hoping to teach some other players some new tricks go? Have you all gone into hiding / left all together?
Or do you still open the forum pages like me hoping to see what you used to, only to see the most recent flood of the same thread / topic / sometimes same word for word posts back to back.
I go to the forums with hopes of seeing the same sense of community I once saw - hoping to learn new things and pass on information as others did to me in the past. But of course I just end up getting incredibly frustrated the moment I see yet another day of people flooding the forum with complaints about witches, or hogs or loot, or their dead tooth or whatever the falvor of the week happens to be which usually results in me angrily responding to some of them and them.
Has anyone else had a similar experience? Does anyone else still even try to seek stimulating discussion about game mechanics here anymore only to give up and l/ or leave the forum page frustrated and overpowered by the massive tidal wave of trolls? Did I miss something or has the content of these forums gradually shifted into a junkyard of poorly explained, poorly thought out complaints that always seem to end in members either exclaiming that SC is the source of all evil or members flaming each other until their thread is closed?
So in short my big question which I have no expectations of getting answered continues to echo in my thoughts: What happened to the General forums section , and how, if it's even possible, can the glory and collective knowledge of the General Forums that I first saw when I came here be revived? What happened General? We used to be so in love but now all we do is fight. :(
