I don't particularly enjoy the current situation of pretty much every game, especially new releases with lots of interest and buzz around them, only having one single mega Thread either.
It leads to - in some cases - 100+ page Threads with shit posts sprinkled in-between esteemed, yet sometimes several totally separate discussions happening simultaneously.
The result is that most
mega Threads are really hard to follow, keeping track of sub-topics / discussions that are of interest to you is unnecessarily hard, questions can get drowned out or overlooked and remain unanswered even though someone probably had an answer/hint and detailed debates about certain sub-topics regarding a game become much more complicated than they have to be.
The above mentioned, occasional shit post from the odd
Andhaira GD visitor who stumbled into one of the real forums by accident doesn't help either and those posts generally add nothing of value except futile derailing / trolling attempts to the otherwise *incline* discussions going on, in turn making those huge ass Threads even more chaotic / messy.
I think there should be a change.
We as human beings are constantly evolving, growing, adapting. And so should the Codex! The 2014 incline has already begun with The Banner Saga, Blackguards and Might & Magic X. All those releases and the hype around the other prestigious soon-to-be-released games have started to spark interest in hordes of unenlightened newfags and reignited the old, familar fire in many a veteran. Hell, if things work out, the Genre as a whole might become mainstream level popular again :D
Many among these potential new bros will be (and some probably already are right now) looking for places to exchange opinions, discuss strategies, look up tips 'n tricks etc. beyond the Steam and Game specific Communities/Forums because they fell in love with the Genre and want moar or they are just looking to connect to other fellow addicts. I think the Codex should keep aspiring to be the go-to place for these folks.
In my opinion the current mega Thread trend doesn't help this effort though. It's not very user friendly and
specific information is hard to find and sub-discussions are hard to follow for the reasons outlined initially in this post.
Well, what would help then?
Good question! The most obvious suggestion that springs to mind:
How about we get some
sub-forums for "hot" games going? When activity goes down, the sub-forums could always be dissolved and topics moved back to GRPG or merged into detested mega Threads if a huge list of eventually semi-dead sub-forums is undesired.
The big Threads - most noticeably as of late since we finally actually have a couple decent,
new games to discuss instead of just spinning in verbal circles rehashing the same old over and over - tend to move quite fast. And 100+ pages worth of posts should be proof enough that they warrant a dedicated sub-forum. To keep things in order and the information/discussion topic you seek easily accessible sub-Forums seem to be the best option in my opinion.
In case sub-forums / several Threads on the same game are an undesired thing I would have to first of all ask why that is, because I personally think several topics on the same game (but about different topics/aspects of the game of course) should not only be allowed but actually encouraged.
I don't know if merging-on-purpose is a thing right now, just putting it out there because Roguey referred to it
overeager merging really hurts IMHO. Several Threads on the same game but different topics allows a User to keep up-to-date on the topic that interests him without having to sift through dozens of pages of a mega Thread. An additional benefit would be to have the ability to subscribe to an individual, topic-specific Thread instead of whole mega Thread, avoiding getting an alert every single time
someone posts
anything. Instead you have to ability to get informed when something that is of interest to you gets posted.
/e: Why sub-forums, why not just post all Threads in GRPG you might ask?
Well here's the thing: this approach doesn't really help visibility/tidiness either. Many topics would just get "swallowed" by the activity and go too many pages back.
It's scientifically proven that
a) Many people don't bother to look more than a couple pages back (if at all) or don't want to look over all the topic names if they are looking for something specific about a specific game. Tags and clear topic titles help in this respect, but only so much.
b) Many people don't bother to use Search Functions on forums.