Recently, as everyone knows, there has been a lot of concern and trepidation about IW, with stress levels being so high with the current world situation. People are worried how IW is proceeding, where the current trend is going, and what has happened to IW in the past two months.
As of this posting, we now have 4,079 members and over a quarter of a million unarchived posts (255,246 to be exact). The bulk of those posts are in the gaming forums, where hundreds, possibly thousands of members go each day to get help with their games, assist others, and form a sense of community.
The gaming forums are led in activity by the Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn forum, with over 85,000 posts. Coming in second place is Wizards & Warriors, still a very active forum after 1 year, with over 27,000 posts and closing in on the 30,000 mark. Once Neverwinter Nights and Wizardy 8 are released, they will undoubtedly result in a huge influx of new members and more posts; more ideas to be shared, more new topics to discuss, more clans, more stories.
In the center of all this is Gen Con, or General Discussions, which has become the flagship forum of Ironworks, now over 100,000 posts alone and nearing 110,000. It is the center of the Ironworks community; the common meeting ground for all sorts of gamers and even some non-gamers as well.
I look around Gen Con, and although I may see a problem post or two from time to time, what I mainly see are posts with people hailing each other in a friendly fashion, posts filled with creative writing such as Larry, et al's "One-Eyed Wolf" saga, the hilarious threads by Avatar and company of the ALSB vs. the now-defunct KFA group, people sharing advice and concern for others...in short, as Reeka put it so well the other day, a "community."
Like any community, we have our problems. I'm not being an ostrich about this. Some have been rather severe lately, and there have been some rather sad losses. We do what we can to deal with these problems. But we must never lose sight of the fact that the bulk of IW is all very
positive. Ironworks is THRIVING...you can almost feel the dynamo occurring here. Visit any of the burgeoning gaming forums and see. Check out Larry's thread, or the clan threads. Visit Lord Shield's Bar (formerly the BG2 Bar), or Cloudy's Cafe. See, feel, and EXPERIENCE the camaraderie that is Ironworks.
The fact is, compared to other similar forum sites, IW is standing strong, rather than dissolving in flamewars. It will continue to stand strong as long as we love and care enough about it to continue to support it.
I for one stand up for Ironworks. It's still my favorite place on the Internet.
Cheers, and peace,
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Patience, my BUTT...I'm going to KILL something!!!