Happy Birthiversary, BioWare Social Network Unofficial Forums!

My first reaction upon hearing the news of the impending closure one year ago was sardonic laughter. I joined BSN in 2011 because Mass Effect 2 and Miranda specifically, making her thread in the Character and Romance section my online home and hardly venturing from it for many moons, until close to the release of ME3. ME3 of course brought us all a few bundles of joy, the Romance forum nuking and a little thing called the ME3 ending debacle so naturally I was right in the middle of that. Nobody you'd notice, I never spearheaded any movements or sent any baked goods or anything decidedly less pleasant, but I was there. I made my mock threads, I added my voice to many, and though I left disappointed by our eventual suckering, I was nonetheless impressed with the show we'd put out. Never would I have dreamed of influencing a gaming decision I didn't like, even if only a little.

I had drifted away from the BSN twice now, not driven out by any one event or user(s), mostly because I felt it was time to move on. And both times I came back, because fuck it, it was entertaining to read, and eventually to engage. My first return saw the closing of Off-Topic. Now I had only started hanging out in off topic, mostly in the SWTOR and GoT threads. But I was swept up in the closing nonetheless, adding my voice yet again in response to BioWare shenanigans and getting my first dose of exile in freeforums. Well, in a manner of speaking anyway; I never burned any bridges to Prime and occasionally still posted in the ME section. I met some cool folks there including fellow staff Cyonan and Draining Dragon (I knew of Cyonan from MP of course but hadn't personally interacted with him). It was there that I found an (admittedly smaller) sense of community that Prime lacked for me in the final days, due to people moving on). Eventually I drifted away from BSN again. And then I read about the impeding closure on the TOR forum of all places.

How to explain my reaction. Sardonic, yes. Cynical, undoubtedly. Actually amused? I did in fact literally laugh out loud. It seemed so obvious, such a "scheming little BioWare" move, particularly with Andromeda looming. They grew tired of, not only bitching about, but also organized resistance to their mistakes (or perhaps even their vaunted "art"); and in their own backyard no less. This seemed almost childish to predict. I doubt I was the only one (even out of the people still here) to cheekily throw a one fingered salute and snark "burn in hell you bloated carcass of weird memes and even weirder fetishes". But as I watched the chaos grow in the face of the coming doom and I saw talks of lifeboats forming, a little something, an almost forgotten feeling started quietly but with firm insistence tugging at me. I think, with the magic of Mass Effect already stripped, inspected, analyzed and frankenstein'd back together in several different configurations (for science), before being abandoned for some time, I may be forgiven for forgetting what that feeling was: Fandom (or fandumb, depending on who you ask). The one underlying truth that below all the shitposting, weirdposting, mod fails and quote pyramids, we were there because we loved it. Loved Mass Effect (or Dragon Age, or legacy games) despite the flaws and in a really weird, possibly twisted way, loved the BSN too. Oh we might prefer different sections of it, maybe even sections that were no longer strictly about BioWare's games. But the environment was fundamentally the same nonetheless.

There was another aspect to it too. We didn't just love it, we fought for it. Who did we fight for it? Well that answer, if it can be coherently organized as such, is multiple choice at best. We fought ourselves, we fought BioWare, we fought the media, I think someone had a trident at one point... anyway the point is after ME3, organizing and standing up for things that were not ok in these games we loved became part of what BSN was about. And to my surprise, despite being done with Mass Effect and heavily skeptical towards Andromeda, I found I was not willing to stand by and let that principle get deleted. This sounds like some grand "taking a stand" moment, where epic music would play, jets (or eagles) would fly overhead and a gruff military man would shed a single tear. It really wasn't lol. In practice, what happened was Cyonan decided to make this lifeboat and I pretty much just sauntered over with all the conviction of a View Askew character. But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to do more, to do my part to ensure there would always be a place to not only vent but constructively organize the next time Bioware dun goofed. Whatever you may think of Retake, HTL and all that, they did some good. Good I just didn't see being done on Twitter. I may have been mistaken about that, as Andromeda had a greivance of its own addressed through people organizing and asking for change, and it was a hashtag that was the speartip of that campaign. Still I would hope that this place played a part or will play a part in any such organizing in the future, and that fans will always have a voice to call out their gratitude or unhappiness in full. We have been blessed by the active participation of some of the devs, so this has worked out even better than I dreamed.

Despite the sardonic sneering, when that final day came and the clocks kept counting down and anyone posting in that last thread kept wondering when the post button would spit out an error I had a bad case of the feels after all. To anyone who's known me this past year, my propensity for injecting random Babylon 5 references, images and memes is hardly news. So it's fitting that my last post linked a particular moment in the finale of that show, the final decomissioning of the station. I won't link it here, because that's not for this post, but anyone who knows it will see the significance. BSN was good times and bad, chaos and less-horrible-more-fun-chaos, laughs and tragedy. And it really was the end of an era.

But now here we are, a year from where we started and going strong. This is not BSN, but the new (and unofficial, let's get legal off our case) BSN. And I think we've got the best of new and old. We've fostered a free but not completely chaotic atmosphere and we've captured the feel of BSN while hopefully improving on a couple of things. I couldn't be prouder of what we have here. Going forward I would hope even more improvements are on the menu and that, whatever happens with BioWare and their games, this place remains remains your destination of choice for related lulz and serious discussion both. Because despite whatever we the staff may have done to facilitate this place, it's you, the users that make it what it is. The rest is blem mlem mlem

^^

Where did this year go?

This time last year I was in the same wreckage as many... Prime was shutting up shop and the ensuing uncertainty made for difficult times.

My first reaction was sadness. My first thought was "how will I spend my evenings now?".
I was never a big contributor on the original forums. I was a competent ME3:MPlayer but I never did (and still do not) understand it's technical complexities.

I came to Prime to learn and to try to make myself a better player. I searched and tried multiple builds and found a few good friends along the way that I could PUGgernaut Gold with....
And yes, **FlameShield engaged mutherfuckers!**

But it wasn't the infinite wealth of info that kept me coming back, it was the banter

It was nice to meet a group of good-natured BSNers who didn't take themselves too seriously and just wanted to laugh and post stupid shit (you all know who you are!lol).

When I first joined here I got a msg from Cyonan asking if I wanted to be a Moderator.
My first reaction was...



And to be totally honest I had no idea what I was doing at the start but it didn't take me long to learn and witness what Cyonan and the others were trying to achieve with this site...

A place for those who want to debate and have a laugh along the way

And that is something I will strive to maintain.

Here's to many and long years ahead BSNuf.

Cheers!

I've been posting on various predecessors and iterations of BSN since the Neverwinter Nights days. (Lovely Lovely Aribeth - never forget!)

For any nerdy topic on the Internet, there will be one site that is The Hub of All Activity. BSN is that site for Bioware games.

There is incredible value in what we do here: a place to socialize, a place to discuss shared interests, and a place to suss out game mechanics and optimize around them.

Happy anniversary and thank you for the forums, hope for many more.

Thank you guys!! keep this place alive and we will be here kicking it!

Goddamn it people! Do you all have to make me cry?

I for one am grateful to have a place like this. So thank you to all who made this happen and who continue to work hard to maintain this community!

Time to celebrate!

Keep doing what you're doing man. When it comes to MEAMP especially, you're a real asset to the fanbase as a whole.

GOML! I was 5th!

And... *drum roll*



Mod recommendation! Are you kidding me?!

solid effort.

A year already?

I for one am very glad this place has the old BSN vibe to it now, sometimes I forget it's not actually the original. I'm also relieved that the staff have worked out well, as *ahem* other BSN lifeboats were torn apart by the folks in charge. That made me worry about any forum run by fans but from my own experiences here the mods have been pretty great.

I have no idea how much work this place is for them on a daily basis but there are many people hanging around, both silent and vocal, who are grateful for it. Even if they do make little voodoo dolls of you occasionally.