The in-game forums caused some errors and often created problems with databases, this lead to more problems than just lag. The forums were growing quite a lot, like anything on the server they added to the lag and due to the growth it seemed to be causing more and more of it. Originally the online forums were only going to be for trading but the in-game forums seemed uneccessery as we could just use the zone-play for everything. In the end it was decided that the in-game forums were causing more problems than benefits and it seemed that the only postive side to them was convenience of not having to leave the game. In the end Tashkin sacrificed a lot of his time and money to set up the forums, this definitely seems like it was the right decision to me.

There's a lot of other reasons why zone-play is better such as having vbulletin which allows for more customisation, is much easier to moderate and isn't as limited as the in-game forums are in terms of posting (style your posts, add images & videos, quoting, etc). Having our own website allows us to add extras such as the item database and opens up a lot more possibilities. There's a lot more benefits too. I have seen a lot of people complaining about the forums, I agree it was pretty sad to see them go as I had got pretty attached to them but I definitely think zone-play is the way to go with the forums!