A new PR response this time?

Good tidings, fellow line-holders. Quick question:

What's up with the jump in the number of threads that are being locked on the BSN forums? They are ostensibly being closed for violating the forum rules, but the content of most of these new threads isn't a significant deviation from what BW has previously allowed on their forums, which has me questioning whether this sudden and conveniently timed interest in enforcing the forum rules is part of a PR plan to squelch griping about the expanded-but-not-changed ending before it grows into something big.

Anyone wanna take a stab at predicting how tolerant BW will be of criticism this time around?

Not. Tolerant. At. All.
Although its more likely they will ignore any negativity outright, like they did before.
Lots and lots of 'artistic intergirty' thrown around no doubt.
And if I had to guess, BW would assume a 'It's not us, it's them - these fans are impossible!' attitude.

I think of it less as a lockdown and more as a herding. They will ensure that the complaints are "isolated" to a few select threads that only registered gamers can comment on.

It's interesting and sad all at once, but hey, I don't go there anymore.

If the EC doesn't go over well, the BSN will nuke itself.

The BSN would be better off it it explodes...I hate that place.

Why are people surprised? I keep asking because it's surprising that people are surprised.

If anything, after the unmitigated disaster of ME3's popular response - it's a surprise Bioware took so long to clamp down but then, I suppose that speaks of how out of touch they have become. It's standard practice in the film industry - where critics are not surgically attached to the sex organs of content creators - to withhold early releases to avoid bad reviews hitting newstands before release.

Clearly, Bioware didn't realise how toxic their ending was - after all, the spyware they installed on your computer for ME2 said only 50% of people even bothered finishing!

This is my assumption - they'll herd the anti-ending comments into a couple of threads and lock others on the basis that they're repeat threads. Pro-EC threads will likely remain untouched.

Newsflash: EC will not go over well. Nothing that Bioware does for the next few years will overshadow or fix the ME3 ending.

BSN will get shut down, twitter feeds will go dark for a week, and Bioware fans will... stop buying Bioware products. And Forbes will write an article about how Bioware has lost their fudge.

I'd have been a little more negative.

I can see it as herding, but constant lockdowns with that little devil face are uncalled for. Cant the mods there merge threads? Move them? Its like putting somebody out of their misery just becouse they sneezed in public.

They know the situation. They know that the EC will probably make majority of the people mad again. So they are "activating security protocols/turning on the internal defences" in order to deflect the upcoming shitstorm. They did it before the game was released, and they are doing it again.

Ugh, this is the worst. Pretextual rule enforcement is such a lame and shady way to stifle criticism. Censoring criticism is generally bad enough on its own, but to try to justify it by making some absurd claim that you are doing it because the speaker did something wrong--and not because you just don't like what they are saying--is pretty shameful.

Just close the thread. Don't say anything. People will figure it out. Claiming that there is "bickering" or that "the topic is being discussed in another thread" and that's why you're locking it down is disingenuous and a waste of keystrokes.

This is what kind of threw up a red flag with BSN for me, as far as I know, a lot of forums with regular moderation don't lock two similar threads, but merge them, and it's almost universally done as you don't want to bury other posts and opinions due to them not being aware of another similar thread.

If they would devote 1/10th of the time they've spent on Twitter, advertising, and moderation locks on BSN as answering questions about the ending and plot/logic gaps therein back in March/April, it would have looked at least a bit more involved with the customers and fans grasping for communication.

This makes me nervous about the EC. If a hurricane is coming then you batten down that hatches. Hopefully the EC is amazing and the hurricane that is HTL doesn't have to hit Bioware AGAIN. Quite frankly I don't want to force Bioware's hand again. I didn't enjoy it but it was necessary and hopefully they truly listened and I can love Bioware again.
Hopefully it's just precautionary because they don't know how people will react.

At least they learned something about this whole fisaco. Batten down the hatches BEFORE you make huge claims like "the EC will provide much needed answers." It'd damn well better answer some or I'm done. (with Bioware. I'm still gonna be here at HTL)

I went over to the BSN this weekend and they have certainly learned their lesson! They won't allow the BSN to used in news articles or allow ME fans to gather together to create another movement. To me their pre-reaction on the BSN is meant to stop the ME fan movement reaction to the EC in it's tracks.
Of course I'm relying on the evidence of the podcast for my assessment.
Hopefully I'm wrong, we'll know for sure tomorrow.

I'm not on the BSN much anymore so I haven't seen this happening, but that does seem like the most likely reason for them to locking more threads then normal.