The forums still has a purpose.
It’s still the central hub for posting art about AO. Art competition submissions are also encouraged to use the forums as well.
When updates release, and the ticket cap on Vetcord is reached, people are also pushed to make bug reports here. The forums have no such limit on topic-creation.
It’s a shame that there’s less activity in the other channels compared to WoM, sure, but the forums have still cultivated a community. People come and go of course, but I’m glad the forums have stuck around for so long.
It’s been discussed a lot about the closure of the forums. The forums will not be going away anytime soon. Better reasoning can be found in this pretty handy comment made by Headless two years ago:
All points mentioned here are still valid in the forums current state.
I like to believe the original big spark of activity on the forums during WoM was due to the novelty of it. It was new, unique, and that large community was able to sustain itself. I believe the wait for AO contributed to the slow decline in activity here. What was really keeping people around was all the people. With the people leaving, people kept leaving. With not enough people joining the forums, it was bound to start falling off.
I’m not really a person who can host events, encourage activity, etc. Talking to people isn’t really my thing, so I doubt I could start providing people a reason to create an account and stick around. A lot of you guys might notice my sparks of activity at random times, and I’m sure my "out-of-touch"yness has contributed to a lot of hate I receive by current and banned members. Maybe Vetex/Tech/Someone will find a purpose for the forums at a later date. 