To Everyone here who is also a member of The Flame of Udun forum.....
What do you think of the "New Direction" it is being forced to take?
I say "forced" because Weta offloaded it for strictly monetary / financial reasons.
I'm sure no one is really surprised at this... maybe only that it didn't happen sooner.

Anyway.. any opinions, predictions, etc about it?

Knew this was coming thanks to a tip, but not surprising at all. Weta's presence there for the past couple of years was negligible at best, with only Daniel and Magnus bothering to show up at all.

Honestly, this frees them up to allow freer discussions of other things non-Weta without bias, even if that was always possible before. Having said that, there's one particular member there who is so incredibly biased and so severely lacking in objectivity that it makes it a joyless experience to even try to express an opposing viewpoint. Have had my fill of online bullies. I stopped posting there months ago due to heavy-handed and one-sided censorship from some of the staff.

I wish them luck, but once the costs of running a site settle in, it remains to be seen what will happen down the road.

I visit there occasionally...maybe once a month or every 5-6 weeks.
Yes, it will be interesting to see what happens when the forum changes to "per-per view" (so to speak).

I've been a member since it started and now only a "lurker" as I refuse to contribute there anymore. The attitudes and opinions have definitely changed over the last few years, but it was good to see the MODS actually addressed them in the update. I don't expect much to change though.

I've always felt like forums are for sharing information, be it photos or reviews of pieces from your collection, or pro's and con's of individual pieces. History or often not found information about details pertaining to manufacturing, artists, etc. Now it's just looked down upon to have objective opinions besides "I love everything Middle-Earth and shame on you for thinking differently".

And forum etiquette isn't anything it used to be with social media being the "norm" message boards feel left behind by younger generations. I can see why Weta is no longer involved as they have restructured a lot of how they do things now.

I believe Weta decided not to renew the licence which was going to expire in August. Various reasons but mostly no pros against the cons.

I think you guys are right that there is a definite change of tone on the forum. When I started to notice, I began pulling back. Then getting sick led to me not even wanting to skim posts due to the constant complaining and negativity. But it is probably a reflection of social media in general. Or is that me being negative it just appears to me that many people’s first reaction on social media is negative as they desperately try to find something to complain about.

I haven't been on the FOU forum for a while, I never participated much, only from time to time because they were always very focused on Weta sculptures and I don't collect them. After the release of Ring of Power, I think about participating more but I saw so much hostility in the forum that it definitely put me off participating altogether.

Seeing your comments I went to look, but I think it's been more than a year since I logged in the last time.

Yeah, I think people are like that now. I honestly don't know if it's something general on social networks, I think at this point I'll be the only weirdo who doesn't use them (I have accounts on several social networks that I created at the time, but I almost never use them or log in), but I do see a very polarized behavior in society in general, everyone wants to give their opinion and complain about what they think is wrong, but at the same time, no one wants to listen to those who have a different opinion (even allow them to have a different opinion), and everything ends in hostility.