As far as I know it was a change that was introduced later.
So the first few months until february it was possible to reply to whatever. Then a new forum rule / software rule was implemented, that automatically closes all threads after 7 days of no-replies. The rule applied to every new topic created thereafter, but was simply not applied to any pre-existing topic.
Hence you can be Heinrich Kemmler, the great Necromancer, in any thread that was created before february.
So in that case, not really intentionally. Just a technicality relating to the forum software. In another thread Hedge said, they don’t even make some of the changes. Potentially this was introduced with a new backend update they got from the host of the software.
Well, you don’t know. That’s two nice paragraphs of you pretending to know though.
Most threads have statrments saying that they are supposed to autolock. It’s been a thing since way before Darktide was announced. It doesn’t always seem to work though.
Yes, I do know. I was here when it was changed. Someone in the forums made specifically the odd thread about it in february, asking why topics now autolock.
It wasn’t a thing before then. Let me see if I can dig it up.
Edit: Even better yet, I found confirmation from a Community Manager:
This was posted in february, 2019. But that was for the Vermintide 2 forums. So I’m sure it was the same story for the Darktide forums. It was introduced later, but doesn’t work retroactively.
The discussion about it indicated that it was a recent change. You only wrote February and I made the assumption that you meant Feb 2023. My bad, I only noted that the zaygr linked a Darktide thread and you apeaking of it being introduced “later”.
No, I actually did mean february this year.
The introduction of autolocks after 7 days in Vermintide 2 was another instance, but it indicates that this autolock feature generally works in this way, as in… it doesn’t apply to old threads retroactively, it only counts for threads created after the rule change.
This feature wasn’t turned on for the Darktide forums in the beginning, but it was turned on this year some time in february 2023.