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As games get updated, sometimes features are removed, or become redundant, especially with games that cannot have previous versions accessed, like the leaves in Pokémon Go.

Questions like this, while still interesting, are no longer relevant, or useful, as they are not (currently) part of the game anymore. While yes, there is every chance they may be brought back, there is no way of knowing without Developer Knowledge.

In my mind, this situation is fairly edge case; new users may get confused as to its relevance.

So some ways we could deal with it:

  1. Simply state that this feature is not longer part of the game.
  2. Protect the question to prevent new users adding answers.
  3. Close the question for Mod reasons.

IMO, the first option seems like the most appropriate, but that is only in relevance to this particular question. Others may need to be dealt with differently like, perhaps the Diablo 3 auction house questions.

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  • On the one hand, in many cases some features aren't coming back.... In other cases, WoW classic, the 'return' of City of Heroes...
    – Trent Hawkins
    Oct 14, 2019 at 2:16
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    See also: What do we do with questions about games that can no longer be played?
    – Trent Hawkins
    Oct 14, 2019 at 2:36
  • Related, perhaps: gaming.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/11813/…
    – Frank
    Oct 15, 2019 at 11:45
  • Closed questions show this pale yellow banner with the closing reason - could something like this be implemented to tell the user that the feature is no longer supported, or part of the game? This will make it directly obvious, but the original Q&A will remain untouched. I can imagine it's way too much hassle for the sporadic case, though, but it could also be used for games that are no longer playable (as per the link Trent posted).
    – Joachim
    Oct 16, 2019 at 22:07
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    @Joachim - I've previously barracked for an 'obsolete' lock similar to historic locks. Something like: "This question addresses an obsolete version and has been locked to preserve it's content in this form. If you require an update, please ask a new question. This question and its answers are frozen and cannot be changed. More info: help center.".
    – Robotnik Mod
    Oct 16, 2019 at 22:54
  • Related: What should be done with out of version questions? and What do we do with historic questions that no longer make sense? If the question topic is currently obsolete or not relevant, then that should be indicated in an answer, either by editing an existing one or adding a new one.
    – galacticninja
    Oct 17, 2019 at 5:45
  • @Robotnik What were the results of your barracking?
    – Joachim
    Oct 17, 2019 at 9:15
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    @Joachim - not a whole lot. I'll raise a proper feature request when I have the chance to sit down and type it up proper :-)
    – Robotnik Mod
    Oct 17, 2019 at 11:39

1 Answer 1

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Like the one link in the comments states:

My vote is firmly on leave these questions be.

While I can understand why we may want to bring attention to these kinds of questions, I feel the impact of doing so would be minimal. Typically, these questions are older and aren't likely to be viewed by many people anymore unless they specifically go looking for it - something I also think isn't likely considering that if they are new, it's unlikely they would know about an old feature. The question you linked in your post is already over three years old. New users aren't likely to come across it.

You could Protect the question, but that isn't technically what the Protect option is for really. In the event someone new does leave an answer on a question like this, I think it would just be better to handle them as they come which isn't often at all.

When you say "Simply state that this feature is not longer part of the game" do you mean edit the post saying so or a close reason? Either way, I still don't see much value in doing so.

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