With a new Guild Wars 2 expansion coming up in just 10 days, ArenaNet needs to make sure everything is set up just right for the likely influx of new players. That apparently includes new official forums, which were revealed and went live today on the GW2 site.
The new GW2 forums offer more modern social tools, such as avatars, like/dislike buttons, ranks, badges, improved search engine, and so on. The “old” forums will still be around, in read-only mode, until sometime in October. Only important stickied threads have been migrated to the new system.
Also, if you were kicked off the old forums, for any reason, you can return with a one-time gift of amnesty. Just try not to kitten it up this time. You can learn more about the new forums via the post on the GW2 site.