One thing I feel that keeps an MMORPG going strong is its community. That community is strengthened when fully supported by the games developers.

It's something that I feel needs to be fostered before the games release so that the community doesn't have to run about like headless chickens getting their ducks in a row after release.

I've noticed a couple of guild recruitment threads pop up and promptly get shut down, and looked up in the stickies on why this is. The sticky in regards to guild recruitment is almost a year old and just links to fansites. I feel that with two months to go before release, this isn't enough.

Another sticky states "In the not-too-distant future, we’ll be launching a fully featured community site – complete with its own forums...." This was around a year and a half ago, and with two months to go before release, it not being here isn't enough. We're past the point of a "not-too-distant future", the games release itself is now at that point.

I had to google search just to find this forum, it doesn't even get a single mention on the current ESO website.

So when is this community site going to come to fruition? When are we going to get a forum that is a part of the official site complete with it's own (much needed at this point, IMO) subforums for things like guilds and their cultivation?

The clock is ticking Bethesda, that deadline is closing in fast. You have less than 60 days and all we have in terms of official community support is this singular out of the way forum.

Am I the only one who finds this concerning?

good point

I'm guessing that, because Bethesda already had a forum set up, it made more sense in the beginning to add a forum to what Bethesda already had. Not to mention that people thought, and some still think, Bethesda is making the game instead of just publishing it. People were coming here and posting in the "online multiplayer Skyrim" forum.

The guild thing was due to some people immediately starting the trash talking, not appropriate for these forums behavior. It was better to not have that here; especially with no release date in sight at that point.

The official site does direct people to discuss things on the facebook page. One of the first announcements was about the facebook page. http://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en/news/post/2012/10/15/welcome-to-the-official-the-elder-scrolls-online-community Again, this is just a guess, but they are taking it for granted that a large part of their potential customers are using "social media" and not game forums. Between Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, tumblr, and pinterest, it isn't like they are invisible. It will be good when the official forums open though.

I hope they dont forget console players and do some effort for us too.

Don't forget the beta forums, I suspect they will be wiped and redone come launch day.

In the mean time, I suggest you make yourself familiar with Tamriel Foundry. When it comes to community things like guild recruitment etc, it's the best one available.

The reason we are still using temporary forums is because the true ESO forums are currently occupied by beta testers and are wiped periodically. I think you can put money on once open beta goes live the main forum will too

I also find it very concerning. This has to be easy and you'd think also be largely the responsibility of people completely separate from the actual development of the game. If you can't get an actual official website going for your AAA release, it does not bolster confidence.

Unfortunately I disagree with how some MMORPG devs (Bethesda certainly isn't alone in this approach) have been moving on to social media in lieu of their own actual sites. Social media is fine for bringing people to the site, but it shouldn't be a replacement for it. It can't foster the development of a community with the same depth.

A response I've seen from communities time and again when something gets announced on social media and is either not announced, or announced later, on their official site (in this case when a properly connected site and forum don't even exist yet) is that the community feels the developers are pandering to potential customers rather than taking care of the customers they already have. I disagree with this approach as I've always been taught that you take care of the paying customer standing in front of you rather than taking that call from someone who may or may not even be interested in coming in and becoming a paying customer.

potential customers are good, actual customers are better.

Now this doesn't quite apply to Bethesda yet as the game isn't even out and they're still in the advertising phase and those potential customers, a portion of whom are on these forums, are where their focus should be. But bringing that growing community together in to one central location is also a part of that. There are potential customers out there who will see the lack of a proper site, the lack of any really visible centralised community on that site, as a negative and may be put off from making a purchase because of that.

I suspect the beta forums will be transformed into the real deal whenever the open beta starts. And being 2 months from the official release date, the open beta can't be that far away.

To be honest, this forum feels and looks better than the one for beta tests.. i hope it doesn't look like that when they launch, horrible.