I've gotta say, my first impression of these forums was quite negative as well. However, I gave them a chance and have found that I actually quite like the forums now. There are a number of useful features not present on other game forums I've been acquainted with.

I'm sure there'll be a general discussion forum soon. I postulate the absence is intentional and temporary to cut down on raging flame wars in general opinion threads. If one springs up here, in the unofficial general discussion forum, the can simply say it's off topic and end it right there.

In any case, there's really only one forum anyone cares about, the general discussion forum (be it official or unofficial), so the awkward hierarchy isn't that off-putting once you settle in.

A google search for 'elder scrolls online forum' yields many fan sites with forums. The top one being http://tamrielfoundry.com with thousands of topics and over 25 thousand registered accounts. I just registered there now.


I agree with you about this forum though.
I think it's mostly due to the forum software, Vanilla Forums is a free open source software with few modern features. Sadly I've seen it used in a different game that I used to love and moderate for and I was disappointed when I saw it being used here. There is even free forum software like phpBB that is miles ahead of this software.

KalQulate wrote: »

Hello.

The forums for ESO are just horrific. Messy, different languages mixed, and absolutely no usefull hierarchy.

i agree with this. the layout and formatting is godawful.
the actual posts only take up about 1/3rd of my screen to begin with. navigating the different forum sections also is a pain and the permanent mix and match of languages doesnt make things any easier.

they should try taking a look at WoW or LOTRO forums, those are way easier to navigate and use.

And now I have registered at http://tamrielfoundry.com/ aswell.
Looked around, and it greatly outshines what is current for eso's main forums in my opinion

I hope some of the forum moderators see this thread, and leave a comment.

And to everyone else, it seems like the vast majority feels the ESO forums really, REALLY need a revamp. Lets keep it clean so that it doesnt gets closed

Thunder wrote: »

I've gotta say, my first impression of these forums was quite negative as well. However, I gave them a chance and have found that I actually quite like the forums now. There are a number of useful features not present on other game forums I've been acquainted with.

I'm sure there'll be a general discussion forum soon. I postulate the absence is intentional and temporary to cut down on raging flame wars in general opinion threads. If one springs up here, in the unofficial general discussion forum, the can simply say it's off topic and end it right there.

In any case, there's really only one forum anyone cares about, the general discussion forum (be it official or unofficial), so the awkward hierarchy isn't that off-putting once you settle in.

I have to agree, that this forum DOES have a few nice things. Like the overview pane on the right side, which lists your activity, threads and bookmarks etc.

But still - If they could make the forums more easy to navigate around, and stuff mentioned in earlier post by other players, AND keep thoose features - Then this forum would be adequate.

Imo, if they just make hierarchy of the forums more "normal" as seen in other large mmo games, alot would be better just by that.

yeah this forums is garbage i agree with that........

This forum is indeed horrific. They should have stuck with the public forum during beta, as per the other ES games - was packed with info, easy to navigate (just 1 general discussion forum at the time), and a GREAT community. But in their infinite wisdom they decided to make the beta test forum the official forum, and wiped the public beta forum instead of just expanding it.

I created an account on Reddit just for the ease of navigation - and that's saying something. The structure on this forum is unnecessarily convoluted.

Yep, this is probably the worst arranged forum I have seen on any website

These are what's wrong with the ESO forums...from most important to least important.
1) Languages are mixed. Mixed languages make the forums hell to navigate and not everyone knows German or French. On World of Warcraft's EU forums, you are REQUIRED to speak English or your post will be deleted. Know what's funny? The majority of WoW's EU players aren't from the UK or Ireland and the forums function just fine. There are no heaps of foreign jargon over on WoW's forums and they're really easy to navigate around. Zenimax should really turn the ESO forums into English only. I'm against linguistic discrimination and I'm not racist, but the majority of the gaming community speaks English and with mixed languages these forums are a real pain to navigate when all I see is jargon. Cmon Zenimax!
2) There's no side column for most popular topics. Sure, there's Best Of, but that's updated in real-time rather than daily, the same threads appear multiple times and the layout is a mess due to the fact that an entire post is shown in Best Of, rather than the thread's title. World of Warcraft, again, has this feature on its forums and seeing what topics are the most hot or most controversial on the forums' home page makes it easy to find somewhere to contribute.
3) There's no off-topic forum. Every single forum on the forums are to do with ESO, and ESO only. What if people have a question about hardware? Or want to discuss a non-Zenimax game? Or discuss movies/books? Guess who has this? Guess. Correct: World of Warcraft. Sometimes people want to discuss something other than ESO, or perhaps a cool new game was announced and people want to discuss it, or perhaps someone got a new PC and wants to know if it runs ESO on Ultra High. We need an off-topic forum Zenimax!
4) No general discussion forum. What were Zenimax smoking when they decided there'd be no general discussion forum? Now the New Player Questions forums has basically become the unofficial General Discussion and this is leaving players who are actually asking questions that they want answered, out in the cold. Every forum I've come across has some form of General Discussion forum. Zeni, general discussion is a MUST for ANY forum.
5) No armory or option to display character as forum avatar. Should I bother saying that almost all of these suggestions come from World of Warcraft's forums? Zenimax, why can't we show off our epic new gear we just got fresh from the depths of Coldharbour? Why can't we show off our character's sexy face? Or his achievement points? Or his lore library? These forums have a huge lack of features that CAN be implemented, but aren't.
Fix the forums, Zenimax!

They're different, re the forums here.

But like anything; give it a chance and you'll get use to them. And they're not so bad at all when you do.

The fan site forums are just as jumbled.

Sorry, but making another WoW comparison. I like the WoW forums better. Functional and easy to navigate. Of course they've made much improvements over the years and they have several moderators to oversee the various forums. ZOS is just starting out. The ESO forums should get better over time.