Hello, Zenimax Online Studios:

I understand that you are holding off on your official website and forums right now for a reason; you're letting Game Informer handle your initial month of PR. I'm assuming you'll have a more public presence after your exhibition at E3 next month.

That said, I wanted to encourage you to consider having an active presence on your new official forums. I'm not talking about a "PR guy" who basically hands out a canned response like, "Thanks for the input, I'll pass this along to the devs." People grew to resent that guy on the SWTOR forums rather quickly. Instead, please consider having a more active and open line from actual developers who can give insight into issues and questions as they come up. I"m not saying all of your devs should spend hours on the forums every day, but it wouldn't hurt for them to spend 15 minutes or so. Make a post or two. Let the fans know you care about them. Does that sound corny? Well, it is what it is - having devs actually communicate with the fans is a huge way to foster goodwill. Some companies that do this well: Funcom (yeah, I know they've had their issues, but their developers actually speak to the people on the forums on a fairly regular basis), Turbine - to a lesser extent, but the devs DO post on the forums and when they do it is very helpful and appreciated, Cryptic Studios - these guys are pretty active and give decent responses to fan questions. I won't mention the long list of companies that do a bad job at this - let's keep it positive.

I understand the risk involved with direct communication with the public. You are afraid you'll say something then have to take it back when the design changes. Well, as a fan, I've seen devs have to walk back promises in the past, and guess what? I don't mind. Just be up front with us - "We can't really do that anymore because of x." It's when you start making up strange stories to justify your actions that fans start to get irritated (see prominate PR guy's statements regarding high res textures on a certain game based in galaxy far far away.)

So, some ways to keep your fans' goodwill:

1 - have a dev tracker on your forums, and allow your devs to post now and then.
2 - developer blogs
3 - regular fan Q&A sessions
4 - since the game is months away from release, maybe a regular 'Friday Update' or something

I don't mind helping to spread the news about your game, and basically doing my job as a fan, but it would help if us fans felt some support from the people actually making the game.

If anyone has other ideas about how the devs can make the fans feel more involved, please post them!

100% agree.

Communication within the forums will come primarily from the community team that's being put together for ZeniMax Online Studios. These are folks that will we communicating daily with Matt Firor and the rest of the team.

And as you mentioned, it's pretty quiet now, largely in part because we're letting the Game Informer information get out there.

Thanks for posting.

Yeah this is definitely a good idea, GW2Guru have a similar system of devtracking with the ArenaNet team and it's worked incredibly well for them!

I totally agree. Having a dedicated community team that gathers all feedback is efficient, and will ultimately result in a better game. But hearing from the developers themselves is priceless. Even if Zenimax doesn't have plans for this (but really, frequent Q&A sessions, dev blogs, etc. go a long way to make the game itself more enjoyable - don't pass this opportunity), I want to encourage every dev to post something now and then.
We really like to hear from you!

I'm glad to know that your community team will be in contact with the devs on a daily basis. I'm really looking forward to learning more about the game ZOS is making - the classes, the character custimization, the PVP details, how the Hero Engine is working out for you guys, lol so many topics of interest Thanks for the reply!

Would certainly be a nice addition whenever a dev or at least someone who knows what's going on over there chimes in. +1