Yes and no. Keep in mind that the Zendesk crew do not act without a report. So if no one is reporting anyone then nothing happens.
PVE also doesn’t have the added issue of raid time bogging down performance from raid actions; gods, bombs, fights, thralls in combat, sorcery, purges, etc.,… all happening at the same time.
ALL gportal servers are crap.
I had my PvE base wiped on siptah and got suspended. They never gave a definitive reason since the message never updated, but I believe it’s because I had a couple fancy torches to keep neighbors from surrounding me too closely (high traffic area), a large base (but no shrines), and a bridge. They hate bridges and “decorative land claim” items. So yeah, we’re getting it too. It only really happens when it gets reported. High traffic areas are more likely to get reported though because those areas lag out easier and are seen by other players regularly. If someone doesn’t like you there, they’ll report you. I actually had to report a massive bridge with a castle that was being built literally right next to me because I couldn’t visit my base without crashing. I felt bad about doing it though, since I doubt the player was being malicious. They just didn’t know any better. Though I attempted to contact them about it when they first started, but I received no response and it kept getting bigger. I had no choice.
I think the real crux of the problem is no matter what set of rules or procedures are put into place, folks will try to find ways to either circumvent them, or argue they did not commit the offense they are accused of.
The only viable solution that I can see, is a more communication based approach between the Company and the Player.
Unfortunately, this would require some staff and resources in order be executed well, and even then it will often times devolve into a he said/she said type conversation.
I don’t really know if this can ever be solved satisfactorily.
A warning to start would be going in the right direction.
How do you propose this type of activity be conducted?
To be clear, I don’t disagree that things could be better than what they are. However, after all the back and forths on this subject in numerous topics from a variety of angles, there doesn’t seem to be much folks can agree upon other than “the way things are now are not great”
I suggest an actual option to link to a Funcom account. In the event you get admin intervention, they can send you a warning of 48 hrs to resolve. It can really just be a quick check box system on their end that says “your build at [insert coordinates] on server [insert number here] has been flagged for violation of TOS you have 48 hours to fix the following issues [list of common violations here and/or custom message]. Should you ignore this or not comply without reasonable cause, all of your builds on the server will be removed and you will face [insert duration of suspension or possibly permanent banishment here].” Then they click send and done. It flags the message in their system to require review in 48 hours, as well as a string of messages from the player, then pass judgment. Simple as that. For those of us that are bad at checking our email, there can also be a message that states to check your registered email for important admin message upon attempting to go online. Beyond all that, if someone chooses to NOT link their account, it’ll just be a final judgment without grace. The TOS can even state that so it’s a warning to everyone.
Isn’t the warning system a form of communication between the company and the player?
Add an in-game system where an admin can leave a message for the clan. Display the message to the clan members upon login. This system can then be used to issue a warning before taking action.
I am not sure what you mean exactly here, so I am not sure how best to reply.
I like this suggestion.
Since folks have unique IDs on PlayStation and X-box, I was thinking using that as a way of communication might be a good way to go. Does the PC side of things have something similar that could be utilized?
I meant that this topic proposes a system that would allow the admins to issue warnings to players who are breaking the TOS before taking actions against those players, and those warnings would be a form of communication between the company and the player.
No. And the reason why I proposed adding an in-game system is precisely to avoid adding something like that.
Right now, FLS (Funcom Live Services) accounts don’t have the players’ e-mail associated with them. From what I’ve seen, Funcom would like to keep it that way, and I agree with that, for reasons I already described earlier.
Fortunately, having an e-mail (or any other piece of PII) associated with your Funcom account is completely unnecessary for this proposal. Simply having an admin warning displayed to you when you log onto your server should be good enough.
ok then, yes the warning system would be a form of communication.
I have advocated for something similar to this in the past in other discussions.
I think an educate and respond approach is as best as any of the ideas I have seen proposed thus far.
What is lacking the most currently from my perspective is timely informative communication regarding what is being perceived as the offense, and what the context of the determined punishment actually is.
If they don’t want to do that, they can make a custom rcon command to give a warning message to XY player whenever they log in. Much like how the ToS information appears now.
That would also imply the user acknowledged the message by clicking okay 
While it’s not a good idea to solve “admin” problems with a development approach, this one fits imo as they would be developing the admin tools that would make both the admin job an easier one and improve player satisfaction (hopefully).
However I see nothing wrong with attaching emails to FC accounts either I seem to recall playing a number of games in the past that allow effortless single-player / multi-player but if you wish to play on certain servers it requires an additional registration, so that would work too.
Some of you already know my stance on it:
If somebody is trying to cheat / hack / exploit / be malicious in any way shape or form, then I fully support their instant and permanent ban… people just need to learn to play nice… period
So what we’re talking here about is to make the system less brutal to the ones who REALLY didn’t do anything wrong (and not the ones who SAY they didn’t)… and I fully support that!
That said, to play devil’s advocate… it’s also possible that this warning system could turn into just another thing for the “naughty” ones to exploit… like "Bruh… I have 2 more warnings left, I’m fine to stack all these torches… "… that’s something to consider too…
That’s only if the warning system is also a 3-strike system. It could just be a message along the lines of “You have done [a bad thing] at [location], you have [N] days to comply or your buildings will be deleted and your whole clan will be suspended from all official servers for [M] days.” And then, if you haven’t fixed the problem, they follow through
Have we reached the point as a community that we are willing to accept a less efficient system (in terms of actual deletion) for the sake of “innocent” players?
Even a one warning system means something like double the time to deal with an infraction.
It’s not like Zendesk has a great reputation for speedy dispensary of judgment as is stands. I get that the rules aren’t fully defined and are not presented in game(I really… really do…). Wouldn’t solving those two things be more effective solutions? Something… Something…Ounce of prevention saves a pound of cure…
Or are we at the point now where we just don’t think FC is capable or willing to do the former and are protecting ourselves/fellow players from their ignorance/malice?
Pretty much that. According to the latest rumors, people have figured out all sorts of ways to game the status quo.
Bear in mind, I’m not saying that the majority of people getting banned these days are innocent. It’s perfectly plausible that a lot of them are guilty and just don’t understand how they’re breaking the rules, because Funcom doesn’t give them enough info – or even any info, unless they explicitly request it – about their infractions. So right off the bat, you have a system where people who break the rules are somewhat likely to break them again out of ignorance.
Why is that bad? After all, if guilty people are getting punished, then the system might be “cruel”, but “fair”. Thing is, there has been plenty of concrete evidence that Funcom just can’t deal with the volume of reports they get. Having repeat offenders and a lot of confusion about the rules is part of the reason why that volume is high. Taking steps to solve those things would also reduce the volume.
Quite separately from that – and off-topic for this thread – is the fact that the malicious players have realized they can game the system by submitting tons of spurious reports to gum up the review process. That also needs to be dealt with, but that’s a completely different topic.
So yeah, at this point a lot of people are convinced that Funcom isn’t up to task. 
This is already happening.
That’s perfectly fair, I suspected there had been a tone shift given the comments from long time posters.
If that is the case, I’m still a little hung up on the details of a warning system. They are incapable, so we ask of them more work? Shouldn’t we just ask them to take their hands off like it was before?
I guess a warning system is something like an in between of those. Are we working under the assumption that the Zendesk failings are largely due to players spamming false reports? I trust you when you say there is compelling evidence to suggest so.
If that’s is the case I would think linking you to your reports would mostly solve that issue. It’s the warning part that I’m not sure solves the issue of mistrust in the system. I guess two passovers gives them a better chance to make a good decision, and you at least get to feel like you tried not to get banned. Is that sufficient?
I wish transparency in rules and rulings were an option…
I guess the idea behind the warning system is to start educating the playerbase somehow.
Personally, I support the idea of warning players before taking action, but the problem it has is exactly what you pointed out: it adds even more work.
I’ve argued before that the most important thing Funcom could and should do is provide detailed and useful information about the infraction after taking action, because that would help educate them without adding more workload.
Whether before or after, Funcom really needs to start providing that information. The sooner the better.
I’m not sure if it’s largely due to that, but it seems to be a growing problem, at the very least.
Part of the evidence is that I see more complaints than ever about how reports are getting auto-closed. Another is a post – I don’t have time right now to search for it, but I’ll try to remember to do so later – where someone said something along the lines of players on official PVP servers boasting about it.
Yep. And there are two ways to do so. One is to simply require an e-mail address for your Funcom account, and the other is to make sure TOS infraction reports are submitted in-game and go through the server, so they’re linked to your Funcom account and you can’t spoof the reporter. Both of those would allow Funcom to actually follow through on their (currently empty) threats of punishing people for false reports.
Yep. That’s why it’s so important for them to start saying how you broke the rules.
100%
Like, how is the generic copy/paste that they gave all of us educational. Ok, fine, thanks for the suspension message and email that are practically the same. We already knew we broke landclaim rules somehow, somewhere, over the ■■■■■■■ rainbow or some such in time? But how? What ACTUALLY happened that made them use that hammer?
crickets
That makes good sense to me. I suppose I could have posited my question more clearly at the start: If we had a solution to false reports and a solution to rule/ruling ambiguity, what problem would a warning system solve?
As you say it has a good chance of syphoning players and coercing them to interact with the rules. This could reduce the amount of players with no knowledge of the rules, or at least serve as a place to point when those players cry foul.
I’m 100% percent for more transparency from FC, I’ve been graffitiing that on these walls for a long time. Same goes for false reports, thats beyond lame. Im not fully convinced the juice is worth the squeeze on warnings, but I can certainly see the merits in your points. I didn’t read much pushback when catching up and my fear is that FC might only take away “warning system”, when really I think the other two points are the crux of the issue.