About toxicity on the official servers

Brace yourself, this will be a long read.

So, after a short break I decided to jump back into CE, but this time I decided to play exclusively on the Official PvP server for once. I chose one of the most populated servers for Siptah. Surprisingly I did not immediately stumble upon the foundations spammed all over the shore area. Probably because it was a populated server and the land claim does not last here…

I am not really a PvP player, so I decided to play like usual and imagine that other players are just another type of enemies, but more unpredictable and dangerous. With that idea in mind I built my first base in a discreet area. I must admit that I had a lot of fun hiding from other players, stealing cubs from their animal pans and having this constant sense of danger while farming and exploring the island.

But at some point I figured that I eventually will have to defend my base and myself from other players, or even attack their bases, so I decided to explore how to use explosives and other things… I don’t know why instead of testing this in solo mode or watching youtube guides, I decided to test this by using one of the outposts that belonged to other players. I used explosive arrows, demon fire orbs and a few jars to remove the door from their outpost. Nothing of value was inside, but I learned that I need a ■■■■■ ton of resources just to detonate a single door, and that I need to change my farming priorities if I really want to take this route. So I built those fancy new furnaces, assigned thralls to them, built an altar and logged off.

The next day I found myself naked on the beach. I rushed to the base only to discover two guys from the clan whose door I destroyed. They were busy flattening my base. When they realized that I am standing next to them, they decided that killing a naked guy is a good idea, or maybe they just decided to teach me a lesson. In any case, my base was lost. I felt devastated, but at the same time I knew that playing on a PvP server was my very decision, so I respawned at the opposite side of the island, and started anew.

While exploring the other side of the island, I found a base that belonged to the biggest clan of the server. By the look of it, the base was abandoned, and I was allowed to dismantle it due to decay. I didn’t want to do this to not attract unwanted attention, but I messed up with the buttons and, puff, the base is gone. And only a few big loot bags remained on the ground. I picked them up, and this overencumbranced me for OVER9000 with legendaries, materials and thralls. I panicked, because I didn’t have a base or something where I could store these treasures. I knew that the clan members would notice this, so I sent a message to the members of the clan that were online. They replied that everything’s fine, this base was abandoned anyway, but they decided to come over and collect what remained anyway. We met at the spot and I gave everything back to them. They said that a lot of this is useless to them, so they returned most of it back to me and allowed me to keep it. Additionally they gave me a refrigerator and two grown up horses. While we were talking, they mentioned that the clan that destroyed my base are the enemies of the server and are local bullies, so this member of the clan offered me protection against them while I am rebuilding and getting back on my feet.

So, I started building my new base and this time I decided to focus on protection rather than discretion. Not really hiding from other players, I soon ran across two horsemen who weren’t hostile at first, but as I approached, they killed me. This was not far from my new base, so I respawned and at my base. I saw them standing next to my horse and the dead body. By the look of it they were preparing to attack my base (it was that time of the day), but for some reason they did not kill my horse and did not loot my corpse. So I messaged them, why they killed me but didn’t kill the horse. Was it a mistake or is there some code of honor that dictates not to kill animals? They replied that this was a mistake, the thought that I was from an enemy clan because I am wearing their colors. They apologized, we talked and apparently they were allies with this big clan that helped me before.

After that I built a ramp that was helping to traverse the rough part of the terrain on the route to the nearest Leyshrine not far from my base. I’ve seen a lot of players use this route, and passing this route using a horse was difficult. So I built this ramp, and this route became much easier and faster. Additionally I placed a chest near the ramp and a sign in four different languages asking players to share and donate something to other players. And since a lot of players were using this route, this chest almost never was empty. Players were sharing a lot of useful things, including stuff that I never knew is existing in the game…

A few days later my base was raided by that other clan that caused some troubles on the server. They stole everything that the big clans donated to me, but the base itself was almost unharmed. So I rebuilt pretty quickly. And two days after they attacked the clan that helped me before while they were offline. I decided to intervene even though I didn’t have much and called the big clan for help. They were few at that time but they’ve come to help anyway, and we tried to defend the allied clan’s base, but we didn’t do much, because the raiding hours ended. This was enough for me to lose my best thrall and a horse and all of my arrows and bows. To compensate that, the big clan invited me to their base and unlocked two vaults for me, and allowed me to collect anything that I need from there. They also gave me some thralls and pets. And a few days after that they invited me to their clan…

Long story short. What’s about toxicity, you might ask… Where is it?

Exactly. While playing on official servers I discovered that the general CE PvP community is open and welcoming. The basic rules of human interaction and respect are working in the game world as well, you just need to talk to people and not be afraid to ask for help. From my experience Conan PvPers are willing to help and defend those who are week and don’t like those who act like an ***hole. I am enjoying my time with the big clan. They have a lot of friends, and a lot of enemies. But most of them are not enemies enemies, but more like competitors. You know, like sports. I am not saying that there are no toxic players, of course there are. But there are even more players who don’t like toxic behavior and are willing to protect the server and the solo players from it. And I hope my experience proves it. Just talk to the players, ask for help, make some friends, and the PvP experience will be hell of fun.

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That is inspiring story. Thanks for writing it.

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Awesome to see these kind of things. Gives me hope for those times when my kids hop on to official servers that there’s peeps out there who aren’t total jackwads.

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Great to hear of camaraderie on the pvp servers.

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I want people to read the OP again. Specifically this part:

A misunderstanding that was quickly rectified. Why? Because the OP communicated. Too often will something like this happen and instead of talking, someone gets offended and then it turns into a tit for tat situation or feud.

PVPers are NOT all trolls. No more than PVEer’s can be. PVPers do not login every time thinking about who’s day they are going to mess up. They login like the rest of you, thinking about what resources or thralls they are going to farm. What boss route they are going to take. They PVE just like PVEer’s do.

The only difference is when they meet other players. They have to have their guard up. Also in PVP you can’t simply be a jerk and ninja loot or hog a bunch of stuff. There can be consequences for acting that way. You see… here’s a dirty little secret. PVEer’s pvp as much as PVPer’s do. They just do so without any consequence.

But your average PVPers, when not dealing with bullies or trolls, is very respectful, communicative, and they don’t tend to infringe on each other. The old saying is, “an armed society is a polite society.” And this couldn’t be more true on a PVP server. As any sort of slight could be perceived as a threat.

I’ve talked about a similar story before where a clan had attacked a clanmate of mine and took his stuff. When their leadership found out, those guys were heavily chastised for it. And one of their officers came to us, apologized, gave the stolen stuff and offered to work for us for a day out of penance. That started a pretty cool friendship.

The ability to talk to your potential opponents and allies is what makes PVP as great as it is. Its not simply your skill at clicking someone to their respawn point. There is far more to it than that. Its making allies, friends, and even when it comes down to it, extortion and coercion. Because let’s face it, eventually rivalries will pop up. Even among the good intentioned. And PVP gives them an outlet for that.

At the end of the day we are playing a game. And sometimes we compete. When you see people fighting somewhere, its not always because someone is bullying or trolling. Its no different than going to a local park and seeing some young guys playing basketball.

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Can’t agree more. The other day when we were defending our base, I though that this reminds me of my childhood a lot. The enemies were at the gate placing jars, and I was shooting them from the distant wall and figuring how can I get there and quickly repair the damage. This reminded me of the game that we played when we were kids, when we were building a fortress out of scrap and carton boxes in the the courtyard and then played attack and defense. This is basically the same. Today you attack and we defend. Tomorrow we attack and you defend.

And yeah, communication is the key. There are a lot of players who just want to play with us out there.

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Quite right. My base was fairly looted a few weeks ago. I identified the hole, fixed it, searched for the culprits, identified a hole, took advantage, then went back and left a note in a box near their gap about how I got in and took my stuff back. No blasting, no killing. Not everything needs to devolve into a server-wide war.

I even enjoyed a fairly good laugh when my son fell into their un-escapable base trap.

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Read it. Yup this mirrors my experiences on the Asian servers to a tee!

Most people are cool! Most players are people! Most in-game encounters are with cool people. :slight_smile:

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Good story, I was reading it wondering whether it was fan fiction or some sort of role-playing event at first.

Too many players and forum warriors of Conan throw around the word toxic without understanding it’s meaning. To haphazardly label other players as toxic, (without direct proof of toxicity), IMHO is naive, unjust and unfair.

Just because someone does something that you don’t agree with, doesn’t make them toxic, as long as they are not cheating, hacking, under-meshing etc and are playing within the rules of the game, (and the spirit of the rules, as defined by the devs, NOT the players), then once again IMHO, they are not only not toxic, but they are in the end making the game more challenging and more fun.

Remember, without enemies, you are just playing on a PVE/PVE-C server.

P.S. I’m not disparaging PVE/PVE-C servers, merely pointing out that if there is no danger on a PVP server, then it is not a PVP server.

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