As someone who has played by, enforced, and written rules and policies for servers in the past (for several games, including Conan Exiles) I can say that you do need clarity in your rules, but you also need a level of ambiguity.
For example, Iâve never seen a complaint about the following rule:
- Offensive and defamatory chat and user-created content of racial, sexual, hateful, illicit, or of other nature. This extends to character names, guild names, in-game signs, and so on.
Thereâs no list of derogatory terms. Everyone reads that and goes, âyeah that looks about right, donât be a dick to people.â But I could point out about a dozen or so comments used on a daily basis just in these forums alone that fit that description. Of course to be fair, when such terms are used they are normally used in a non-malevolent way and usually ignorantly. We DO have a very diverse community and there are phrases and terms that arenât universally offensive, so these light infractions get a pass.
However, that does make the rule vague and ambiguous. And it should be. If someone used one of those light infractions in a malevolent way they should be punished.
So letâs talk about one of the rules brought up in the OP.
This one is pretty ambiguous. It doesnât list the amount that causes loss of performance and it doesnât really define what is actually massive. But I will say this. Speaking on this rule and this rule alone. You have to go out of your way to create buildings with an excessive amount of negative space or filled in space that provides literally zero benefit to oneself. This isnât something that can accidently be breached. And I would say that there isnât many cases of someone getting dinged on this rule. If they do, then they likely deserved it.
The rule that gets the most people strung up on is this one:
On one of my last builds I did a medieval town done in Nemedian. Along the pathways I had pillars with wall braziers. It looked like a nice little lampost getup. I used them mainly around other buildings, but I also used them in areas outside of the little area leading up to it. Normal people would think such a thing would look neat, artistic, and inviting. But doing those pillars outside of my area on an official server would violate the quoted rule. Pillars exert landclaim and thus my landclaim would exist outside of my main area.
In addition the little town would likely be in violation if the buildings were too spread out. Keeping them small and within 1-2 foundations would likely be fine. But when people build towns, they normally donât build their buildings that close.
The idea behind this landclaim rule is to literally have the players build in a small as a space as they can to allow more space on the server for the hundreds of players they share their server with. The reason we do not get physical dimensions limits in hard terms is this changes based on location. An area that can reliably fit three different players/clansâ bases should be able to fit those. A slightly smaller area may only fit two, but those two can take a little more space than the first example. There is far too many instances on the map where people can build to list them all. Which is why they donât. Even then such listings would be subjective anyway.
Hereâs another one where I donât actually believe people get hit up as much as the Landclaim. But it is often contested by players as you can see directly by the OP:
Sorry to say, this statement is outright disingenuous. They are wrapped up around the term âResourcesâ. Hereâs the thing, if the word resources was omitted. Then we would have players blocking world boss spawns, rare material spawns, and even despawn every bit of brimstone on the map (this was quite common a few years ago). And then when they get hemmed up for it and actioned, theyâll claim it wasnât in the rules.
But letâs be honest here, players are always going to be disingenuous about this rule. I mean three aloe? Really, you have to ask? The fact that people even bring up aloe, stone, wood, and various other common materials that litter the ground over 60-90% of the map just goes to show they arenât being serious.
Oh but it does:
Just got to scroll down a bit.
We typically issue a 14-days temporary suspension as a way to warn and deter against repeating infractions. Any infractions beyond that will result in a longer suspension up to a permanent, non-appealable BAN from official servers.
There is definitely different ways FC can handle this situation. They could put a block limit. That has its pros and cons. Not every 5,000 block building affects things in the same way. The downside of a block limit is players will gravitate towards filling in their limit knowing (or believing) everyone else is. The whole keeping up with the joneses problem. I know this from experience, when players have limits, they fill them. When everyone fills them, you need to keep them low.
For example, an official server has probably 100-300 players on it (potentially more since most are 5 years old). If we separate that into clans its probably about 75-200 entities. You give them all a limit of 5,000 pieces, they will all start hitting that limit. Whereas yeah some may have 10,000 but many probably have far less than 5,000. Its not a good situation.
Its also why when you see private servers with limits its something crazy like 350 pieces per person (clan of 4 gets 1400 in that case). Thatâs an incredibly small limit. You all donât want that.
But again.. its not needed. As I said, massive builds arenât really a problem with people getting banned. Whenever I see the âI got banned, FC Badâ post, its about landclaim. You can net yourself a suspension based on that factor with only 5-10 building pieces used. Ironically its probably around 10 pieces errantly placed that got them into trouble, assuming they werenât actually being dicks about it, which in most cases they are. Trying to play Julius Caesar around Vercingetorix is gonna get you in trouble (if thatâs your style of play, stick to scenario based private servers).
They could try to be more specific in their rules, but as @darthphysicist pointed out, that adds time to moderation. Already the customer service guys have a pretty heinous job. When they open up a report, they have to hope the report includes:
Character name or Clan
Offending name or Clan
Offense reported
Server number
General map location
Screenshots
If any of those first five things are missing. You have an issue. Theyâll try to solve it without kicking it back to the reporter for more information if its possible. For example, if there is no screenshot but they get a map location. They can kinda float around till they find it.
A grid square in Exiled Lands is about 500mx500m. To thoroughly check an area with just a clan name given can take about 20 minutes. Screenshots will cut it down drastically, especially if there is a map dot shown in one of them at the location.
But if for example, landclaim is say a specific number of foundations. Guess what? Now the investigator has to go in, fly up to the offending structure and start counting. Have you all ever tried to count foundations on large builds? I mean if its a stupid low number like 10x10 they could do it in about a minute or two. But you all are going to be very angry if you only get a 10x10. Even a 20x20 is kinda on the small side (for a clan, alright for a solo). But if you get a 20x20, is it only 20 on a side or is it going to be 400squared? Thus 10x40, 28x14, and 25x16 and everything inbetween. Hopefully NOT 1x400 for Godâs sake. Which some of you would do if you were allotted a 400sqaured foundation limit. And then cry when banned for it.
When there is 400+ servers, and a handful of people moderating them. Some concessions have to be made for time and convenience. This is the compromises even servers with multiple full time admins even have to contend with. Do you want moderation response times in 24-72 hours, or 2-3 weeks? The faster the response, the less of a check list they need. But the more vague the rules will be.
Its very easy in some cases to make a set of rules and think youâve covered all the bases. Then come to find out that enforcing said rules is an absolute nightmare. Iâve been lucky in the past that when it comes to enforcement Iâve usually been able to make an on the spot adjustment. FC doesnât have that luxury. Not when you have several thousand players across a few hundred servers.
But one thing the players need to do is stop being disingenuous, like this:
Heâs being facetious with this, but doesnât seem to give a damn about the repercussions and consequences of said bridge. Letâs assume in this example that the bridge is NOT connected to a base. Its a building entirely meant for convenience. Oh how nice of them to build something for public use right? What if someone wanted to build in one of the spots the bridge goes over? I mean river side land area is pretty nice, you can put down fish traps and have water without needing a well, and it just looks nice. Well the bridge says no. Not only to you, but another person who wishes to build on the other side.
In this example someone just blocked two decently sized areas for theyâre own ego that prevents potentially two clans from having bases in the general area. Thatâs why that comes with hefty suspension. And it should. Thankfully the one in this example got nailed hard enough that theyâll now be on their toes in the future. Thus the rule is working as intended.
Most people actually know how to behave themselves, they just choose not to. But they get in line when they get booped on the snoot. But ego tends to make them a tad salty for it.
