Funcom, time to end the debate. Server TOS

I would argue, so what?

The idea that because the reporter is doing something wrong, that the one reported is automatically innocent, is absurd.

If someone reports in bad faith there is two outcomes:

  1. They reported frivolously. Then potentially run afoul of the false report policy.
  2. They report in bad faith, however the one reported IS breaking a rule and is actioned.

If the one investigating the report finds proof of wrong doing, then they have every right to act on it. In all my time being an admin myself, most of my actions I took against players usually werenā€™t from initial reports, but from issues Iā€™ve seen surrounding the area in a report.

Heck there were times where the one reporting was the one I took action on because they gave me the wrong evidence. Meaning they showed they were the ones breaking a rule. Complete with their discord chat being audible in the video of them discussing how they were going to break said rule. Suffice to say, players who break rules are no where near as clever as they think they are.

Iā€™m certain FC goes through this all the time. Iā€™d even wager this report meta complaint is mainly by people who tried to use it, got themselves hemmed up because their own house isnā€™t clean and then complain because they think someone else reported them first.

And yes I believe this to be way more common than it sounds. Its not uncommon for people to complain that others are doing something they either have done themselves or plan to do themselves.

So I do believe false reports happen, but usually by those who complain about it. And even if they donā€™t, well some rule was found to be broken. As @CodeMage pointed out a few times in this thread. The ones making these complaints arenā€™t trustworthy.

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While I agree in principal, I do not believe we can expect a practical solution from Funcom. There is no monetization in server moderation. I do not state this as a slight or a criticism, but as a fact.

The best path I have found is spinning up personal servers, either rented or using the dedicated app for the PC.

No matter how much we wish Funcom would give us a defined ruleset, that is unlikely to happen.

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In other words pay to play

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Mild quibble.
The Console crowd is the captive audience here.
There are no other options for us, no modded servers with better or equivalent options.
No emberlight, no northern timber, no dudes delightfulā€¦ ect.
Especially if they were doubling down (monetization wise) on the year old statement that the majority of players were on console, this would be an easy target with no competition.

That said, alienating the rp/builder community on PC is not a thing that would make senseā€¦

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As someone who initially purchased all the DLCs and only plays Official PVP, I can assure you I would love to add more assets to my immersion from a vanilla standpoint :slight_smile: Iā€™m a bit of a sucker for this stuff; love the variety in the game and I appreciate the art and work that went into it.

What stops me short with placeables IS literally the ToC. If I put too many I am breaking the rules. I donā€™t know what the limit is so I avoid those niceties in favor of using whatever the measure is of the ā€œrightā€ amount to allow PVP mechanisms. So I would choose to have those things if I could or if I wanted to spend more money. Iā€™m also choosing PVP over what I guess is an ā€œRPā€ element? Nevermind the sandbox partā€¦

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That is what this thread is all about.

Hiding a problem does not solve it. Why on earth do you think it does?

Yes, I use it as a prime example of all the things wrong with PVP.

You do know putting a sicker over your check engine light doesnā€™t fix the car, right?

You do get PVP players are less then 20% of the over all player base, right? So a good majority of us donā€™t have that option.

I run afoul of that quite often :wink:

Agree,

We are unamused.

Hate to agree with that, butā€¦

I sort of am, and Iā€™m a COB. Now itā€™s is a sub to neebs family servers which is more then JUST Conan, and is as much a fan thing. What I get is a direct line to admin.

Now if you know me you know me to repeat myself. I will fervently maintain a game developers official servers should be a shining example of what the game should be. Yet what funcom hands us is anything but.

My opinoin in order to cut down the ā€œwell I think itā€™s a TOS violationā€ reports they need to define what is and isnā€™t a TOS violation. As well as punish flagrant abusers of the system.

Not ban the report abuser but give them ever longer time outs from the reporting system. WITH an explanatory Email ā€œDude, calm down, take a kneeā€.

Iā€™ve talked with a quite a few players that live to decorate. Before I stepped back from the Conan discord; no I was not banned, I talked with a couple of whales for decorations :wink: And I donā€™t think anyone is sure how much is too much. Is it when it lags my machine down; i7 nvidia 1060 6gig, or when it lags the machine down I want; i9 and a 4090? At what point does it lag the server?

Now I try to keep my base as FPS friendly as I can. But I donā€™t see you lagging my poor old rig down as a TOS violation. I see it as a reminder I B Poe :smile:

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I understand the fact that we have a voice in here! But these 18 persons, plus me 19 should not expect to represent the voice of the thousands players playing in official servers! Even if all the members that visiting the last days this forum, come to this conversation, still it will be a tragic minority.
So Funcom itā€™s time to end the debateā€¦ says who???
These 19 persons including me ???
This is all my participation on a post that starts with a title like this.
Farewell!

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Eh, I ended the debate by opening my own server. Done with officials a long time ago. Now we build as we please and the only reason to look over ur should is to see if Iā€™m floating around all god-like ready to oull a prank :grin:

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Oh I can assure you only a very few people here think they speak for any save themselves.
Most of us are well aware that on average only 10% of the player base actually ever visit the forum; and a good portion of those are here to gripe :smile:

One point you missed is the 84 people that agree with my OP and liked it. :wink:

None the less, I think if you had a log in questioner youā€™d find we do represent the player base.

The whole topic had 85 replies and 84 likes in these replies as total to all these replies ā€¦
You are funny m8 :rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

And the ocean isnā€™t actually blue, so what is your point?

OK so lets do thisā€¦again.

1)For those that say ā€˜In PVP, you should be able to take care of it yourselves and are cowardly/weak if you reportā€™ā€¦blah blah blah. Look, I work, I raise my kids, I try to be a good husbandā€¦I am not logging into a game about Conan just to demo their crap for 3 hours just so I can actually get to the position of a normal raid. I really donā€™t care about the machismo BS criticism over it. Iā€™m old and donā€™t care what you think about me. You build in a way that is against the intent of the ToS, Iā€™ll report you because time is becoming more and more of a precision thing with each passing year. Itā€™s that simple. Deal

  1. The idea of private servers being the solution is just a retreat strategy no different than the Tolkien elves. If officials are abandoned, the console side of things would dry up. Sure there are private servers but to get that rare gem of a good server that people keep saying is around just isnā€™t statistically viable. The fact is that the game needs both PC and console to continue and push to private would kill console and therefore the game.

  2. Vagueness. Yes all regs have vagueness in them to allow regulators/administrators leeway to actually do their jobs. This is nothing new but that does give a degree of uncertainty and the regulators/companies set these based on what they want to seeā€¦do you risk giving some people the unfair advantages and be more lenient or do you enforce and risk enforcing on someone that was within the intent of the ToS? This is the real debate here and I flip flop between the two different aspects dailyā€¦sometimes hourly depending on which server Iā€™m scouting.

  3. Build limits. Just stop. Time and time again throughout the whatā€¦going on 2 years of enforcement FC has officially said that the amount of foundations is not the issue they are seeing and its not this metric that is getting enforced on. I bet real money that itā€™s placeables such as lighting, crafting stations, and storage chests that are the real issues here because they are what makes a base a lag beast. Itā€™s not the 10K foundations that is the issue but the 10 furnaces churning out brick or the 20 cauldrons pumping out steelfire/dragon powder or the chest/resource organization or the lighting the tower you just build or a combo of it all. As the game evolves, this gets worse as new stuff gets put in there. I know the minute I put in a transport stone down, i got some loading lag so I adjusted my build to stop that.

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@stelagel, bless your so often optimistic soul.

We shouldnā€™t further seek to divide ourselves in this. We should come together in a consensus if only to talk.

You and others are right in that there is only a very small portion of the community as whole participating on the forums. I agree that this does not mean that just because we do, we should be the ones to influence change if it doesnā€™t fit into the vision of the company notwithstanding those who have not given their voice.

But, these discussions are a great way to figure out things. Perceptions, opinions and ideals can be presented, debunked, realized and minds changed.

While I would hope Funcom already knew there were issues with the verbiage of their own rules, they have indeed communicated that theyā€™re not optimal, and that they are working on improving them. Maybe, just maybe, if it wasnā€™t for many of us on the forums coming forward to speak on this, they wouldnā€™t have said anything or provided this information. Maybe I am dreaming that our voices are being heard. Maybe. But that little tiny tidbit of information re-instilled some of my confidence.

For every time @DeaconElie and I have disagreed, I commend them for circling back to this very important discussion.

Letā€™s see that optimism that you usually have come back, eh?

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Its the combination of everything. Building pieces, storage, thralls, lights, location, something Iā€™m forgetting; all in the mix together to one degree or another hurt performance, for either the client and/or the server. What specific thing breaks the ToS at a base can vary from person to person. Avoid excess. Respect your neighbor. Treat the server as a public place should be treated. Be a good neighbor.

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Iā€™m not sure if you missed the post later in that thread where Umborls explained what the comment about official servers really meant, but Iā€™ll reproduce the explanation here:

In other words, official servers are meant to be the ā€œreal gameā€, in the sense that they are how the devs imagine playing the game. Theyā€™re not just the ā€œtutorial/noob zoneā€, theyā€™re what devs envision and optimize for. Everyone is free to tweak and change the game as much as possible on their own servers, in single-player, or in co-op, with or without the help of mods, with or without their own admin rules.

The devs recognize that the number of private servers outstrips the number of official servers by a large margin, but that doesnā€™t change the purpose of the official servers, which is to experience the multiplayer aspect of the game the way devs envision it.

Again, letā€™s quote the ā€œshift to private serversā€ bit here and look at it:

On its face, it almost sounds like they want to get rid of official servers and have people go to private servers, right? But that completely ignores the whole context given in the ā€œwhy?ā€ section. Iā€™m not going to reproduce that section in its entirety, but hereā€™s what I consider to be the salient part:

That completely changes the meaning of the ā€œshift to private serversā€ part, doesnā€™t it? Basically, it says ā€œMany people donā€™t like our official servers and migrate to privates, which leaves the official servers underpopulated, and playing on a server with only a couple other players is not how we envision the game should be played.ā€

If anything, that bit confirms that the official servers arenā€™t a tutorial/noob zone, and are supposed to represent the devsā€™ vision of this game.

So why do they expect the ā€œshift to private serversā€ to continue? I can think of a couple of explanations. The more idealistic one is that they understand that mods and settings provide a myriad of ways to play this game, and itā€™s quite natural that players will seek their own niche in that variety. The more jaded one is that they know official servers just canā€™t handle the game, due to performance problems and insufficient moderation capacity.

None of that changes the fact that the official servers are the ā€œreal gameā€, however unloved that experience might end up being.

No more than Minecraft or Terraria.

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I disagree with the title @Kikigirl !
I donā€™t disagree with DeaconElie, tho he get it this way, but itā€™s ok :+1:t6:.
Like you said Kiki, my enthusiasm here is over limits!
Deacon once said that my optimism is a healofadrug :rofl::rofl::rofl:. I agree.
But take it friendly, as it always comes from me!
We get them tired and itā€™s obvious! We, all of us, none out of it! We keep pressing, the same issuesā€¦ They make all their schedules out of this forum Kiki, we are the last to be informed! The last to know!
Why???
Because we think that we can boss them!
Thatā€™s why!
The voice we have in here itā€™s been given politely!
We must never forget this and ofcurce be polite to them also!
You have all my support, I am on players side, but not in the rude form of the player, only in the kind! Ask, wish, dream, even suggest, complain and Iā€™ll be there with you always! This is all we can do here, not point them how to do it!
But anyways, I love you all and you know that, nonetheless! All of you here are my friends, my lovely daily habit. But guys we lost ground, we press too much!

A lot things must be better in official servers!
I like the original suggestion that @Ragnaguard did really long ago and he keeps remind it!
People must be warned!

I loved the artistic persistence of @CodeMage to save the ā€œvillagesā€ from the rules!

I am in with all the suggestions, always supportive! Because I am a player. I know nothing about coding, programming, etcā€¦ All I know is how to play!
To this I am good, not pro, not exceptional, just good! I canā€™t play on official servers the last month because of my consoles, but make no mistake, this doesnā€™t mean that I donā€™t play on official servers! Every week I will play at least 20 hours in official servers, but the most of the game play will beā€¦
Crushā€¦
Log in again deadā€¦
Go collect my things and in five minutes again crushā€¦
Log in dead againā€¦
This time my thrall and my horse died tooā€¦
Go collect my things againā€¦
After 3 hours your fun is long gone, so letā€™s connect to a private server to relax a bit :wink:.
I am a maā€¦ t I know, but I love officials, especially when some days I crush only 2 or 3 times in 3 hoursā€¦ Tragic I know, but I do patience, there is nothing more I can do for now :pensive:.

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I ran the rules through an analysis for reading level. Maybe you all have a point, its considered a 10th Grade reading level. A little bit above the average readerā€™s level. They should consider using words with less syllables and less words per sentence to make it more inclusive and understandable.

Asking for clarity hurts noone, and just as you read something a certain way doesnt mean everyone else does.
And quite honestly the aloof in your answers is getting tiresome.

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Would you suggest a player go to official servers for the best and most complete experience playing Conan Exiles?

We have read the same thing and come to very different conclusions.
This one, between those threads and explanations of enforcement, sees an admission of a deliberately stripped down experience that is secondary in the minds of those developing the game. Otherwise, it gives the lie to the encouragement to build ā€œmassive structuresā€. Or are all our building competitions to be considered using the game outside of how the devs intended? If the intent has always been to live in narrow spires, why was it only in the time between when the mergers drank half the server base and the coming of the Age of Sorcery that enforcement started?

Also, note that none of the Private servers for console, to this oneā€™s knowledge, are running mods, something about not having mods on console, but we digress.

If the current way officials are run is the vision of the game, itā€™s a tragic game. One whose potential far outstrips itā€™s mastersā€™ capabilities and vision.

Introductory and noob zoon were bitter hyperbole. Disingenuous on this oneā€™s part. But it is a deliberately stunted experience. If the way officials are regulated is the way the game is intended to be played, then the intended game is a thing of small merit.

This one is bitter because of the waffling and half measures. They can grow building exclusion zones to better regulate officials, with an admin toggle to disable for privates and single player. Yet when asked for other such options itā€™s oh no we donā€™t design with officials in mind and instead leave the burden on players to divine our deliberately vague rules and (what this one imagines is an understaffed and overworked group of) administrators to regulate it.
They declare something such as build massive structures or the game isnā€™t designed with officials in mind, then spend paragraph after paragraph walking it back and dissembling it.

So perhaps this one has chosen to take them at face value because reading deeper gives the impression of every conniving functionary in some decadent empire that was heel when they appeared in the source material.
Or perhaps reading deeper reveals there is no truth and itā€™s all just so much smoke and mirrors over a system that, as always, boils down to because the person in authority says so and no other position matters.

Also, this one is cranky because the game has been in a deplorable state since 3.0 on the platform this one plays on with no relief in sight.

This one isnā€™t amused either.
Which is bitter irony as a game should be amusing.

Can we, all, even agree what this means?

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