Even when you have the best of intentions it can come back to slap you in the face.
I recall a few instances where particular servers had a consistent issue with paving over brimlake and despawning the nodes like you’re mentioning.
Since reports seemed to rarely fix the problem in the long run some players claimed the lake being careful not to despawn anything to prevent griefers from having that opportunity.
Except those players got slapped with suspensions instead.
So a failure of the company to properly moderate their servers and punish those who took matters into their own hands. Mind you I have not seen this particular issue in a very long time. Perhaps education and enforcement did work to a degree; but I err on side of decline in population. But, definite no no.
More instances of vigilante protections are: building a large wall to prevent kiting bosses, exploiting purge mechanics or other exploits that kill followers. Considered as discretionary but advised against.
What is particularly contentious to some are providing some QoL and entertainment for the server: like maprooms, elevator at Sinkhole or alike, noob centers, transportory networks, arenas, bridges, decorative builds such as boats, etc.,… This much more difficult to pinpoint as not all are necessarily infractions; the clarification on these is lacking but some supporting documentation advising against a few of these. But again, it is discretionary, not necessarily reviewed entirely and/or a part of the holistic approach.
There’s a big issue with vigilantism especially when it comes to building. In every example you gave, while they may have hindered the bad actors from doing their thing. They also hindered legit players from playing the game in the way they wanted to as well.
Walling off Brimstone so cheaters don’t despawn it, prevents people from getting brimstone, relying on the availability and ‘benevolence’ of those who control it. Building walls to prevent kiting bosses prevents bad actors from using those bosses to harass others, but also prevents those from kiting the bosses as a legitimate strategy to defeat them. And then the infamous quality of life builds providing pathways that also simultaneously crowd the map with landclaim. What one considers an obstacle another may consider a building opportunity.
Suspensions were warranted to get the attention of said players that what they are doing is harmful to other players, even if the initial intentions were good. Where FC screwed up was not actioning them sooner.
And this here is the problem I’m trying to get across, the ruins aren’t no builds and are actually allowed to be built in, but when someone reports it to Zendesk it’s not allowed to build there.
My original point was that Funcom in general just choose the easy option when it comes to moderation and ban people who build at a POI almost instantly but take up to 2 weeks if sometimes at all to ban a clan of cheaters when there has been video evidence aswell as event log screenshots.
This stuff I completely 100% agree with you on since this kind of mindless building is just selfish because they don’t think how it will affect server performance and client side performance of other people.
If this happens on PvP servers then they deserve even worse things to happen to them because big fancy role play stuff like that has no place being on a competitive server since the game already runs bad enough with all the mindless content Funcom added to the game without fully optimising.
If what you mean by this is like a real restriction on where bannable locations are and a building limit on how many pieces you can have on the server at any one time then yes I 1 million percent think this would be a step in the right direction for server performance aswell as cutting the number of reports submitted in half allowing them to as you said focus on the more important tasks like battling cheaters
I would say a good portion of investigations that resulted in suspension/bans were for actual violations.
Like: building in a POI but overbuilt so much that it can’t be discovered.
So the problem isn’t building in the POI itself, it’s the blocking.
Take Crevice where around it there’s multiple POIs and unique spawns. Afaik, this is the only pig baby spawn, the only place where you can get the goat bow and there’s the bear ghost in the back plus the POI for Crevice itself in the bowl entrance. Easy to avoid if you stay within the caves. Easy to overbuild affecting unique content if you don’t.
Controversially has been touted as a pathway by other players.
So this leads to some believing that it’s having built in the POI when really they thought “oh this is just a stupid goat, NBD”.
The biggest problem after the conclusion is no explanation. Because, well, Funcom.
Then of course this “holistic” strategy of collecting reports which I have witnessed positively innocent clans get admin wiped simply because there were spam reports put in for the server.
Further to volume of reports affecting meaningful investigations are those who advise others on here to submit a report for “Funcom to sort it out”. Wow. They really don’t know what that implies, house in order or not.
FWIW, I’m pretty sure there’s also a pig baby spawn by the big pig opposite Devil’s Squat. Not that that changes anything much, but just in case someday the long-awaited pet fix makes pigs the new ‘must have’ follower
It’s down to common sense in regards to building stuff. If you want to build a magnificent enormous city, do it on a private server or single player. On Official? Remember you’re not the only player there, do you really need those 6 thousand torches to light your base so it’s bright enough to be seen from orbit? Don’t block off resources or dungeon access points. Build cleverly around POI and lore stones so it doesn’t hinder travel from point A to B or that bit of light reading.
They are human and thus as corruptible and duplicitous as anyone else with some scrap of authority.
They are either paid staff who cost money or volunteers who are beholden to no schedule or performance
Robustly administrated servers by persons of at least passing impartiality cost money.
Significantly more than server that are barely, if ever, administered by whoever whenever with no standards or consistency.
Especially with Dune dropping soon, what is Funcom 's financial incentive to ensure just governance here?
It’s a situation on par with what Hollywood wants people to believe the “Wild West” was like. Sparsely governed wilderness filled with murder and robbery, where there is no reliable source of law and order. Sure there may be a sheriff roll in, but are they a swell feller, or are they just a hired gun for a hanging judge whose motive is murder but who enjoys the legitimacy of the whig?
Not to be a stick in the mud but, is the difference between “hacking/exploit” reports and building reports not clearly just PROOF?
Proving building infractions: easy. Beyond doubt.
Proving cheats/hacks/exploits: can be extremely difficult to do so irrefutably.
In the one instance I reported clips of a player exploiting, I was essentially told they were aware of the exploit. I responded and asked should I continue to report it should I encounter it again, to which they said NO.
Often people who report see just the tree. Zendesk looks after all the forest.
Last week i was speaking with a friend about the huge fire we had in our island last year.
He was telling me with passion that firemen are useless and volunteers did more. In all the stories he said speaking life a hobbyist fisherman about the huge fish he catch, he said one that i clearly remember and i believe that this was the only true story i listen.
He tried to save his house from flames and he charged in his yard trying to stop the fire with the 1/2 inch water hose . Of course smoke made him dizzy and lost his senses. The next thing he remembers was the bucket of water waking him up. The firefighters dragged him out of the fire… Of course!
And we speak about a person that weights 140 kilos …
All people don’t want this. Maybe people on officials do and maybe there’s some kind of more fine-tuned setting that could be created. But currently, there’s no build zones and there’s not. That’s it. So if Funcom makes all POI areas non-build zones it affects everyone, including people on private servers who may have different rules and not care about people building on POI areas.
It’s important to consider all the different types of people who play and try to design rules/limitations in a way that is acceptable for all of them.
This is not the issue, though. The main serious problems are the paid hacks that come with a suite of capabilities. Far be it for me to advertise them, let’s just say depending on how much one wants to spend per month, the continuum goes from basic speed/magnet all the way to Admin Panel.
These are delivered in the form of cracked game files, and typically with a STEAM ID that must be used with it. I have myself done some investigation, in case you missed my earlier post. I’m trying to not draw attention to the bad guys here.
I can say I’m very close friends with players who are taking it upon themselves to mash the meshers, to outgrow the glitchers and to grass roots this piece. However it only goes so far, and only the truly tough will persist after an obvious ESP attack/theft of their way hidden Lucky Charms.
From my experience and personal ridealongs (In Conan and SCUM), Admins often feel they must do what @Taemien envisions, to ghost and catch them in the act. However, that’s only provenance, and likely useful in a Community that might brand an Admin as unfair.
With the “hacks,” though, in every case on my own Conan Servers, it is clear when and how a thing was done illegally. In other words, Admins have data proof in many many cases, without a need for video evidence.
. Of course smoke made him dizzy and lost his senses. The next thing he remembers was the bucket of water waking him up. The firefighters dragged him out of the fire… Of course!
