So, this conversation has gone on a lot longer than I had anticipated it would and has taken some seriously odd turns.
I want to sum up my position.
I don’t like the updated TOS
I stopped playing on official servers
I don’t care if folks like my building style and projects
I am not responsible for, nor do I care about, your game experience
If folks don’t like the way I play the game, find a different server
Now, certain people will go apoplectic over items 3, 4, and 5. They need to refer to point number 2 and just realize I am a mean, selfish, old man and leave me to my gaming, scotch, and cigars.
It doesn’t. Initially. But if your little server gets popular. You’ll begin to see the need to compromise. Especially when your server begins to need to restart every 2 days instead of 3-4 days… eventually needing a daily restart. And then finally a restart multiple times a day.
And then you’ll eventually see the need to wipe. And you’ll have no choice. You’ll have to make the call to basically demo every building on the server and set everyone back to level 1. At that point its a ‘well crap… how do I prevent this?’
In which case your compromise will be restricting the size of people’s builds, the amount of followers they have, and how many build locations you have. Without such restrictions, your database is a timebomb.
I think you may be spot reading and it may be leading you to conclude (and reply) wrongly. Could I ask you to read the whole reply before you respond?
Mmm, partially… but I feel you’re being very disingenuous when you say:
Or really even:
I thought I was, I think I am making it much clearer than that, what it is I’m saying - and it’s not THAT - unless of course you’re after twisting my words and ideas to fit some preconceived justification or strawman you’ve come up with. I can’t guess.
Am I saying there are some locations and areas like that - that fit your description there? Yes!
Am I saying all areas are? No, not at all.
Am I claiming it’s easy to tell the difference? Well, sort of… it is for me - or it at least seems be obvious. The areas in question typically have names for one. And if you are too close to the most interesting aspect of that place, yeah, you’re likely intruding on someone’s experience.
Am I saying this is or should be some hard and fast “rule”? Nope! I’m saying it’s a sort of feeling - you can tell by looking, reading, and empathizing. It’s very likely a consideration when an Admin is asked to make a decision or when they’re scanning around on their own. So along with asking all the common questions of unfairness, hard content blocking, and so forth, they consider within a thought progression which might be outlined something like:
What size is it?
Is it using ridiculous building methods?
Where is it?
Is it in an “important” or “sacred” place? ie. “other areas of the game” as stated in the actual ToS?
And if those are yes etc., it only serves to confirm a an otherwise questionable demolition.
No, it’s not. And they are proving that it’s not by banning and demolishing - you and I may not like that but it’s a reality. They think that if everyone reads and understands the rules then it’s completely possible - and I agree. But people aren’t reading or understanding. So, many people are confused, upset, and/or failing. I’m trying to make sense of their rules and their actions and communicating what I think I’m seeing. I’m not prescribing ANYTHING!
Well, yes and no. You’re personalizing that to me? No it’s not me. It’s them, I’m saying THAT IS WHY THEY ARE DOING IT and in fact they say this directly in the ToS:
So, you and FC are perfectly in line with each other on that.
This is why I applauded you in the first place. I assumed you understood the ToS and did what they suggested. But now you’re saying what? You don’t agree? you didn’t understand? and your leaving because you butthurt and there are no “other areas” as written in the ToS?
And I feel your current disingenuousness actually may be you hiding behind the strawman that this is all my own made up rules and ideas and leaving me the blame. Well, I ain’t your sacrificial lamb! Don’t put words and ideas in my mouth and head! I’m just trying to describe what I think is going on. Yes, by looking (at what the Admins did to what, when, and where), reading (the ToS and all the comments here), and empathizing (with what a user might feel the first time they encounter these interesting points broadly referred to as “other areas”), and again by looking (at how the map was laid out [with labels and mechanics] in the area(s) in question).
i.e. I’m just trying to make sense of all this and communicating what I think I understand.
Edit
But that IS the reason why Funcom maintains “official servers”! Thus I applaud you once again for recognizing the distinctions and moving out! Well done! My hero! Seriously!
Acknowledgement of an interim post:
made that clear in your first post. Good and fine!
same as 1.
Fine but you’re talking in a community of people who are all of us, attempting to evaluate all this stuff for our own understandings. Most of the comments here are not about you personally or even your personal situation and actions.
Well, we care about yours as well as our own - but of course we are all responsible for only ourselves.
Are any of the people commenting here even on your server? Whaaat??? I’m replying to you personally because you addressed me personally. No other reason!
Right now you’re being lobbied against by players who’ve never been on officials, wouldn’t last on officials and have no business whatsoever being on officials. For whatever reason you are being hectored for doing what every person in the world does on officials: they build. I believe the reason is that one person likes to watch Conan burn, while the others simply get their jollies wringing out underemployed buckets of characters and slinging them against the board.
There is something in the climate of our discourse these days that’s unhealthy. It’s bullying. If they can command all the attention, they think will get their way. They are wrong.
I have one central rule in gaming. Maybe this is why I’m a popular player on public servers. I don’t tell people how to play the game. Enjoy yourself, as I know you will.
Well about 7 and 9 - players even in clan dont really have same build style, while every human is unique, one likes to build turanian, others aquilian, but they all want to play as clan if someone is not online ( because this times when humans trys to make evryone the same some cant get online, the others can reset it) but the thing about servers itself… siptah, there is 45+ buildable grids… normal pve official is up to 40 players. so in common sense, 1 player could build 1 grid. but everyone is greedy and 1 player builds up to 10 grids ( example is kotlas , damn guy builded 30 blocks high walll on 4 grids, with spikes … ) sure that thing is banned…
in short - anyway still humans decide if u will be banned or no even after new rules, so if u are banned or teared down, u blocked some spawn actual or other things… I am also in clan with 4 players living with one nearby while others builded in mountains… i think i added my main base but the location has also INN now, and human chess table nearby, now making nemedian castle on nearest mountain. so even someone reports me, its then because they get mad on me because i maybe did not ttraded with them or something like that again differences
this palace is now even upgraded and on half lake in south llands… nothing is blocked because its on water, maybe only some jaguars on nearest mountain…
this building cant be breaking any of rules…
but this one
1 more day and i will make report of this clan, because they made elevator on nemedian boss spawn, when not eeven playing and 165 hours is long enough to talk with them out but if decay not kicks in the report will be in zendeck , sure they builded beautiful castle but if its blocks out rare spawn its ruining game
so how do i do reports of humans?
i mostly found them when they are spamming or megabuilding
I try to contact with owner in 165 hours, because its active decay if no then i do report
report i do with rules
3.1) if none answers, or start swear on me and call me racist poliglot
3.2) i take screens + for verry special guys also video because i cant take 30 images on 10 damn grids
3.3) uploading it twitch or yt, and sending to zen desk
So in total - i did like from now 10 reports, every one is complete, except about that etnic hate maker ‘‘and great’’ from 1301 server and omon clan that builded up the passage bridge in exile llands… so i just left that server and now playing in one frendly server, and if some moron come and starts spam or be like raccoon i just record video or screens about chat and how he act and send to zendect - all 4 scums are banned , the dik builded, the etnic hate guy, the german furer lover, the russian waller, all good for me so far ;D only ban i got so far was in this web and just because some user named narelle reported me, because i was noob and did not know where and how to report users… from that time i dont like narelle and thats the story xD
Isn’t there an undermeshing spot at the Great Dam? It’s not about just QTY of foundations…it’s about undermeshing, it’s about the type of lighting you use and how much you put in there. This isn’t about one particular thing on the building side of it but it’s about one particular thing on the experience side of it…does it inhibit others’ game experience that Funcom wants to promote? This is about undermeshing, blocking off stuff, purposely building lag bases, vulgar displays, etc etc ettc. ANYTHING that puts your enjoyment of the game above anyone else that breaks the intent of the server (IE PvP server should have combat but not the win-at-all costs methods…if you can’t dial that attitude back, go play Ark).
Look if everyone is trying to figure out why Funcom did this or that ban…lets just open it up and create a read only message board of shame. Every ban and Funcom intervention gets publically posted with the rationale why it was a problem. Are we all in for that?
I don’t want Funcom to get specific because the game looses it’s heart as min-maxers get quantifiable limits that they can try to work around…and lets be clear…that is exactly what everyone is asking for…quantify the limits so that we can try to work around it and/or leverage it to our benefit. D&D went through this as a game where it got sooooo messy with rules and numbers that it was no longer fun to play. I really don’t want to revisit those times again.
If someone was offended or got griefed by your build/antics and Funcom agreed, then accept that you were found to be playing outside the spirit of the game and change your ways. Pick yourself up and rebuild. It is irrelevant if it’s the new META or not.
I didn’t say it did. But I’ve experienced certain facts of reality. Databases don’t last forever without compromise.
When you eventually cease to see your server on the browser, and timeout when connecting via direct connect. That is when the compromises will have to happen. The sad part is, those compromises will have to come after that first wipe.
I’ve seen server owners have to do it that I’ve helped. I’ve been a player on servers that had to do it. I’ve had to do it. It sucks for me, it sucks for the players, and it will suck for you the first time you have to do it. Wipes can suck. Many servers embrace it and just have seasonal play.
I’ve been fortunate enough to learn from the lessons of the past and the current server I help admin doesn’t have to wipe (well went nearly a year on Siptah before everyone decided to switch to Savage Wilds, wonderful map by the way) nearly as often (I think we can go two years, possibly three).
Funcom has had to make those same compromises. Which is why they have been as heavy handed lately. Their servers are dying. Not from lack of players, but they are very old databases. Their optimizations have done wonders to prolong the need for wipes. But there is only so much that can be done before databases created in 2017 have to be renewed.
If your little server doesn’t go past a few players, then all of this may not matter much depending on your server host. But if you routinely see 20+ players on during primetime. Then you’re on barrowed time if you have little to no restrictions. That time gets cut exponentially with 30-40 players online, and even more so if you push past 50.
I’m not here to tell you how to run your server. I won’t do that. Everything I’ve said is factual from my own experiences of maintaining servers over the last four years. If you don’t wish to take any of this information, that is your choice. Its your server, you paid for it. You do you.
I completely agree. If there wasn’t a reason, that would mean that a Funcom admin came on to the server and said “eff this one build in particular” just because they felt like it.
But that’s a pretty low bar to set.
POIs are also more likely to be visited, which makes the builds there more likely to be reported. Correlation does not imply causation.
As for why POIs shouldn’t be considered a resource, it’s because it takes a lot of “creative thinking” to come up with that. That point you brought up about the spirit of the rules rather than just the letter? I’ve been harping on that myself since this whole debate started, so I agree with it, but relying on the spirit of the rules also relies that the spirit can be reasonably inferred from the letter. And that, in turn, relies on “common knowledge”, as @Dogoegma helpfully pointed out in a similar discussion
In short, if Funcom considers POIs to be a “resource”, they should make that clearer. Seriously.
Apoplectic? Not in my case. In disagreement over 4 and 5? Yep. There are ways in which you are responsible for my game experience on the server we share.
For example, if you encircle my base with a no-climb wall on a PVE(-C) server, you’re sure as hell responsible for that. Same thing if you wall off the Klael’s Stronghold.
What I believe Funcom’s TOS are saying is that you’re also responsible if your base degrades server performance significantly.
The problem with that is that none of us players knows how to reason about that confidently. Even those of us who have access to the ToggleDebugHUD command (which console people don’t) can use that only as a guess, not as a confident measure of whether their base merits being wiped by an admin.
And this is going to keep being a problem as long as Funcom leaves it like that. I’m not arguing for putting down numerical limits in TOS, because that wouldn’t solve anything. I’m not arguing for building limits, because 1) screw that, 2) they wouldn’t solve anything unless they were way too small. IMO, what Funcom should do is either give us some way of measuring the impact of our build on the server, or institute some kind of a counterforce game mechanics (e.g. an upkeep system) that would make it improbable for a non-malicious build to degrade server performance.
Very well put. I always cringe when I join a server and people want to give me stuff. I have 6000 hours between PS4 and PC. I log in to play the game. As well, itvalso one reason I HATE obelisk on Exiles. It removes any of the journey, which in Conan Lore should be the #1 draw of a game based on it.
Nobody is forcing you to use the obelisks. Seriously.
This.
Too many people want others to play a certain way. I guess that is human nature, but people need to grow up and start realizing it is not all about them.
If Funcom does not want people building in certain locations so as not to ruin the “tourists” view, then they should put in no build zones.
I think you are just arguing for the sake of argument at this point. Give it a rest please.
This sounds like the reasoning of the guy who came on to a server and demanded I demolish my base because “he always built there!”
Until the TOS update, all my builds survived years of reporting. After the TOS updates, not so much.
So I left official servers to play the game I enjoy and be away from this petty tattling because a build violates whatever aesthetic folks have decided is allowed. I have stated this without rancor or bile and yet, days later, I have folks like you telling me I am wrong.
Dude, you have missed so much of the point.
Let check the videotape:
So, you are saying that I should do exactly what I have done. What I have stated I have done many, many times. And if only I would do what I have done, then I would understand.
Sigh.
We’re done, I will just assume anything else you have to say is tainted by an argument in your own head.
This expectation that every person on the server is responsible for their game experience is . . .interesting.
When I played on public servers and did not care for the culture of a server, I left. If I didn’t like the amount of building, I left. When I did not care to hear certain arguments, I muted the folks involved. I once told a guy whining at me that I was muting him. The last thing I read from him was that putting players on mute was a TOS violation and he was reporting me.
I laughed and laughed and laughed.
These folk have a sense of entitlement that is toxic.
Screaming UNDERMESHING! is certainly a tactic but, as has been the case this whole discussion, you are having an argument that is not confined by the facts.
from that time i dont like narelle and thats the story xD
