Indeed, over 1000 servers before the merges happened, that’s after EA then 2 increases. Now it’s 740 Officials across all platforms. Astronomical in terms of active administration, it least in the way that the average player would expect. I have maintained for quite some time now that server merges should happen again.
Agreed.
Hiring staff would require 24/7 coverage. Not a forte of Funcom’s MO. I’ve thought about this a lot and I would not expect an admin to sit there in godmode invisible watching over us in the clouds. I would expect that the team would get a division of clusters and a report system would be in place which is quite similar to what is happening with Zendesk. However, triaged with quicker turn around. Create a report template that has something like “is this a 3rd party injection program issue”? Or, “is this a problem with an exploit”? And have it auto sort into the correct bin which is prioritized. Although, you bet your ass that there’s superfluous reports as it is, knowing when to throw those out as quickly as possible for better workflow, etc etc.,… (Like seriously, reporting someone for raiding you is ridiculous and people DO THIS).
So for instance, if a hacker makes it through and is speed hacking, put in a report and see admin action. Or “hey guys, there’s someone kiting an Arena Champion killing my thralls” and the boss deleted and player banned immediately.
Or maybe, if this isn’t feasible then roll backs when warranted. YES it affects everything that happened afterwards but I see absolutely no justification for a vacuumed server to be left in ruins. When it happens, and it happens a lot, it only encourages players to decide not to return. “Due to 3rd party usage a roll back will occur on this server to X date in X minutes” message. At the same time, this does have potential to be unsustainable which is why other methods to address the problem should be in practice to begin with!
Ding ding ding. WHYYYYYY. Christ man it’s just so frustrating.