Server rules are too little too late, with little chance of success

Conan Exiles General Discussion Feedback
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I understand that we need rules in order to keep the game more fair for everyone, but how can you throw these rules on us without having a proper way to investigate and enforce them? We’ve all been told time and again that the company doesn’t have the man power to have Amin’s on every server, so how is it that all of a sudden there’s enough to start cleaning up servers and banning players?

I’ve played PvE since day one and I’ve been on the same server since about 2 days after launch. In that time we have learned how to police ourselves. I’m not saying our way is perfect, but how can you threaten to come in and change things without understanding the dynamic or the context? Blocking certain areas is a way as players, that we have of dealing with those that would cause problems. Again, I’m not saying it’s perfect. I’m saying that if you jump in and start removing certain structures and banning certain players without knowing exactly what is going on, it’s going to create a much more hostile playing environment. Once the truly good players and clans are stopped from maintaining peace on their servers, that’s when the real problems will begin. One wall goes down and another pops up. At least speak to the clan or player responsible for the infraction before taking action.

It’s important to keep in mind that we’ve been left to deal with things on our own for so long that certain actions have been taken to maintain a viable environment for play for ourselves and others in cases such as with the clan I belong to. We reach out to other players and they reach out to us. We make compromises and we help out as often as we can. Our longevity has afforded us the ability and the knowledge of the game to be able to do that. We do what FunCom has refused to do for us in the past.

Instead of trying to impose rule by scare tactics or getting involved in a world you have neglected in the past, work on fixing the things we need to have fixed. Let us handle the things we’ve been living with because we know what it’s like out here. However, if you truly feel like we are lacking in the discipline department then give us something really useful. Give us Admins. Why not allow player Admins? Free labor for people already playing the game and it would require minimal effort on your part. Set up an application process and get to work on it. Every server is different and no one will know each better than it’s own players.

Just please stop trying to fix the wrong broken parts of the game. Fix the broken chest in the grotto or the climbing issues or whatever is going on with fall damage. Let us play the game and if you don’t want us building somewhere, change it to a no build zone so it’s fair. Compensate the players that have lost time and materials because of the bugs in your game. For the love of Crom, don’t tell us how to act when you’ve done nothing to combat the sexism, racism, and every other form of harassment up until now. Help those of us that have figured out how to deal with them without your help.

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These rules were much more than neccessary & they are requesting clear evidences of the infractions… What’s your fear?

How do you know if they have or not a proper way to enforce them? Do you have access to privileged information?

Actually the official servers are a real hell, almost every server has a clan that think they “own” the server, undermaps, stats boost glitch, crazy claims that make combat impossible (o worst, server stability)…

Why you ask how it’s possible now to have the manpower? Are you worried about Funcom financial situation? Or are you worrier about your “domination”/“own rules” in your server?

To block resources is not a way to deal with some people who would create problems, it’s the cowards way to stop better clans/fighters to grow up & challenge the “old alphas”… If your way of “fighting” is claiming the brimstone or you don’t know how to fight, go play minecraft.

The environment could not be more hostile than it’s today, it’s really hard to find an official server with healthy competition, most servers are like the private garden of some phsyco who consider it his place, even make it unplayable by lag.

Your longevity has not brought you knowledge or any superior understanding of Conan, just the fake feeling that you are the master & your way of understanding how a server should work is the right one.

I hope this rules are enforced & lot of these master cheaters & crazy builders are cleaned. I will be the first to report about any clan that use cheats/exploits/lag abuse to dominate every server.

Rules are clear, so if you are not complying to them, just amend the situation (unclaim resources, destroy your undermap, stop using Stats exploits…) & you will be safe from ban.

Again, why are you scared? Are you playing dirty?

You said “Let us handle the things we’ve been living with because we know what it’s like out here.”. Who is “us”? Are you speaking in the name of all Conan community? You don’t represent anyone, no matter how long you have played.

Why not allow player Admins? The answer is clear to me, players will not be fair.

These new rules brought hope to me & some mates who were thinking about leaving the game.

Let the wrath of Set clean the servers of all the unworthy.

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The Tencent buyout I think is where the extra might be coming from.
Tencent now owns 97% of Funcom.

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Rules in general, and how staff has handle past issues (often with alot of evidence to back it up) before “random” action is taken on false claims.

Before… you could just do it, and people were like lolz, not against rules.

Now, there some guide lines for people to cut back. Maybe people will cut back, and less BS in general will help funcom narrow alot of “false” or “not really breaking” rules. So they can put more effort in general to hitting the bad players.

If rules help in any form cut work off what effort they have put in to rid the game of bad player and issues. Then maybe, they can just really just step in more often.

It also gives everyone a spot to back up on, when rules are in place. And most places will give sometime on rule breakers to adjust.
And if, the excuse “we block just about everything, and now need a week to unblock it all” Well… I guess thats on you…lol. XD

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You have 1 hour.

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PVP: Players who truely quest for a real PVP experience will allow players in a server to arise in knowledge, skillsets, character level and gear to be a truely rewarding player vs player experience.

Domination and regional or resource blocking is cowardice and anti-communal which is immature and crude manipulation of the tolerances of the general guidelines in the newly published rules of ettiquette found at forums @/112678/.

I strongly beleave that good, well-meaning players can accept these “rules” as a necessity to help alleviate some of the toxicity that has developed due to rampant "Alpha syndrome.

Alpha’s should develope and lead by example, not by exploitation or toxic land claim practices.

Build your PVP Arenas for your server. Have scheduled bouts and challenges with victor rewards. Have matches that test player fighting skills with or without the same armor or weapons.

And if the Arena can’t settle the dispute then go to war but remember...Everone should be treated fairly and respectfully,especially the bad guy.

I love the game, hate the abuse.

Peace ~DWYNN~

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If your server is working without issue and players are happy with the way things are, you should have nothing to fear.

Unfortunately, not every server is as idyllic as yours, as has been made evident by player feedback over the months. People have been abusing the game systems for their own advantage and to the disadvantage of others. If that wasn’t the case, there would be no need for these new terms of conduct. I hope the community you’ve built can survive this without any issues, but I ask you not to disregard the very valid concerns that people on other servers have.

The Internet is a wild place where people are often unable or unwilling to police their own behavior. Just like the real world has laws to protect the innocent from the bad people, so does the Internet need some rules. Sometimes this meas that even the innocent have to surrender some of their rights and liberties for the greater good.

I can imagine many villages and rural communities felt the way you do when they got a police station for the first time. “We don’ need no coppers to stick their nose in our business, we’ve always handled our bad apples on our own.” But national law enforcement is now commonplace in most countries. A similar phenomenon is now happening on official servers.

As to where Funcom “suddenly” gets the manpower to admin their servers? May be a case of prioritizing their resources based on player feedback. Using volunteer player admins as free labor is a more complicated matter than the technical application of admin rights, with legislative and accountability issues.

I understand your concern for your server community, but I am somewhat surprised that you’d need to express your concern with such hostility. After all, by enforcing these rules, Funcom is trying to make the game as enjoyable for everyone as it is your you and your friends.

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Besides capitalizing on star topology, there was no rules. There was just etiquette and the backbone of sharing information.

On a smaller scale, yes, with easy targets. I tried to explain, but it obviously will not be heard on these forums.

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I’m sorry, I must have missed your explanation and can’t find it in your recent posting history. I’m interested in hearing your explanation.

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It has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with experience. The majority of the issues we have are with the players that think they are owed something. To make this worse, most players avoid contact with others. What happens is that players assume the worst and what’s going to happen is that these people are going to run off and report every little thing they can. We call them social justice warriors or SJWs.

Build a new outpost? They freakout and wall you in. That’s not breaking the rules though. But if a clan locks down access to say, brimstone, to stop players from reacting like this… Well, you can’t do that. Even if every other clan and player backs you doing it.

I know FunCom doesn’t have the staffing because they’ve said as much. Look up my other posts. I really want to love this game, but it’s really difficult when you see the things happening that I see. It’s not just this one company though. The industry as a whole needs to be cleaned up and the customer base is worse. So, imposing new rules isn’t going to fix the problems. This is just a way to cover up the real issues and divert attention.

It’s already started if you don’t believe me. I saw it just after I posted my first comments on this. Banned players complaining about being innocent. If any of you thought the glitching or hacking of the game was bad before… Just wait. Tell a hacker or a cheater they can’t do something and they’ll find a way to do it anyway. This is by no means the same league as most games, but just watch.

You can’t just throw a blanket out here over the problems. We all know the proper etiquette of playing these games. Give us the proper tools and we’ll fix it ourselves. Add ‘no build areas’ and give us player Admins. Don’t jump into a pot you started boiling ages ago. You’re going to get us all burned.

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There was a time people had to police themselves in the real life, too, and every town had their own sheriff or whatever their law enforcer was called in their area. Then that changed. That’s life.

Has that been happening? Or are we jumping the gun here?

Maybe. Or maybe they won’t bother players who maintain peace. Or maybe those players will get reported and will have the opportunity to explain what they did and take appropriate action. Or maybe they’ll get banned, appeal the ban, succeed and keep playing. Or maybe something else will happen.

Again, have we had any cases where they took action without contacting the player or the clan, and their action turned out to be inappropriate?

c7NJRa21

That’s a laudable sentiment that only works out on servers that have people who are willing to invest the time and effort in that. If those people stop playing on those servers, then the people are again at the mercy of random trolls and griefers, just like people on the servers without “sheriffs”.

Heh. You see all sorts of problems with Funcom dealing with their game, but no potential problems with random people on the Internet trying to do the same?

What’s that supposed to mean? “You didn’t do things right before, so now you shouldn’t be allowed to do them?”

Look, I understand your point of view. Unfortunately, as others also pointed out, it’s deeply flawed, because it combines (so far) unjustified alarmism with a FYGM attitude of someone who has their server under control and doesn’t care about the rest.

You wanna keep being the lawman on your server? That’s fine with the rest of us – you might as well reach out to Funcom in a less confrontational post and ask them about it. But spreading unwarranted defeatism about the step forward so many of us have been looking forward to? Not really helpful.

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Considering your confrontational tone towards Funcom I’m afraid I wouldn’t have much faith in you as a server admin who would police their server better than a neutral party.

Yes, it took Funcom a long time to get their act together and start taking action against bad people. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t do it now. You may think it’s too late, but other people (those who asked Funcom to take action) disagree.

I mean, when the first American settlers went west they usually didn’t have sheriffs or law enforcement officers with them. Wild West got its name for being wild (even though it was considerably less wild than popular culture makes it look like). But I’m reasonably certain that most Texans, Arizonans and Californians appreciate the fact that there’s a police to protect and serve them now.

Do you know if they hired more staff after saying that? If you’ve read comments on the forums, there’ve been people saying how “even one hired admin couild make all the difference”. Even though I don’t believe it, maybe Funcom decided to try it. Maybe they can prove me wrong.

And according to the new Terms of Conduct, false reporting is a punishable offense. Reporting out of malice or revenge will be acted upon.

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And how often, were they really innocent :wink:

100% for SURE NOT. See all the threads about toxic alphas… My server is not toxic. But I know, that most are, because many people are just a-holes.

Why should anybode freakout about some ones else outpost? Here starts the problem, but not from the outpost people… But from the people who wall them in, for what exactly?

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We handle problems on our server. If the players aren’t willing to engage, then we take action.

However, it’s to a point where it’s just not worth the time to acknowledge the clans who came to troll and nothing else.

We aren’t the server police. I’m tired of being contacted every time someone builds a wall across a valley. So, the rules are a welcome change. Send pictures and locations to the team, let’s see how they handle it. Put those new rules to the test. If they enforce them, great. If they don’t, then it was all for nothing.

I guess my question is, what are you doing on your server that concerns you so much?

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The problem with the “we handle it” idea is just that. Officials are owned by Funcom, not random clans. How many times on pvp has a clan that played within the rules, just wanted to fight PVP the way the game was meant were run off by 3/4 of the server because they didn’t want that, and saw that as toxic. The OG’s were satisfied with PVE game play (building massive, farming, not engaging in raiding each other) and griefed off the clan of 3 or 4 pllayers who just wanted to PVP. I know, because half the time that is what happens to my clan. We get on server, we “bulk” up and after hitting 1 of the OG clans (while they were online so we couls actually melee), Alpha and 10 other people come raining down with all there might, until we just say it isn’t fun anymore. That Alpha usually used one of the meta exploits at the time to maintain their loot for just this occasion to keep server PVE. Even going so far to build bases and spam claim the idea areas for other clans to build on so they could farm in peace on a PVP official server!

SO no, players don’t get to run servers if they are using exploits. That is what this will prevent. IF you don’t do that, then great on you. And if you are on PVP, remeber, a clan that comes and uses the in game mechanics to raid are not toxic. They are playing PVP.

If you are on PVE, then claiming 5 map squares is toxic, not defending the server. You just don’t see it that way because you are only seeing it from your side. Not the side where a new player logs in and has FPS drop, lag out the wazooo, and just sees an ugly out of control clan. That turns more players off than you know.

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One reason I like the console is because the players are more likely to play with raw resources/mechanics rather than cheat.

P.S. I think it is suggested that we just say “toxic players” instead of “alpha clans”. :innocent:

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lNUh0uV

Been there, done that, and even so the griefers came in, made everything toxic and most of the sane people left that server. Don’t wanna get into that situation ever again.

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I never said nor claimed there wasn’t potential for player Admins. Also, as far as that goes there are a lot of assumptions being made. My point is that stepping into an already hostile situation and trying to all of a sudden lay down the law isn’t going to work.

My ending point means exactly what I stated in my title. Too little, too late. Why are they going to try and police this when they haven’t done anything to combat the other problems? It’s always CYA. Only when it benefits them do they step in. If they can’t afford the staff to help us when their game causes us to lose things we’ve worked very hard to obtain, why now step in and try to enforce etiquette?

We’ve had racist clans, offensive names… Now, there’s even a guy who maintains a makeshift burning cross in front of a clan that he knows has multiple players of color amongst them. Where was FunCom for all of that? They sure weren’t doing anything on the official server I’ve been on. You know who was doing something? You know who’s fixed the majority of that stuff? We have. Now, we have to watch our backs because they won’t care how much we’ve done for the game and the players. If they can’t be bothered because of a lack of man power to help us then, they certainly won’t do it now.

This is a business in the end. They’ll do whatever they need to for profit. They aren’t here to help us and anyone who thinks so needs to wake up. That means if things go down the path I’ve laid out… Nothing good will come of this.

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BTW… My point of view is not flawed. It’s called realism. I’ve been playing lawman on my server for nearly 3 years and it takes 3 of us to maintain. The reason this all started was because FunCom refused to do anything about this way back when. We complained about blocked off areas and did without access for over 6 months. We had to literally wait for the clan too leave. You know what we were told? Suck it up. You’re allowed to build wherever there isn’t a restricted area.

I’m not being alarmist or exaggerating what might be. The game itself says to build and dominate. It doesn’t specify PvP or PvE. Players are part of the environment. So, instead of threatening us, actually make “no build zones”. That won’t work though. The players that want to will find a way. That brings me back to my original suggestion. Fix the stuff that needs to be fixed.

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Snoogans99,

you’re making a lot of assumptions here. Your whole “too little, too late” premise is based on assumptions. Those rules have been in place for only a few days now, so there’s no way you can tell whether or not Funcom is doing enough. Only time will tell how these rules (and enforcing them) will affect the game long-term.

If you’ve been able to make your server a healthy, fun, friendly place for your players, then you have every reason to feel proud of our achievement. Funcom isn’t going to take that away from you. If all is well on your server, none of this is going to affect you or your friends.

What this is going to do is give those people and those servers who don’t have champions like you keeping them in check a chance to enjoy a similar healthy, friendly gaming environment as you have. Not every server is lucky enough to have people like you, as evidenced by the serious problems you list. Maybe Funcom can’t guarantee that they’ll succeed as well as you do, but they’re trying.

Again, if you’ve been able to maintain a friendly community on your servers before, without any player admin rights, there’s no reason why that should change for you now.

Please help me understand why you’re so opposed to this. Do you feel like this devalues the effort you’ve spent to keep your own server a nice place, and why? Because the the way you come across sounds like you don’t want Funcom to fix things. You’re listing a number of serious problems, but apparently, Funcom shouldn’t do anything about them now because they didn’t do anything six months back? I don’t understand that logic.

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