Official servers:
Laggy as hell even with 10 people, dude, playerlist page (showing weird records), double jump encumbrance ‘meta’ and so on…
Most populated EU / US Private Servers:
and another one
All poulated private servers have pw2 cash shop which trivializes whole point of game, this cancer is spreading.
There’s no hope for me anymore.
@Community What’s Funcom statement ont his? I can’t accept that conan private servers are actually P2W.
A private server is just that; private. The admins of those servers own those servers. I don’t know why anyone would pay to play like that personally; if you own the game, you could setup your own server with the money you would spend in that scenario, or get a couple friends together to chip in for a pc if need be. but if people want to pay someone to admin a server for them, that’s between them.
ALL?.. you mentioned… 2…
While there’s nothing wrong with accepting some donations that go to covering the server costs. Personally me and a lot of other modders are against this practice of providing items in exchange… essentially “selling digital goods” (that they don’t have the right to sell in the first place).
I haven’t been around many popular private servers, but I’m having difficulty believing that this would somehow represent the “norm”. I know there’s a few out there that do it ofc.
Perhaps @Taemien can elaborate since he administers several private servers 
Just pick most populated US / EU PVP servers and all of them have cash shop.
Im not talking about PVE, PVE-C or RP servers as i never play on them but i bet its cleaner on such servers as people won’t need that edge to compete like in pvp servers.
We are not talking about ‘donation’ but trivializing whole farming / gathering resources - you can literally just buck up and kill people - no need to farm anything.
Yeah Taemian can You elaborate? Are You making bank on private servers or stay away from monetization?
I can say I don’t sell jack squat. About the only thing available is a donation link directly provided by the server hosting company. There’s a donation channel with the info in discord and that is it. No announcements needed.
I’m definitely in support of the modders who don’t wish for their property they give freely to be sold by greedy server owners.
Yeah but there’s difference between faster farming vs not farming at all - day one start with star metal toools / weapons, anything you literally farm in game - people don’t start from stone - its just stupid.
Is it pvp server? I struggle to find populated pvp server without cash shop.
Don’t give up hope.
This is just my opinion, but as far as the Gold, Silver and Bronze tiers above, it looks like players who wish to support the server can take one of two Packages: Nice or Easy. Nice = 14 thralls and unlimited dyes, basically “thank you for signing up.”
Personally I’ve found the trend these days is donations usually require some sort of quid pro quo, thus offering “premiums” or goodies is de rigueur.
ive had star metal on dogs within an hour of a wipe. it’s not really difficult
I dont have anything against some donations - getting dyes or thralls back whtever…
But as you can see You can buck up and get start metal, best gear etc… - so what’s the point of it? Its not fair start when everybody is starting same - You spawn at noobriver with stone tools but people can one shot you with BIS gear…
Yeah its not but thats not point. Game should be FAIR.
Imagine you play chess vs someone that spend money to have more pawns - seems pointless game isn’t it?
TBH, the problem you have is not only with those servers. It’s with players who would rather play on those servers (and donate… they may not be donating but some of them surely are) rather than play on the Funcom servers. The Funcom servers are free to all and well… that draws in some riff raff.
This is a misunderstanding of something critical. The “game” does not consist of harvest rates they choose to use on their servers. The “game” is the same on those private servers or the funcom ones. One is free; one is… well, the social pressure at least is not free.
Maybe that’s why I’m not getting any 
(Heck… even setting up a stupid payment processor is an issue if you don’t have a “product”… )
No, PVE currently.
I will say this though. If a server is being hosted by a provider (Serverblend, GTX-Gaming, or God forbid, G-portal) then they shouldn’t be doing any extensive donation requests. Even a 70 man server is easily affordable by a single person at one of those sites. So if they’re taking monthly donations from their several hundred member playerbase… then they’re turning a profit, thus its a scam. Especially if it is going to a Paypal and not directly to the provider.
Servers on dedicated machines can cost between $300-900 so advertising donations for those seems reasonable, but still keep an eye out for how much they are taking in.
This advice goes for many other games, not just the ones here for Conan Exiles. Minecraft itself is loaded with these sort of schemes. Has been for over a decade.
I’m not trying to argue or be controversial with you, I want to make that clear. Personally I think we should have subscription Official Servers beefed up and ready to rock…
When you stay on an Official after the wars die down, eventually sore losers leave and bequeath. Brand new CE players with 16 hours get ALL the goodies, including ready-built fortresses. You know what we call those guys? Donors.
ETA: Sorry Taem, didn’t mean to step on your post.
No, not necessarily. A good person would keep that money stockpiled to ensure the server runs for as long as it possibly can until the money is gone, or the game is shut down.
Thats what I did when I owned an Arma 3 server, and had zero issues with people donating.
But, you could come across some sketchy people who pocket money, but at that point, why does anyone care? You freely gave to someone to keep a server going, they didnt force you.
But that is not the “game”. As has been pointed out many times around here, both for and against, the funcom servers do not permit playing the game in the same sense that you can on a private or in singleplayer. Those servers are a sub environment with a set of rules for playing there that don’t impact those of us who don’t. The existence of griefers or landclaim spammers or anything like that doesn’t affect any of us who play CE outside of that environment.
So if in a lot of people’s opinion, the officials are in a terrible state and FC is doing nothing about it but letting them rot… what would that tell you about their perceived value to FC and their willingness to keep paying for them in the future when contracts and such come up? Those servers are a function of the people that play there, and by that I mean the bad actors; the landclaim spammers, etc. I agree that with them there, it is miserable to play there. That’s why I only logged onto one once.
Because you said they are designing a game around exploiters when they are doing nothing of the kind? Your harvest rates are not “the game”. Those servers are not “the game”. It is at best an introduction to the game that I agree, is a poor one. Not because of game design, but because of the players that play there.
It also not fair they pony up real money so you can play without paying the same amount. You want fairness, fine everyone pays and no one gets a bonus to help fund the game server.
