Yeah there’s not a one size fits all criteria for private servers. With Funcom Provided Servers you get:
- One size fits all moderation. Its the same team for every server. Which is a reactive or passive set of moderation. They have a few people that work normal hours. That respond only when a report is put in, and have to work through each report as they come in. So if you put in a report, it might be some time before they investigate. You will have the benefit of being serviced by a moderator that will most times be unbiased.
*Now a caveat here. While it is incredibly unlikely for a FC server admin to play on the severs they admin, its not impossible. And unlike on private servers its incredibly difficult if not impossible to identify who the server admins actually are. So if bias happens, you’ll never be able to detect it. That can only ever be uncovered and actioned by internal review, in either case we would never hear about such an event occurring if it did.
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One server host. This is G-Portal. And G-portal isn’t… bad. Sort of. If you play unmodded and with less than 10 players, its fine. FC servers are up to 40 players at a time and host hundreds of accounts per server (40 player limit doesn’t mean 40 players forever, but 40 at a time). Its a bit touch and go for performance.
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Never wipes. Some may call this a detriment, but you only really need to wipe if your server will not launch. All other reasons to wipe are optional and by the preference of the server owner. Funcom as the server owner has decided not to wipe unless they have to.
With private servers. You get… well a wider range.
- You get either active, reactive, or no moderation. Active moderation is where the server admins will actually be looking around for infractions. They can sometimes catch things even before they are reported and handle them on the spot. Their response times to reports can also vary. This could be in under a minute to several hours, or even about a day. Anything longer and you can pretty much consider it FC-like reactive moderation. On occasion you will find unmoderated servers. Either the admins/owners don’t respond, or don’t have any means of contact. The most populated servers however are going to have active moderation.
Admin quality is going to be different depending on what server you are playing. While Funcom admins are consistent, you have the issue of them being reactive and sometimes slow to respond. With private servers, active admins will resolve an issue relatively quickly, in some cases within minutes. You’re mileage will vary because instead of reading from a card and acting according to flowcharts, you will get personal opinion instead. Its fast but inconsistent comparably. You can also get bias on occasion. Server owners will likely give leeway to personal friends as well as themselves.
The benefit to the internet is its pretty easy to spot certain favoritisms and bias and server owners that exhibit that behavior quickly lose their player counts. When you have a large server community (especially in the 1000-2000 counts), you usually have expensive costs associated with that which is subsidized by donations given freely. Those donations and player counts go away quickly the moment there is even a suspicion of bias that can’t be proven otherwise. So you’re pretty safe to play on the more populated servers without much fear there. If it ever did happen, it would be very much apparent and you would know exactly who is doing it. Unlike on FC servers*.
- Myriad of server hosts. Many private servers (and all console private servers) use G-portal. These are going to have the same limitations as FC servers. Though they will likely not have the several hundred players played on their databases and will likely have somewhat better performance. If they are small servers then they will have pretty decent performance. As for other private servers you will have a whole load of different experiences.
You’ll have some servers literally running the dedicated server software on the same underpowered laptop they are trying to run the game on. Obviously these will be horrible experiences, worse than FC provided Servers. Some will run the server on a dedicated box they run themselves. This can provide great performance assuming its well kept and the bandwidth of their home internet is good. Some will rent servers from decent server hosts and this is more of the average server. These servers run quite well but will begin to struggle once mods are tacked on and their player counts exceed 40 (the game -IS- designed around 40). You’re still likely to see somewhat better performance in these cases than you’re used to if all you’re used to is 15-40 player prime time G-portal servers. Finally you have the really expensive options where they are renting a physical machine dedicated to just the server. These are going to give you the best performance and frequently you’ll see player counts online of 60, 70, 80, or even more players.
- Wipes happen. To my knowledge there is only a handful of private servers that don’t wipe (and some have maps older than the ones on FC servers since the FC servers did wipe at one point nearly 7 years ago).Which means the majority do wipe at some point. Some do it by season. Some do it by necessity when their servers no longer launch properly. If you’re modding, eventually wipes will be needed as the mods influence the game in ways that it wasn’t designed to. Many mods don’t require this. But its not exactly known which mods will cause issues and which ones don’t. There’s also wipes whenever the community of a server wishes to wipe and start afresh. Private server players are well accustomed to wipes and even enjoy them. There’s a good portion of the game that is designed for levels 1-59 and you don’t get to experience that part of the game with a character that’s been level 60 for over half a decade.
To put things in perspective, not every private server is the same quality. They range from really badly managed or running servers, to really well maintained and managed. Usually you can find the good ones by looking at the player counts, especially over a large span of time. Those servers with over 50 players during primetime that have been around for years will have a far better experience than anything you can have on a FC provided server.
The biggest issue people have when playing on private servers is ego and pride. Its very easy to play on the Funcom Provided Servers because of how detached they are from their servers. When you put in a report or get a suspension its effectively ‘from’ a robot. Its an automated response. While many don’t like this. It does not come close to hitting a nerve when pride or ego get in the way.
When you make a report or get action against you from someone who has a face and has a name and personality you know. Well then it can have a different effect. If you make a report and feel like they are not taking the action you want them. It can get one ticked off. Especially if action is being taken against them. They could even take it personally and feel like it is a personal attack.
An automated response from a computer telling you about an error you did is usually not construed as a personal attack. People get comfortable with that, compared to getting it from someone they ‘know’.
Well ironically that’s not exactly how it works, its just how it looks. When a FC admin response, yes they use copy and paste responses, they do this out of brevity. They are still a person, they are still using their personal opinions and still making personal judgements. But they are some random entity you don’t have an actual name of, a face of, or even a screen handle outside of their work handles.
Its functionally the same (outside of how and when) response as you would get from a private server. But the perception is the same. If you need proof of that, Umboris here in this thread is telling us outright how it works.
The only difference is he is withholding his personal opinion on what he thinks about the screenshots. A private server admin could very well tell you what they think (though a good one still wouldn’t action on just a screenshot alone and would use it to help verify, which is exactly what Umboris would do). Though some don’t.
What I find ironic is some posters here ARE pushing for his personal opinion. “Well doesn’t this look like…?” That is asking for a subjective opinion, and not a professional objective fact, you can’t get that from a screenshot. I mean we can’t even verify the screenshot was not taken from a fabrication in singleplayer, much less what server it was on. That takes investigation on the server in question. We don’t know those structures even exist on the server until we login to that server.
If all it took was a screenshot, everyone could be banned with just a few fake screenshots using player names and clan names. Be very glad it takes much more than a screenshot for them to take action. Of course people love their tinfoil hats and think this actually happened to them. But everyone also thinks their farts don’t stink. This is why the chances of a wrongful ban are abysmally low. Instead the feelings of being wronged are a difference of opinion. But at the end of the day, the opinion that matters is of the one who pays the bills on the server. The owner, not the players, no matter who that owner is.
not the term I’d use, and don’t agree. One size fits all implies there is some.
tomorrow?
