At the risk of being accused of advertising my server again, which I’m not - I’m aware you’re not interested, especially considering you joined my Discord the other day and promptly left. You mentioned looking for a server with 24/7 PvP, while mine only has it active from 10:30 AM to 11:30 PM. Honestly, my server doesn’t fall into any of the pitfalls you’ve mentioned. In fact, it was designed as the antithesis of all those shortcomings you mentioned. I can’t speak for other servers, and I know RP servers often have ridiculously long lists of rules (I am also not a fan of RP or long lists of rules in general), but I find it unlikely mine is the only one that avoids these issues. Perhaps you should consider creating your own server. It sounds like you would make a good admin, given your awareness of the common problems many private servers face. Regardless, I still believe that even on a bad day, the shortcomings of a bad private server are less severe than those of an official server. I say this as someone who was long opposed to private servers for many of the same reasons as you, and only changed my opinion after years of enduring those issues.
I think a big contributing factor in changing my mind was more the performance related issues. Once I realized that the game actually runs well when it’s on a dedicated machine with appropriate hardware there was no looking back for me. I may have continued to tolerate the hackers if it wasn’t for the performance issues, not to mention the moderation policies that no one really knows the rules to.
I’m not defending Funcom, I was just making it clear I wasn’t suggesting suing Funcom; that would be ridiculous. On the other hand, suing a company like G-portal has much basis for breach of contract and false advertising, but it wouldn’t be super lucrative, so it would be more of a matter of principle thing.
You’re right, of course, it could be a lack of experience too, and I was being somewhat facetious. Officials are a trash fire though, playing on them is self-abuse. My convictions on this subject are too strong to not be vehement about it. I’ve spent way too long plaything this game, and thinking about this very topic, and way to little time touching grass to entertain the idea that my conclusion is subjective.
To play devil’s advocate here, how do you suggest they solve the problem on official servers? Considering the widely available, cheap access to third-party programs that are used to cause harm in this game, how do they combat it? Currently, they likely outsource their moderation to a third-party company, probably Zendesk, since they use their customer service software, and as we all know, they do a horrible job. Hire someone else? Hire in-house staff to monitor every server? Either option is going to cost more money than they’re willing to spend on an old game that is pretty niche as it is.