Zendesk offers more than just customer service software; they also provide customer service services to businesses. Check their website. I’m speculating, but it’s not a stretch of the imagination that they would use their services since they also use their software. It’s seems to me like a greater stretch of the imagination to assume they foot the bill for in-house moderation. Furthermore, forum moderators are typically not paid positions and are not the same people who are in charge of in-game moderation. It’s possible that a moderator here is also a Funcom employee, although I don’t know if that’s the case with that person, I’m willing to take your word for it. However, I’d be surprised if they’re also in charge of moderating the servers. But, maybe they just pay for Zendesk’s software, without paying for their services. And maybe they just have a few staff who indiscriminately bans everyone who gets reported, unless they’re cheating, in which case no action is taken. Perhaps that’s why the moderation is so bad. Lol

Admittedly though, you’re correct, going off video evidence isn’t enough, it really requires eyes on to be sure, so it’s a very difficult problem to solve on officials.

It’s a good idea, but you can also buy the game from third party sites who acquire the product keys by purchasing keys in bulk from regions where games are priced lower due to regional pricing strategies. From these sites the game is about seven USD, 365 days a year. To be honest, price isn’t going to stop a determined cheater though.

I fully agree with everything else you said though. For the most part it’s not a very easily solvable problem. That’s why I’ve come to the conclusion is private or bust.

Understandable, it’s a lot of work. My wife and I do ours, so splitting it between two helps. The way I combat the “Admins are cheating” thing is I constantly stream my game any time I engage in PvP showing my menus and tooltips, and I don’t participate in our PvP tournaments. I guess it would still be possible for me to make an alt account and cheat on that, but I don’t have the time or ambition. For me it’s become more of a social activity playing with the long term people than anything else, the PvP is all just for fun. As for disputes I just don’t get involved with them at all.

I’m shocked there isn’t one available like that. I considered it initially, but I instead settled on longer hours as a compromise to be accommodating to the most people possible.

I commend your commitment. :rofl:

As I mentioned above, Zendesk is software, but they also offer customer support services to businesses. I’m not certain Funcom is using this service they provide, I have no idea, but it seems reasonable to conclude. The specific details about whether companies use Zendesk’s customer support services, in addition to their software, are typically not disclosed publicly. However, I know for sure that Airbnb does in almost all cases, except for the most important customer support tickets that need to be escalated to real staff, you’re talking to Zendesk when you speak to ‘Airbnb’ customer support. I would be somewhat shocked if this isn’t the case here as well.

I can’t disagree there. I mean, I suspect they’ve just said F*** it basically. They probably feel like they make as much as they’re going to make off a game that’s several years old, and any improvements that would require significant financial investment would be off the table, and improving this situation would be one of them.

It’s not a bad idea, but it would certainly turn into a situation where you have Karen from Human Resources running the show, which goes against the game’s M rating, in my opinion. I don’t need someone with a worldview opposite to my own to tell me I can’t say naughty words because they hurt people’s feelings in a game made for adults. But it would have to be if it was official moderation because Funcom would be attacked and defamed by various advocacy groups if they didn’t adhere to these types of modern extremist principles to restrict speech. Of course, being based in Oslo, Norway, and Durham, North Carolina, they likely share all of those worldviews regardless. That being said, I have to agree this would be a really good solution for at least half of the player base.

But that’s only insofar as the issue of banning hackers goes; there’s still the factor of the official servers running on horribly inadequate shared hardware. But I suppose in the hypothetical scenario we’re discussing, throwing more money at it could be a potential solution too, so long as players are willing to do it.

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