They still work in Funcom! It’s not a different company, just a different project. Prove your self worthy and give your opinions and assistance to your new fellow employees! Funcom is not blizzard, you’ll meet each other on the coffee room :wink:.

Full stop.
There is nothing valiant about what this one does.
It is ugly, brutish, and at times downright vile.
Wickedness does not become righteousness thru selective choice of victim.

What this one does is, at the absolute most generous, an ugly necessity in the absence of any better and timely options.

Further, this one does delight in their griefing.
It’s a moral failing.
But only if this one can justify it.
So the self gratification angle would negate any apparent altruism.

While your kind words are appreciated, this one must abjure them in this case.

4 Likes

The answer is nothing. That’s why sensible people play on private servers after they come to this realization. People who are aware of this and continue to subject themselves to this type of abuse are, well, to be polite lets just say this decision to continue to stay on officials may not reflect the best judgment. This is a highly competitive PvP game after all.

I would be inclined to play on private servers but I don’t for the following reasons:

  • server will disappear without warning
  • admin abuse
  • favouritism
  • constant changing of rules
  • server modification that affects performance
  • changes to the base game that go well beyond expectations
  • monetization for loot, protection or perks
  • overbearing control over the actions of players
  • risks of player information being leaked (this has happened)

I know you’ve been trying to promote your server so perhaps leave it where it belongs?

Privates are an option, not a solution. Playing on a private does not guarantee freedom from hackers.

You should be banding with us to stop it for the health of the game in general. Not insulting the choices of players.

3 Likes

All of those are valid concerns and reasons to be selective, but obviously, they are sweeping generalizations and/or obscure problems. I get it, though. Admins cheating is the main reason I stayed away from them when I was newer to the game, but then I realized that shortcoming was much less detrimental than subjecting myself to rampant cheating, poor server performance, and the will of a very opinionated moderation team with a very ambiguous set of rules. Not to mention players bases often disappear on official servers too without warning for seemingly no apparent reason.

I didn’t mention my server. I will talk about it whenever and wherever I feel like though, but I wasn’t. I have pretty strong feelings about official servers being a pretty terrible experience, and I often remark about it without promoting my own server. I’ve even promoted other people’s servers before when I see people looking specifically for building damage servers or RP servers specifically.

I disagree, they’re the only solution. While playing on a private server may not guarantee freedom from hackers, playing on a private server with active admins is the only way to prevent them. It is well known that on officials reports of hackers are never (or perhaps almost never?) addressed.

That’s what I was doing. It’s a frustrating situation though, so it’s difficult not to write disparagingly about it.

Except that I, my friends, acquaintances have experienced these all or to a degree. They are not generalizations. I give it the benefit of the doubt every few months or so and try a new private and it comes back to slap me in the face as a reminder of why I have stayed away from them.

Most recent was favouritism for those who broke the server rules to retain population. That means if I play fairly, according to the rules, and a clan or individual player is high profile and breaks those rules, I get punished. Not ok.

You don’t have to. Your contributions speak for themselves. It is clear to me that it is a means to an end.

You can disagree but the fact is there are multiple options:

Singeplayer
CO-OP
Official
Private

Playing on a private does not eliminate the hacking, meaning, it is not a solution. It is an option to reasonably avoid it.

We should be pushing Funcom from all angles, all methods of playing, to ensure the game is a safe place to play for all.

2 Likes

They are generalizations, hasty generalizations specifically. If the conclusion being drawn is that all private servers operate in this unfair manner based on a few specific experiences, this would be a hasty generalization. This fallacy occurs when a conclusion is reached based on an insufficient or non-representative sample. The rest is just anecdotal evidence.

Except that my server has only been around for seven months, and I’ve been complaining about the pitfalls of official servers for years. When I’m speaking to someone specifically who is having a bad experience and my server would be a fit for what they’re looking for, I do mention it from time to time. I think I’ve mentioned it a total of maybe three times in this way on the official forums, ever. It seems like a bit of a stretch to say that I’m sitting here, speaking disparagingly about official servers, without mentioning my own, on the off chance that massive hordes of people are going to look me up, find my server, and feel compelled to join after I’ve triggered them, but sure, why not.

If you want to try to psychoanalyze the situation, the truth is something more like this: I’m disgruntled over how bad official servers are, and I strongly dislike G-Portal and other shared hosting services. I think they’re disingenuous about what they actually provide to people and fully deserving of a lawsuit. That is, G-Portal and shared hosting businesses, not Funcom. I’m happy if people play on any of the better private servers (dedicated hosts) in lieu of official ones because I believe it’s a much better experience for them. As such, they will continue to play the game longer instead of just quitting, so it’s better for the community as a whole. The fewer people that play on official servers, the more apparent it becomes to Funcom that the situation with officials needs to be addressed. That’s all. If someone wants to join my server, great if it’s what they’re looking for, but I’m almost just as happy if they join someone else’s, as long as it isn’t official. My servers are the most popular non RP option for private servers, so it’s not like I desperately need to convince people to join. Hopefully, I’ve articulated that clearly enough for you now.

Ok well we’re talking about multiplayer, obviously. Using the above criteria you could just as easily say a valid way to avoid hackers is to play another game entirely.

Sure, but like I said, it’s the only option to reasonably avoid it.

I agree, at least in the aspect of being safe from hackers, my methods are just more abrasive. Here’s is kind of just about setting the tone in the community though. Funcom doesn’t read this shit lol.

They are not hasty or generalizations. I’m also not going to tout what I know by sounding pretentious either. Ultimately if it is not one thing, it is another. If it isn’t admin abuse, favouritism or controlling the players, then it’s usually the strangest omissions of the game or rules that do not fit my expectation. Which is vanilla.

When you get into true vanilla you run the risk of the absentee admin. That happens a lot more than people realize. So there’s no one there to mitigate hackers, exploiters and abusers. Just like Officials.

There’s a post on the front page of the forums where an admin is removing the use of a weapon because they’re failing to understand the true nature of the problem. So instead of listening to others who have this understanding, they’re entirely removing a perfectly fine element of the game.

A good majority of privates are RP and a great portion of those require all players to abide by the rules and engage in that RP. I am not an RPer. I have no interest in it. So I won’t go on those either.

Some choose to accept these issues. I don’t. I’ve been around long enough and I don’t immediately dismiss privates as an option. They always without fail to some degree fit into a category or multiple on their own.

Funcom has made their bed in that regard. They could do better but have remained silent other than acknowledging the problems with performance on G-Portal. Instead of communicating with us on possible plans in the future, if any, to improve the hosting. Instead they could just say “too bad, you get this and that is it”. Instead we’re strung along.

Sure, but we’re not lacking in judgment for having chosen to play on Officials. There’s good reasons for doing so even with all the problems. Sort of like how people choose to play on privates and accept the problems that come with those. I don’t think that anyone is an idiot for choosing privates over Officials. They have their own legitimate reasons.

My point was options. For multiplayer there are 3 in that list. For online experiencing with many, 2.

We have options and choices. We all choose what we think is best for us.

For hacking, the root needs to be addressed to achieve our expectations for all invested in the game. Not avoid it.

1 Like

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.

Zendesk is just software that handled reports and tickets. It takes a human being (Funcom Moderator) to take action on those tickets. They didn’t give their moderation to 3rd Party. Umboris and his team are all Funcom employees.

Here’s an analogy of why things are ‘bad’. Imagine the FC servers are a city built for a population that either doesn’t exist anymore or never existed. The population of said city has a budget that can patrol a small section at a time. But full coverage is impossible. Revenue doesn’t exist, and the population doesn’t support it.

But most of the crime dances around the patrols. When one neighborhood as a patrol car going through it, its safe until it leaves. The other several dozen neighborhoods have violence and other crime happening as well.

The situation never gets better despite how good the officers are, no matter how much training there is. And the population doesn’t support raising their funding.

That’s Conan Exiles Funcom Servers.

There is options the players can do (residents) and there is something Funcom can do (city). Players can pick up and leave, homestead somewhere else on their own (own server) or go to another city (private server) or region (another game). Funcom can demolish (server merges) many of the underused servers so that they can manage the ones they have a little more semi-actively.

Let’s be honest, hacking needs eyes on to action. You can’t rely on screenshots. You can’t really rely solely on video (I could make incriminating video of many of ‘you’, and submit it, obviously you all shouldn’t be banned for video that isn’t even taken on a server).

If someone is speedhacking for example. It pretty much takes a moderator to see it before reliable action takes place.

Pretty much. And more money than everyone here is willing to actually pay.

One thing that FC could do is stop putting the game on sale for more than 20% at a time. Alt-accounts at $5-10 a piece allows people to economically ruin other players’ days. Let them spend the full price for their shenanigans.

There’s pitfalls and then there’s settings. Your server sounds great. With PVE-C there’s the scheduled combat and the only exception I’d expect for a change from vanilla is that it is 24/7 combat. I know what players behaviour is like. Yours is realistic but also not what I am looking for.

I’ve had one. I prefer being able to play. If I played on my own server I would be accused of all the problems that admins are known for. Plus, while I like to think that I would be fair and impartial, I am human. Additionally I’m not willing to part with my already full schedule to admin people, deal with complaints, ward against hackers, advertise and possibly dish out the costs related.

They are that’s without doubt. I can both accept that I’ll have to play with the problems while still being critical and want better though.

I’m no expert of course. Hacking is a reality of all online games and all will experience it. The difference with successful titles is that they deal with it in a consistent manner. This often is in having a anti-cheat client that updates regularly and active moderation to deal with the rest. So, I would hope they’d want the same as those other games. Hindsight is 20/20 and then we have Tencent…

They aren’t outsourcing the moderation; Umborls as an example. Zendesk is a third party tool to receive and manage tickets by the staff.

I truly believe that they don’t know what they’re doing. Perhaps outsourcing to have their game reviewed or hiring someone to overhaul would be appropriate.

It has been suggested to set aside a portion of the Officials as paid to have active moderation to offset the cost. Because I do agree they’ll need the money to support it. I’d pay a monthly fee to access those servers.

Edit:

Here’s something I wrote before:

• Tying the report system to accounts internally, within the game - this would allow for more consistency and accountability for all 3 parties (the current system is easily gamed)
• Providing a warning system into the game - warn > give timeframe > then act if not adjusted
• No automatic suspensions/bans for building violations - only reserved for real serious violations such as racism and alike, hacking or exploiting, etc.,…

1 Like

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.

1 Like

The team receiving reports through Zendesk are Funcom employees. I know there’s been a lot of speculation over the years that they’re a third party exclusively but has been confirmed recently through Umborls that they’re Funcom.

It has also been confirmed that they do no visit the server to review reports. Which supports the questionable nature on how reports are handled. They will not confirm at what point they take the instance of the server from and load it up in SP on a terminal, for instance.

They wouldn’t be able to see hacking via this method of course. So it is hard to pinpoint it. But with much irrefutable video evidence, it’s still not actioned. Anyone who is experienced and fought hackers, knows what they are looking at. Funcom should also know the difference when the examples are given.

I am not sure what you mean by free speech. You can swear or even shit talk on Officials. What you shouldn’t do is be a racist asshat.

1 Like

I remain skeptical, regardless of others’ assertions; even Funcoms. Outsourcing customer service is a prevalent practice among many companies, especially the larger ones. Typically, they’re instructed to deny any outsourcing, and the customer service representatives are directed to assert they work directly for the company they are serving. For instance, I once worked for a large company that used a customer service provider akin to Zendesk. The customer support staff were told to state they worked directly for the company when asked. All calls were recorded, and admitting to their actual employer was grounds for termination. While I acknowledge the possibility of being wrong, as I am merely speculating, I tend to view Funcom’s denial with skepticism, based on my experience in this field. However, this is somewhat beside the point.

There have been instances where people were banned for using derogatory language on officials that aren’t racial in nature too, like the use of the C word for example. But my main point is that such issues tend to escalate in more heavily moderated environments, like the hypothetical one you brough up. In these situations, the problem isn’t always what you say, but rather what you believe. Moderators, who by the nature of their position may lean significantly in a particular direction since they are drawn to roles involving control, may base their actions on whether they perceive that someone shares their worldviews. If a moderator concludes through the course of your conversations that your beliefs differ from theirs, you might become a target for biased moderation. That’s why my favorite type of moderation of language, is none. I’ve only ever had to ban one person who wouldn’t stop spamming racial epithets because he though he was going to teach me a lesson about why free speech shouldn’t be allowed. For the rest of the part, by and large, I don’t ever remember a single issue with that. More or less, it’s the same issue of favoritism you mentioned being an obstacle for you on private servers, I can see it also being a problem on a more heavily moderated official as well.

I did check their website. A private server owner could elect to use their services, it would be overkill for them however, as discord is free. But with 700+ servers, servicing a few ten thousand players, it makes more sense.

I’m not speculating. Umboris is a Funcom Employee, and his team are also Funcom employees. He’s mentioned them on the forums in the past.

The volunteer program has ended. Unpaid forum moderators do not have advanced tools anymore. The ones moderating the servers are apart of AndyB and Ignasi’s team. There’re also Funcom employees. I don’t know how much AndyB works with ingame moderation, but I know Ignasi has some sort of function with the servers or at least has eyes on them, probably bounces back and forth. There’s also quite a few unnamed people that work around on both sides of this.

But yes there is two separate teams for the forums and the game. The forum moderators do the entire forum, not just Conan Exiles. What I’m unsure of is if the game moderators handle multiple games.

There is! The one behind this particular role!
It’s a game, a virtual unreality. Each person choose a role, like an actor. The one who plays his part correct should achieve recognition.

Allow me to share a story here. I was playing on Wyrms bane, server of @sestus2009 pve-c. One clan seemed to bully all the rest. A friend from another server followed me in this server and start naming this clan. So i invited this clan in a vocal group. The hour they stayed in this vocal we stopped 3 times to go to the toilet to pee from laughter. This Scottish guy was something else, unbelievable spirit full of positivity, amazing person, amazing.
Why he was malice?
He wasn’t, he was trying to communicate with the other players of the server and show them the weaknesses their bases had, but for the server… He was a bully!
He was nothing like it, he was an extraordinary veteran playing the thief role and he was damn good at it!

2 Likes

Dune will have the same exploits as CE, can’t wait to Funcom to kill it’s community

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 7 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.