Why won't funcom appoint community folks to moderate servers?

[dorizzdt]

Clearly Funcom have no interest in any hint of moderation of the official servers. The counter argument is “we have lots of servers” … as i stare at the server loads, there is quite a lot of empty servers…so i feel that argument is very weak at best. Looking at active logins per hour, its also not great either.

That being said, Facepunch found a way forward by enabling third party entities to interact with the more to moderate servers on their behalf. Clearly there is a massive need here for the remaining few who now stumble into this game and see its potential.

Moderation isn’t about spawning in items or dealing with kids being edge lords. Its about being in the background and monitoring player behaviours quietly and anonymously, so when an exploit is breached its a loud ban hammer (warning to others) and there is no “Oh that guy is an admin” …it just happens.

I mean do they want any faith in their brand going forward… Ark was a “Fool me once”… now conan is a “Fool me twice” … their next game… integrity is completely getting shot to pieces.

Now i also learn they edit out forum posts that discuss people being on the receiving end of exploits by asking them to re-route to some tumbleweed forum called “Exploit Hunters”.

Why do we invest in them if they won’t invest in us.

[darthphysicist]

So having been a “third party admin” in other games I can tell you its a miserable, thankless experience. People forget its charity work and basically make demands at all hours as if they are servants. If people have issues with the official, free servers, join a private server or better yet, get together with friends and split the cost of your own. They arent expensive at all and then you can run the game how you want it run and be your own “third party admin”.

[dorizzdt]

So your answer is - go elsewhere because its too hard.

Example - Rustafied is a massive success that demonstrates an alternative to your narrative here.

[darthphysicist]

My answer was “solve your own problem” not go elsewhere. I run my own server and manage my own issues. Its always amazing to me when people demand others solve it for them.

[dorizzdt]

Its really not the point… the point is there ARE official servers. Folks should in a reasonable fashion be able to approach said servers and play on official servers with the reasonable assumption that Funcom would work to protect its current brand integrity. “We endorse these servers, we will work hard to ensure players reach the as per design / intended experience of playing on said servers” … which is pretty much moot as their current attitude is “Good luck, don’t bug me buy more DLC pls thx bye”

Building an audience / community by way of isolated islands of low percentage filled servers / fractured thinking as it is today is not reasonable. Your answer is not the solution at all.

[darthphysicist]

The game functions quite well on private servers where the owners police their own. You can do this and solve the very problem you are stating. If you expect others to do it, you should start by doing it yourself.

And I dont care if officials exist or not personally. They function exactly how I expect free to use to things function.

[CodeMage]

@dorizzdt

The counter argument is “we have lots of servers” … as i stare at the server loads, there is quite a lot of empty servers…so i feel that argument is very weak at best. Looking at active logins per hour, its also not great either.

Anyone who has ever had to do any kind of support will tell you that you don’t plan for the best case – lots of empty servers and low server loads across the board. You plan for the average case and you try to prepare for the spikes that represent worst cases.

@dorizzdt

enabling third party entities to interact with the more to moderate servers on their behalf.

This is one of the big reasons I avoid private servers. It’s really hard to be a good admin. Taking on volunteers to admin official servers? I shudder at the thought.

@dorizzdt

Its about being in the background and monitoring player behaviours quietly and anonymously, so when an exploit is breached its a loud ban hammer (warning to others) and there is no “Oh that guy is an admin” …it just happens.

Yeah, that. That right there is why I say it’s really hard to be a good admin. Especially if the focus is on moderation. You basically want to have a bunch of volunteers whose job is to be unable to play the game, so they can be the “secret police”.

Do you have any idea how much that job would suck, even if you were paid to do it? Now imagine asking someone to do it for free.

@dorizzdt

I mean do they want any faith in their brand going forward… Ark was a “Fool me once”… now conan is a “Fool me twice” … their next game… integrity is completely getting shot to pieces.

Are you aware that Ark and Conan are from two different developers and two different publishers? There’s no unified brand to talk of here.

@dorizzdt

Why do we invest in them if they won’t invest in us.

We get what we invest. Conan Exiles does not use a subscription model and Funcom doesn’t get a single penny of profit from private servers. So what we invest is the price of the game plus any DLCs we buy and that’s it.

You know what I think Funcom should try doing? Offer both free, unmoderated official servers and paid, moderated official servers. Now that I believe might work.

[dorizzdt]

Blockquote
Are you aware that Ark and Conan are from two different developers and two different publishers? There’s no unified brand to talk of here

The two are constantly used as a comparative baseline. The cited example is to demonstrate that folks want to commit to these style of games, but refuse to accept cheaters as the standard to accept.

@CodeMage

Anyone who has ever had to do any kind of support will tell you that you don’t plan for the best case – lots of empty servers and low server loads across the board. You plan for the average case and you try to prepare for the spikes that represent worst cases.

Again, i refer you to Rustafied.com … they aren’t Facepunch but yet have the most popular servers for Rust. Its possible and it works.

@CodeMage

Yeah, that. That right there is why I say it’s really hard to be a good admin. Especially if the focus is on moderation. You basically want to have a bunch of volunteers whose job is to be unable to play the game, so they can be the “secret police”.

Its about taking the “persona” out of the admin role, the best way to to monitor a server is if the said person aren’t identified. As people will adjust their behaviour if a player and admin in one are on the same server. It sends the signal of distrust for that said player and it also attracts the wrong kind of attention to the role. Silent “cop” as you put it, is important as the folks cheating can’t use their online join/leave patterns for example as a strategy to execute their deeds.

So… not sure your point at all on this tbh.

@CodeMage

You know what I think Funcom should try doing? Offer both free, unmoderated official servers and paid, moderated official servers. Now that I believe might work.

I wouldn’t disagree if that were an offering. The standard of mediocrity at the moment is to create a low population server that is mostly run by underskilled people as a way to solve a problem that is created by Funcom in the first place is just an odd response. Its the same as saying “The govt failed to fix traffic on the roads, so buy a bull dozer and make your own… its not their fault”

O.o

The standard you walk past, is the standard you accept.

[darthphysicist]

You pay for the govt thru taxes; the official servers are FREE.

[dorizzdt]

You pay for the game, the implied expectation is you get the server usage for the said game. If they don’t want to accompany the product with a server then why provide “Official Servers”. Every single online game follows this formula and its pretty widely accepted… yet you’re the hold out now saying “Well no, its not reasonable to expect that”.

I honestly don’t know what your constant advocacy for mediocrity is trying to prove now.

[darthphysicist]

And every official server I’ve ever played on has been a cesspool. Pointing to other games is not the ringing endorsement you’re hoping for.

My objection is that you feel you have a right to demand people volunteer their time to make your life better when you dont seem to feel it in your power to do it for yourself. Simply buying the game does not entitle you to server use; only renting one or buying one does. You can play solo, coop or join a private server, many of which are free, if you dont like the officials.

[dorizzdt]

@darthphysicist

And every official server I’ve ever played on has been a cesspool. Pointing to other games is not the ringing endorsement you’re hoping for.

Ahh so you have individual scar tissue here so despite actually citing an example of a game where it has been successful, its not worth pursuing because - you - had a bad experience.

@darthphysicist

My objection is that you feel you have a right to demand people volunteer their time to make your life better when you dont seem to feel it in your power to do it for yourself.

Demand? it was a question we didn’t say anything about demand. Seems you have an axe to grind here and its really about you wantiing servers to go 100% private. I’m going to go ahead assume you don’t retain a min 40 population during “raid times” for you server daily. That would mean you’re happy to be on low pop servers high fiving one another as the best optimal gaming experience vs looking into alternatives to advocate the community / game change.

@darthphysicist

Simply buying the game does not entitle you to server use; only renting one or buying one does. You can play solo, coop or join a private server, many of which are free, if you dont like the officials.

Thats the part that gave your position away tbh. You think being FREE means it runs at a negative loss to Funcom.

By way of having a thriving community of players who do adopt official servers and can play without cheats / exploits and exceeding amounts of unreasonable negativity, you by in turn stand a greater chance of acquiring more purchases. Folks who buy games like Conan Exiles aren’t buying it because of the solo experience, the game is designed by its very nature to be inclusive of other players consistently. Who are you using the Trebuchet on in single player or co-op?? what is with all the weapons… armour etc etc. They are all part of the pvp equation like it or not.

If you want more of an audience you first must establish a point in which they meet, share experiences and even broadcast your product (streamers etc) others to get in on.

A game company that adopts your methodology isn’t going to be successful and with folks like you advocating this position constantly, no wonder the logins per hour on this game are low.

Lastly, THEY created the servers… if your position were any hint of being gracefully truth, WHY would you create and abandon “Official” servers. Think… what possible value to funcom could they produce…hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…

I mean, your entire position distils down to … be grateful …and stop asking for features they created to be successful.

Which basically leaves me flawed in how that logic works.

NOTE: just to let this this thought fester for a minute or two… at the time of this thread, the highest viewed / reacted thread on this forum is about a person who lost two years of hard work to cheaters… just let that marinate for a while… on what damage that does to the games brand.

[CodeMage]

@dorizzdt

The two are constantly used as a comparative baseline. The cited example is to demonstrate that folks want to commit to these style of games, but refuse to accept cheaters as the standard to accept.

Hey, you’re the one who brought the word “brand” into this discussion. You can’t blame me for reading what you wrote instead of what you meant.

@dorizzdt

Again, i refer you to Rustafied.com … they aren’t Facepunch but yet have the most popular servers for Rust. Its possible and it works.

Uh, I don’t get it. You said it yourself, Rustafied is not Facepunch, so they’re private servers. Yet you seem to object to private servers as a solution. I don’t understand the argument.

@dorizzdt

So… not sure your point at all on this tbh.

My point is just what I said:

@CodeMage

Do you have any idea how much that job would suck, even if you were paid to do it? Now imagine asking someone to do it for free.

I’m not saying it won’t work for private servers. I’m saying it won’t work for official servers, because it’s a net negative: moderators can’t really play, they don’t get compensated for their work and if they handle things incorrectly, the blame is assigned to Funcom.

@dorizzdt

Its the same as saying “The govt failed to fix traffic on the roads, so buy a bull dozer and make your own… its not their fault”

Except you elect your government in a democratic process and you pay them taxes. You don’t give them a one-off payment. You also don’t pay them only when they build a new road and then expect that to cover all the existing roads too.

@dorizzdt

The standard you walk past, is the standard you accept.

Take a platitude in one hand and a stack of dollar bills in another, then go see which one will buy you more stuff.

[dorizzdt]

@CodeMage

Uh, I don’t get it. You said it yourself, Rustafied is not Facepunch, so they’re private servers. Yet you seem to object to private servers as a solution. I don’t understand the argument.

Yes, they aren’t but they are ENDORSED by facepunch as being the defacto official servers, hence the topic title.

@CodeMage

My point is just what I said:

??

@CodeMage

’m not saying it won’t work for private servers. I’m saying it won’t work for official servers, because it’s a net negative: moderators can’t really play, they don’t get compensated for their work and if they handle things incorrectly, the blame is assigned to Funcom

Why does it have to be a zero sum game in currency. People volunteer for gaming communities with less… and it is assigned to funcom because they are the ones who en…you know what… you’re on this loop and i realise nothing will get you off the loop.

Funcom train people, people scale… funcom get wider exposure… profit… a lot of software companies call this advocates, evangelists, mvps etc… its the way you scale without a lot of spend…

Not playing on the specific server they manage doesn’t mean that they can’t play on servers they don’t manage… again… i cite Rustafied as a successful model here that constantly demonstrates you’re wrong.

@CodeMage

Except you elect your government in a democratic process and you pay them taxes . You don’t give them a one-off payment. You also don’t pay them only when they build a new road and then expect that to cover all the existing roads too.

I can see why we are in the state we are… its like you enjoy the status quo …thats…sad.

@CodeMage

Take a platitude in one hand and a stack of dollar bills in another, then go see which one will buy you more stuff.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man

Good luck with being reasonable and more threads about ppl leaving the game due to cheaters.

Thrive in its failure and demise, knowing you were ‘reasonable’ in asserting we aren’t expected to actually use the “Official” servers in a fair and “reasonable” way.

[Sera67]

Cause trusting some random on internet, no matter how shining beacon of light they are… needs one split moment of mis-clicking to end the world.

I’ve seen people of 10+ years who just turned at drop of hat and ruined it for alot of people.

Now most games in general of this type do this. Cause alot of issue stem from:

Person plays this way versus person who plays that way. Were not talking glitches or exploits here. Just differnt play styles clashing… and no rules saying you can’t. Thou human decency says you should be nod and back off and go about there day.

But thats not what happens. Its not just Conan Exiles, Ark, Fallout 76, ESO, Souls games, COD, Monster Hunter, Dragons Dogma, Even Dragons Age I, Co-op/Multi mod…

People filling up support tickets with, Such and such wont stop chasing me with vomit emote, or said player wont stop flying over my house with wyvern.
Its not something most support teams wanna deal with.

Specially when there exploiters and trolls who need stomping… and spending time doing that will help more.

I think alot of companies could devote abit of time, to going thru set tickets, and walking about world in ghost mode, and stomping out player every other week.

At same time… would it help? maybe…

Like most of these games… Don’t play on Officials. Which is weird… there named Officials. And there some of worst servers when you find the 1 troll, or exploiter, LOL

Its one of those things we want (mods) but its rare thing to happen.

[droch-aon]

The thing I see missing from this argument is a vetting process.
You take 1000 volunteers and at least some percentage will be abusers of power.

I was a volunteer administrator, on an art forum for artists.
people automatically assumed I was the site owner, I was not.

No Moderation with a warning that there is no moderation, is better than random people besmirching the company name, with power abuse.

[CodeMage]

@dorizzdt

you’re on this loop and i realise nothing will get you off the loop.

It’s not like nobody ever changed my opinion in these forums. I generally respond much better to rational arguments than to fallacies and rhetoric

@dorizzdt

i cite Rustafied as a successful model here that constantly demonstrates you’re wrong.

So I finally got off my lazy bum and actually did a bit of research on Facepunch, Rust and Rustafied. And guess what? It didn’t take a lot of research to find these two bits (emphasis mine):

There is absolutely no mention of Rustafied on Facepunch’s site anywhere.

So, to sum it up: the extent of Facepunch’s “endorsement” of Rustafied is that Rustafied servers are found in Facepunch’s official server list.

Could Funcom do the same? Absolutely. Is it the same as putting volunteer moderators on Funcom’s official servers? Absolutely not.

@dorizzdt

Except you elect your government in a democratic process and you pay them taxes . You don’t give them a one-off payment. You also don’t pay them only when they build a new road and then expect that to cover all the existing roads too.

I can see why we are in the state we are… its like you enjoy the status quo …thats…sad.

You know what’s really sad? Ad hominems. You know what’s even sadder than that? Completely ignoring a rebuttal and replying with an ad hominem.

@dorizzdt

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man

Good luck with being reasonable and more threads about ppl leaving the game due to cheaters.

Thrive in its failure and demise, knowing you were ‘reasonable’ in asserting we aren’t expected to actually use the “Official” servers in a fair and “reasonable” way.

That’s funny, because the “unreasonable man” quote is usually meant to imply that the unreasonable man should effect that progress himself, not that he should sit back feeling smugly superior for demanding that others do it for him.

Rustafied – which you take for a role model – didn’t spring fully-formed and armored from Facepunch’s head, but was rather a work of fans. The key word here being “work”.

In case my point is not clear enough, I’m suggesting that there’s nothing stopping you from trying to do the same. Instead, you’re asking Funcom to do it for you and, when other players point out the problems with your idea, you resort to cheap rhetoric to belittle them.

For every unreasonable man who has changed the world, there are thousands of unreasonable men who merely complained that the world does not adapt to their wishes. That we tend to hear more of one group than the other speaks volumes about their comparative worth.

[dorizzdt]

@CodeMage

There is absolutely no mention of Rustafied on Facepunch’s site anywhere.

To which i originally stated pretty clearly -

@dorizzdt

Again, i refer you to Rustafied.com … they aren’t Facepunch but yet have the most popular servers for Rust. Its possible and it works.

I mean… ooft… and they have very close ties with Facepunch. If you get banned or found to be cheating on Rustafied chances are you get a VAC ban as well. They do a great job on behalf of facepunch and the two entities work well with one another. Hence…WHY…I…CITED them…

@CodeMage

So, to sum it up: the extent of Facepunch’s “endorsement” of Rustafied is that Rustafied servers are found in Facepunch’s official server list.

See topic title… you finally made it… took a bit… but we arrived.

@CodeMage

Could Funcom do the same? Absolutely.

No no… just stop there… you are doing so well…

@CodeMage

Is it the same as putting volunteer moderators on Funcom’s official servers? Absolutely not .

And… we’re back to regressive behaviours…arguing for the sake of argument now. We were so damn close…

ergh.

@CodeMage

You know what’s really sad? Ad hominems. You know what’s even sadder than that? Completely ignoring a rebuttal and replying with an ad hominem.

dorizzdt:

Probably… but when you come onto a thread to argue that the status quo is fine and then fill it with circular arguments that really have no point to later then agree with the original position to then pivot back out because you just realised you were close to agreeing… file this under frustration

@CodeMage

That’s funny, because the “unreasonable man” quote is usually meant to imply that the unreasonable man should effect that progress himself, not that he should sit back feeling smugly superior for demanding that others do it for him.

Again with the demand… a question isn’t a demand it to seek knowledge… i mean its your confirmation bias loop, all i’m doing is trying to unpack why you hold the position “Official Servers are to be unmoderated even if cheaters are left to do their devastation”.

I just can’t get a lock on why you think thats a good position to hold? Moreover why you’re even on here arguing for it… All i am wondering is why funcom don’t moderate and why funcom aren’t open to community volunteerism… but folks like you are to busy running interference on solving virtual problems that don’t exist yet …furthermore you’re stuck in this loop that you know better and despite citing examples you’re yet to provide a baseline of where it has failed and why it should be given up on.

You dislike a position fine, but come to the table with more evidence on why something can’t work other than you’re half-baked theories on sociology of gamers.

We didn’t take a vote and we didn’t appoint you the spokes person of community of conan…so opinion noted, anything else? As i disagree with your position as it really hasn’t landed a single point other than “I feel it wouldn’t work” …which could have saved us all a lot of time if you just started with that.

@CodeMage

For every unreasonable man who has changed the world, there are thousands of unreasonable men who merely complained that the world does not adapt to their wishes

Hah if you only knew my career IRL and what i’ve done for the world. you’d realise your goof on that point. Anyway, flexing aside… good to know… but we are now lost in the weeds of misunderstood and out of context quotes.

The irony.

[CodeMage]

@dorizzdt

See topic title… you finally made it… took a bit… but we arrived.

You mean “Why won’t Funcom appoint community folks to moderate servers?” That title? The one that says that Funcom should appoint moderators?

Yeah, I honestly can’t tell how anyone would misunderstand that to mean anything but “hey, if a bunch of players banded together to host their moderated servers, maybe Funcom could include those servers in the official server list”. Totally my bad.

@dorizzdt

regressive behaviours…arguing for the sake of argument now.

And we’re back to ad hominems without substance. There is a substantial difference between Funcom appointing volunteer moderators for official servers and Funcom allowing community-moderated servers to appear in the official server list. If you disagree and believe that there’s no difference, I would be happy to read an actual argument.

@dorizzdt

Probably… but when you come onto a thread to argue that the status quo is fine

Did I? As a matter of fact, did anyone on this thread argue that the status quo is fine? Or were they just disagreeing with your idea?

@dorizzdt

circular arguments that really have no point to later then agree with the original position to then pivot back out because you just realised you were close to agreeing

I’m not sure which one of my arguments was supposed to be circular, but I won’t quibble about that when you’re obviously having fun making a story about my intentions and motivations, instead of actually engaging the arguments themselves.

@dorizzdt

a question isn’t a demand it to seek knowledge…

The only questions your original post contained were in the title and in the last line. It seems to me that most of us on this thread have been engaging those questions.

@dorizzdt

all i’m doing is trying to unpack why you hold the position “Official Servers are to be unmoderated even if cheaters are left to do their devastation”.

Then you’re wasting your time. That’s not my position. You assumed that was my position because I happened to disagree with your idea.

@dorizzdt

All i am wondering is why funcom don’t moderate and why funcom aren’t open to community volunteerism…

People have been answering why Funcom don’t moderate their servers all over this thread. As for “why Funcom aren’t open to community volunteerism”, that has several interpretations. Most of us took it to mean “appoint community folks to moderate servers” and pointed out why we felt it wouldn’t work.

I don’t know about the rest of the people on this thread, but I can freely say that I don’t play Rust and therefore it never occurred to me that you meant “Could Funcom allow a group of private, moderated servers to appear in their official server list?”

@dorizzdt

You dislike a position fine, but come to the table with more evidence on why something can’t work other than you’re half-baked theories on sociology of gamers.

Assuming that we’re talking about “Funcom appointing community moderators to official servers” specifically, I don’t have evidence that it wouldn’t work. I can point out the risks and why I don’t think Funcom would feel comfortable accepting those risks. You want evidence? The burden of proof is on you.

If we’re talking about the Rustafied model – community-moderated servers appearing in Funcom’s official server list – I see no reason why that wouldn’t work, but I wouldn’t expect Funcom to spend their time and resources on taking the first step. I don’t know about Facepunch – and feel free to correct me if I’m wrong – but I doubt they took the first step, either.

@dorizzdt

We didn’t take a vote and we didn’t appoint you the spokes person of community of conan…so opinion noted, anything else?

As fun as it was to try to match your pretentiousness with my own, I grow tired of that. I’ll probably continue trying to respond to your actual arguments whenever I can extract them from the rest of what you write. Hopefully, it’ll sway the signal/noise ratio back to more palatable levels.

[dorizzdt]

I’ll be honest i read none of your response as its gonna just keep circling the drain. Lets agree to disagree. Enjoy your pve server where being in an insulated bubble etc doesn’t affect you but you feel the need to comment on threads like this where pvp / exploits exist.

Fantastic contribution.