Hello GDC,
some players got banned after some relatively reproachful criticism, some even that had only remotely to do with it. That lead to a big discussion and accusations on Discord and last but not least to the Fina(ncia)l countdown
After some discussion within the team and some players we got some points that have been discussed with the entire team. Following this, there was a group discussion with the affected players where every party could their mind (in a respectful way and it did work out).
Under the bottom line we found out that us admins/owners often made some logical decisions that were not understandable by the players because of missing information or bad communication. In addition to that we spoke about the increasingly harsh punishments for (minor) offenses, decreasingly right to be heared, Ghost Coins, tame limit etc.
A few explanations in detail so we're all on the same page and a few upcoming changes that will follow the upcoming days and weeks:
Ghost Coins
GC transactions were disabled because we didn't want the players to run around with a max. level Wyvern, Griffin, Rex etc. 5 mins after the relaunch of the cluster to keep people busy and entertained for a bit longer.
Additionally we had planned an in game token that can be exchanged for GC and used to pay for stuff on the auction house instead of metal, crystal...
The developement of such a plugin can take weeks even if you have time to work on it every day. In the meantime people got upset about the disabled GC transfers so we've decided to enable them again in the next few days.
Auctionhouse channel (Discord)
The much appreciated acutionhouse channel was deleted by an unknown team member. Because there were several people that complained to an owner via PM about others trying to trick or even scamming them and there was no way to confirm it, we think it is best to leave it that way and move trade offers back to the marketplace on the forum. Texts are saved and altered texts can be seen by us, as the forum saves every change. That provides higher security despite being a bit slower than arrangements made on Discord.
Tame Cap
The global limit is 5,000, not 10k or 50k. Dinos are causing a very high cpu load, especially with many ppl online and in chunks with dinos.
The old value was 8,000 and despite the Kibble-Cooker that limit was reached at the cost of performance (lag spikes). A solution is not possible when everyone keeps everything that's not gone on the count of three. Therfore we've decided to check and add a proper Storage-Mod that allows a tribe to upload dinos and remove them from the tame limit to disengage the server, add the kibble cooker again and maybe increase the tame limit a bit.
If that fails to deal with the issue we're out of options though, so use the possibilities we can offer (soon) wisely.
Tex (Tek Rex)
The Tek Rex was released with the Archeology Event (that crashed the cluster until it was disabled) and has up to 20% higher base stats. We thought it was an event only thing at first, which is why we announced that it will be removed after the event. It's a first stept towards Extinction though and we couldn't block the TEX because of ASM not having an option to block it. Blocking it manually didn't/would not work as ASM just overwrites the manually altered ini file and the settingseach restart and replaces them with the values entered in ASM.
Lomg story short, we'll keep it but nerf it, so the current balancing is not at risk. As soon as exctionction is officially released we'll adapt to the new balancing.
News/changes
Changes will be more obvious (Infobox). Additionally we'll explain things more detailed and in both, English and German. News on Discord will redirect to the forum,so everyomne reads the same thread and gets the same information.
Admin rights + PvE
Admins are no longer allowed to use their powers for personal gain. Any admin using their power for that will be dismissed.
Punishments
We'll check and work on our old penalty scale so everyone get the same punishments for the same offenses. This will prevent people from beng judged differently by different admins and/or accusations that certain people are treated differently than others.
Kat, Le1tna
Due to the internal discussion and issues we've decided to discharge Le1tna.
Kat was removed from the team by her own wish.
Both are listed as honorary members for their prior accomplishments.
noelpy
noelpy has been added as an admin and will do the usual admin stuff but also serves as mediator between community and owners.
Player union
We'll establish a player union with 5 players most likely. These people will have a vote each and represent the community and can agree or oppose the owners, so the community has an equal say regarding certain changes. The player union members will have no admin rights in game.
Feedback
There will be a new sub-forum for people to voice their opinion if they don't feel represented or left out by the player union.
Server costs
The community gets an equal voice, accordingly we'll hold the community liable and the server is financed by donations and no longer solely out of pocket by a single owner (Calaban). If these demanded changes will keep the cluster alive is up to the community - you.
Comments 1
Colonel
Thank you for info and clarification that we all seeked
If you want to establish player union, it shouldn't be admins and owners who decide who's going to be in council but players, as we going to be represented by those peoples. I thinks it's a good idea as long as the owners gonna respect community voice cause at the end of the day, you're the one in real charge here and with real dedication, but it's us that make it all meaningful.