Signed by 15 people from 10 communities. WARDOGS community server owners, admins and players ask Bulkhead for earlier notice of changes, real admin tools and room to grow. Read it, then sign with Discord.
Dear Bulkhead Team,
We write to you, as a combined effort of community server owners, staff members, players alike. This isn't a demand, this isn't a moan, this is a plea and we need you to hear us, listen to us, and act, because the TL;DR of this letter, is that community servers need your help, not in season 5, not on release. Your community servers will ultimately be what keeps your game alive, and we're eager to support WARDOGS, but you need to support us in return.
ONE: BULKHEAD > Community Relations
We, in unity find that the communication between yourselves and the community is severely lacking, we do not know what's happening from one minute to the next, and typically we tend to get information either never, or exactly when it's made public. Specifically referring to RCON API Endpoint changes, server config changes etc - in Season 2, there were changes to the structure of the config.ini and RCON API that we needed to know about prior to Season 2 going live, this caused outages, downtime and some of our tools to break as a direct result of a lack in communication.
TWO: Community admin tools
We have a very limited toolbox when it comes to moderating our servers, or generally running them. Below is a list of tools/changes that we needed on launch, and currently to date, are still not available. These tools are not simply quality of life improvements, they are the bare essentials we need to be able to properly moderate our servers, and keep them clean and sanitised for players to enjoy being on community servers.
2a | Chat Logs: Being able to moderate in-game chat from outside of the game is essential. BULKHEAD Promote banter and publicly shame hate speech, racism, homophobia (etc), however currently, on community servers it's more difficult than it needs to be to moderate our server chats. Negatives: Increased API calls.
2b | Damage logs: Being able to view comprehensive damage logs, seeing damage done to a player, the part of the body the damage was done to etc is a massive tool and has huge advantages in cheat detection, allowing community servers to be ahead of the curve, and utilise their voluntary staff members to track suspicious gameplay and ultimately ban cheaters before the anti-cheat gets an opportunity to. This is an industry standard, and is information routinely provided in other games, such as Rust, DayZ and your inspiration - ARMA. Negatives: Increased API calls.
2c | Debug Camera/Freecamera: This is a catalyst for discussion, currently there is no way, outside of literally following a player with your own playable character to spectate a player. A freecam/debug camera is essential, however this could be abused, which is where this suggestion comes in. Solution: Restrict use of the debug camera at core game level to staff steam IDs, specifically listed in the servers config.ini, any steam ID within this array of Steam IDs would not be able to play on the server, they would only be able to use administrator functions - this way, server owners can have "staff for specific servers" removing the ability for staff members to abuse the functionality. Negatives: We'd say a potential exploit allowing cheaters to use the admin cameras, however recent social media posts show this is already being done.
2d | Anonymous mode workaround: Currently a user can enable anonymous mode, and once they do - they're completely invisible to admin tooling, the only work around being manually looking for the exact cash/kills/deaths and corresponding that to a user in the server, but then this isn't always a sure bet. The unique player ID that's in the scoreboard needs to be exposed within the RCON API endpoints to be able to allow server owners/server admins to see these players, even through anonymous mode. Negatives: Zero.
2e | Reduced server announcements/MOTDs: Currently server announcements are obstructive, and intrusive. The option to be able to post a server announcement via Chat/Popup or Chat and popup is long overdue. There's also a need for a message of the day (MOTD) which allows players to view information directly from the server, such as rules, Discord information etc.
This is not an exhaustive list of admin tools that are needed, but these are the bare basics/essentials. There are a number of quality of life improvements that would be incredible, many of them requested in the WARDOGS Admin Hub - but we never see Bulkhead acknowledge or respond to these routinely, therefore they feel ignored.
THREE: Official Server Oversaturation
This is probably one of the biggest issues community servers are facing. There are an abundance of official servers, and having separate server lists makes it increasingly difficult for players to find, let alone play on community servers. The only way for community servers to thrive as of this letter being written, is to fire up an Infantry Mode server, which ultimately is not the solution. Bulkhead need to seriously consider reducing the amount of official KOTH servers, to allow the community servers to thrive in the way it was inteneded. It is no secret, as the game matures, the community servers will categorically be how the game survives, this is proven through games such as ARMA, RUST, Reforger, DayZ Standalone, where the developers invest so much into community servers because that's where the bulk of the playerbase lives.
FOUR: Server Favoriting/Bookmarking
This has been requested, and it has been made public that this is actively being worked on by Bulkhead. We won't go into this, but know it is a massive feature that has been requested since day one, and would make a huge difference, being able to pin your favourite servers.
FIVE: Seeding incentives
The changes made in Season 2 to seeding incentives was a great move, however it fell around a mile short of the action truly needed to make a difference. $5,000 is a drop in the ocean when it comes to players cash-balances, instead, during seeding there needs to be a truly interactive element to seeding, two guns (with no extra ammo) on a table doesn't solve the "bordem" problem. Community servers find that they can seed a server with 20 players, and even after hours of seeding - the server can't populate and eventually dies.
WE RECOGNISE YOU
As a collective, we understand the battle you are facing, and we appreciate this game is in early access, and we thank you for the effort you are all putting in, despite the negativity you receive, we understand and appreciate the constraints you have, and the desire to "make everyone happy, all the time". Therefore we would appreciate a response to this letter, at the very least, and a promise of action.
Please remember, we're not against you - we're here to help you build communities, and micro-communities around your game. Between us all, we house thousands, upon thousands of players daily - and as a whole, we're struggling to keep up.
Thank you for reading,
Bless your cotton socks.
Peace and love.
Your Community, community server admins, and community owners.