Dondi - The man, the myth, the rumor.

[Salty Sis' 4U]

So I've been reading a lot of reviews, specifically the negatives... All of them seem to have three things in common.

Toxic community.
Abusive mods/admins...
And Dondi.

Can anyone explain the nature of the latter two? I can understand the formation of toxicity in an online survival game... But WHY are the higher-ups in the game TP-wiping folks with "Hypo" dinosaurs?

And are the rumors about Dondi's views on customers and players accurate in their portrayal?

Furthermore... Is this game even close to exiting Early Access, after all these years?

[MattWard]

This thread is going to become a cesspit. I'm already seeing it.

[brownie689]

Yes it is true that Dondi trash talks his customers constantly. You can find plenty of video evidence to prove my point.

[Nearchus]

1. All game communities are toxic, to some degree. I wouldn't say that we're that toxic, you got some hardcore players out there who want the survival horror game, some softies who wanna rp as utahraptors, and some jerks who just OOF everything. It's not as bad as ARK's community.

2. The official admins are fine, in my experience. It's when you set foot in unofficial servers that the admins can be... well... less than good. If you want fair admins 90% of the time, stay on officials. I still play unofficials a good 80% of the time.

3. Dondi can be harsh, and quite cruel. That doesn't mean he hates the community. I think that he cares a whole lot about the game and the quality of the game he gives to us. He's not a bad dev in my opinion, overall. Plus, he's got good ideas(except lowering the player count) A lot of players really hate on Dondi, partly because he's usually not afraid to say if something is a stupid idea.

TP-wiping people with hypos isn't true. They never unfairly TP'ed people to them. The devs used to get on a bit to kill people as hypos, but it wasn't frequent and they usually announced a warning.

Ah yes, the Early Access question. It'll probably be a few years before the game leaves early access, but that doesn't mean it will be terrible in the meantime.

I've been reading the reviews lately. Most of them are wrong. They're always complaining about the admin abuse that they see, but they fail to realize most admin abuse goes on in unofficial servers. They're still fun servers, don't get me wrong. But their admins aren't always the most professional.

[MegaDave]

If you are not playing on official servers with minimal rules, then only reside on the popular player-owned servers; they are popular for a reason. Simply obey the rules and you will surely enjoy your time while no doubt making the admins' jobs easier. Semi-realism servers employ a host of rules, so you best make an effort to learn them if you feel semi-realism is for you.

Dondi is a straight shooter; he is frank and does not "beat around the bush". He has a tough exterior. You might call him cold or not very personable at times. Some individuals are not accustomed to this. I, however, like Dondi. I'm not repulsed by him, I try to understand the reasoning behind his behaviour instead on condemning it. It's common knowledge at this point and he's stated it himself that he's depressed, so I feel for him.

[K.T.]

IMO a lot of the hate against Dondi is either over-exaggerated or uncalled for. He's basically an honest, no-♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ guy who says whatever's on his mind. He also has a dark and morbid sense of humor which many people will.often mistake as genuinely offensive - but it's not. He just likes to trashtalk for fun.

So if his playerbase is acting stupid, toxic or irrational... or if people are giving him ♥♥♥♥, or trying to get his attention with whining and frivolous tactics - he's not going to kiss their asses about it, if you catch my drift.

[Bam]

I have a 1500 hours on the game and let me tell you- the only servers you find thats toxic is non official with a ♥♥♥♥ ton of rules, never have i seen an admin on officials abuse power.... Dondi is pretty cool, he just has a laid back personality but if you say something- He will speak his mind and hes not afraid to ban you if youre being toxic, hacking, cheating, etc (contains discord). Its how most games SHOULD be. He will be honest if he doesnt like an idea. However he is super cool and funny to be around, yes he jokes around but some people take him seriously and its sad.

I'd say the game is enjoyable and on sale. However a huge update is coming so if you want good stuff added in.. wait a few months.

[14104]

Pretty much every online game has toxic people, and usually the talk about admin/mod abuse has to do with those on unofficial servers. However, I do have a little bit to say about Dondi.

I don't see much of how he acts these days because on the rare occasion that I watch his developer streams, I have it muted, and he doesn't seem to talk as much in the discord like he used to. Back in the 'olden days', though, he and a former developer that went by the name of DeathlyRage were PR nightmares. Some people would describe their behavior as "not afraid to speak their mind", "savage", "tough", etc. My version of these descriptors go more like "overly-reactive/emotionally charged", "instigator", and "bridge-burner", but everyone has their own point of views. It's funny because after Deathly was fired by Dondi (because, allegedly, Deathly was being an ass towards fellow devs), the discord community that used to defend Deathly's behavior turned against him and talked about how rude and unprofessional of a guy he was. It's lead me to believe that if Dondi wasn't the lead developer of this game and for some reason got fired, people would turn on him too. It just sucks that it took Deathly being unprofessional towards a developer for Dondi to realize something was wrong, despite all the times he was unnecessarily rude to customers. Also, people would say that those customers who felt the wrath of Dondi or Deathly deserved it, but that was often not the case. Some people were not rude at all but would still get pummeled with words, and the only reason I can think of for this is that they just liked seeing their supporters cheer them on and tell them how savage they are and that they "totally wrecked" that person. But you would have had to be there to see it all because both the old Isle discord and steam forums were completely wiped, makes you wonder why

All that being said, I believe people can change, or at least pretend they've changed enough so that things get better. Deathly has done this with his own separate game; there's virtually no drama over there and the community is very friendly so far. I also think Dondi has gotten better and it may be because he talks less in discord. I wish Dondi and his daughter the best though, and in fact recommend you buy the game if you are a patient person and are fine with sometimes large gaps between experiencing action, at least in the game's current state. I may not agree with all his behavior, but I don't see him as a terrible person, and I have hope for his game.

[Bill_Clinton_Supreme]

First two are easy to explain.

Online communities for games almost always are dumpster fires, this one specifically has a good amount of bootlickers and a good amount of them seem not very old.

Admins on non-official servers can be very hit or miss in how good they are. Though that's not my call since I haven't played on them much.

Dondi I have mixed feelings for.
He is ultimately flawed like everyone but I feel like sometimes he's built against himself.

He's a perfectionist but also very fickle, that's a combination roughly akin to a Balloon and a Pin.
He's straightforward which can be good or bad, your call there, I haven't had good experiences with him and he can seem somewhat unpleasant at times and has been hypocritical in situations where its pretty bad to be.
He got mad at other games being dinosaur survival games when he's the same guy who did a conscious effort to put Jurassic Park calls in his game. Once again, this is your call.

Often times I think his problems aren't his alone and are more or less from the majority of the team and community just not standing up to him.


I don't know the guy personally and probably none of us ever will.

[Nylan]

Hadn't had issues with a toxic community myself, but i haven't played a lot or owned the game for a long time. I joined a private server with a friends group. It's rather popular, usually being close to the 100 cap. The admins are fair there and have a report system in place as well as an appeal system if a player believes a report needs a second opinion. Everyone there is rather friendly.

Personally i don't recommend the game at the moment though. The server browser is pretty unreliable (half the time i can't get any of the servers my group is on to show up), and if like me, you buy the game to join a specific group on a specific server and cannot you won't have much fun. I also don't see how anyone could survive solo in it, at least not without being rather good at their dino type.

Perhaps that will all change after the recode.. When things work it's great fun and a non toxic pvp environment (from my experience on this one server anyway). I'm betting it'll get better with the recode, and when that pops out and my issues get fixed will happily change my review on the game to recommended.

[Raina]

There is a fine line between being someone who doesn't take ♥♥♥♥ and someone who is a ♥♥♥♥. Dondi overshot that line by a mile years ago. Many people seem to still think he just doesn't take ♥♥♥♥ or is a no nonsense person. But no. If you look around im sure you will find plenty of proof still, there are at least a few reviews with screenshots and other such things. He flat out seems to think customers are trash and idiots with ideas so stupid it might as well be physically painful for him to look through them (Even though they are there to help his project) and that he only forces himself too for that 1/1000000 okay idea. Mocking people who ask questions. Yep done that too.

Not to mention deathly. Who was also a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ dev don't get me wrong, he raided a community server for fun because he didn't like their play style. But hes been used as a get out of jail free blame card since being fired. So you can kinda see how much responsibility dondi wants to take for his own game.

The other devs and moderators dont have the same attitude problems Dondi does though so thats something to note.

With hypos though. I dont think they TP wipe people generally. But those things are so fast and unstoppable they really dont need to tp. Literally nothing can catch OR kill them(Basically see one you might as well just lay down you live or die by their whim at that point no matter what) and they are dev locked. (Not even admins can spawn in as them.)

[TheFox]

Dondi needs more money. So we can hope he will make the isle evrima playable.

[Maunomanly]

Originally posted by MattDude:

This thread is going to become a cesspit. I'm already seeing it.

Yup, it's already happening.

[Salty Sis' 4U]

Welp, cesspit or nah, it's definitely good insight into the community and their opinions.
Lots of what I read said it was official servers plagued with hypo-TPs, but it's good to hear that kind of thing is less invasive and common now.

As for Dondi... Yep, real mixed "reviews", huh.

[Dirk Manderin]

Guy sounds like a grade A ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

[Soggy Bread]

Originally posted by ☻:

IMO a lot of the hate against Dondi is either over-exaggerated or uncalled for.

You obviously don't know him then, and surely don't know how he acted back in the early days.

What a dumpsterfire.