UPDATE 3 - Global Chat, Custom Server Host Woes, and Communications. Please... halp!

[Nokternl]

Apologies in advance for the wall of text, and my appreciation to those who take the time to read and respond.

So, I'm (painfully) aware that the Isle is still under prolonged active development, and I'll try to sound as rational and least bitter/angry as possible here.

Some of us who have paid monthly for server hosting, to add a different and better experience for our communities, have seen these servers lay stagnant basically since the move to Evrima. We tried to support the game as best we could by moving away from Legacy and establish ourselves for the promising future of the Isle, in Evrima. Most (if not all) of us saw a massive loss of our communities as we waited for a meaningful update that'd bring our players back.

Therefore, we were all pretty much universally looking forward to Update 3, both players or server admins. Finally, a couple more Carnivores, more food for (at least them) carni food, hopefully a fix to murderous Dryos, and map changes made by a map designer.
Arguably, those of us who have cared the most about The Isle development are those server hosts who have put *the most* time, money, and effort into helping further The Isle within our communities. In developing custom discord bots, creating systems to assist Admins and Players with the game, community currencies for players to grow / inject their dinosaurs, selling, saving/loading dinosaurs, all the way through to complex systems that have enabled players to fully (and realistically) nest baby dinosaurs in, and play mini-games within servers, allowing players to practice their PVP against others, play fun games to give them more reason to play/stay in game, win prizes, and generate more content for player fun *and* content creators to help further the game overall.

To be clear, this sort of functionality hasn't been available on all servers. There are a select few (myself included) Server Admins who have put in the resources to enable these sort of features, to help them add something different and more fun to their servers. To act as a point of difference and a *reason* for players to come play with them. A justification for them to spend their hard earned money (often $100+ per month) on hosting a server for their communities.

Many of us (server owners) have been creating, modifying, and refining these systems over many years now (3+ for me), and have made changes as required, as the Isle has gone through its several patches so far.

Also, to be clear, these systems have worked outside of the architecture of the game, with well known features (both server file and admin mode) of the Isle, and *not* hacking Isle code to accomplish what we have done.

What did Update 3 do for us?
Removal of Group/Global Chat in its entirety, no option to reenable
This change is controversial, because many servers who care for their communities and rules that help make them individual, fun, and unique/different (read: not official servers) rely on our admins abilities to converse (back and forth) with players. It also helps players enjoy the game (it is a game, after all, we're meant to be social), and helps them feel part of the community.

I understand that some people may want to turn off Global Chat to reduce toxicity or increase realism, etc... but why must this be to the detriment of those of us who need it as a vital tool and resource to improve our player experience? It is *already in the game*, so give us the freaking option to enable or disable one or both chats, and make everyone happy.

Changed the Player Saves away from a text based, individual file structure, to a single, encrypted Characters.sav file that we have no access to view or modify.

This essentially has completely screwed over every custom server host, rendering the majority of their custom systems useless as we can no longer -

- See any data on a player's current dinosaur, which included Player SteamID, Class (type of Dino), Female/Male, Current Location (XYZ coords and Yaw), Growth (%), Health, Stamina, Hunger, Thirst, MaxStamina, MaxHunger, MaxThirst, Oxygen, Blood, LockedDamage, TargetingTeamId (Their Group ID), MouthGore (bloody mouth), UnsafeLogout, BleedingDamages, BleedingTimers, VomitDuration.

- Edit the above data (while a player is safelogged) in order to inject them as a new dinosaur, alter their growth whilst not logged in, change their location, etc. You get the idea.

This ability allowed us to created these great systems which allowed us to make this game SO MUCH MORE than it is right now. The ability for us to set in game (discord) currency costs for grows / sells of specific dinosaurs. To ensure that a player was actually online before running a command (like to Slay themselves), all the way through to full on nesting systems which made sure that two 'mating' dinosaurs were the both species and the required sexes (Male and Female), both fully grown and next to each other before allowing them to 'nest' another player as a baby dino into the game, right at their location and in their group, and after a specifically timed gestation period based on the species of the parents (how nesting really should be), and 'mini-games' like Battle Royales which would allow players to play with temporary 'event' dinosaurs, in custom locations of the map, whilst being able to return to their survival dinosaurs at the completion of the events.
Things that improved the playability and quality of life of our and many other communities of players across multiple other servers in the Isle.

Things that we can no longer do, thanks to this (insane) structure change.
I'd also like to add the fact that not only was this *competely* sprung upon us Server Hosts come Update 3 release, those 'specially selected' server hosts who are more accepted by the Development team were aware of the intention to break these systems and weren't allowed to discuss them or warn anyone prior to the release of the Update. We can assume this is to avoid the expected backlash before just rolling it out and screwing everyone over.

Ongoing Client file issues that are not being correctly changed/implemented across Updates (This may help you!)

Has Update 3 stopped you from hitting Escape to get to the menu system from in game?
Have you been unable to use the Z key to 'slow down' as a Pteradon?
Have you been unable to use the 'Alt-Bite' that's been talked about so much since Update 2?
Don't know why these options aren't even showing up in your game Settings?
Your %APPDATA%/Local/TheIsle/Saved folder hasn't been correctly updated by the patch. Rename or remove this folder while out of game. Come back into game, and it will fix (though you'll have to change all your Graphics and Keybind settings again).
Stuff like this is pretty straight forward, and shouldn't be happening time after time. It is affecting regular players' experience, and there seems to be an expectation for players to have to help each other to these (quite simple) fixes to problems which should never have occurred in the first place.

Terrible communication, time and time again
This one, aside from the change to locking the Character Save files, is the *worst* aspect of the development process of the Isle. The Devs are aware of the work that so many hosts put into their servers. Into rules, into admining, into unique custom systems to better serve their communities at *least* while official functionality like Nesting is introduced into the Isle.

Those of us who have put countless time into making their servers work better, get funnelled into a single, non responsive (for the most part) channel.
There needs to be a better system introduced for communication and support for players and server hosts. If there's too many questions coming in for one person to handle, get another person. If they can't handle it for other reasons, or don't want to, get someone who can or wants to. Run a ticket based system so that your customer base is aware that their question *will* get read and answered in time, and monitor it to ensure you're actually getting back to people, and not leaving them unanswered for months at a time (if not deliberately).

Please remember, we're working as hard as we can to make YOUR game a success, building communities for it, getting people to build content for and introducing more players to The Isle, which directly increases your own revenue through more purchases.

So, I guess, in summary, I'd like to make a few important points.

- People who love and care about the Isle, and have arguably put more into the Isle than almost anyone else (bar the Devs for the most part), have been really heavily hurt by this snap change to Player Save Data, and would REALLY LIKE to see this change reverted.

- Many of those server hosts are probably like me. I've hosted my Isle server (Survivors Beacon) for our community for over 3 years now, since Legacy, @ $100/month. I have spent countless hours over that time creating these custom systems for my community, to differentiate myself from other servers and to attract people to our server. Without the ability to use these sorts of features to differentiate ourselves from official, or any other servers, why should we bother supporting the game by running our custom servers at all? Sure, the Isle itself doesn't make money from custom server hosts (though those hosts are no doubt going to hurt as people stop paying for custom Isle servers), but they *do* have to pay for the cost of running the official servers, and losing custom servers funded by the community will either end with more official servers being needed (at the Isle's cost), or an oversaturation of players wanting to enter servers, and a lack of ability to serve them.

- I've also personally purchased 11+ copies of the Isle, between myself, friends and family over the years.

- Across all my feature/functionality systems for my server alone, we're talking about thousands and thousands of lines of custom code created over the past 3+ years. Having all of that pulled out from under you with no consultation or communication after the fact, by the people who should care about the community's enjoyment of their game more than anything else, frankly hurts, a lot.

Yes, you might think I'm acting all entitled here, but I think that the time, effort, and considerable expenses I've incurred during my time in the Isle would at least help emphasise to everyone how much of a let down this is to the custom server hosts for the Isle. I know for a fact that I am not the only one, and I know for a fact that the vast majority of their questions/concerns/complaints have fallen on deaf ears, even now, days after the Update.

I understand that we are almost all enjoying the new content with our Deinos and Pteras owning the waterways and skies, and I commend the Devs on their ongoing efforts to improve the game, but *I implore you, Devs,* to reconsider the decision to lock the player data and the chats from the server hosts. Please, for the sakes of the servers you (as players) love to support and play on for their different rulesets, the ability for you to have more fun with them, and to be able to chat with other people while you play without having to alt-tab out to a Discord server, get behind and support us, or you will start to see your beloved custom servers drop off the server list if these changes aren't fixed.
These major issues with Update 3 and communication in general as and will continue to have a major negative impact on those people who have done the most to try to further The Isle within the gaming community in general, and as an avid supporter (pending hopeful changes to the above), lover of dinosaurs and the Isle as a game, dedicated server host and community leader, I genuinely hope you'll consider giving us all back our ability to enjoy the game we love.

I think (and hope) I can speak for most of the server hosts (especially those who have put the time into customising their servers) in this request,
Without malice,
Nokternl
( Discord: Nokternl#5191 )

[II-SilverNapix-II]

i played the Isle myself for quite a while now, being the most and long played game i own so far on Steam.
i love the many servers you can find, but the most i stikc around have rules aplied to them, make smal mini games and alowed you to work for some curency to maybe buy yourself a grow and just ahve fun in fight games or hide and seak games.

i now many people tend to get salty in this comunity or even toxic, but in eneral, i also found many nice players and could talk to them in the global chat even when we chilled out as different dinos. most noticable around big herds flocking together and that was also a reason to tipe and make well, sound so other players could also lokate you.

now seeing that many of my most loved servers isable rules and are helpless with players on their own servers not going with the server made rules and make other player have a bad play experiance cause of just stupid stuff and the adminds not be able to do anything about that, is sad.
i know the Survivor Beacon comunity and i just loved the little games Nok managed to do with the bot on the server. it was mind blowing, and i loved it, even when the player count was low. so i realy hope that at one point all the host get back the free range they had before andmake us play normaly again while waiting for more work on the code and new updates.
cause like right now, i´m afraid to go on biger servers even trying to grow there anything cause i know just some overly bored peolpe may lurk there to kill me for no reason and for no fun.

[Tregrenos]

While Global Chat should remain off by default I can see this being made into one of the toggle options. When the devs reestablish mod support someone will most likely find a way to bring back Global anyway, so may as well just make this a core option for server admins.

HOWEVER, this opinion is only based on the current system limitations and if a viable means of communication between players and server admins outside of Discord is added then Global Chat is more of a hindrance than a boon. Group Chat, however, should remain gone IMO.

[Alycake]

As part of the admin staff on a server that hosts on both Legacy, and Evirma, the loss of global chat has severely hindered our ability to administrate while active in the game on Evirma side. We can do so over other media, (i.e discord) but the response time from both staff and player, varies. Being able to communicate with your fellows despite being different species in certain instances is important, as not everyone is going to have discord up on a second monitor, thus making discord-based "global" chats clunky and slow. Not everyone can be part of a voice chat every time they play, and I think this should be turned into a toggle option.

I understand not having a global chat is a great help to some communities (i.e realism) but for those who take the game at a more social standpoint would benefit greatly from this change being edited.

Just wanted to add my voice here in support of this point, and all the others.

Thank you for making this thread and thank you to any devs who may be taking the time to read it.
Much appreciation.

[beebee73]

I don't understand why it HAS to be off for private servers. Officials I get it...they never even had it in legacy. I can even understand if off is the default...but let individual servers switch on global if that is what the server owners want/choose to do.

The players can then decide if they want to play on servers with/without global chat.

But give us choice on private servers!

[Madkou]

Seems simple enough to me m'dudes!

First, make in-game chat noise a toggle. Turn it ON, when you want players to have this novelty, and it's safe to do it. Or, keep it on to handicap your players when others are using 3rd party chat and VC lol.

Officials should have that turned off. It's survival 101 man! It's a tool to hunt players in a PVP setting! Not sure how much more plain that needs to be haha. So, what does that mean for global chat? Well, same thing lol. If you have global chat ON, it makes sense that players would want to do so freely, cuz it's not effecting PVP if PVP isn't there, right? lol.

Just like it makes sense for players to not be handicapped by in-game chat noise when players can use 3rd party chat and VC. Players are either being wilfully ignorant and saying "Shhhh man! you'll ruin the advantage!" lol, or just plain don't get it. But the devs should, eh?

Sooo, global chat is getting closer to being accepted anywhere with an in-game chat noise toggle (ON or OFF) PVE = ON, PVP = OFF (unless a player server owner doesn't get it neither, or is taking advantage of it lol. That's their choice, and it's on a player to know the difference.

That's step 1. Now, step 2 is to focus on the mechanics of the game itself! When we can say that beyond a shadow of a doubt, that global chat can't effect the intended game play anywhere in any possible way, global chat should be good to go anywhere!

Pipe dream? Maybe. These game mechanics would be leaving little to zero wiggle room for players to call the shots (toggled and controlled by players on their servers). Mechanics replacing admins kinda stuff. The fact the devs turned it off, and never plan to turn it back on in the future kinda speaks for itself, if this is true? I dunno.

This might be telling that the game mechanics will never be enough to justify having global chat ON in an intended, or PVP setting. This also might mean game mechanics will never be enough to replace admins when it comes to legacy-style official game play on official servers (if that's their aim and not something less)


PVE servers. Turn global chat ON. Turn in-game chat sound ON. Find friendly players with these sounds, and the other sounds, of course! chat sound isn't the only dang sound you can make in the same FFS lol. You're free to make as much noise as you want! AI aren't hunting ya...yet lol. it might be that AI (in the future) will be listening for you too! But, we aren't there yet, or may never be.

So...

PVP servers/Officials. Turn global chat OFF. Turn in-game chat sound OFF. Why? 3rd party chat dumb-ass! lol. The developers have ignored this obvious handicap for years, and still do...why I dunno. I don't see that in-game chat is currently a good idea to spam in a PVP setting? It's survival 101.

What people say in global matters. It can ruin PVP, and or survival for players if it's allowed in the wrong kind of setting. Even with global chat off, discord could still be used in such a way, and the discord moderators will still have to watch that in official discord chats! lol. Just like legacy, yup. Unless, they get rid of said chat, which would also make sense, right? Not undermining the idea?

Even if they did, players would/do still form massive discord channels in order to accomplish the game thing in-game. I'm a utah, and my buddies a stego, and my other buddies playing a ptera etc etc. We could be talking, and coordinating non-stop on servers that don't permit this.

The only way you catch players doing this and ruining game play for others is human admins. They gotta see it, make a judgement call as best they can, and then act on it. A game mechanic filling these shoes is a HUGE shoe to fill lol.

Does turning off global chat actually help much? Well ya man, it actually does. With random players meeting other random players. Which probly makes up for a lot of the server's population, or it wouldn't matter, right? lol. it's a good measure that works most times, but it's not the entire fix. Players are continue to abuse discord in ways they shouldn't be in order to take advantage of game mechanics that just aren't there to compensate for it, and protect intended game play...official servers, or player servers, it doesn't matter. The mechanics need ya be there, and they can't be soft and flexible, or you still get players on officials over-packing, or mixing in a way they shouldn't etc etc.

I went on a lot here, but there's lots to be said about this, and I have the energy today, so there ya go lol.