Rust CT Server Steam Group

The future of Rust CT

In time Rust changed to the point where our rules as-is were hampering the game and causing issues between players and admin. In addition to this a player by the name of Disxter/Shanaynay/Daddy Issues got banned for sexual harassment. She then made considerable effort to undermine the server and "influenced" others to target the server and spread rumours. Another server by the name of Voodoo gaming was subsequently started and plagiarized our web-content. I found multiple accounts of people coming and destroying my and the server’s reputation with new players and advertising the new server. This was done over voice and steam pm's and not in-game text chat so wasn’t immediately apparent and hard to pick up on and deal with. One such user, Badcookie was banned for this and added to his permanent Rustadmin profile.

The server might have survived any one of those issues at a time, but not everything at once. I was also in a difficult position in my personal life and haven't been able to react accordingly, but I doubt I would have been able to make much difference anyways due to how things crept up and the timing of events.

I started playing on Rust CT over 2 years ago to learn the game. I loved the server. I loved the people on it and it had a great community. In time, since I started playing Rust when I was in my 30's, I realized that Rust was taking up too much of my time and was getting in the way of my personal/professional life. This was around the time my daughter was born. I'm in IT, I love working with servers and I'm mature and calculating in nature. I’ve outgrown being emotional and impulsive in my dealings with others. I also noticed that Dragonb0rn was less and less present on the server and as such I offered my help as an admin to help him out, to still make a contribution to the game, but to stop playing so that I can focus on my responsibilities in real life.

So, it came to be that Dragonb0rn vetted me as an admin. He's always had a very professional, formal and systematic way about things also having a background in IT. I've come to expect this in IT which was a comfort that the server was in good hands and meant being an admin on Rust CT isn't just a permission, but a privilege. One that I worked for, and earned. It also meant I had high expectations from me and responsibilities to uphold and live up to. I revelled in the fact I got the role because I was right for it, and I was going to do it proud. I wasn’t getting paid for it if anyone wonders, it was a labour of love and I felt I contributed something meaningful - that was my reward.

As time passed by, Dragonb0rn eventually left things in my care and eventually retired as admin of Rust CT, leaving me with the server, and a legacy, with the promise to uphold it. Whether I succeeded in this regard, only time will tell.

Not long after the transition, we had some issues with Gameservers, our host at that time. They had a good cheap offering but we’ve outgrown them and with the issues at the time, since the Rust server was a shared instance I couldn’t delve into the issue to my own satisfaction. Because I felt comfortable with dedicated Linux servers, I set about to acquire a dedicated platform in a data center in Tyger Valley, Western Cape and built the server from scratch and migrate to it. This cost me about R1k per month in hosting and bandwidth alone, coming out of my own pocket. I had plans to grow the server, create fun for others and hoped to put the experience on my CV, and that was all the reimbursement I needed.

Our server's goal has always been a "NOOB Friendly" server. As such, the founder of the server, Dragonb0rn created rules to make it easier on new players.

To cater for new players, we had rules such as no kill on sight in certain areas, no door camping, and rules governing base takeover to name a few. For a time, these Rules were great rules to help new players. They perfectly fit the server goal and the community was at a place where the rules had a meaningful impact. I set about translating the rules to the server steam group and even fleshed them out myself.

Before I go further, I'd like to point out something that will become important in conclusion:
Rust CT wasn't exclusively a n00b server. We had to cater for all players. I mean we can't have n00bs learning from n00bs alone? That would be like the blind leading the blind. We have to expose them to experienced longtime players so they may learn how the game should be played. We also wanted to foster a populated server with at least some players and would be counterproductive to have them move along when they are no longer n00bs. By implication this means that Rust CT was never exclusively a n00b server. The issue however was that players very much perceived the server to be a n00b server regardless. If you played on Rust CT, you were a n00b, or such was the perception. I tried explaining this stigma away in the server page, and steam group page, but the masses don't read beyond the title it seems.

In time, Rust changed and with every passing month both the game and the community grew and changed a little more. Both changed in reaction to each other and with every iteration both the game and the community expectations became less and less adhesive to the arbitrary gameplay changes our rules imposed. What was once merited changes and gave solace to new players, had eventually lost touch with the game and players in its current state. I suspected this was the cause of our server population dying, but it wasn't an instantaneous discovery. More like a hypothesis that I was working on in the back of my mind. Of course, it occurred to me I maybe don’t fully understand Dragonb0rn’s vision that I inherited and wasn’t able to properly adapt the way he would have. I suppose I had my own outlook on things that was possibly a result of getting into Rust when it was at a different place than my predecessor.

With Rust CT's population dying, I found myself with more time on my hands. I started mentally mulling over everything, which led me to taking a sabbatical of sorts, to go play Rust on a high pop server and put myself back into vanilla Rust and the shoes of players playing the game as it comes from the developers. Doing so I made a few revelations which I am able to apply to my situation and that of Rust CT and will share with you.

One thing I noticed off the bat was that a vanilla, high pop server was nowhere near as toxic as Rust CT eventually became. The reason for this, in hindsight, was that our rules were imposing restrictions on current gameplay and that these rules were becoming more and more conflicting with the game that Rust grew into. Rust promoted a certain kind of gameplay where killing on sight, door camping and base takeover was the bread and butter of the game, but were also viable and in some cases necessary, alternative tactics in a player’s arsenal. Tactics that our rules cut players off from. Further to this, Rust CT had the perception of being a n00b server when it wasn't. We found ourselves with new players coming in, lacking a proper reference to interpret the rules, and expecting a tame experience, only to be violently brought to reality by experienced players whom understand the rules, their loopholes and the impracticality of admins enforcing said rules. As admin I have no way of knowing whether a player was killing on sight in a non-kos zone as Rust doesn’t keep track of such things natively – to name but one example. On the other hand, if for example we had no rules, there would be much less disparity in expectation between new players and experienced players as new players would have an open mind about what to expect instead of getting baited into a false expectation of relative safety due to what they surmise from the server title.

Furthermore, we had players whom were getting outplayed in one respect and then trying their luck in using the rules to get rid of threats. This led me to the personal policy to only act on proof and not number of complaints. This may have been a fallacy on my part, but it was a result of trying to fix a symptom and not the root problem (which I wasn’t aware of at the time). I suspect this means that a lot of legitimate complaints fell through the cracks and eventually led to broken trust and relationships between players and between players and admin (myself).

is that in order for a rule to be effective it needs to be enforced, and thus needs to be enforceable. Due to what tools are available to an admin, this requires presence of an admin and a ludicrous amount of time. Multiply that by false complaints and you start painting the picture. The issue was that our rules required constant admin involvement, but since Rust is rife with admin abuse, I limit my in-game time to only when needed in order to minimize suspicion of admin abuse. This had an adverse effect of other players thinking I don’t care. There simply was no right answer. The conclusion is Rust should police itself and not need admin involvement most of the time.

Keep in mind that Rust is a grindy game that can take a lot of effort and time. All this energy that players invest in the game becomes a bomb when people are put under pressure due to the combination of the nature of the game, and then lack of an outlet for that energy when our rules cut off what might be their only recourse. Hence people end up venting to admin and due to it not being proper rule breakage, inaction on my part means that venting erupts in game chat and discussion with others. This discussion, fueled by negative energy affect the server's reputation and my own, as “a bad admin who doesn't care”.
The alternative is that if players are left to their own devices in game, and have no admin involvement, they are able to put that energy into dealing with their enemies in game and it doesn’t become an admin problem. The Rust eco-system is sufficiently evolved for these interactions to play out and resolve themselves in game.

While the above situation has been developing over a matter of years and I haven't quite understood the issue and subsequently haven't been able to address it, I'm convinced the server's reputation as well as my own has been on the decline. Parallel to this, there have been the odd occasional player that I've had to ban. Some may have been unnecessary and due to acting out for the reasons stated above, and if you are one such player, I'm sorry, and I apologize for my part in it. I can only hope you understand my predicament.

one particular inciddent, a player that was banned namely Queen of Disxter aka Daddy Issues aka Shanaynay was eventually banned for Sexual harassment of another player, and eventually the tiff led to social media where she revealed some personal information of the other player. I'd like to take the time to highlight my relationship interactions with Disxter. A lot of people have criticized me for allowing her on the server for so long, much the same way she's criticized me about other players. Please understand that I don't know her, and in my dealings with her were limited to text chat. This is true of most players in fact, and like most players, I only see what they want me to see. As with Disxter, I saw no reason to permanently ban her. She was always friendly and amicable towards me, and my dealings with her were mostly when she was the victim. She stepped out of line a few times and I dealt with it, but lacking proof from players, I work on judgement of what I have in front of me. This is often the case with many players and I'm not sure if that was a front on her part or not, but when people complained about her being toxic, I asked for elaboration or proof on multiple occasions, only to be met with silence. Until today no one has been able to tell me from their point of view why she is toxic. That's not to say she isn't, based on what happened after the ban - I found that out for myself later on, but my point is I haven't gotten appropriate feedback and thus is why I haven't acted sooner, and this will possibly apply to other players as well. Many times I've been criticized of being friends with players when I didn't know them.

I always try very hard to remain neutral and objective, hence my lack of action without something concrete to go on. I suspect a lot of people left the server due to my inaction towards Disxter (I've been told as much by players) and the server population echoed this. Others simply left because they didn’t realize I banned her. Others still remained on the server either because their playing schedule didn’t expose them to the situation at the time and others were in her court so to speak.

When Disxter eventually broke a serious rule and got banned, she took her friends with her. Through the movement of the leaves, one can see the wind, and I saw the trolls and harassers that she sent to the server, catching a few in the act, telling tall tales of my admin abuse and spawning stuff in for my friends, etc. Keep in mind I don’t play. I have no incentive to abuse. The irony is, to name an example, that at the time hot air balloons were added to the game. I went to every group on the server and gave them a hot air balloon, barrel costume, and some other Halloween goodies to play with. Standard practice on our server to make things interesting. Usually everyone online at the time gets stuff (as a means to encourage people to be online and increase server population) but this time however I made a point to give to everyone as they came on. Since hot air balloons were not an inventory item i had to make effort to go to a person in every group to give it to them. Badcookie, was one of the players online that I explicitly gave stuff to as the receiving member in his group. I later caught him in voice chat telling another new player how I only spawn stuff in for my friends (using the hotair balloon at someone's base as an example) and break walls for them and so on. Eventually it came out that he was badmouthing on behalf of Disxter and the guys behind the Voodoo gaming server.

This led me to check out out the voodoo gaming server, and as the above where I'm pouring my heart out, I did the same to the rules of Rust CT. While it may not look like a lot of effort, I went through multiple iterations over my career as admin to condense the rules and the reasoning behind it. Some rules were influenced by my dealings with player issues and were a result of hard, emotional trials and tribulations on the part of myself and other players. Imagine my horror to find all my content so disrespectfully and blatantly plagiarized to the website of the Voodoo gaming server. They have since at the time of writing this added and edited the rules so they are slightly different, but not enough to prevent mental flashbacks to the exact time and headspace I was in when I wrote them, line for line. I was livid to say the least.

But alas, by the time I uncovered this, I already at least supsected the current ruleset was in need of rework and wanted to change it. I proceeded to remove all rules aside from common decency/internet conduct, but by then the damage had already been done.

Around about this point in time Disxter sent me a message saying "Such a pity that such a decent server got ruined when you decided to choose friends over people who made your server something. Told you your server will go to ruin. Glad I had a part of ruining it though :) Karma is a ♥♥♥♥♥." This affirmed to me her involvement in events. The thing is I didn't pick my friends over her. I discussed the matter with Dragonb0rn and presented the evidence before taking action as I frequently do with the more serious stuff. I had hard evidence of her offences and is why I acted. She’s also been involved with 2 other sexual harassment incidents as well as two other accounts of using racist words (the k* word to be specific). Her subsequent actions hurt the server, sure, but now that I know the real issues that were the culmination of a lot of things, I feel Voodoo gaming can have our copied rules. In time they will learn what I have, the hard way.

I would like to just say that nowhere did I try to cause anyone harm. While I was still coming to terms with the complexities of rust, the server's role and that of my own, I only intended to continue creating a fun place for people to let off some steam, make friends and have a blast. I put a lot of effort into adminning and a lot of people appreciated my effort. I feel it's unfair that players such as Disxter has such a vast influence that they can hurt a server and a community when she cannot admit to herself that she was in the wrong. I tried working with her and I was even criticized because of it, yet she turns around and blames me.

I feel it's my responsibility to bring the above to light, so that players can see me and my intentions for who I am, so that other admins can learn from the above, and so that everyone stops to think whether they are receiving a rumour, and whether they want to buy into it. If you want to spread a rumour or have the option to perpetuate one, please don't. Stop for a minute and think and try not to be selfish.

Sure, there are bad admins out there, but sometimes things aren't a simple as they seem. Admins are humans too. We make mistakes from time to time, and we have notoriously little information to go on at times. We make calls based off our best judgement, but it's not always perfect.

Another important note, I know I’m naming names, but please do not go harassing anyone on my behalf. This is not my intention and I abhor this kind of behavior. I can only hope in time the wrongdoers reach a moment of self-evaluation and reflection and learn/grow from this. I forgive Disxter for her actions and I've already moved on. That should be sufficient.

Some Rust CT players are starting a new server and I will allow them to reach out to you via the Rust CT Steam group.

A special shoutout and thank you to Dragonb0rn, my mentor, friend and co admin. I will see you on the battlefield one day. To everyone that has appreciated my efforts, thank you. I'm sorry I don't mention you by names, the list would simply be too long, and I won’t be able to name all of you and I can't do that to any of you. You have made my time special and worth it and I am glad I was able to make a positive contribution as you have made for me. I will forever treasure my time as admin and each and every one that walked the journey with me will have a special place in my heart.

May Rust treat you well, give you lots of loot, and help you make lifelong friends. GGWP, GLHF

-DementedZA