Consequence

Consequence is by definition "something produced by a cause or necessarily following from a set of conditions".
The conditions on the server and this community went terrible over the past months... not by what we offer to the players and community members but by reflective activity and support we can observe.

The server is nearly dead and just a blink of the eye away from being closed.
The SWAT Portal would follow in this case since the members of this community are not yet able to feel responsible for anything they do or dont do.
We are talking about lack of support and lack of activity in every area that would need it.

I do not see that the situation is getting any better nor that more than 2-3 people try to improve something. Therefore I am consequent now.

Three months ago I tried to find a solution to the problems and invited all Event managers, Staff members, Clan leaders and GRs into a "work group" with the objective to discuss and initiated necessary changes. That were the longest 3 months of inactivity that I have seen on one of our forum boards.
I have to assume that the majority of the invited people simply give a fuck about all this here and will free them from their obligation.

I dont need people which dont do their jobs. It is counter productive to support them any longer.
EM managers which dont run EMs will be removed.
GRs which are not online regulary will be removed.
Staff members which dont take care of of the Portal will be removed.
Inactive Dev team members will be removed.
Clans leaders which are not willing or able to lead their clans should better think about which damage they did to previously successful clans.
Most of the server clans can be considered DEAD meanwhile and exactly these clans can make themselves familiar with the idea of loosing all server clan privileges in September when I do the next update.

The past 5 months of inactivity has brought this community close to a collapse.
I was going to cancel the contracts with our host and close the CF server twice during that time. The server clans are either not able or not interested anymore to keep CF running.
Only 3 generous donations were able to buy CF some time.
I can promise you that I will not pay for your fun on the server while doing all the work (or at least most of it) and being threaten like an idiot by the community members.

CF 2.0?... Well I doubt that anyone will see the mod release if the current situation does not change fast.
The people working on the mod (Huor, Vishnu, Gearhead, Marauder) have my deepest respect due to their impressive ability of self motivation. Its practically the only motivation can rely on since from the rest of the community not that much can be expected. Sorry if my words hurt someone but its the truth.
We are still far away from a CF2.0 release... and like i said... I doubt that this community will ever see it if nothing changes.

At the beginning of this year we had a full server and were even thinking about getting new hardware. And suddenly everything collapsed.
I am currently paying for an old server while a new, more powerful one would cost even less.... but the ability to change the server vanished together with the ability to rely on this community.
It would be stupid to sign a contract for a new server that I have to pay the next 12 months while the server and this community is breaking together already.

Tzzz, 8pm (main server time) and we have 10 players online.
That actually is reason to close the server right away. And the worst thing is that during the past 5 months this community is not willing to do something against it. You guys seem to be happy with the current situation... otherwise you would do something against it. I dont know whats wrong with this community.
Clan leaders which suddenly lost their will and ability do lead their clans.... players which dont even find the motivation to come online for a fight. Everything that worked during the past 10 years suddenly failed to work. Not even the leading personalities from the different areas of this community (EM, GR, Clan leaders, Staff members) find the motivation to initiated changes.
I have once more been talking against a wall.

I dont want to wait another 3 months for a not existing reaction.
30th September is the deadline for CF. Either this community finds back to its previous strength till then or I will end this chapter.
I can clearly say that I am not willing to work for you... at best I am willing to work with you (thats a major difference).
You can decide for your own what you want to do.

Oh and one more thing.
IF CF2.0 gets the chance that it deserves then you should get familiar with a selective char whipe.
Dont get me wrong.
A Char whipe is technically absolutely not necessary but in times where the players have the luxury not to play the game because they already have everything in their cargo hold such a harsh decision appears to be necessary.
Players which dont make use of their chars today for sure will not miss them tomorrow.
I used the expression "selective char whipe" and I guess I will have to explain that a bit.
From today on the server will log the player activity.
The most active players during that time will gain the right to get their chars back.

I am more than sure that some people dont like such decisions but guess what... I dont like the situation here aswell.
Cause and reaction -> consequence

Double posts as I have a few questions that you should answer to yourself.

1. Would you work 8 months or more on a project while the only feedback you get is "ignorance"?
2. What do you think was the reason why I let the bot post news instead of asking the community for that once more?
3. When was the last time you that you did some constructive discussion on the forum?
4. When was the last time you actually used the features we offer to you here at the portal?
5. Do you actually care about whats going on here or the people which belong to this community?
6. When was the last time you actively started a normal "social" action here? -> e.g. opening a birthday thread for another member?
7. When was the last time you tried to introduce a new idea to the community or a game that you play that might be interesting for others?
8. When was the last time that you did say something good about another player?
9. When was the last time that you did active RP and use the Forum as medium to inspire other players to join such RP?
10. When was the last time that you offered help to others (on the server or on the forum.... maybe even helping other clans)?

apparently all the CF players have RL issues atm.... only the CF players

no seriously... everybody is telling me such a stuff...
"today is nice weather".... "the week before there were the olympic games" .... before that there was the EM2012... and before that there was something completely different which was more important

that individuals have RL isssues and need a break or cant play that much any can happen
but ive heard exactly this reason from almost everyone that ive asked during the past weeks
"RL issue" obviously has become a pandemic illness that effects CF players while other servers even manage to gain new players

no offence rex - i believe you
its just my observation over the past weeks and excuses will not save this community

I also do not believe that people leave because of CF features or the features of other mods. I am actually not even willing to discuss about features that CF would need and such a crap.
Last some the CF players told me that people are leaving because of the trading... so did change the trading with noticable profit increase.
Result: NONE
The situation today is even worse.

The one and only reason that I see is the inconsequence of the players to create a good game environment.
Lack of RP, lack of action.
That is why people are getting bored and leave the server. They wouldnt have reason to leave if there is enough to do for them.
But thats nothing that I can ever fix.
Its not in my powers to fix how you players think and act on the server.
If I would be an active clan leader i would start a server war... but I am not even online to do that and the GRs which are supposed to take care of such stuff in my name are not even active.

Marauder
everyone who wanted got the 2nd chance
more i cant do about this issue

You are right the PX members got banned because of their tag.
As individuals which truthfully wanted to play the game they were allowed to come back and since that day... (from my point of view) they had the freedom to play the way that did fit to them. I hardly can imagine that somebody wanted to see you guys go.

If PX as clan would have followed the server rules the situation would not have come to the point that I had to make this unpleasant decision.
I personally would even have allowed PX back to the server as server clan if the leaders would have said "hey... we did a mistake and wont do it again".
I registered on the PX site for a reason. I have asked to remove something which violated the CF rules and got a "no" as answer. Allowing PX to stay on the server under such conditions would have meant to allow anarchy on the server. It would have meant to allow that everyone breaks the server rules.
Every server admin would have done the same decision.

And please dont think that this was an overreaction that I just did all of a sudden. PX was matter of topic since january 2012 and has cost me many weeks where I tried to find a different solution.
Today I do not regret my decision as it was necessary... but I regret that such a decision has become necessary. I would have loved to prevent that.

I personally I would prefer not to discuss the cheating matter in detail.... some people made claims... other people responded with contrary claims and in the end both sides did not have the right to make such public claims. It violated the server rules and practically every agreement between the clans.
My decision on this matter was clear and the clan leaders knew that. I treat everyone equal.
The anticheat prevents cheats. It made no sense to punish someone for something that the anticheat already prevented.
If I would have taken the anticheat logs to ban the people which appeared in them both sided would have lost some feathers.
You for sure have your point of view but I remember very well that next to PX others were accused aswell.

My personal opinion on this matter is that all the troubles could have been avoided if people would have let me do my job instead of trying to handle this stuff behind my back.
I hold no grudges and if there is a chance to repair the done damage I would be willing to work for it.
Right now I can only thank the PX members which came back and officially asked to stay part of the community.

double post to seperate these good points from the PX discussion:

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iniciate asf/csf - where 90% of CSF left the server

If you ask me ASF vs CSF never really worked.
First we did it once a week... then we tried it 24/7... then we did it one week a month.
And everytime it ended in a dissaster.
It is hard to organize different clans in just 2 factions.
We had leaders which tried to organize stuff and I can not recall a single time that they were really sucessful.
ASF vs. CSF worked just one time on a regular basis. When ASF was lead by me and CSF by jib.
Unneccesary to say that these ASF vs. CSF fights have lead to a serverwide war which almost destroyed CF.
The idea behind this event is not bad... but i doubt that it will ever run.
Lack of organization... balance problems... internal problems of the factions and so on.
Too many factors which conflict with this event.

However... the biggest problem that I see with this event is when clans loose their identity.
Different RP factions have to work together... nobody wants to hurt another clan... everybody wants to be friends with the other one.
That does not work.

Doing some clanwars/friendly wars is much more effective when you want to create action on the server.
It only takes 2 clan leaders to do a decision.

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lowering containners value - how many people over lvl 60 is playing nowadys? 500 k tax is a lottery these days

People love to avoid RP... they do not think a single moment about the consequences.
It kills the RP and in the end the server.
The banking system does the rest -> but the CF players wanted it despite my warnings.

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So after this, the big boys got bored.... after all they won, they dont have any real threat to deal with, and "most" left the server with the "RL excuse", when in the past, the summer vecations was the time more people play CF .

Yes, I guess this is true.
I think above are at least a few reasons why they got bored.

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People dont iniciate RP becouse they are afraid. People dont join clans becouse there is no actual benefict in joining clans nowadays. there isnt enemys to fight or friends to defend.

Also correct. RP is being avoided and clans in my eyes lost their identity.
I would even claim that they are not even protecting their system... their territory.
-> i remember that for a long time protecting territory was a duty for every clan member and reason for alot of action on the server.
Clan members once we proud to be part of a clan.

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But if Cf 2,0 is still far from release you cant use the same card twice.

True.
CF2.0 is not even close to be released as the amount of changes exceeds what we have done with CF1.8 or CF1.9
We have lost much time while taking care of unnecesary conflicts and due to the lack of support.
While CF2.0 probably could pull CF out of this deep hole I fear that this would not last for that long if the mentality of the players does not change.