Good day Travelers!

We wanted to take an opportunity to discuss a sometimes controversial topic, but a very important one. Moderation. This is normally a daunting topic, however we don’t think it should be. Rather, it should be something we are open about. In that spirit, we wanted to spend a little bit of time to discuss how we handle moderation, and what our plans are concerning it going forward.

Alongside this I also want to provide a big shout out to all of the community members who make up our community moderator team, and all the work they’ve been doing to help out with our community. Thank you for all of your hard work with us helping out all the players, and working to keep a great environment for players to learn and have fun in Last Epoch!

What moderation means to us

In many games and communities, moderators are scary people who tend to lurk in the background, hammer ready to punish those who fall out of line. That’s not what we want within our community. We have three core principles we follow when it comes to moderation within Last Epoch:

Setting the stage

Our moderators are not passive, lurking in the shadows. Our moderators are community guides and helpers first, moderators second. Moderators lead by example within the community. By actively setting the stage, moderation action becomes much less necessary as more players will become willing to adopt the positive environment being set. Our goal is to strive to help the community grow in a positive way, rather than simply address negative actions.

Guiding the conversations

Our moderators engage the community, not shut down the community. If a conversation starts becoming abusive, excessively vulgar, or otherwise becomes too “hot”, moderators will try to step in and reign in the conversation by changing the topic, or if necessary asking players to change topics.

Moderation action

Our moderators strive to be fair and unbiased in action. We provide coaching and guidance towards this goal, as well as providing full opportunity for peer discussion of events. We try to avoid implementing action whenever possible, preferring to provide players the opportunity to chose to be part of a healthy community. However, sometimes conversations can simply get a bit too heated, or a player goes too far in violation of the Code of Conduct. If this occurs, our moderators will take all reasonable steps to ensure fair warning is provided, and that they do not participate in any bias if action is required.

How we plan to implement this style of moderation

Community Moderator Program - Codename “Beesfriends”

We’ve mentioned in posts a few times in the past helpful community members who help us out. We refer to this as our “Community Moderation Team and Beesfriends” (name to be finalized). This team is comprised of handpicked players who have gone above and beyond within the community to make it a great place for new and experienced players alike. These players operate on a completely volunteer basis, out of their passion for the game and its community. Because of this, we do have zero tolerance for any abuse targeting these volunteer members (as we do any players).

These community members often already follow the first two principles of our moderation principles before joining the team, and are then empowered to implement short actions in the third principle when necessary. Whenever an action is taken by one of or moderators, a report is automatically generated and submitted to us so we can provide oversight and guidance to our moderation team. Any time a more severe moderation action may be required, it is discussed with EHG staff and implemented directly by EHG if deemed necessary. Though because we’ve had such a great community with all of you, this has rarely been necessary.

Empowering players to be involved in moderation

Currently, for all players, to report another player it requires directly submitting a support ticket with information regarding the event. Going forward, we want to provide all players more power in shaping their community. With the new chat system being developed alongside multiplayer, all players will have the power to report users in game. This chat system will also provide further utility for our team in regards to moderation such as helping clarify when someone is an appointed community moderator or a member of the EHG team.

Further, we provide a route for all players to be able to dispute a moderation action. If you believe an action was taken against you incorrectly, you can submit a support ticket and the action will be reviewed directly by EHG staff. Even in the event it was a staff member who implemented the action, it will not be touched by the person who implemented the action to ensure a fair review.

Why this style of moderation?

By having a community moderation team rather than solely an in house moderation team, we also help ensure that we are never ‘pushing an agenda’, or biasing our community’s conversations. Moderation action is never taken for criticizing EHG or our policies. This allows for a healthy community in which all members feel welcome and able to participate in. Our community moderators are also allowed to put forward other community members to join the team, helping to keep this self regulation within moderation to prevent a overarching bias to actions.

However, this is not to say that the community moderation team is completely autonomous. All community moderators are expected to follow the same Code of Conduct as all other players, and do have a set of guidelines to follow in their actions. The team is provided support directly by us here at EHG, providing oversight as well to ensure there’s no abuse of power within the community moderation team, and that the three core principles are being maintained.

Most Importantly, this approach to moderation is that the first two core principles don’t require any sort of special power. It’s something any community member going above and beyond is capable of. It is important to us to be involved in the community, and the community involved with us, as all of us not only come from it, but are still a part of it.

Joining the Beesfriends

As the player base continues to expand, so will our efforts in this. With multiplayer on the not so distant horizon, we are looking to expand our community moderation team including in game, Discord, Steam, Forums, and on our official Reddit. Reddit in particular we want to be as hands off in moderation as possible to ensure the integrity of discourse there, that it is always fair, and completely unbiased. For in game, we’re looking to expand our roster of community moderators to assist our global community in different languages.

If you’re interested in joining our community moderation team, here’s a general outline of what we would be looking for:

• No history of moderation actions in the LE community
• Preference given to players with longer tenure / more consistent activity within the community
• Either generally helpful within the community such as answering questions for new players, or discussing friendly topics in chat without pushing the Code of Conduct. Let us know how you participate in the community!
• Preference would be given to players which are online with a regular frequency. There are no obligations or schedules for our moderation team, but we would be looking for members who will be able to regularly help with the community.

If you feel like you would make a good fit for our community moderation team, please submit your application as a support ticket.

Looking forward to seeing you all in game, and may the bees guide your drops!

This is already currently possible by submitting support tickets. With the coming in game system, it could also be used for such a report.

As for how it will be handled, we have a standing policy to not discuss disciplinary actions, and this is included in the Code of Conduct. The reason for this is not in any way to hide or shadow how we operate for disciplinary actions, but due to the harassment it may draw to players which may receive associated actions.

More serious ToS violations are handled by us here directly at EHG, rather than community moderators, and are currently handled on a case by case basis. With multiplayer launch, we would be implementing more clear outlines regarding cheating through various methods in Last Epoch. To be clear, with multiplayer there will be a zero tolerance policy regarding cheating, but we would want to ensure this is clear to all players to know what to expect.

Reported cases of offline ToS violations, such as content creators violating the ToS to create content, would continue to be handled on a case by case basis. Community events, and things such as leaderboards are currently planned to only be available for online players for greater integrity.

It’s certainly something that we could look to expand on for sure if we’re able to put together the members to support it. I think it would be great to do anything we can to help our global community.

Haha, yes I did see that. It took an almost inhuman amount of self control to not post “just wait a few days”. We’ve had this program for some time now, but wanted to make a full post regarding the topic of moderation, and the Beesfriends.

We strongly believe in taking in feedback and criticism from our community, taking it into consideration, as well as acting on it. We don’t believe trying to hide that criticism by moderating it helps anyone, and there’s always something to learn from it - even if tangentially. We may not necessarily agree, but if that’s the case, we’ll try to take the time to explain why, rather than remove it.

I certainly understand the concern with such a highlighted case scenario where a community moderator program didn’t pull through for the community. However there is many cases where community moderator programs have flourished. One of which I’ve seen grow and flourish for the last eighteen years without any major incident, and continues. It is a program which will require a significant amount of oversight, and we will need to adapt as we grow.

We like to keep very close with our community, with open channels of communication, and always try to be as responsive as we can. I believe that with this approach, we can see the Beesfriends be one of the community guide systems that flourishes. The important part is that we listen to not just our community moderators, but to our community as a whole, so we can address any issues occurring with the community moderator program before they become significant issues. And I like to think we’ve shown that we have that commitment to openness with the community.

As per our three outlined principles, they are one in the same. “Moderation” is not simply addressing negative actions, as “mods” are in some games. Moderation is guiding conversations, providing an environment in which people are able to have a civil discussion regarding a topic. By being helpful members of the community, or “guides”, they are already actively contributing to the goals of what moderation is by contributing to the creation of that environment. “Our moderators are community guides and helpers first, moderators second.”

We have a standing policy, included in the code of conduct not to discuss disciplinary actions.

Regarding players you may find in chat violating the code of conduct as you have outlined - First, I’m sorry you had to experience this. Making racist comments, spam, and excessive vulgarity are against the code of conduct. And while we certainly try to create the most welcoming environment we can in chat, we cannot guarantee all instances will be caught.

This is why we are both expanding our roster of community moderators, as well as introducing a report system with the coming chat system. Of course, you can always submit a screenshot with a support ticket if you feel something is going unaddressed, and we can ensure it is looked into and addressed appropriately.

As far as something being “civil”, it means to be courteous and polite, to follow conduct of good behavior. In other words, it’s a shorthand for following the code of conduct.