So, I know I'm late to the party, largely because I have for the most part abandoned Pure for a number of reasons. I still care about the server, and I would love to come back more regularly if the server gets back to its roots (at least from what I understand its roots).
I guess I would reframe this whole discussion around the idea that Pure has an identity crisis. This is the description that brought me to Pure: "Pure is a well-balanced, high-performance vanilla server that offers players a pure experience so they can play the game as it's meant to be played without the fear of other players."
Pure no longer lives up to the above description. It isn't a well-balanced vanilla server. It is a server that caters to builders. From what I've seen in the forum and game chat the most contentious disputes are ones that are driven from builds. Builds being too big. Builds having to many entities. Builds that have windmills. Builds that have too many lasers. Builds that are too close. And on and on. This must drive admin crazy.
And I give Death a lot of credit for bringing this up as it ultimately hits on the ideas of: Who is the server's audience? And how does server ownership and admin reinforce that message through game play?
To be transparent I voted for upkeep. Frankly because I don't play Rust to build large, complicated builds. I don't need to build large landing pads, or vendor malls, or multiple Karen towers. I don't play rust to gather all the resources I possibly can in a month. I played on Pure and I continue to play Rust for the challenge of a survival game without any or extremely limited PVP. For the record my play style isn't better or worse than anyone else's and I don't fault builders for wanting to do what they do, but in the end Pure really isn't Pure anymore. It is a builder's paradise. One where they can do multiple builds. Build as large as they want without really many if any mechanical consequences. If that is what Death wants to do, then I encourage embracing it. However, if that is not the correct direction, then some rebalancing needs to occur. No matter what direction I wish Pure the best.
