izigame.me

So I joined for the latest war, played entirely too much and absolutely won't be recommending this game to anyone I know or anyone else unless I really really don't like them. Overall the game is super unique and actually very engaging. I did a mix of activities some front line combat, solo ran a small public facility for vehicle upgrades in a convenient location that actually made me some good friends in game, and did back line to mid/front line logistics. Enjoyed all of it. So why the not recommend?
The community. Before buying I was told on reddit that the community there was way more toxic than in game....that was nothing short of a lie. This game is a huge playground for toxicity and griefing. Most of the "toxicity" I saw on reddit appears to be valid criticism of the game. In game is soooo much nastier. From world chat that is constantly on about who is at fault for losing and nonstop whining about losing, to fights over who stole what (especially trains), whose resources are whose, and top it off with folks intentionally sabotaging your own side. Because everything is player made and some items are difficult if not outright impossible to secure from your own team griefers can and do wonder the map to find high value assets and destroy them. My own facility had people on multiple occasions just come through and throw manufactured materials on the ground to rot, disconnect power to structures, and unlock and move vehicles out into the road to block pathways into and out of a nearby town. This happened right before a big attack on the region which of course suggests it could be alting (a nasty practice of having an account on the other team and using it to sabotage stuff for an advantage) but could just be vindictive idiots. Sure, I've met some good peoples and helped some folks about but I've also been team killed for trying to set up a public crane at a public mine by a clan that set up their facility on top of it and received obscenity laced tirades because I was parked "wrong" at a refinery because someone else was parked wrong when I got there so I made do. Dude was truly unhinged because it took him 5 extra seconds to access the building...
Finally. Because there was a new update released the devs opened a new server to accommodate the influx of players, new or returning. Pretty standard stuff for an mmo right? Well expect in this case the devs play the game and want to protect there "pure" vision of the gaming experience from anyone new that might disrupt that. So they put up big warnings about ques on the Alpha server, which is their own private playground and shunt any and all new players to Charlie. The whole community on Alpha treats Charlie like a joke. They call it a meme server and call for it to be shut down after the current war. You as a new player are literally seen as a lessor by the player base here and shoveled off to a lessor version of the game. Is it a scam? I wouldn't go as far as that but i would call it a cash grab. There is no subscription and no cash shop so the devs have to make money somehow. To do that they put out a new expansion, run a sale or something to bring in new players, give them an experience that is good enough to keep them around until they can't refund the game then have the community and gameplay drive away 99% of them so they don't have to open another server and can keep the purity of the one true war.
I think I'll stop there. I could touch on other issues like the attempt at asymmetric balancing, server issues, or how mind numbing some of the logistics loop is but I'm sure others have and will cover that.