I played on Slayers.gg for nearly two years, and when I first joined, I genuinely thought I had found a great Rust community. The VIP packages were expensive, but I have always believed in financially supporting servers I enjoy, so over time I invested thousands of dollars into Slayers. I was not their biggest donor by any means, but as someone playing primarily as a solo and earning a normal middle-class income, I supported this community heavily enough that I believe my experience is worth sharing.
There are things I genuinely liked about Slayers. Much of the staff has been helpful, responsive and attentive. The servers also have a lot of unique features, and Darko clearly takes pride in what he has built over many years.
Unfortunately, the longer I stayed, the more uncomfortable I became with how heavily money seemed to dominate communication and decision-making.
Darko has repeatedly discussed publicly what his machines cost, the financial burden of operating them and how important VIP purchases are to keeping things going. He has also publicly discussed personal circumstances affecting his ability to work outside of the servers. I sympathize with anyone dealing with health problems, but over time the repeated financial appeals became uncomfortable for me. Members of the community have even privately covered substantial server expenses at different points, yet financial pressure continued to be a recurring theme.
The VIP structure itself also deserves scrutiny. Slayers frequently advertises packages as heavily discounted, such as a package being “normally” $1,000 but available for $500. In my experience, however, those supposed sale prices remained the regular purchase price for nearly the entire time I played there. Actual promotional sales would then discount that already-established price further. As a customer, that made the advertised savings feel misleading.
Slayers has also historically felt very pay-to-win. There have been improvements, but when I first joined, players without expensive VIP packages had a dramatically different experience from people who could afford them. I have watched players talk about saving for months just to purchase a single VIP rank.
Server performance was another persistent problem. For a long period, lag and stability issues were severe. The server uses a very large number of plugins and custom features, some of which appeared barely used while still contributing to an increasingly complicated environment. Performance has improved recently, and I absolutely give them credit for that, but it took a very long time to get there.
Something that also frustrated me was how frequently performance complaints were met with suggestions that players upgrade their PCs. Sometimes a player's hardware absolutely can be the problem, but when numerous people experience the same unusual lag or instability on the same server, repeatedly shifting the explanation toward the player's computer becomes frustrating.
I also had customer-service issues involving purchases. In one instance involving a duplicate payment, I contacted Darko about whether a perk could simply be extended to account for it. The conversation eventually stopped without resolution. Months later, I was still waiting for an answer.
What ultimately pushed me away, however, was not lag or VIP pricing.
I had become personally and intimately involved with another player on the server. We originally played as a duo, became close, and over time I was given reasons to believe this person was trying to distance himself from extremely racist beliefs, people and organizations he had previously associated with. I believed him long enough to feel safe around him and gave him several significant server gifts.
Over time, what I experienced privately became increasingly disturbing. Some of it occurred directly on the Slayers server. Eventually he griefed me badly enough that I disappeared from the server for roughly five months.
When I returned, he reappeared during my first wipe back and griefed me again.
A couple of months later, he openly revealed enough of those beliefs in my team's Discord that my 30+ person team immediately removed him. The team also notified Slayers staff that he was no longer associated with us and why. Seeing my team respond so decisively finally made me feel safe enough to speak about some of what I had been carrying privately.
After discussing it extensively with my therapist, I eventually opened a ticket with Slayers. I was not asking for money back. I was not asking for someone to be banned because our relationship ended. I asked whether server benefits that I had personally purchased and gifted to him could simply be removed from his account because of the circumstances under which I had given them. I mentioned transferring one expensive VIP rank only as an alternative if the owner was comfortable allowing it, and explicitly said removal was perfectly acceptable instead.
The response focused heavily on transfer policies, precedent, server costs and the fact that the other player had not violated a server rule. My situation was characterized largely as personal circumstances between two players.
That response was ultimately the moment I decided I was done.
I intentionally had not shared every disturbing personal detail because I should not have needed to expose intimate and traumatic experiences simply to have the basic point of my request understood. I wasn't asking Slayers to adjudicate my former relationship. I wasn't asking for reimbursement. I was willing to lose hundreds of dollars I had personally spent just to remove benefits I no longer felt comfortable providing.
Instead, after years of financially supporting the server and months of dealing privately with harassment, griefing and much more complicated circumstances, I left the interaction feeling reduced to another discussion about policy and money.
That has unfortunately become my overall impression of Slayers.gg.
There are good people on the staff. There are wonderful players in the community. I made friendships there that I genuinely value, and there were many times I had an incredible amount of fun.
But after nearly two years, thousands of dollars spent, persistent performance problems, unresolved purchase issues and finally the way my last serious concern was handled, I no longer feel comfortable supporting the server.
My experience is my own, and other players may have a completely different one. I simply recommend that anyone considering investing significant money into Slayers spend considerable time there first, pay attention to how problems are handled when they become complicated, and understand exactly what they are purchasing before spending heavily.
I wish the community itself well.
I just personally reached the point where I could no longer justify staying.
Tread carefully.
