Speaking of feeding critters, Suti's critters need food too. Last time I swung by I stopped in to check on them, and add a few stacks of berries and meat but they were really low. If you are feeding stuff you may want toss some more chow in the bins there. I don't think I'll be on soon enough.
I noticed Pierce's dinos at the OB were hungry. Didnt see a food trouth there.
Anyone know if Lord Hyphy the 2nd is coming back to the center map? His beach complex near the blue obelisk is in demolish and there are no dinos around it. Looks like its been completely abandoned. Was curios if anyone would mind if I removed it?
I think you're fine to remove it. We can always get him some resources to rebuild if he comes back.
So the weekends of increased rates have led the ARK devs to some conclusions.
Hey Survivors,
We’ve got some exciting news we’d like to share with you! As of today, we will be transitioning the ARK’s harvesting, EXP, and taming rates to 2x permanently.
This is a decision we’ve made after experimenting with the game’s rates for quite some time. You may have noticed in the last few weeks the Evolution Events have gotten longer, this has allowed us to get a better feel for how it would play out in a permanent live experience. We have consistently received a lot of feedback from you, and it was very evident that players preferred the increased rates. Thusly, the rates will stay at 2x permanently from now onwards on our Official Servers. Evo Event Weekends will consequently be increased to 3x rates. Furthermore, in the next major version releases, the 2x rates will be implemented directly in the game build itself. This means that Non-Dedicated Servers, Single Player Sessions and of course Unofficial Servers will also feel the increased rates. Therefore, if you’re currently using customized rates, it’s something you will want to keep in mind before this change is in place -- specifically upon the release of the next Major Version on each of your respective platforms, you may wish to reduce your server/game rates by 50% to have the same effective values as before.
We appreciate all the response you guys have provided to us regarding our Evolution Events and are looking forward to running more exploring new features with you in the upcoming future.
All the best,
Wildcard Jat and the ARK: Survival Evolved Team
I'm thinking over where I want stuff to end up, but we'll probably end up slightly higher than our current rates, comparatively.
There's no plan, there's no race to be run
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Yeah, feel free to take a wrecking ball to it @BitTWist. That place is kinda wrecked from the allosaurus gang that attacked anyway and I'm not sure when I'll be back to the game.
Did anyone pick this up on PS4? Is there a PA community on any PS4 servers?
I've been playing on XBox One because a buddy from work play there, but I'd prefer PS4. I just picked it up last night and started the download. I haven't even logged in once yet on PS4, so when I get on tonight, I'm gonna want to pick a server.
Just curious if anyone around here is playing Ark on PS4 and if they've got a good server. Otherwise, I'll probably just have to do a blind pick and hope I end up on a server with decent human beings who aren't total asshats.
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KalnaurI See Rain . . .Centralia, WARegistered Userregular
edited December 2016
Well fuck. My Gigan seems to have starved in my absence. He wasn't eating that much, so I figured he'd last from Budd's last feeding. Assuming Budd fed him.
Fuck. That's depressing.
Edit: Though his death isn't listed in the tribe log . . . ?
Kalnaur on
I make art things! deviantART:Kalnaur ::: Origin: Kalnaur ::: UPlay: Kalnaur
Well fuck. My Gigan seems to have starved in my absence. He wasn't eating that much, so I figured he'd last from Budd's last feeding. Assuming Budd fed him.
Fuck. That's depressing.
Edit: Though his death isn't listed in the tribe log . . . ?
ya that sucks. Ive had that happen a couple of times since being on Center. The Dino is gone but not dead... Ive tried using the dino finder and it comes up with nothing. Im sorry about your lost Giga
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Marslois, the dirty frenchmenMontrealRegistered Userregular
Is the server down right now or do i have to use some crazy voodoo magic to find it?
Well fuck. My Gigan seems to have starved in my absence. He wasn't eating that much, so I figured he'd last from Budd's last feeding. Assuming Budd fed him.
Fuck. That's depressing.
Edit: Though his death isn't listed in the tribe log . . . ?
Well fuck. My Gigan seems to have starved in my absence. He wasn't eating that much, so I figured he'd last from Budd's last feeding. Assuming Budd fed him.
Fuck. That's depressing.
Edit: Though his death isn't listed in the tribe log . . . ?
Seeing some talk of 'black holes' abouts, make sure you don't leave any dinos near where he was located.
Having had Dino's vanish into the ether sucks. I've had a Dino fall thru a redwood platform, and lost at least one into the nothing. I'm wondering if it fell thru the floor and then when the floor rendered in it got cleaned up because it was not in a valid location. The other thing I've witnessed was that feeding is not fair. I've see Dino's starve to death when I filled throughs back on the island when I had a huge horde.
So im playing this on ps4. How does anyone get anything done once a few aholes get top gear and Dino's?
Like in most survival games a noob can Technically kill a player with high end gear. In this if some ahole with a trex wants to stop any progress in the lower areas he just can. Admittedly i haven't see that on ps4 but we did get raided with explosives and recently attacks by two level 100 guys with a saber tooth.
Just seems like the massive power creep from naked man with spear to guy in full riot gear with a rocket launcher riding a trex is a bit nuts and impossible to play against
That being said the game is all sorts of fun. My buddy and I took to the sea to avoid pvp trolls and now have a stone boat we live in. Got basic guns and close to getting metal foundation and walls for the storage room at least (need a bit more keratin)
Nice. I just finished construction of my Dino pen boat. It's what it sounds like, a raft that has a Dino gate and massive walls. It also has a series of ledges I can climb to to shoot Dino's below. So it us both a mobile Dino pen and a giant arena to trap them.
So far the first attempt was an anky and now she is mine. Afros her in, shut the door and pelted her with rocks. Then she slept safely in my boat as I fed her berries.
I named her "The Rock" gender roles be damned. If my girl anky wants to drop the people's elbow she can in Trumps America
Alright dudes. I've got a couple weeks of serious Ark playing under my belt now. My main dude is level 60-something on my XBone server, and I've got a 15ish dude on my Playstation account. So I feel like I'm able to hold a halfway intelligent conversation about this game, now that I'm out of the "total noob phase."
I'm here today to talk about server politics.
Are clan politics something that happen all across the many platforms and servers of Ark, or is my XBox server unique in all the politicking that goes on there? Even though I'm 60 on that server, my game experience is pretty much limited to this server only.
Let me provided some info.
The server I play on has a very well established clan, who everyone I play with refers to as the "alpha tribe." I guess my first question is this - is that a gamewide term or is that something that is just on my server? Basically, they are the dominant tribe.
Regarding my server's alpha tribe -- they basically run the server. There are rules and etiquette that they have established, and if other clans break those rules or general etiquette policies, the alpha tribe will come and wipe their base and crush them. They police the server very closely. They're not dicks about it, and they aren't unreasonable. They set these rules to keep it an organized and decent place to play.
That's where all the politics come in. Obviously with a clan that is acting as the overlords, there is resentment and hard feelings from clans that get wiped because they break the rules. And there are factions. Some people are on good terms with the alphas and play by the rules. Other clans will occasionally band together and rise up and try to overthrow the alphas. But they are so entrenched and so built-up that supplanting them is basically impossible.
On the topic of factions and alliances and what not, here's a bit more specific info about myself and my tribe.
I came into this game a total newbie. A friend of mine from work got me into it. Listening to all of his stories about all the server politics, and occasional tribe wars that break out and stuff enticed me to come and play. His clan are basically the 2nd top clan. They are nowhere near as strong as the alpha clan. But they have a very good relationship with the alphas, they are allied, and their bases are literally right next to each other. My work friend's base sits forward of the alpha's base, and if an enemy clan wanted to take a shot at the alphas, they would have to go through my friend's tribe's base first.
So anyway, that's the basic political landscape I entered the game under. Being a total noob, my friend and I came to the decision that the best thing for me would be to found my own clan and learn the game from the ground up. He offered to bring me into his clan. But if I joined his clan, I would have immediate access to everything and I wouldn't really get to experience a large part of the game. I want to experience the game from the ground up, and so what we did is I created my own clan and allied with his.
My clan is built nearby to theirs. It's about a 1 minute ptero ride to get from my base to theirs. And my base sits up on a hill overlooking theirs (and the alphas) so in some ways, my base is in an incredibly strategic position, because we act almost as a watchtower.
Some geography. We're on the Center map, and my friend's tribe and the alpha tribe are both built in the massive cave that is literally under the world. You have to fly off the edge of the map and down into their cave. My base is up on the surface, overlooking their cave entrance. Strategically, it's perfect. It's a 3 tier system.
I'm new(ish) (level 60 something) but I'm growing. And because my base is on the surface overlooking theirs, my base is a staging area, watchtower, gathering point, and whatever else it needs to be for the top two tribes on the server. Somehow even though I am brand new to this game, I have become an important and key piece in the defensive strategy of the top two clans on the server. I inherited some very powerful friends when I joined this server.
Regarding my base and my location, I picked the spot myself. And I love it. My work friend gave me a level 265 bird when we came to our arrangement, and he gave me a mastercrafted metal pick and metal axe. And he basically turned me loose to do whatever I wanted, with the understanding that I'm trying to learn the game, tech up on my own, and have my own shit, rather than just mooching on his super well established clan who already has everything you could ever want.
So I got on my 265 bird and flew around, and I scouted my base site, which to me is perfect. I'm in flight range of the assistance of the top two clans. And since I'm on the surface and they're in the cave, I knew my base would be important.
My work friend has another real life friend who just recently started playing also. He's level 70-something, so he's slightly ahead of me. And he plays a lot more than I do. I got him in my clan, and the two of us have just been working together to build our small base and raise up our clan. We're a small time operation, but I feel like we're really important already.
A side story before I jump into the real story at hand. A couple nights ago, my new base got hit by some random looter tribe while I was offline. My other clan mate was on, and he was in XBox party chat with both my work friend's tribe as well as a few members of the alpha tribe. He noticed that a non-allied guy was just sort of hovering and scouting us. And he spoke up and said something. They told him to keep and eye on it so he did. A little while later, about 4 dudes show up and start attacking our workshop building. We're pretty new and up until this point our base was made entirely out of stone. These looters thought we would be an easy target and I'm assuming their plan was just to break into our workshop and steal whatever they could. But, because of where we are and who we're friends with, that didn't happen. The alphas mobilized, including bringing up their war quetzel, and my buddy and his clan members who were on also mobilized. They were at my base within about 3 minutes of when we fell under attack. They pushed the looters back and killed all of them and all of their birds, except for one guy who they intentionally let live. He ran away on foot, and he led them straight back to where their base was. Then they completely wiped this clan's base off the map. Sucks to be them. If people were wondering before about my tribe, there's no question anymore. You mess with us, and we have very big friends who will stomp you. Even though this looter tribe didn't get anything, it spooked my clan-mate and I enough that we've been converting our workshop to metal and we're preparing to convert our dino barn to metal also. We've also beefed up our defenses over the last couple days as well.
So anyway, now that that background info is out of the way... back to the alpha tribe and the server politics. A while ago, the alphas wiped a clan for violating the server rules. The clan that got wiped transferred off of the server. They have been building up on another server for about the last 3-4 months, and two weekends ago, they transferred a warband back over to come after the alphas.
When they showed up with their warband, they made a public declaration that they were only there for the alphas, and if other people stayed out of the way they would be left alone. Well... most people on the server are generally pretty cool with the alphas. So our server rallied and pushed this pretty massive warband out and defended our server and our alpha tribe. It was a pretty violent and bloody war, too, because it wasn't just one clan back for revenge. They brought allies with them from their new server. My server load was capped at 100/100 during the war.
So that brings me to now. The alpha clan and my work buddy's clan who are the number two's have been rebuilding since that server raid for the last two weeks. They're probably 80-90% back to full strength at this point, but they aren't quite there. The lost some gigas, quetzels, and top level tames that haven't been replaced yet.
This weekend is 3x tame XP and both my buddy and his clan, and the alpha clan were planning on using this weekend for taming and imprinting their replacements.
But an in-server clan has been secretly building up all this time in the redwoods, and I guess they decided that this weekend they're gonna try to bring down the alphas. So instead of this being "tame weekend" this has turned into another war weekend. Only this time, its an in-server war.
This tribe that rose up has been building secret alliances and apparently a lot of the server has joined them. I'm not really sure why. But they have. They're trying to knock our alpha tribe out. But remember, the alpha tribe also has my buddy's clan fully in their camp, and my two-man watchtower clan with them too.
Somehow, my small base has become the key strategic staging area for our friendly forces in this server war. There are people flying through all the time, parking birds, trading resources, weapons, and so forth, and prepping their assault squads to go into the redwoods where the enemy base is located. I'm thinking tonight this war is gonna hit critical mass and someone is gonna be completely out in the cold with nothing left.
You, sir, are playing a completely different game than most of us.
Not that it's a bad thing, I'm just saying, your experience couldn't be further from the private, modded, pve servers most of the posters in this thread are playing on.
It sounds awesome, but in practice I think I would absolutely hate it. Losing tames, especially at the (now improved but still shite) default rates, to a bunch of 13 year olds is the opposite of a good time for me. I have enough problems with that happening because of some dumb AI.
Also to answer your question early on, yes, alpha tribe is a term used by pretty much everyone.
Unrelated, my half dozen players on my server decided sometime in the last month that with a new year must come a new game mode, so we are starting Primitive Plus this weekend. By necessity a lot of the mods I've come to take for granted (structures plus, etc) are going poof. Not real happy about losing the demo gun and fence supports, more than anything.
Ok, so here's a question -- is there any sort of official moderation or recourse that can be taken if a tribe is cheating and/or intentionally crashing the server to gain an advantage?
This war that I posted about has been waging off and on all day, and the clan on the attack, who are called "Sofa W@nkers" keep intentionally crashing the server and causing roll-backs every time the war goes out of their favor. I don't know how they're doing it exactly. But our alpha tribe won a major battle earlier, killed most of the Wankers dino's and then the server magically crashes and rolls back and all their dinos are alive again. And that has happened like three times now, where the server is just magically crashing and rolling back anytime something isn't going their way.
This is an official server so I would think there should be some sort of official moderation for it, right?
My friends are also claiming they have duped items and are duping rockets. I doubt there's any way of proving this, but if Wildcard has ways of doing item checks or something, they might be able to pull log files or something and see if duping is happening.
I'm not online right now myself. I'm just hearing this second hand, but people are getting pretty worked up.
Also... apparently my base got completely flattened down to the last stone after one of the crash/rollbacks when Sofa wankers managed to crash it and then claim an advantage after the reset. But again, I'm not online, I'm just going off of what is being said in our out of game chat channel.
@Lucascraft Have your tribe send as many reports in to CS as possible. They do ban for this sort of behavior, and crashing a server should be a fairly easy thing to document. There's a known exploit to create enormous amounts of lag and possibly crash the server, and all these fuckers should be permanently banned for it.
If they're using the method I know about personally, there may be something you guys can do. Shoot me a PM, as I don't want to discuss it in public.
Finally got around to trying this game (thanks steam christmass sale), and so far i'm having a blast in single player.
But damn this game needs better pathfinding, trying to herd my army of dinos (1 trike, 1 carno, 3 raptors and 6 dilo's) through a gate to and from my base takes way too long (and i am not leaving them outside the wall, way too many Therizino's wandering about).
Also, way too much inventory management, sometimes it feels i spend half my time just sorting through crap to throw away.
Need to start exploring more soon, already level 60 and still using crossbow/pike and leather armor as my main equipment.
Just need to make a feeding through and fill it with food for dinos before heading of the scout the coastline (so not bringing them anywhere far from base for now, i'd just spend half my time getting them of random trees they get stuck on).
Lucascraft Have your tribe send as many reports in to CS as possible. They do ban for this sort of behavior, and crashing a server should be a fairly easy thing to document. There's a known exploit to create enormous amounts of lag and possibly crash the server, and all these fuckers should be permanently banned for it.
If they're using the method I know about personally, there may be something you guys can do. Shoot me a PM, as I don't want to discuss it in public.
Several of us all opened reports for the incident. This clan ended up literally wiping the entire server with duped rockets and dinosaurs they kept resurrecting with server crashes whenever something didn't go their way.
And my friends and I ended up migrating servers. We found a pretty chill Island server with a really great community on it. They have a big arena area setup on our new server for gladiatorial type events, dino battles, and organized PVP. Seems like a good place to call home so far.
Honestly, my only complaint is that the Island is a terribly boring map after having played on the Center. There are way less monster spawns, and I'm not a fan of the metal mountain, where like 90% of the entire maps source of metal spawns. Also, the lighting on this server is very extreme. At night it gets so dark around our base that it is literally impossible to see anything at all, even with gamma turned up to max. We light torches, and they help in their small areas, but as soon as you get out of the torch area, it is pitch black. Then during the daytime the sun is so bright that you cannot see anything but bright white light.
The Center definitely has better lighting. I also like the much more clearly defined biomes on the Center.
So we moved to a new server with a pretty friendly, active community, but an inferior map.
Island has a small hill just off the southern coast, east of the red obelisk, where a not insignificant amount of metal nodes spawn. I built a little smelting cabin in the woods there and left my ankylo and it never got bothered by anyone. Very off the beaten path and because everyone goes straight for the volcano, it doesn't get a lot of attention. You'll know you're in the right spot because there's a tiny little ruin at the very top of the hill.
Is your base in the redwoods? I noticed that on the island there is a noticeable lighting shift whenever you are within the redwoods biome and below the treeline. My main base was by the pond in the redwoods and at night you're completely blind. It was very irritating.
So we had to leave our old server in a massive hurry. That cheater tribe was on a tear across the server, and we knew we were on their hit list. I abandoned my little two-man tribe, as did my tribemate, and we just assimilated into my work-friend's tribe, which was 2nd top on server.
Because they were 2nd top, and because they were built in the cave under the world on The Center, we had time to make a mad, hurried rush to upload as much into the Ark transfer server as we could.
To say it was intense is an understatement. We were running, walking, flying, escorting dinos to Green Ob, which was the closest safe exit point to their base. The very first things they offloaded were their mating pair of Ptero's that were like level 290+. Once they got their fastest birds offloaded, they took the quetzels next, and then a pair of twin Gigantopithicus's that we had that were a personal pair of my work friend. He loved his twin monkeys and they were very high on the list of things to save.
While some people were riding dinos and uploading them, I was back at their base, tearing down auto-turrets and loading them into vaults, which I then flew out and offloaded into the Ark server as well. I personally moved about 100 autoturrets. It took a few trips to do it, and switching back and forth between old server and new.
We were also deconstructing metal walls, foundation, gates, and whatever else we could for scrap. We did not get very far in this effort because they came for us while we were tearing down. I'd say we only moved as much as 5% of our raw resources. But I guess in terms of priority, we got the stuff we really needed. We've got 4 quetzels on the new server to help with rebuilding.
The funniest story to come out of our hurried exodus to flee from the dupers was the turtle exodus. All the quetzels were in the Ark, and so we had no fast way of hauling turtles. They were low priority, but they decided they wanted to keep them, only because they were really high level. So one of the guys mounts up on a turtle, whistle-follows the other two, and starts off on the slowest race to the Green Obelisk ever. He got attacked by wolves, he got attack by a wild rex, and somehow he survived and made it to the ark. So now we have 3 pretty beefy turtles, level 270+.
Because everything was rushed and hurried, and we were scrambling to beat the clock on our inevitable wipe, we had to setup a makeshift base on the new server. We just threw up some gates, put down one single building that ended up with 3 floors. Our snails were on the brink of starving to death, and so we had to rush a greenhouse to get carrots to make cakes.
Then we had to scout for a permanent home, which we found. We're down on a flat spot near the outer edge of the world, very close to Blue Ob and the snow biome over there. It's a pretty decent spot we found, and I think the 7 or 8 of us that made the exit are very happy with what we've got.
Last night we finished walling off our perimeter and laid the foundation for what will become our main base, which is basically a combination of workshop, vaults, and primary functions.
We're still maintaining our original landing base, so we have a greenhouse for now, but we'll build a real greenhouse later. Right now we're just rebuilding essentials. We got knocked down a huge amount, but at least we were able to save the essentials.
I personally have been tasked with rebuilding our egg-base. We weren't able to save our dodos, dilos, anky's, stegos, or a lot of other tames. So tonight, I'm gonna build a taming pen in our new base and start working on getting the groundwork laid for eggs.
Well, my first attempt at exploring could have gone better.
Headed east with my army of dinos, decided to kill a Bronto i bumped into.
At the start i had a trike, a carno, 3 raptors, and 10 dilo's.
At the end, i had a trike and a raptor.
Would have gone just fine if not for the spino my dinos agroed right after bronto died.
oh well...
Somethings wrong guys, I'm actually starting to enjoy a survival game.
I am of the philosophy that if I have to reach for a Youtube video to figure a game out then the dev isn't doing their job. But that's what it took so I learned to make a campfire, clothing and basic tools. Some kid taught me how to gather berries but I'm not quite hunting yet.
Didn't realize rafts could get destroyed. Lost my metal base and everything in it. Luckily we hadn't been home base in days so we had a ton of stuff out of base.
Second I left my Dino's in passive mode cause my baby woke up. The next day they were all dead.
I got an anky and flyer back already but lost some levels. Most sad was my 85 trike
If i could pick 1 thing to fix or change in this game, they would be dino pathfinding.
Trying to lead a pack through anything except open plain is a pain in the ass.
Dense forest, a nightmare.
My trikes inventory keeps getting filled with wood just from clearing a path to get through.
Also how engram points work, not knowing the crafting trees before hand or how much points i will have/need is not fun (and make them actual trees to show people what is needed for what immediately).
edit-
also, dinos stand way too close to each other, trying to count them to find out if any are missing is another pain in the ass that should not be there.
We had an Allosaur spawn inside our house last night. Not just in our base, but literally inside our two floor building. We had a guy in the base when it happened. He said the Allosaur spawned up on the 2nd floor where we have our forges setup. It destroyed a forge and somehow glitched through the floor and ended up on the 1st floor, where it destroyed our fabricator, a storage box, and severely damaged two of our generators, but they weren't destroyed.
We had our snails living on 1st floor, and luckily they were all safe.
So that was some unexpected excitement last night. We setup an interior autoturret, set to Attack-All as a precaution against that happening again.
Anyone else having issues with cooking pots on the center map. Mine are saying the are full 12/12 when there is nothing in them. Can't add things cook any recipes. Even created a new one, placed it, and it was full also. Though no items show in inventory. It's not a major issue other then need to make sweet cakes for my snails.
Welp, just got caught up on the last 6 months of thread. I'm starting to get the urge again, and I still haven't played scorched earth at all....
It sounds like we, as of today, aren't using the cluster system thing? Having that could be lame -- I was struck by the number of people over the pages saying things like "Yeah if I had lost that 10 hours from [server rollback/bug/whatever] I think I would stop playing entirely"
And, yep! I'm all about immersion in Ark, and have done just about everything the slow loner way. I like doing that a lot! However, it's really nice to have a singleplayer safety net if your dog decides to jump the fence and you lose 20 hours of gameplay in an instant. Also good to be able to easily take your character offline. If you want to be a goose and cheese everything on a PvE server then, err, have fun I guess!
right before Christmas I loaded up all my dinos and sent them to single player. All but a couple of my Ichthys I couldnt find homes for. I will still pop in and I guess feed them from time to time, but over all I think the Dino Riders are out for now. Im sure I will pop in to make sure my bases dont fall to pieces. We still have a bunch of items stored there. I should get on and unlock stuff so anyone can use our stuff, ie : grills, forges, furnaces, etc... I think the gates or gate is unlocked so people can have a safe place if ever need be. We might be back at some point, just needed a break.
The servers are kind of dead. Like, really dead. Most days it seems like only one or two people log in at most. (the Host Havoc graphs aren't working right so this is anecdotal).
I've also hit a point where I have kind of done everything. I keep meaning to do more server events but TBH anything that requires people to be online a certain time is kind of a no-go.
So I've decided I'm not going to renew the servers. What this means is:
Scorched Earth - Time is up at the start of March
The Center - Time is up late March
This gives plenty of time for people to store stuff, or finish up the goals they had. (seriously, play Scorched Earth, it's great). It also should give us time to play with the upcoming Tek Tier stuff.
There is always a chance Tek and what follows will reinvigorate me on the game, but I played it SUPER heavy for over a year, there's only so much one can do to stave off burnout.
There's no plan, there's no race to be run
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
The servers are kind of dead. Like, really dead. Most days it seems like only one or two people log in at most. (the Host Havoc graphs aren't working right so this is anecdotal).
I've also hit a point where I have kind of done everything. I keep meaning to do more server events but TBH anything that requires people to be online a certain time is kind of a no-go.
So I've decided I'm not going to renew the servers. What this means is:
Scorched Earth - Time is up at the start of March
The Center - Time is up late March
This gives plenty of time for people to store stuff, or finish up the goals they had. (seriously, play Scorched Earth, it's great). It also should give us time to play with the upcoming Tek Tier stuff.
There is always a chance Tek and what follows will reinvigorate me on the game, but I played it SUPER heavy for over a year, there's only so much one can do to stave off burnout.
Thanks for being cool enough to host the server for so long! You guys have played a ridiculous amount, and it's been a fun ride.
Fiatil on
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KalnaurI See Rain . . .Centralia, WARegistered Userregular
The servers are kind of dead. Like, really dead. Most days it seems like only one or two people log in at most. (the Host Havoc graphs aren't working right so this is anecdotal).
I've also hit a point where I have kind of done everything. I keep meaning to do more server events but TBH anything that requires people to be online a certain time is kind of a no-go.
So I've decided I'm not going to renew the servers. What this means is:
Scorched Earth - Time is up at the start of March
The Center - Time is up late March
This gives plenty of time for people to store stuff, or finish up the goals they had. (seriously, play Scorched Earth, it's great). It also should give us time to play with the upcoming Tek Tier stuff.
There is always a chance Tek and what follows will reinvigorate me on the game, but I played it SUPER heavy for over a year, there's only so much one can do to stave off burnout.
My intent is to store things this Saturday or tonight; I'm hoping you have fed things recently. I don't plan on storing everything yet, just the critters. I'll store my other stuff like blueprints and kibble and such later, and probably not all my critters.
I make art things! deviantART:Kalnaur ::: Origin: Kalnaur ::: UPlay: Kalnaur
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I noticed Pierce's dinos at the OB were hungry. Didnt see a food trouth there.
So the weekends of increased rates have led the ARK devs to some conclusions.
I'm thinking over where I want stuff to end up, but we'll probably end up slightly higher than our current rates, comparatively.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
I've been playing on XBox One because a buddy from work play there, but I'd prefer PS4. I just picked it up last night and started the download. I haven't even logged in once yet on PS4, so when I get on tonight, I'm gonna want to pick a server.
Just curious if anyone around here is playing Ark on PS4 and if they've got a good server. Otherwise, I'll probably just have to do a blind pick and hope I end up on a server with decent human beings who aren't total asshats.
Fuck. That's depressing.
Edit: Though his death isn't listed in the tribe log . . . ?
ya that sucks. Ive had that happen a couple of times since being on Center. The Dino is gone but not dead... Ive tried using the dino finder and it comes up with nothing. Im sorry about your lost Giga
He died like he lived...hungry.
They're up for me.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Seeing some talk of 'black holes' abouts, make sure you don't leave any dinos near where he was located.
I'm able to get in. What error are you getting?
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Like in most survival games a noob can Technically kill a player with high end gear. In this if some ahole with a trex wants to stop any progress in the lower areas he just can. Admittedly i haven't see that on ps4 but we did get raided with explosives and recently attacks by two level 100 guys with a saber tooth.
Just seems like the massive power creep from naked man with spear to guy in full riot gear with a rocket launcher riding a trex is a bit nuts and impossible to play against
That being said the game is all sorts of fun. My buddy and I took to the sea to avoid pvp trolls and now have a stone boat we live in. Got basic guns and close to getting metal foundation and walls for the storage room at least (need a bit more keratin)
3DS FC: 5086-1134-6451
Shiny Code: 3837
If you play feel free to join my server I got some buddies and we can help keep you a little safe from jerks (but not completely)
That's awesome of you to offer. I'll probably be downloading tonight.
3DS FC: 5086-1134-6451
Shiny Code: 3837
So far the first attempt was an anky and now she is mine. Afros her in, shut the door and pelted her with rocks. Then she slept safely in my boat as I fed her berries.
I named her "The Rock" gender roles be damned. If my girl anky wants to drop the people's elbow she can in Trumps America
I'm here today to talk about server politics.
Are clan politics something that happen all across the many platforms and servers of Ark, or is my XBox server unique in all the politicking that goes on there? Even though I'm 60 on that server, my game experience is pretty much limited to this server only.
Let me provided some info.
The server I play on has a very well established clan, who everyone I play with refers to as the "alpha tribe." I guess my first question is this - is that a gamewide term or is that something that is just on my server? Basically, they are the dominant tribe.
Regarding my server's alpha tribe -- they basically run the server. There are rules and etiquette that they have established, and if other clans break those rules or general etiquette policies, the alpha tribe will come and wipe their base and crush them. They police the server very closely. They're not dicks about it, and they aren't unreasonable. They set these rules to keep it an organized and decent place to play.
That's where all the politics come in. Obviously with a clan that is acting as the overlords, there is resentment and hard feelings from clans that get wiped because they break the rules. And there are factions. Some people are on good terms with the alphas and play by the rules. Other clans will occasionally band together and rise up and try to overthrow the alphas. But they are so entrenched and so built-up that supplanting them is basically impossible.
On the topic of factions and alliances and what not, here's a bit more specific info about myself and my tribe.
I came into this game a total newbie. A friend of mine from work got me into it. Listening to all of his stories about all the server politics, and occasional tribe wars that break out and stuff enticed me to come and play. His clan are basically the 2nd top clan. They are nowhere near as strong as the alpha clan. But they have a very good relationship with the alphas, they are allied, and their bases are literally right next to each other. My work friend's base sits forward of the alpha's base, and if an enemy clan wanted to take a shot at the alphas, they would have to go through my friend's tribe's base first.
So anyway, that's the basic political landscape I entered the game under. Being a total noob, my friend and I came to the decision that the best thing for me would be to found my own clan and learn the game from the ground up. He offered to bring me into his clan. But if I joined his clan, I would have immediate access to everything and I wouldn't really get to experience a large part of the game. I want to experience the game from the ground up, and so what we did is I created my own clan and allied with his.
My clan is built nearby to theirs. It's about a 1 minute ptero ride to get from my base to theirs. And my base sits up on a hill overlooking theirs (and the alphas) so in some ways, my base is in an incredibly strategic position, because we act almost as a watchtower.
Some geography. We're on the Center map, and my friend's tribe and the alpha tribe are both built in the massive cave that is literally under the world. You have to fly off the edge of the map and down into their cave. My base is up on the surface, overlooking their cave entrance. Strategically, it's perfect. It's a 3 tier system.
I'm new(ish) (level 60 something) but I'm growing. And because my base is on the surface overlooking theirs, my base is a staging area, watchtower, gathering point, and whatever else it needs to be for the top two tribes on the server. Somehow even though I am brand new to this game, I have become an important and key piece in the defensive strategy of the top two clans on the server. I inherited some very powerful friends when I joined this server.
Regarding my base and my location, I picked the spot myself. And I love it. My work friend gave me a level 265 bird when we came to our arrangement, and he gave me a mastercrafted metal pick and metal axe. And he basically turned me loose to do whatever I wanted, with the understanding that I'm trying to learn the game, tech up on my own, and have my own shit, rather than just mooching on his super well established clan who already has everything you could ever want.
So I got on my 265 bird and flew around, and I scouted my base site, which to me is perfect. I'm in flight range of the assistance of the top two clans. And since I'm on the surface and they're in the cave, I knew my base would be important.
My work friend has another real life friend who just recently started playing also. He's level 70-something, so he's slightly ahead of me. And he plays a lot more than I do. I got him in my clan, and the two of us have just been working together to build our small base and raise up our clan. We're a small time operation, but I feel like we're really important already.
A side story before I jump into the real story at hand. A couple nights ago, my new base got hit by some random looter tribe while I was offline. My other clan mate was on, and he was in XBox party chat with both my work friend's tribe as well as a few members of the alpha tribe. He noticed that a non-allied guy was just sort of hovering and scouting us. And he spoke up and said something. They told him to keep and eye on it so he did. A little while later, about 4 dudes show up and start attacking our workshop building. We're pretty new and up until this point our base was made entirely out of stone. These looters thought we would be an easy target and I'm assuming their plan was just to break into our workshop and steal whatever they could. But, because of where we are and who we're friends with, that didn't happen. The alphas mobilized, including bringing up their war quetzel, and my buddy and his clan members who were on also mobilized. They were at my base within about 3 minutes of when we fell under attack. They pushed the looters back and killed all of them and all of their birds, except for one guy who they intentionally let live. He ran away on foot, and he led them straight back to where their base was. Then they completely wiped this clan's base off the map. Sucks to be them. If people were wondering before about my tribe, there's no question anymore. You mess with us, and we have very big friends who will stomp you. Even though this looter tribe didn't get anything, it spooked my clan-mate and I enough that we've been converting our workshop to metal and we're preparing to convert our dino barn to metal also. We've also beefed up our defenses over the last couple days as well.
So anyway, now that that background info is out of the way... back to the alpha tribe and the server politics. A while ago, the alphas wiped a clan for violating the server rules. The clan that got wiped transferred off of the server. They have been building up on another server for about the last 3-4 months, and two weekends ago, they transferred a warband back over to come after the alphas.
When they showed up with their warband, they made a public declaration that they were only there for the alphas, and if other people stayed out of the way they would be left alone. Well... most people on the server are generally pretty cool with the alphas. So our server rallied and pushed this pretty massive warband out and defended our server and our alpha tribe. It was a pretty violent and bloody war, too, because it wasn't just one clan back for revenge. They brought allies with them from their new server. My server load was capped at 100/100 during the war.
So that brings me to now. The alpha clan and my work buddy's clan who are the number two's have been rebuilding since that server raid for the last two weeks. They're probably 80-90% back to full strength at this point, but they aren't quite there. The lost some gigas, quetzels, and top level tames that haven't been replaced yet.
This weekend is 3x tame XP and both my buddy and his clan, and the alpha clan were planning on using this weekend for taming and imprinting their replacements.
But an in-server clan has been secretly building up all this time in the redwoods, and I guess they decided that this weekend they're gonna try to bring down the alphas. So instead of this being "tame weekend" this has turned into another war weekend. Only this time, its an in-server war.
This tribe that rose up has been building secret alliances and apparently a lot of the server has joined them. I'm not really sure why. But they have. They're trying to knock our alpha tribe out. But remember, the alpha tribe also has my buddy's clan fully in their camp, and my two-man watchtower clan with them too.
Somehow, my small base has become the key strategic staging area for our friendly forces in this server war. There are people flying through all the time, parking birds, trading resources, weapons, and so forth, and prepping their assault squads to go into the redwoods where the enemy base is located. I'm thinking tonight this war is gonna hit critical mass and someone is gonna be completely out in the cold with nothing left.
This game is really fucking awesome, you guys.
Not that it's a bad thing, I'm just saying, your experience couldn't be further from the private, modded, pve servers most of the posters in this thread are playing on.
It sounds awesome, but in practice I think I would absolutely hate it. Losing tames, especially at the (now improved but still shite) default rates, to a bunch of 13 year olds is the opposite of a good time for me. I have enough problems with that happening because of some dumb AI.
Also to answer your question early on, yes, alpha tribe is a term used by pretty much everyone.
Unrelated, my half dozen players on my server decided sometime in the last month that with a new year must come a new game mode, so we are starting Primitive Plus this weekend. By necessity a lot of the mods I've come to take for granted (structures plus, etc) are going poof. Not real happy about losing the demo gun and fence supports, more than anything.
This war that I posted about has been waging off and on all day, and the clan on the attack, who are called "Sofa W@nkers" keep intentionally crashing the server and causing roll-backs every time the war goes out of their favor. I don't know how they're doing it exactly. But our alpha tribe won a major battle earlier, killed most of the Wankers dino's and then the server magically crashes and rolls back and all their dinos are alive again. And that has happened like three times now, where the server is just magically crashing and rolling back anytime something isn't going their way.
This is an official server so I would think there should be some sort of official moderation for it, right?
My friends are also claiming they have duped items and are duping rockets. I doubt there's any way of proving this, but if Wildcard has ways of doing item checks or something, they might be able to pull log files or something and see if duping is happening.
I'm not online right now myself. I'm just hearing this second hand, but people are getting pretty worked up.
Also... apparently my base got completely flattened down to the last stone after one of the crash/rollbacks when Sofa wankers managed to crash it and then claim an advantage after the reset. But again, I'm not online, I'm just going off of what is being said in our out of game chat channel.
If they're using the method I know about personally, there may be something you guys can do. Shoot me a PM, as I don't want to discuss it in public.
But damn this game needs better pathfinding, trying to herd my army of dinos (1 trike, 1 carno, 3 raptors and 6 dilo's) through a gate to and from my base takes way too long (and i am not leaving them outside the wall, way too many Therizino's wandering about).
Also, way too much inventory management, sometimes it feels i spend half my time just sorting through crap to throw away.
Need to start exploring more soon, already level 60 and still using crossbow/pike and leather armor as my main equipment.
Just need to make a feeding through and fill it with food for dinos before heading of the scout the coastline (so not bringing them anywhere far from base for now, i'd just spend half my time getting them of random trees they get stuck on).
Several of us all opened reports for the incident. This clan ended up literally wiping the entire server with duped rockets and dinosaurs they kept resurrecting with server crashes whenever something didn't go their way.
And my friends and I ended up migrating servers. We found a pretty chill Island server with a really great community on it. They have a big arena area setup on our new server for gladiatorial type events, dino battles, and organized PVP. Seems like a good place to call home so far.
Honestly, my only complaint is that the Island is a terribly boring map after having played on the Center. There are way less monster spawns, and I'm not a fan of the metal mountain, where like 90% of the entire maps source of metal spawns. Also, the lighting on this server is very extreme. At night it gets so dark around our base that it is literally impossible to see anything at all, even with gamma turned up to max. We light torches, and they help in their small areas, but as soon as you get out of the torch area, it is pitch black. Then during the daytime the sun is so bright that you cannot see anything but bright white light.
The Center definitely has better lighting. I also like the much more clearly defined biomes on the Center.
So we moved to a new server with a pretty friendly, active community, but an inferior map.
Is your base in the redwoods? I noticed that on the island there is a noticeable lighting shift whenever you are within the redwoods biome and below the treeline. My main base was by the pond in the redwoods and at night you're completely blind. It was very irritating.
Because they were 2nd top, and because they were built in the cave under the world on The Center, we had time to make a mad, hurried rush to upload as much into the Ark transfer server as we could.
To say it was intense is an understatement. We were running, walking, flying, escorting dinos to Green Ob, which was the closest safe exit point to their base. The very first things they offloaded were their mating pair of Ptero's that were like level 290+. Once they got their fastest birds offloaded, they took the quetzels next, and then a pair of twin Gigantopithicus's that we had that were a personal pair of my work friend. He loved his twin monkeys and they were very high on the list of things to save.
While some people were riding dinos and uploading them, I was back at their base, tearing down auto-turrets and loading them into vaults, which I then flew out and offloaded into the Ark server as well. I personally moved about 100 autoturrets. It took a few trips to do it, and switching back and forth between old server and new.
We were also deconstructing metal walls, foundation, gates, and whatever else we could for scrap. We did not get very far in this effort because they came for us while we were tearing down. I'd say we only moved as much as 5% of our raw resources. But I guess in terms of priority, we got the stuff we really needed. We've got 4 quetzels on the new server to help with rebuilding.
The funniest story to come out of our hurried exodus to flee from the dupers was the turtle exodus. All the quetzels were in the Ark, and so we had no fast way of hauling turtles. They were low priority, but they decided they wanted to keep them, only because they were really high level. So one of the guys mounts up on a turtle, whistle-follows the other two, and starts off on the slowest race to the Green Obelisk ever. He got attacked by wolves, he got attack by a wild rex, and somehow he survived and made it to the ark. So now we have 3 pretty beefy turtles, level 270+.
Because everything was rushed and hurried, and we were scrambling to beat the clock on our inevitable wipe, we had to setup a makeshift base on the new server. We just threw up some gates, put down one single building that ended up with 3 floors. Our snails were on the brink of starving to death, and so we had to rush a greenhouse to get carrots to make cakes.
Then we had to scout for a permanent home, which we found. We're down on a flat spot near the outer edge of the world, very close to Blue Ob and the snow biome over there. It's a pretty decent spot we found, and I think the 7 or 8 of us that made the exit are very happy with what we've got.
Last night we finished walling off our perimeter and laid the foundation for what will become our main base, which is basically a combination of workshop, vaults, and primary functions.
We're still maintaining our original landing base, so we have a greenhouse for now, but we'll build a real greenhouse later. Right now we're just rebuilding essentials. We got knocked down a huge amount, but at least we were able to save the essentials.
I personally have been tasked with rebuilding our egg-base. We weren't able to save our dodos, dilos, anky's, stegos, or a lot of other tames. So tonight, I'm gonna build a taming pen in our new base and start working on getting the groundwork laid for eggs.
Headed east with my army of dinos, decided to kill a Bronto i bumped into.
At the start i had a trike, a carno, 3 raptors, and 10 dilo's.
At the end, i had a trike and a raptor.
Would have gone just fine if not for the spino my dinos agroed right after bronto died.
oh well...
I am of the philosophy that if I have to reach for a Youtube video to figure a game out then the dev isn't doing their job. But that's what it took so I learned to make a campfire, clothing and basic tools. Some kid taught me how to gather berries but I'm not quite hunting yet.
Didn't realize rafts could get destroyed. Lost my metal base and everything in it. Luckily we hadn't been home base in days so we had a ton of stuff out of base.
Second I left my Dino's in passive mode cause my baby woke up. The next day they were all dead.
I got an anky and flyer back already but lost some levels. Most sad was my 85 trike
Trying to lead a pack through anything except open plain is a pain in the ass.
Dense forest, a nightmare.
My trikes inventory keeps getting filled with wood just from clearing a path to get through.
Also how engram points work, not knowing the crafting trees before hand or how much points i will have/need is not fun (and make them actual trees to show people what is needed for what immediately).
edit-
also, dinos stand way too close to each other, trying to count them to find out if any are missing is another pain in the ass that should not be there.
We had our snails living on 1st floor, and luckily they were all safe.
So that was some unexpected excitement last night. We setup an interior autoturret, set to Attack-All as a precaution against that happening again.
It sounds like we, as of today, aren't using the cluster system thing? Having that could be lame -- I was struck by the number of people over the pages saying things like "Yeah if I had lost that 10 hours from [server rollback/bug/whatever] I think I would stop playing entirely"
And, yep! I'm all about immersion in Ark, and have done just about everything the slow loner way. I like doing that a lot! However, it's really nice to have a singleplayer safety net if your dog decides to jump the fence and you lose 20 hours of gameplay in an instant. Also good to be able to easily take your character offline. If you want to be a goose and cheese everything on a PvE server then, err, have fun I guess!
The servers are kind of dead. Like, really dead. Most days it seems like only one or two people log in at most. (the Host Havoc graphs aren't working right so this is anecdotal).
I've also hit a point where I have kind of done everything. I keep meaning to do more server events but TBH anything that requires people to be online a certain time is kind of a no-go.
So I've decided I'm not going to renew the servers. What this means is:
Scorched Earth - Time is up at the start of March
The Center - Time is up late March
This gives plenty of time for people to store stuff, or finish up the goals they had. (seriously, play Scorched Earth, it's great). It also should give us time to play with the upcoming Tek Tier stuff.
There is always a chance Tek and what follows will reinvigorate me on the game, but I played it SUPER heavy for over a year, there's only so much one can do to stave off burnout.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Thanks for being cool enough to host the server for so long! You guys have played a ridiculous amount, and it's been a fun ride.
My intent is to store things this Saturday or tonight; I'm hoping you have fed things recently. I don't plan on storing everything yet, just the critters. I'll store my other stuff like blueprints and kibble and such later, and probably not all my critters.