Another mod worth looking at

[Grimnar]

I am just going to say what popped up in my mind,

The admins that are currently playing know that we will have a chat on how to go forward after we done the brood mother fight.
We are all working towards that and waiting for 3 of our regular players to return from holiday / work trip.
To then pick a date and time with the admins that are currently playing the game and know what is going on within the tribe.


As soon as that is done, there will be room on how to move forwards from that point on. Untill then it is just looking around what is available to us and if it would work for our little player group etc. etc.

[Snokio]

Just a quick question, I tried to join the test server a week or so back  to have s look at the mods but couldn't see it with pw ticked, has it been taken down?

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[OldBloke]

... has it been taken down?

No. But it does need an update or two.

I'll sort it this weekend.

[Galatoni]

Aye. This is a good idea. Should we organise a time? I've been putting in overtime at work so I've not been on as much as I'd like. As always, I'll make time if I at all can.

The admins that are currently playing

Just noticed there was a lot of "the admins that are currently playing" in your post. I'm to assume that this means that a consensus has been reached among the currently playing guys and you'll let us know what that is when you've done the brood mother?

Is there is an issue regarding what the currently playing admins are doing compared to those that "aren't"? I'd just like to point out that me and Sith put some time in to do some research about some of the mods and features in order to try and eke out the end game in the little time that I have for gaming. If I've got the wrong end of the stick here, I apologise. I'm just concerned that an 'us and them atmosphere' is developing.

[OldBloke]

No. But it does need an update or two.

I'll sort it this weekend.

Test server is back.

[SithAfrikaan]

Test server is back.

Thanks Oldie!

[Galatoni]

Firstly, let me apologise for not being connected. I've had a lot of stuff to deal with at home. Not least of all a teething littlle one that has (quite often) meant i've had to pause a game to come away. Things are beginning to settle down and I hope over the next few days things will start returning to normal for the house... hopefully.

I don't know if things really look off in terms of settings for the test server, did we come to a decision regarding the other low-tech mod or higher overall difficulty? Brood mother aside (which i'll be trying to help with) it would be nice to get back into Ark, hopefully with the higher difficulty. Server admins will already have their plate full keeping on top of the ever releasing patches for the main game. Is it worth taking a look at this test server and seeing if a number of us like it?

[Penfold]

I think a decision probably needs to be made guys. It's been two months now and we're still losing players.

The patches are thankfully giving some new content and help keep it ticking over but ultimately we're going to have to step up or the server will implode. I think if you look at the active player list it's crashed from a peak of something like 29 to probably 8 or 9.

I'm also going to feed back some comments I've had over the last few days from two sources - don't shoot the messenger...

More than one person has told me they've felt 'belittled' on the server. This has related to their builds and or their planned tames of low level animals. For example, one person was planning on taming a bird - quite low level 8 or 9 and basically was told that it was pointless and hardly worth the effort. He felt that people were openly scornful and he was hurt by it. Similarly there was negative comments relating to someone's base.

There's always going to be a vast gap between the low and high levels and what they're doing but I ask you to please bear with the less levelled players we do have. It may be tiresome to keep answering questions for help but, sorry, that goes with the turf of being an admin. It should go without saying that No one should be made to feel inadequate or mocked for what they're doing on the server. People can only commit X amount of time to a game and it may be a fraction of yours.

I know we've lost one person because of this and I think we may have just lost another in the last few days because of it. Sorry.

Not sure why it's me getting the PM's/VC's over it and others may also have had them(?). Presumably they come to me due to my wider role in the Community. Anyway food for thought please.  

Thanks.

[Galatoni]

This is really sad to here. But haemorrhaging players at such a rate then something should be done. I've already given my thoughts on the situation so I'll not repeat them. But certainly the idea of a player being belittled over something thats 'hardly worth the effort' says something about the difficulty.

[Snokio]

Bit shocked to hear that Pen, I have not heard/noticed anything of that nature.

My only little concern is that when a new player joins, they sometimes get given a helping hand by giving them lots of equipment/resources (which is very thoughtful and kind - not to be knocked) but I think slightly ruins the players game of progression, learning and discovery and ultimately turns them off the game).

With regards to player Base,  I know Grim has some plans / thoughts on server wise. But we have to remember this is a beta game with annoying bugs, a small-ish map and a closed server. I know a few people who have tried this and it's just not for them.

Maybe we need some basic rules for new players such as:

If you need help, please ask.
Don't supply new players with higher ranked gear.
Don't provide advise about leveling on Dinos or which to go for (e.g. the bird lvl advise or getting them a lvl 29 Spino when they have just joined).
Let them plant their base where ever they seem happy with.

Etc.

So do we look externally, do we dare go on steam forums and 'advertise' there?

Just me thinking out loud







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[Grimnar]

At the moment we got 8 to 10 players playing this game on our server.

People are getting bored for several reasons, some are valid other reasons are not.

Things are being put on my shoulders to fix some problems that i just can't fix.


People own minds, i can't help with that, i aint the best social member and not the easiest to talk to, am someone that makes his choices very quick and most of the time keeps with them.



People want something more challenging to do in game, while there is some stuff to do (not much). I don't see some of them going for something like that. they just stay away or let others do it.
If something is asked for and it takes some people to long for something to happen while they don't have a clue on what is going on, they are going mental... but instead of stepping in, leave it to others.


Server stuff:
Current server, has 8/10 people playing.
Current setting: 0 (lvl 30 dino's)

What am i waiting for, as should all the players, is the end fight with the spider boss. This is said many times before but somehow people havn't noticed or they just read/hear what they want.
Also since last admin chat on ts (4 admins present) was decided to tame 1 Giga with the tribe just before or after the boss fight, to be done with that dossier and keep some peace in some minds about their area of operations.


Those things where planned, and then postponed as more and more people couldn't make it on those days, so yeah it is going to take another few weeks.


After the fight:
When the 2 main events are completed for at least the majority of the tribe i will ask the server admins to change the server setting to max (lvl 120 dino's)

This doesn't really do much as people will adjust quick enough to some higher lvl stuff but alpha's are going to be a big thing if we don't adjust their settings.



Test server:
Currently has an old save running, with a primitive mod on it. This has been asked for, but i havn't really seen any admin testing it. Myself got to level 10 and was needed at the normal server again and havn't been back since. (was 2/3 weeks ago)

Although the idea is good etc. I don't see it working.
As it means we have to make a second server, which is running a mod or two and most likely a different map. This will kill the game for dMw.
As people will split up and get faster bored as there is no one to play/help etc. As a few of our players won't leave what they have done on our current server.

Also we can't force the whole tribe to start over from scratch as people invested to much time in what they have done now etc.
I know there are a few that don't mind starting from lvl 1 again, but even for myself some will rethink that as soon as they done it.



Making the server open for other people to play on:
I don't really like that idea, with the next few things popping up in my head:

We play on a pvp server, which means other people can just raid and loot etc.
Getting them all in the tribe is almost undoable and will still lead to raiding and looting other players their stuff. (counts also for a pve server)
Admins can't govern the server anymore as there is to much going on without us being able to find out or to react etc.

[Penfold]

Bit shocked to hear that Pen, I have not heard/noticed anything of that nature.

I think some of it is due to language barriers, some of it is down to the banterous nature and some is people overreacting tbh.

We all quite happily take the pee out of each other as it's part out of way but I guess some are less used to it.

Anyways.

I'm not sure about the future and actually am not sure we can solve it.  Doing the big tame and Bloodmother would be great but it could be the game's swan song. I'm still enjoying it - especially the team stuff....

[SithAfrikaan]

I don't currently play on the test server, because I don't feel there is anything to test, just saying, I mean, I pushed that the admins give it a shot and see what they think, I'm obviously for it.
I think the bullying/whatever is really sad to hear, I enjoyed taming low level birds etc with lil'ninj quite often, however that is now weeks(months?) ago.
I'm a prime example of not being active at the moment due to lack of content, and also travel(IRL).

I don't want to see the server die, but I'm not going to play the game as a job. I loved playing as a community but logging on and finding out that something planned as a team had been achieved solo (that first Giga tame) just deflated my team spirit for future plans.

A way forward for me would be to leave the server as is, and re-evaluate once Ark is out of alpha, and potentially wipe the server as part of a launch party. I can't honestly say shaking things up or splitting the community is the right thing to do at all, especially since people do have so much time invested in their builds.

[SithAfrikaan]

And as a further note, following the news coming out of PAX
Can we please load that map for the test server OldBolke?? It's called "the center" it's considered 100% complete, is bigger and better than the current map and is going to be officially supported by ARK...

Hopefully you get this message? This topic has derailed somewhat.
Would really like to get in and give it a go.

[SithAfrikaan]

Just wanted to pop this video in here for those interested in a quick look at what this map is like:
[video=youtube;gpf0j_NVO3Y]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpf0j_NVO3Y[/video]