Ark!

[Kinare]

I didn't see a thread for this yet in the search or first few forum pages. Am shocked. D: Dinosaurs! Survival! Surely there are others out there who play?

I really enjoy the game, but it's not very much fun to solo after a while. Problem is, both of my tribe mates don't play much, one very rarely at all. I am an admin for our server and recently I spent a lot of time building some community items, but those are all complete, so I have to go back to playing like a regular now. 3: Lots to do for our bases since I did focus on the community buildings for so long, but I went mostly weapon/armor points so I can't make building items. I am hoping maybe some cool peeps will want to hang with our tribe, but it would also be nice to get some "frenemies" on the server so we can PVP.

Here be a handy dandy link to our server infos. I'm the owner of it and two members have offered to pay for the next 2 months at least, so we're not going anywhere any time soon. We're a pretty nice bunch, no rawrs. ^^ But there's not a lot of PVP action right now. Most of the regulars are either PVE only or PVE until there's something to PVP. The few PVPers all know each other and don't want to fight each other so we need new peeps to slap around!

 

[CrazyTundraWolf]

I completely love the game but my laptop can't run it

 

[Kinare]

Can't run it at all or just couldn't initially?

Anyone who had a lot of problems at first might be ok now, they've made a ton of improvements to optimization. Am running everything on max finally and can get away with a steady 25-30 FPS, even in combat. Loading new areas is a bit slow yet. First couple weeks after release was horrible though, barely managed to get 20 FPS on lowest settings with nothing going on. Was unplayable a few times and on local play, for some reason though I did a few FPS better w/ online play. Silly game.

 

[CrazyTundraWolf]

Can't run it at all or just couldn't initially?

Anyone who had a lot of problems at first might be ok now, they've made a ton of improvements to optimization. Am running everything on max finally and can get away with a steady 25-30 FPS, even in combat. Loading new areas is a bit slow yet. First couple weeks after release was horrible though, barely managed to get 20 FPS on lowest settings with nothing going on. Was unplayable a few times and on local play, for some reason though I did a few FPS better w/ online play. Silly game.

Yeah I can run it , I just get extremely low fps , I occasionally check the game too see how my laptop handles it , currently I played it for abit but made very little progress because of the lag.

 

[Ahkrin Descol]

I can run it, but I got REALLY annoyed when the pve server I was getting into went offline Might get back into it if anyone wants to make a tribe on a pve server? Save using engrams on the arbitrary crap so we can get everything.

 

[Kinare]

You can always join my server and claim PVE only. ^^ It's a beautiful system, yes it is. *proud nod*

We have some PVE only tribes on the server that might take you if you wanted or you can start a new one for any furs that might want in. My tribe is both (assuming there's ever any PVP action, lolz), so if you're determined to only PVE then we wouldn't be a fit for ya.

 

[CrazyTundraWolf]

As soon as they optimise the game enough so I can run it , I'll join you're server and tribe kinare

 

[Ahkrin Descol]

It's not that I'm pro-PvE it's just I don't fancy the prospect of some level 60 with a lv 128 t-rex coming over to my hut and trashing it xD I'll bear your offer in mind though, I was part of some mega-tribe in a different server but I found getting to and from their base (it was on the top right island) without a flying mount cumbersome.

 

[Kinare]

I'd never be happy in a mega tribe unless they let me build my own base where I wanted, but then that sort of defeats the point of joining a tribe if you're just gonna go off on your own anyhow. We basically did just that, had two large tribes, when we first started the server, but it did horribly because there were groups that would just leech off of the people who tried to support the whole tribe and then never participate in anything with the tribe or replace what they took, just worried about their little mini-base, so overall that sort of system is kinda doomed and we learned the hard way. Especially difficult to deal with without detailed server logging, which is still how it is atm. You need to catch people in the act in order to know for sure it's them... There were a couple times where I'd come back with a hefty load of goods for my crafting buddy to get to the next day, then I'd go out and get more and a lot of what I had just stored would be gone without explanation and no one in sight working on the tribe's stuff. Not cool yo. 3<

 

[Ahkrin Descol]

It was more a case of build on the island however we please, there was a full metal base with a sentry gun for us to log out in and a huge building with dinos in for 'visitors'. Was more just a case of doing the larger tasks together like taming those oh so fun 6 hour dinos (who's stupid idea was that anyway?). The prospect of a 3 person tribe working on the one building/complex is my ideal but it's not so easy to stumble across. I'm slowly finding you can't win with ARK xD

 

[Kinare]

Bahaha, 6 hours is nothing. Apparently someone tried to tame a level 84 or some such Bronto and it took him 11 hours, even with doing everything possible to make it go faster.

"Winning with Ark" depends on if you get a group of players who are like-minded or if you end up with selfish pricks who really just want to solo while abusing the benefits of being in a tribe. If all you've ever known are official servers for instance... *shudders* I feel bad for anyone who has ever played on one. Even on the official PVE servers people seem to be exploiting and griefing like crazy, there's constant complaints posted on the Steam forums. Of course PVP is worse simply because you can get killed repeatedly because of hacks 'n' such, at least with PVE they can't directly kill you, only death might be from dehydration and starvation if they block you in and take all your stuff. =/

 

[Ahkrin Descol]

Sounds to me like I've been fortunate with official servers, my biggest problem's been one going offline and the other being overrun by carnies. Normally the latter would be fine but this server didn't lag like crap allowing me to strafe all day. I'm amazed the unofficial servers don't just slap taming time right down to make it more fun. I have seen people placing 1x1 foundations to prevent resource spawning though, but that just makes for easy materials as the morons just go offline for 4+ days. You should get the guy who tamed the Bronto to tame a lv 90 Ankylosaurus xD

 

[Kinare]

A lot of the unofficial servers do knock taming time down by a lot, some to extremes. There's also quite a few that give a lot of other extreme boosts, but to me that ruins the experience if I have everything handed to me. Have considered going better tame times than our current 1.5x increase for my server, but if it's too easy then it's not a challenge at all like it should be, so it would be sort of experimental if I did do that. Might do temporary "limited time" tame speed increases, that would be good excuse for a test. Hmm... *notes to self*

 

[Ahkrin Descol]

Finding a balance is the usual headache for game devs, no matter the players to screw with their 'balanced' stuff xD Taking more than an hour to tame a bloody dino is a bit much if you haven't got five hours to dump in one uninterrupted session. Might look into some unofficials if they think default's ridiculous, my main concern is them suddenly disappearing and hours going down the pan. Are unofficial servers maintained by players or third party companies?

 

[Kinare]

Unofficial servers can be maintained by either or, but in the end if the renter doesn't pay the bill or the owner doesn't maintain it properly then it could go down without warning. Official servers sometimes go down without warning too, have seen a couple Steam posts about that. Two of the unofficial servers I started on initially just to test EU pings with my EU friend both vanished about 3 weeks ago, but I see one is back up now. It's really hard to know for 100% certainty, but rented servers are probably more reliable because a lot of people don't really know what they're doing and it's very touchy right now, at least with rented servers most everything is done automatically. For instance, after the latest big update the main .ini files all reverted back to default... so if and admin isn't freakishly anal about stuff like that they may not notice and everyone is stuck on default settings once again. could have just been my server that did that, but I dunno. The .ini files are very touchy for everyone and they constantly keep adding/changing what goes in them so it's very confusing to keep up with.

 

[Vineheart01]

I'd love to play but sadly its the first game ive come across i actually cant run on this computer lol. Well, i can, but just because im an 8bit game fanboy doesnt mean i like insanely blurry, short-sighted and crappy video games lol.

My PC is sadly at the limit it can do without being upgraded to PCI 3 video card interfacing. That being said i wont be upgrading any time soon since i bought a new CPU/Mobo/RAM a year ago, and i'd have to replace at least 2 of them if not all 3 to get a board that supports PCI 3 cards.
Right now im sporting a GTX 570. Not strong enough lol. Maybe when they optimize the game i can play but i'll probably be alone at that point as the hype train goes away.

The game looks so amazing and fun....

 

[Kinare]

Ouch, 570... If you were putting out the money to get a new CPU/Mobo/RAM, why not get them so they would be compatible with modern tech? Kinda seems like a waste of money to buy new things that only work with old/low tech things since you'll be forced to upgrade quite soon. Hopefully you didn't pay too much for them. =/ My desktop is relatively old now and it just boggles my mind that there are people out there buying things that would be incompatible with anything made in the last few years. .-. My desktop is about 5 years old now and still has the same mobo and CPU, have only upgraded the RAM and GFX card. Will still be some time yet before I need to consider getting a newer mobo or CPU.

Other specs make a really big difference though too with this game. When it first came out it actually ran better on my GTX 660 (nope, no TI here) than my brand new 970. It wasn't a big difference, only like 3 FPS, but still... Shoulda been the other way if anything.

 

[Ahkrin Descol]

Tell me about it... GTX 980 and high settings... the recommended GPU's are a joke xD Also, if you know the guy who maintains the settings of your server you could get him to make a batch script to replace the .ini file automatically?

 

[Vineheart01]

Ouch, 570... If you were putting out the money to get a new CPU/Mobo/RAM, why not get them so they would be compatible with modern tech? Kinda seems like a waste of money to buy new things that only work with old/low tech things since you'll be forced to upgrade quite soon. Hopefully you didn't pay too much for them. =/ My desktop is relatively old now and it just boggles my mind that there are people out there buying things that would be incompatible with anything made in the last few years. .-. My desktop is about 5 years old now and still has the same mobo and CPU, have only upgraded the RAM and GFX card. Will still be some time yet before I need to consider getting a newer mobo or CPU.

Other specs make a really big difference though too with this game. When it first came out it actually ran better on my GTX 660 (nope, no TI here) than my brand new 970. It wasn't a big difference, only like 3 FPS, but still... Shoulda been the other way if anything.

Tbh it was more me being dumb than anything else. My previous DDR2 based setup was 5 years old and my computer was acting real sluggish so i assumed my proc was dying. Rather than research to see the new interface trends, since my video card could handle everything i played at max graphics i didnt bother upgrading it. My current setup is DDR3/1333Bus with 16GB ram and an AMD eight core 4.0GHz proc. I might be able to find a motherboard for those specs with PCI3, but im lazy and its just for one game lol

Oh and i found out it wasnt my processor dying, it was my HD. Apparently they can fail and mimick a bad processor, never knew that. It died right after my order was shipped to replace the proc lol

 

[Kinare]

Also, if you know the guy who maintains the settings of your server you could get him to make a batch script to replace the .ini file automatically?

I do all the mucking with settings and if there's a such thing as making a batch file for it, I have no clue how and am not entirely sure how it would work. I just wish the devs would make up their minds and stop mucking with the .ini files. 3<

Tbh it was more me being dumb than anything else. My previous DDR2 based setup was 5 years old and my computer was acting real sluggish so i assumed my proc was dying. Rather than research to see the new interface trends, since my video card could handle everything i played at max graphics i didnt bother upgrading it. My current setup is DDR3/1333Bus with 16GB ram and an AMD eight core 4.0GHz proc. I might be able to find a motherboard for those specs with PCI3, but im lazy and its just for one game lol

Oh and i found out it wasnt my processor dying, it was my HD. Apparently they can fail and mimick a bad processor, never knew that. It died right after my order was shipped to replace the proc lol

Damn. Well, lesson learned the hard way then.

 

[Ahkrin Descol]

I know it's possible to make sure a certain file exists also in another location with a batch file executing when you log in, so long as the format of the .ini files don't change (I'm guessing it's just the slider settings?) that would solve your issue. Alternatively if it's a permanently running server machine you can make it check to see if the file's contents match every hour or so (you specify the frequency). Apologies for not knowing the 'how' but I do know the 'what' when it comes to what's available assuming the format doesn't change.

 

[Kinare]

That's all very confusing to me. .-. And I'm not entirely sure I'm getting across what exactly is happening. The files don't disappear, they just get defaults, so a batch file checking to see if the files are there won't do any good. But maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying it does. I dunno, probably too confusing for me to try to do anyhow.

 

[Ahkrin Descol]

Fair enough, my point was it can compare the file's contents and replace if any difference is found, but at least you cleared up my confusion of whether or not the text within the .ini file changes (except the values, obviously). I'll stop bugging you

 

[Kinare]

No worries, I appreciate the attempt to help, but my knowledge here is very limited so I have very little idea what you're talking about so I don't understand everything said, making for confuzzyheads.

 

[Ahkrin Descol]

Sorry I can't just make it for you xD Ah well, back to punching trees