Why so negative about unofficials?

[YUSHOETMI]

3 hours ago, BulletForce said:

We joined servers which had "PVP" clearly written in their title. To be then banned for doing PVP says much about the nature of Unofficial servers. They are basically a dumping ground for the rejects from Official Servers. Those that can't cope with proper run off to Unofficials where they can hid behind admins to protect them.

It's clear to me that most Unofficial admins will happily ban someone if that means people don't quit their server even if that player broke no rules. This is why I don't bother anymore even trying Unofficials.

The thing that most people don't understand or simply forget is that an unofficial is run by somebody who wants that server to play out by their rules.  Yes they may set it to PvP but the rules on PvP differ from official to unofficial.  I play on an official PvP server and its basically kill or be killed, I also play on a friends unofficial and its much more relaxed, PvP is only used when there is a dispute and even then we don't wipe, we just attack each other and when one tribe gains the upper hand and the other backs down its over.  If somebody joined that server and instantly started to raid for no reason they would be kicked too as it goes against the servers principles. Joining a server with the intention of raiding everybody on it without provocation isn't PvP its just griefing, if you want that kind of gaming play CoD.

I mean if 3 or 4 servers say you and your tribe are bad for the server then doesn't that say your attitude towards the game and other plays could be deemed as toxic?

[Kayin]

This seems to be the summation so far ranked by how often I've heard each piece of feedback:

Officials > Unofficial Crowd
-------

- Unofficial admins are jerks
- Officials are more unforgiving and therefore a greater challenge that you can't get with unofficials. 
--  This is also why the crowd looks down upon unofficial players.
- Officials are 'how Ark was meant to be played'.    i.e . no mods,  vanilla rates, etc. 
- Unofficial servers suddenly disappear and that is very discouraging

Unofficials > Officials Crowd
-------

- Official players are jerks
- Official servers are too entrenched for newer players. 
- Unofficials are 'how Ark was meant to be enjoyed'.    i.e .  you have choice in how you play.
- Admins can create fun adventures, stories, events, etc periodically to enhance gameplay. 
- Admins can help alleviate disruptive bugs, glitches, and exploits.

[MarkTheArkadian]

Often seen as a minor challenge, but i can understand some people simply dont have the time to grind hours on end for little resources.

[Critter]

On 4/19/2017 at 3:17 PM, Lancelot said:

To me theres a couple of reason why I play on official.

1. I'm already established there

2. I'm afraid some mods or server admin will stop working on them and I'm found with nothing.

3. I don't feel like playing on a server where 1 person has complete power. I'd be afraid of being wiped out for no real good reason.

 

I've had more issues with your 3rd argument on officials than on unnoficials. 

[Chadstacca]

Offical died for me when cross Ark transfers opened up to all maps.

endless trolls coming over everyday then vanish.

This is what killed Ark not Officcal or Unoffical

[Roejin]

Assuming that I could find an unofficial server with a solid admin and default game settings (I played 10 minutes on an unofficial and picking bushes by hand and getting loads of resources turned me off). 

The part for me that would be missing is the clustering of the servers as a whole community. Cross server trading to me is a positive.

I come from a long history of playing MMORPGs so I like large player communities.  10-20 players on a stand alone server would not appeal to me.

 

 

[Vaskur]

when the chineses finally managed to wipe our server.. that´s the point, where i start about thinking to join a unofficial server... because thats the big pro of unofficial. 

And thats maybe the only point. I don´t need mods or ridiculous high rates but i want to play with people... 
 

[Lordzetal]

Me and my friends have always ran a player dedicated server on PC, Xbox and now PS4. Reason why is on official servers seem toxic and filled with  pillar/foundation spaming and dino kite's .   We So that being said we run our numbers on server not boosted majorly only vary slightly since we have mostly working class and folks that have to take care of family.. So they can get most things done durning the weekdays and then do major tames and such on weekends with out making Ark a full time job added to there busy life.  But no boost above x3 most are 1.5 or 2 on our servers. And me and the other 2 admins on our server  have a 2 person must be on for dealing with matters that can lead bans or replacement of loss do to game crash or bug..  so that all is documented and and transparent on our servers.. And the admins core we don't give admins out to anyone on server but us to prevent abuse.  And we have gamed together for over 6 years with some of us so we know our limits. 

[BulletForce]

6 hours ago, YUSHOETMI said:

The thing that most people don't understand or simply forget is that an unofficial is run by somebody who wants that server to play out by their rules.  Yes they may set it to PvP but the rules on PvP differ from official to unofficial.  I play on an official PvP server and its basically kill or be killed, I also play on a friends unofficial and its much more relaxed, PvP is only used when there is a dispute and even then we don't wipe, we just attack each other and when one tribe gains the upper hand and the other backs down its over.  If somebody joined that server and instantly started to raid for no reason they would be kicked too as it goes against the servers principles. Joining a server with the intention of raiding everybody on it without provocation isn't PvP its just griefing, if you want that kind of gaming play CoD.

I mean if 3 or 4 servers say you and your tribe are bad for the server then doesn't that say your attitude towards the game and other plays could be deemed as toxic?

First off lets get something straight here, PVP is not griefing and if you are going to try and argue it is then you don't belong playing on any PVP server in any game.

Secondly the servers we joined all had "PVP" in the title. We didn't join some role players server where everyone liked to make pretty little pink castles. These were dedicated PVP non role player servers. In nearly all the servers we joined after engaging in PVP we were either banned or had our base deleted by the admin purely because we were engaging in PVP. 

This says a lot about unofficial servers, their players and their admins. You can argue all you want about what I'm about to say but it is the blatant truth. The fact is  Unofficial servers cater to the weaker players, to those player that cannot cope with playing on Official servers. They are full of rejects from the Officials, those that got raided a few times and gave up or those that want to gather thousands of resources in a few minutes with easy mode gathering rates. Its their ARK safe space and their admins will do anything and everything to ensure it stays that way, whether its inventing new rules on the fly or just out right banning players in order to keep their server population happy.

It may well be the case that on Official servers you have mega tribes (I'm part of one)  that go around wiping everyone (I do this a lot), that there are on average more dupers/exploiters/cheaters and that on average players are more mean and vicious but these are things that can be accoutered for when playing. It's currently part of the game and you get used to it. To however wake up one morning and discover your entire has been deleted, your entire tribe banned not because you broke any particular rule but simply because the admin thought your group was 'bad' for his server's population is something that can't be factored in.

I'll take a known quantity over an unknown quantity anytime even if its a little rotten.

[BulletForce]

2 hours ago, Vaskur said:

when the chineses finally managed to wipe our server.. that´s the point, where i start about thinking to join a unofficial server... because thats the big pro of unofficial. 

And thats maybe the only point. I don´t need mods or ridiculous high rates but i want to play with people... 
 

So faced with Chinese competition your solution is to simply ban or deny the Chinese the ability to play on your server less they PVP you?

[Grisha]

I started on official server 420 if i remember right number, played for 8 months.made sick quetzal breeds, rised BIS wyvrens, argy breeds and ptera breeds. flyers nerf arrived and RIP to all my 8 month progress since flyers are useless without speed, yes i enjoyed breeding stuff all day long and especially flyers.

atm playing on some x5(H) x10(T) x15(B) unofficial serever, with theIsland+ SE + ragnarok was added today, this server is stable, S+ structures mod and not the retarded unplacable structures, Our lovely classic flyers mod. No poop pillars spam everywhere, no endless abandoned structures everywhere , no caves block with bases, no rich recurses place blocked with bases.  admins always around, and if not in the server you can find them on the discord, if some bad players abusing the rules, all you need to do is OBS the basterds and in no time they will be Banned.

in like 2 months i got the same what i had on the official server and a lot more!

No way i will return to official servers, my time worth a lot more!

donated the server around 100$ ( Just because i like the server, the players, the rules, the admins and i want it continue working).

 

Unofficial servers rocks if you find the right one (Ofc don't be dumb and read rules before you start)

[1david25]

7 hours ago, Roejin said:

Assuming that I could find an unofficial server with a solid admin and default game settings (I played 10 minutes on an unofficial and picking bushes by hand and getting loads of resources turned me off). 

The part for me that would be missing is the clustering of the servers as a whole community. Cross server trading to me is a positive.

I come from a long history of playing MMORPGs so I like large player communities.  10-20 players on a stand alone server would not appeal to me.

 

 

There is plenty of servers out there that dedicate a ton of time on the playerbase for instance mine. You just got to look for a good one.

[ToxicWares]

some mods are just killing the game, thats why.

ever tried to raid someone who knows how to pvp with the s+ mod.

GL, half the base under the map, block building zones from under the map (no way to blow it up and build fob)

and other broken items.

Sadly, most of modded servers are beyond being broken

[ducttapefixeseverything]

2 hours ago, BulletForce said:

So faced with Chinese competition your solution is to simply ban or deny the Chinese the ability to play on your server less they PVP you?

You say chinese competition. We say chinese glitching and cheating under the map to rocket foundations. Because ya know, that's the only way they fight. Offline raiding from under the map. There is no defense from rockets under the map. If rocketing bases while glitched under the map is your idea of PVP, might be why Unofficials don't want you anymore.

[Zayisha]

17 hours ago, BulletForce said:

We joined servers which had "PVP" clearly written in their title. To be then banned for doing PVP says much about the nature of Unofficial servers. They are basically a dumping ground for the rejects from Official Servers. Those that can't cope with proper run off to Unofficials where they can hid behind admins to protect them.

It's clear to me that most Unofficial admins will happily ban someone if that means people don't quit their server even if that player broke no rules. This is why I don't bother anymore even trying Unofficials.

 

On 13.6.2017 at 2:17 AM, Zayisha said:

Yes, PvP is allowed. But most (mostly young people) misunderstand PvP as a "must" or a general Rule you have to fight people. But in real it is just an option of diplomacy. In a survival scenario you would not attack anyone on sight. you would try to get along and help each other. Fights would be picked agains Criminals and Wanna Be Warlords.

What this kind of Players just do: they dream their wet dream of an unrealistic "The walking dead" scenario where they are Negan. Overestimating their skills and place.
 

What they get: a realistic "The walking dead" scenario. They behave like Negan, drop all achivements and rules/laws of Civilization and start fighting other people for no reason.
the next day their Base gets bombed by A-10s, their leaders get extracted by a Delta Force Team and soon after that, they have to answer in front of an USAF Guy/Woman with Eagles on his/her shoulders (which is me/every other Server Admin).
Some give them a second chance to become a valluable member of society... others just declare martial law upon them the first time.

So you see, Official = Anarchy Server. It's Official Servers are the dumping ground for the rejects from Unofficials. Banning is the only tool to permanently punish/get rid of/deal with "criminals".

******************************************
 

On 13.6.2017 at 3:46 AM, LilNastyGurl said:

On unofficials with boosts, you decide the Industrial Grinder is a little TOO FAR TO THE LEFT, so you demo it and adjust it with your other Industrial Grinders.

No, you just pick it up and adjust it! (Structures+)

[Kayin]

@BulletForce has a valid point,  he logged onto an unofficial PVP server, engaged in valid PvP and was banned for it.    @Zayisha, what should he have done instead? Scheduled a battle?   I'm curious of your approach to PvP that is different from an official server's PvP. 

 

[YUSHOETMI]

10 hours ago, BulletForce said:

First off lets get something straight here, PVP is not griefing and if you are going to try and argue it is then you don't belong playing on any PVP server in any game.

Secondly the servers we joined all had "PVP" in the title. We didn't join some role players server where everyone liked to make pretty little pink castles. These were dedicated PVP non role player servers. In nearly all the servers we joined after engaging in PVP we were either banned or had our base deleted by the admin purely because we were engaging in PVP. 

This says a lot about unofficial servers, their players and their admins. You can argue all you want about what I'm about to say but it is the blatant truth. The fact is  Unofficial servers cater to the weaker players, to those player that cannot cope with playing on Official servers. They are full of rejects from the Officials, those that got raided a few times and gave up or those that want to gather thousands of resources in a few minutes with easy mode gathering rates. Its their ARK safe space and their admins will do anything and everything to ensure it stays that way, whether its inventing new rules on the fly or just out right banning players in order to keep their server population happy.

It may well be the case that on Official servers you have mega tribes (I'm part of one)  that go around wiping everyone (I do this a lot), that there are on average more dupers/exploiters/cheaters and that on average players are more mean and vicious but these are things that can be accoutered for when playing. It's currently part of the game and you get used to it. To however wake up one morning and discover your entire has been deleted, your entire tribe banned not because you broke any particular rule but simply because the admin thought your group was 'bad' for his server's population is something that can't be factored in.

I'll take a known quantity over an unknown quantity anytime even if its a little rotten.

Completely disagree for the most part.  You say unofficials are for the weaker players, yet complain for being kicked off multiple ones and big yourself up in the same paragraph 

I play unofficials more than officials these days, does that make me weaker? I mean I also am part of a very large tribe that has held out for over a year and engage in PvP on a regular basis.  I tend to lean on unofficials for testing new building strats and just to chill after nearly 2 years of constant fights its got tedious.

Also its clear you just don't get it do you. An unoffical is run by a person, a person with a view, and seeing as they own the server a right, to how the game should be played, if you go against those views then that is griefing.  Telling me I shouldn't play PvP on any server or game just shows how toxic your views are and i'm not surprised you got banned.

Ok, lets put it this way, lets say you and your friends join an unofficial somebody runs, its been going a year and has a good relaxed community where PvP is only used as a last resort or deterrent, people just enjoy playing the game, you see them as weak and wipe them all within a few days, what is your excuse?  You can't say its for resources as there is nobody left on the server, and transfers are usually disabled on unofficials.  There is no reason other than your bloated sense of ego and "mah PvP", you would just want to raid for raiding sake as if it will extend the length of your epeen.  All your'e doing tho is destroying peoples time invested, enjoyment and community, and for what? because you think the game should be played the way you deem it to be because your'e above those who play unofficials?

The game is meant to be played in a vast multitude of ways, unofficials give people that availability to play the game as they see fit, saying because it has a PvP tag means they're wrong for banning you for raiding is as short sighted as it can get.  If the server is like a battlefield then by all means raid away, but most unofficials are relaxed  for a reason.  The one I frequent has vanilla rates, except for breeding and the admins all come from a "mega" tribe too, its just nice to play the game and not have to fight, server is always full too, says alot for your views.

[Chadstacca]

@BulletForce i've seen a few of your posts and your the type of 'PVP' player i cannot stand!

you say you joined PVP unoffical but as soon as you engaged in PVP you got banned, but why? guessing you didn tfollow the rules?

As i said, i've seen your posts before and you sole purpose in Ark is to ruin other peoples fun, kill servers then move on to the next one.

know i'm not gonna tell you how to play the game, you play it your way, fine, but don't moan about other peoples style of play, that they prefer unoffical or that you get banned from servers.

But i hope you find your perfect server and enjoy all the PVP you can

[Zayisha]

11 hours ago, Kayin said:

@BulletForce has a valid point,  he logged onto an unofficial PVP server, engaged in valid PvP and was banned for it.    @Zayisha, what should he have done instead? Scheduled a battle?   I'm curious of your approach to PvP that is different from an official server's PvP. 

 

Your Answer is right oabove your posting!    But i'll give you a quote:

On 13.6.2017 at 2:17 AM, Zayisha said:

Yes, PvP is allowed. But most (mostly young people) misunderstand PvP as a "must" or a general Rule you have to fight people. But in real it is just an option of diplomacy. In a survival scenario you would not attack anyone on sight. you would try to get along and help each other. Fights would be picked agains Criminals and Wanna Be Warlords.

What this kind of Players just do: they dream their wet dream of an unrealistic "The walking dead" scenario where they are Negan. Overestimating their skills and place.
 

What they get: a realistic "The walking dead" scenario. They behave like Negan, drop all achivements and rules/laws of Civilization and start fighting other people for no reason.
the next day their Base gets bombed by A-10s, their leaders get extracted by a Delta Force Team and soon after that, they have to answer in front of an USAF Guy/Woman with Eagles on his/her shoulders (which is me/every other Server Admin).
Some give them a second chance to become a valluable member of society... others just declare martial law upon them the first time.

 

[Kayin]

14 minutes ago, Zayisha said:

Your Answer is right oabove your posting!    But i'll give you a quote:

 

I'm not trying to be argumentative, I'm genuinely curious what these different 'flavors' of PvP in Ark actually look like.   

The PvP he described was walking into a base or doing a basic raid.  That's standard Ark PVP.    I would consider 'griefing' ruining someone's fun, which in my opinion is something like wiping a base, or following a new player around and just harassing them constantly,  basically going above and beyond just fighting over resources.

Basically, how is a newer tribe on a server raiding a more established tribe considered anything but standard Ark PvP?  

@BulletForce did you break any server rules?
 

[Toni]

On 19.4.2017 at 7:28 PM, LTPandaKingRT said:

Admin might not continue to host, the admin might be a little kid/man child and have a temper tantrum and wipe you or like a small handful of admins just troll you, people who play officials might feel as if they have invested or are still currently investing their time into officials, some official players might not want to play on boosted servers (not all unofficial are boosted but still a majority, on Xbox), some people might not like the role-playing aspect of some unofficial servers, and some people just might not feel like unofficial are for them (its a whole brand new type of player community). But that just what I think, and some of it is my own feeling towards unofficial servers.  

Thats one of the reasons why i made this post:

https://survivetheark.com/index.php?/forums/topic/200421-lets-talk-about-the-fact-of-way-too-much-servers-out-there/

The kiddies problem...would be solved with point 1.  --> Add licensing back for dedicated servers. Make them too expensive for kiddies

 

[BulletForce]

1 hour ago, Kayin said:

I'm not trying to be argumentative, I'm genuinely curious what these different 'flavors' of PvP in Ark actually look like.   I mean being a jerk is one thing, but PvP inherently requires confrontational behavior.

The PvP he described was walking into a base or doing a basic raid.  That's standard Ark PVP.    I would consider 'griefing' ruining someone's fun, which in my opinion is something like wiping a base, or following a new player around and just harassing them constantly,  basically going above and beyond just fighting over resources.

Basically, how is a newer tribe on a server raiding a more established tribe considered anything but standard Ark PvP?  

@BulletForce did you break any server rules?
 

Not to my knowledge. On the servers we joined we generally read their forum/website upon joining to see what the rules were. Our experience was basically unwritten rules or rules created on the fly appeared the moment we did PVP on a lot of these servers. On one server the admin/owner told us on TS that we were being banned for none other then causing his server population to dip. From his point of view it was a business decision, we were losing his server players. 

This is why I don't believe you can really have a full experience on unofficial servers because there are admins on there and they will put their server before their players regardless of whether or not they have actually broken any rules. Its this unpredictability that makes them not worth playing.

BTW wiping a base including all its tames passive/neutral/aggressive, as well as all its defenses and any valuable structures is a legitimate part of PVP and is not griefing. When your in a war you want to apply maximum damage to the enemy. There is no point letting them rebuild easily so that they can come and attack you.

[Ranger1]

On 4/19/2017 at 2:47 PM, ducttapefixeseverything said:

You are playing easy mode. No one cares. Anyone can do it. Children do it with regularity. Do not be proud of something a seven year old could do.

I absolutely love this quote.  It's not okay to play unofficial as any 7 year old could succeed there, instead show everyone how skilled you are by sticking to official servers that any 10 year old can succeed on.  LOL!

This sort of silliness aside, just pick the one that suits your schedule and your interests.

Official servers are the basic vanilla, no frills game play.  It can be time consuming, and the lack of speedy fixes to legitimate game issues can be frustrating (bug, hacks, etc.), but if you have the time to invest they can be very rewarding.

Unofficial servers require shopping around unless you already know a group you want to join (as many do).  You need to ask around, check the forums, narrow down your choices until you find one that has the options and people you like (and trust). 

You can choose unofficial servers that allow for faster progression if your play time is limited, you can choose servers where the difficulty settings are amped up if vanilla official servers are too easy for you (as is often the case).  Or you can choose some combination of the two, whatever your preferences are you'll likely find a server to match if you look around a bit.

I think everyone should cut their teeth on vanilla official servers, if for no other reason than to establish a baseline of sorts... and if you enjoy that then stick with it.  But if you find yourself starting to get bored playing at that level, or if it causes conflicts in your real life, don't hesitate to graduate on up to an unofficial server and take a look at some of the more advanced options and environments available.  You can always head back to official if you don't find anything to your taste.

[Ranger1]

45 minutes ago, BulletForce said:

Not to my knowledge. On the servers we joined we generally read their forum/website upon joining to see what the rules were. Our experience was basically unwritten rules or rules created on the fly appeared the moment we did PVP on a lot of these servers. On on the servers the admin/owner told us on TS that we were being banned for none other then causing his server population to dip. From his point of view it was a business decision, we were losing his server players. 

This is why I don't believe you can really have a full experience on unofficial servers because there are admins on there and they will put their server before their players regardless of whether or not they have actually broken any rules. Its this unpredictability that makes them not worth playing.

BTW wiping a base including all its tames passive/neutral/aggressive, as well as all its defenses and any valuable structures is a legitimate part of PVP and is not griefing. When your in a way you want to apply maximum damage to the enemy. There is no point letting them rebuild easily so that they can come and attack you.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with your philosophy BulletForce.  The only thing I would fault you on is not clarifying these issues with the server admin before you joined that server.  There are plenty out there that would agree with you wholeheartedly.

[TriggerHappy]

Quote

BTW wiping a base including all its tames passive/neutral/aggressive, as well as all its defenses and any valuable structures is a legitimate part of PVP and is not griefing. When your in a way you want to apply maximum damage to the enemy. There is no point letting them rebuild easily so that they can come and attack you.

We have PVP Cluster with few rules and one of them is

Do not grief ■
Causing excessive harm or taking excessive actions against another player that does not fulfill a reasonable PvP goal
or contributes to an overwhelmingly toxic presence on the server.
So yeah we encourage raid not wipe