Server Wipe

[Joebl0w13]

3 minutes ago, perk8504 said:

the dev team can very easily see when posts have been deleted and can come down on those mods and they'll know the difference....

Correct. Everything we do is transparent to each other, the community leads and the developers.

[eESTlane]

wipe then cluster up and apply penalties when transferring outside .ie you and your dinos lose 50% exp. just a silly idea. am looking forward to what WC decide though but can't wait for too long. august is veeeeeeery optimistic and i'd doubt i'd wanna play with that polished turd. 

[arkark]

On 14/6/2017 at 4:03 PM, Volcano637 said:

believe me I do feel for you guys

Hahaha, you've been trolling with the wipe thing in every single post u can. And its not that I'm tracking you or something, but every time I see that profile picture I know what im about to read.

[Jerryn]

1 hour ago, Paneross said:

Why does it feel the moderators are pro-wipe instead of in support of both sides? 

Really?  Which side am I?  Looks like I tried to get some creativity into this mostly 2 dimensional topic, but, not surprisingly, most people are just Groundhog Daying the topic.

The only thing we are not allowing is everyone having their own(or multiple) threads about wipes, or to hijack other threads and turn them into wipe discussions.  It is not the only topic on the forum, so it does not need to be spammed all over the forum.

[arkark]

11 hours ago, GP said:

So you ignore any interviews that have been made more recently than a year that has touched upon the wipe issue? You ignore those because they do not quite say the same thing that was said a year ago? Go watch the interview on the Twitch video where Kayd was interviewed, I believe it was back in March and then see what you think. There's little point in quoting the same thing over and over again from a year ago.

Also, as you insist on quoting the same thing all the time and you pick out the phrase "final word", then lets look at the whole sentence....

"Here is the final word on the matter: we will not be wiping the Official Servers on ARK’s release (and as mentioned, we will do everything in our power to ever avoid wiping"

The last part opens it up to possible wiping, so no final does not mean it will never happen. It was of course the final word on the matter 1 year ago. Things do change, and what one considers the final word on the matter in the past can easily change their final word later on due to other possibly unforeseen circumstances.

So yes you can cling on to that year old post, but i'm going by more recent interviews that discuss the wipe question. Yes these are interviews with the Devs themselves.

Maybe he not ignore, but honestly, what a dev can say it just an opinion of an employee. Jeremy is the Lead Designer, Lead Programmer, & Co-Creative Director of ARK: Survival Evolved. Also Co-Founder of Studio Wildcard.

I didn't know who Kayd is, but reading his twitter he is just Senior Technical / Gameplay Designer at Studio Wildcard. I dont think his voice is authorized in a matter like that. And I would be pissed if I were the lead and some employee is undermining my reputation contradicting what I've oficially stated before.

 

 

 

[YUSHOETMI]

6 hours ago, Meowsaurus said:

I still don't see the reason for PvE wipe as it isn't competetive related. Well maybe it is because some have tek n stuff but in the end, it doesn't really change poop because the old players cant really do anything against the new players. Said in other words I don't see how it is harmful to new players game experience in PvE.

 

New bob joins PvE server, new bob can't find anywhere to build because of pillars. New bob finds small spot of land and builds near old bobs pillared off area. Old bob doesnt  like it and kites over a giga to new bobs base. Old bob should have been wiped before hand so new bob and old bob have a level footing in the game. 

[arkark]

2 minutes ago, YUSHOETMI said:

New bob joins PvE server, new bob can't find anywhere to build because of pillars. New bob finds small spot of land and builds near old bobs pillared off area. Old bob doesnt  like it and kites over a giga to new bobs base. Old bob should have been wiped before hand so new bob and old bob have a level footing in the game. 

Old Bob pillars already been removed cause of new pilar destruction timers. Bob has a lot of space, also he has ORP to be protected.

[mleii]

14 minutes ago, Jerryn said:

Really?  Which side am I?  Looks like I tried to get some creativity into this mostly 2 dimensional topic, but, not surprisingly, most people are just Groundhog Daying the topic.

The only thing we are not allowing is everyone having their own(or multiple) threads about wipes, or to hijack other threads and turn them into wipe discussions.  It is not the only topic on the forum, so it does not need to be spammed all over the forum.

Yes, and thank you for maintaining some sense of order to these forums.  I used to do moderate a forum elsewhere and it's a hard thing to balance for sure.

FWIW I'm on both sides of the wipe coin.  I'm playing on official PVE so I don't want my stuff wiped, but I can see why folks want a wipe after seeing what some folks do on the servers and part of me wants them wiped due to the abuse there and the pillar spam.  Official PVP servers I've not played on, but the duping and other garbage done there has made me see why it might need to be done there as well.

The other part of me doesn't care because when the dedicated servers are better supported or we can rent servers on consoles I'll probably move back there.  I do care in that I want the way the wipe happens to think through all the ramifications and perhaps think up some good solutions to some of the problems like you and others have done.

Unfortunately like I mentioned in the PVE flyer carry thread today, the few ruin things for the many so likely something will be done that a lot of folks won't like.  

[catnip]

Here is a possible compromise: Allow each player in EA to 'save' 25 animals, and maybe 25 items in the terminal before the wipe occurs, that way people don't lose everything they've spent hundred of ours working on, and rewards them for helping develop the game for launch. They would need to start their characters at level one but would be able to get established faster. People might be less resistant to a wipe if they are able to preserve some of their hard work, especially dino breeders. I play PVE and I know a big part of PVE is the building, taming, and breeding.

[YUSHOETMI]

Just now, arkark said:

Old Bob pillars already been removed cause of new pilar destruction timers. Bob has a lot of space, also he has ORP to be protected.

Old bob found way around pillars des timers and kited giga over to new bobs base whilst he's online. Also ORP doesn't mean squat to a kited Dino. You could kite a giga to a thatch house protected by ORP get it to aggro on one of his dinos and the giga will keep aggro forever until new bob logs back in, then wiping it out before he's even loaded the textures. 

[arkark]

1 minute ago, YUSHOETMI said:

Old bob found way around pillars des timers and kited giga over to new bobs base whilst he's online. Also ORP doesn't mean squat to a kited Dino. You could kite a giga to a thatch house protected by ORP get it to aggro on one of his dinos and the giga will keep aggro forever until new bob logs back in, then wiping it out before he's even loaded the textures. 

If Im not wrong, if u move a dino too far from its spawn area it will despawn after some time. I know this happened time ago with the dam beaver farm traps where the beavers despawned cause they were too far away from spawn points. So as long as new bob dont make his tatch house in a giga spawn area this problem is inexistent.

Also if someone find a way to exploit pillar despawn timers (or any other game mechanic) when game is released, GMs should not been permisive like in EA, and VAC ban that user forever.

[YUSHOETMI]

3 minutes ago, arkark said:

If Im not wrong, if u move a dino too far from its spawn area it will despawn after some time. I know this happened time ago with the dam beaver farm traps where the beavers despawned cause they were too far away from spawn points. So as long as new bob dont make his tatch house in a giga spawn area this problem is inexistent.

Also if someone find a way to exploit pillar despawn timers (or any other game mechanic) when game is released, GMs should not been permisive like in EA, and VAC ban that user forever.

I'm not sure about that. I've seen gigas kited across the map, destroy a base and then wonder off randomly and not despawn. I know with ORP it basically catches aggro and never loses it of left alone until the player comes online and it does its job at eating everything. 

People already have found ways to keep the pillars active and not run out of time. I don't play PvE so wouldn't know how but it's been said in the forums a few times that it's already been worked around. 

Plus duping was also prevalent in PvE and yeah it means nothing to other tribes but it makes the tribe who's done it have an easier time at surviving. 

[Joebl0w13]

25 minutes ago, YUSHOETMI said:

New bob joins PvE server, new bob can't find anywhere to build because of pillars. New bob finds small spot of land and builds near old bobs pillared off area. Old bob doesnt  like it and kites over a giga to new bobs base. Old bob should have been wiped before hand so new bob and old bob have a level footing in the game. 

Old bob can just do this a few weeks after having been wiped.

To a new bob.

[eUkanloZ]

20 minutes ago, catnip said:

Here is a possible compromise: Allow each player in EA to 'save' 25 animals, and maybe 25 items in the terminal before the wipe occurs, that way people don't lose everything they've spent hundred of ours working on, and rewards them for helping develop the game for launch. They would need to start their characters at level one but would be able to get established faster. People might be less resistant to a wipe if they are able to preserve some of their hard work, especially dino breeders. I play PVE and I know a big part of PVE is the building, taming, and breeding.

This would work great but it would be abused I think.  Look at how many of these "God Rexes" are out there.  I am sure someone would sneak one into an Upload, and we would be back to where we are on overpowered dinos.  I do like the idea of not losing everything, but it almost feels as if it needs to happen in my eyes. 

[Ian990]

I play on an official PVE server and do not want a wipe...along with my entire server... i can see wiping the less populated servers for launch.. but seeing how there are a lot of people on both sides of this why not have each individual server vote for their own fate..doing something along those lines the devs couldn't take any flak..win/win for everyone..

[arkark]

24 minutes ago, YUSHOETMI said:

People already have found ways to keep the pillars active and not run out of time. I don't play PvE so wouldn't know how but it's been said in the forums a few times that it's already been worked around.

Yes, placing spawn preventing items on top of the pillars. And in my opinion if people do that in large areas they deserve a ban, because this is acting in a malicious way.

But that will happend regardless of a wipe, and, if there is not automatic solution for that, rules should be changed so we the players can report the people that does that, and in a pair of weeks the servers will be free of that people that enjoy doing that things to break game experience of others.

[dentrue]

I personally play on a PVE-Server.

All evil pictures painted to serve as argument FOR a wipe don't make sense to me. The game experiences new players every day so why is it that there is always a discussion about how old players overwhelm new players by griefing and blocking them? It happens now. It will happen if you don't wipe. It will happen ONE WEEK after you wipe'd. There is no understandable fact that could convince me that a wipe on PVE-Servers will ever be possible. WC just has to pull it's poop together and find some solutions about pillarring and occupying large scales of terrain. That's all.

As for PVP; stating that alpha-tribes dominate new players is equally nonsense. New people are dominated now as they will be one week after a wipe. So there is no point in it either. And then again: I like to paraphrase something I read earlier: "Some alphatribes on PVP-Servers are very decent with good rules for everyone." It is, as you might think about it, some kind of patriarchy. A game-inherent economy. Look up EVE-Online for instence. It works.

 

I don't know what will happen to official servers.

But I do know what will happen if WC decides to destroy millions of hours of playtime of it's playerbase.

The entire game will be torn apart and ripped to shreds on Forums, on Reddit, on Steam and every other major platform by the majority of players who have spent hundreds and thousands of hours of their lifetime to build, construct, tame and helped WC improve their game in the first place.

 

I wonder how many copies they will sell when player-reviews condemn it to death due to one single not so smart choice.

[FredFlinstoner]

1 hour ago, YUSHOETMI said:

New bob joins PvE server, new bob can't find anywhere to build because of pillars. New bob finds small spot of land and builds near old bobs pillared off area. Old bob doesnt  like it and kites over a giga to new bobs base. Old bob should have been wiped before hand so new bob and old bob have a level footing in the game. 

Pillars now decay in 12hrs and anybody can kite new or old.

[BookofBlade]

23 minutes ago, dentrue said:

I personally play on a PVE-Server.

All evil pictures painted to serve as argument FOR a wipe don't make sense to me. The game experiences new players every day so why is it that there is always a discussion about how old players overwhelm new players by griefing and blocking them? It happens now. It will happen if you don't wipe. It will happen ONE WEEK after you wipe'd. There is no understandable fact that could convince me that a wipe on PVE-Servers will ever be possible. WC just has to pull it's poop together and find some solutions about pillarring and occupying large scales of terrain. That's all.

As for PVP; stating that alpha-tribes dominate new players is equally nonsense. New people are dominated now as they will be one week after a wipe. So there is no point in it either. And then again: I like to paraphrase something I read earlier: "Some alphatribes on PVP-Servers are very decent with good rules for everyone." It is, as you might think about it, some kind of patriarchy. A game-inherent economy. Look up EVE-Online for instence. It works.

 

I don't know what will happen to official servers.

But I do know what will happen if WC decides to destroy millions of hours of playtime of it's playerbase.

The entire game will be torn apart and ripped to shreds on Forums, on Reddit, on Steam and every other major platform by the majority of players who have spent hundreds and thousands of hours of their lifetime to build, construct, tame and helped WC improve their game in the first place.

 

I wonder how many copies they will sell when player-reviews condemn it to death due to one single not so smart choice.

Weather on not the same people become alpha again isn't the issue no reasonable person has ever said there needs to be a wipe to remove a specific alpha what they want removed is the massive fortress way away from resources that was constructed back when you could pick up unlimited metal on your speed quetz n zip it across the map. Not to mention the vaults filled with resources gotten in this way. 

I'm in no way saying that people shouldn't of used the methods available at the time but to say people new or starting over now should build up and challenge the existing people as they are now when they effectively are playing a different game than you are just not seeing the big picture

[Ulta]

Saying my two cents. Keep in mind, I am an unofficial PVE player...what I say might shock you.

I am actually pro wipe. I'll give my reasons below, attempting to see every angle to this issue.

For officials, both PVE and PVP, I feel it needs a wipe just because as many have said, ARK's mechanics and methods have evolved since start up. Many players have taken advantage of glitches and dupes that no new player can effectively tackle against EVER, effectively making them unable to ever experience the game as a whole and in turn killing their desire to play. This will most likely make them give an unrecommended review of the game and kill future sales.

For Unofficials...I STILL say a wipe should happen, even on PVE. I know that sounds like I'm shooting myself in the foot since that would in turn ruin any progress I've made. But people seem to forget that most of the fun of ARK is starting fresh and re-progressing. I've restarted my playthrough in ARK well over 6 times when trying to find the right unofficial server. Each time had a new 'life' feel to it and each experience was different and fun depending on the community. You all stuck at endgame farming bosses...can you honestly tell me that you'll stop playing a game you love because you had to 'replay' it essentially? I sure wouldn't...

The biggest sway to wipes even on this side though, is again...dupped items and anything that was achieved by undesirable bugs. I want ALL of these items gone, no matter where they are.

Plus come on people...any server I've come across resorted to a 'wipe' as was voted by its' OWN community, because a wipe meant new players would come. A fresh wipe means a better possibility for that prime real estate to be available to build on. Knowing the sever is 'new' and fresh lures people IN, new and old, to want to play on that server just cause they might find a nice or better spot to build that no one else has taken yet.

 

 

[ValaRhan]

So I'm seeing confirmation all over the place that we will not need to 'repurchase' the game, as we've already bought it; but this is my question:

1) A year ago it was said there would be no server wipe on official launch - I understand a lot can and has changed since then - So I'm asking: Will there be server wipes on Official Launch?
2) If there are server wipes, I heard that data would be shared with those who wanted to get their 'data' to transfer to pvt servers and retain their dinos - will this still be possible?

[IntoDarkness]

On 6/15/2017 at 7:40 PM, BookofBlade said:

That is a terrible analogy I'm not even on the other side of the argument from you but to think those are comparable is asinine 

I agree that this post was distasteful but it supported my intent fully. I was showing how foolish the "The post is a year old, it doesn't have any value" arguments are.

On 6/15/2017 at 10:07 PM, Volcano637 said:

No it does not mean final. When you are in an early acces game and they say anything can change at anytime, that is when you need to really hear those words. 

That also means any that no they said a year ago can change as well.

10/10 troll, love your work man!

On 6/16/2017 at 1:53 AM, GP said:

So you ignore any interviews that have been made more recently than a year that has touched upon the wipe issue? You ignore those because they do not quite say the same thing that was said a year ago? Go watch the interview on the Twitch video where Kayd was interviewed, I believe it was back in March and then see what you think. There's little point in quoting the same thing over and over again from a year ago.

Also, as you insist on quoting the same thing all the time and you pick out the phrase "final word", then lets look at the whole sentence....

"Here is the final word on the matter: we will not be wiping the Official Servers on ARK’s release (and as mentioned, we will do everything in our power to ever avoid wiping"

The last part opens it up to possible wiping, so no final does not mean it will never happen. It was of course the final word on the matter 1 year ago. Things do change, and what one considers the final word on the matter in the past can easily change their final word later on due to other possibly unforeseen circumstances.

So yes you can cling on to that year old post, but i'm going by more recent interviews that discuss the wipe question. Yes these are interviews with the Devs themselves.

Ahaha yes, I believe TranqRex has already told you exactly what I am going to now. I read that sentence as " We will not wipe unless absolutely necessary.", and if it comes to the point that a wipe IS needed I will agree, however, I do not agree that one is at the moment. Maybe one is needed for PVP but as I play on PVE I don't agree with the "Wipe every official server" attitude.

As for the interview with TRH, I never even knew it existed as I don't watch Twitch and the VOD was posted on a 300 sub Youtube channel (Thank you for posting it by the way) but, that interview gave me no new information about wipes; It was Kayd telling about how he would personally wipe if it was up to him and I already know the reasoning behind why some people believe there should be a wipe. In that interview he says, "If you want to try and get an answer from somebody that can actually answer that question ask Jeremy." To me he already has.

Quote

 

ARK Lead Designer, Lead Programmer, Development Director, Co-Creative Director, Co-Founder"

I think Jat meant to say "we won't wipe without good reason during EA": It's always been the plan to wipe at ship when we leave EA; IIRC we mentioned that when EA first released but it's been such a blur maybe it actually wasn't clarified then! Anyhow, now we're clear
-Jeremy

 

Quote

"Alright then, I've thought a lot about this, read a lot of commentary on the subject, and understand the time players have been putting into the game. Here is the final word on the matter: we will not be wiping the Official Servers on ARK's release (and as mentioned, we will do everything in our power to ever avoid wiping -- we all felt the sting from the launch duping bug all too well). We will keep existing active Official Servers as they are post-ship -- no wipe -- though at ship we may at our discretion re-purpose certain empty or near-empty Official Servers with 1 month prior warning (we'll provide archives to data of such servers if anyone wishes to re-host). New Servers will be ADDED to help accommodate new players at that time; we can afford it
We take the time players put into the game seriously, and we want to reward them for that. The reward is having a permanent impact on your ARK, simple as that.
Thanks everyone for your support, as we surely do need it. Please spread the word!
Regards,
Jeremy Stieglitz

Quote

Ultimately the overriding impetus is recognizing that for the hardcore and long-term player-base, ARK is a time-intensive game and players have put 1000's of hours into making their ARK's home. We'll be able to also accommodate new players at ship through the deployment of new servers. As for the land-grab that may happen on those servers when they go live, "all is fair in love and war"
Cheers, Jeremy

Quote

 

"It applies to Xbox as well. Same policy: no wipe at launch. Additional new servers will be added instead."

-Jeremy

 

 

 

EDIT: Fixed order.
 

 

[FredFlinstoner]

On 6/15/2017 at 5:28 PM, FredFlinstoner said:

I'll still play no matter what they do but when pr or a community leader says something it should be final. And yes mega tribes will still be there. 1000hrs to one person is 1000hrs but for a hundred people that's 10hrs a piece. So it hurts the small tribes more. And no matter what they do the noobs are going to get left in the dust. I really don't want to lose my bloodlines I have going could care less about stuctures/items.

ed 2 hours ago · 

  On 3/26/2017 at 5:01 AM, icycold2367 said:

Whats the purpose of the wipe then? Big tribes get wiped for the handful of smaller tribes they wiped? 50 people will always outwork 5. Hell my old tribe was a 50 man and we could grind out 100k metal in 1/2 a day just by numbers. All that does is punish big tribes as i stated above for playing this game. If you dont like competition thats stacked against you play political. Why not purposely not become huge so you dont appear as a threat.

The problem is big tribes make the game boring. It's all too easy for players to band together in these big groups. There is no disadvantages to it only advantages.

Currently in ARK you have these two giant alliances BLDX (which I'm part of) and Cobra. BLDX isn't a tribe in itself but a collection of about 20 alpha tribes and CG is basically a giant Chinese tribe of 500 or more players. These two mega alliances control about 100+ official servers currently. That is 100 Official servers in which there is basically no real PVP going on.

Neither of these two alliances will ever go to war because A) There is no incentive for either to do so B) The risks outweigh the rewards. Both of these alliances have giant stockpiles of stuff, there is nothing they can get from fighting that they don't already both have be it blueprints, eggs or otherwise. The end result of this is a lot of Official PVP servers more resemble some PVE server then a proper PVP server because everyone one there is allied up and the server itself is allied up and so on and on.

For the good of the game this needs to change. If the devs have to have some monthly competition to encourage these big groups to fight each other then so be it, but something needs to happen to liven up the game. If it comes down to it I would even back a WOW type thing where you'd have set factions that are permanently at war with certain other factions. 

 

Little something to back up my statement.

[SlipperySquid]

To me a server wipe will not fix anything unless they acknowledge and address some of the issues the game has.

 

1) Tribes not being cluster bound - Meaning a mega alliance of 900 people can all join to 1 server and be in the same tribe for the raid this then provides infinite resources for these full server invasions.

2)  Tribe limit - This is a touchy subject however their are very few tribes that have over 50 actual players in their tribe. Most are 20-30man tribes with alliance members in their tribe pushing the number up to 900 members in their tribe. Half the time people have no clue who 70% of the people in the tribe are they are usually still their from a previous invasion. With all this being said Honestly i think 50 members is a good number for a tribe that gives you wiggle room to have people on 24/7 but does not give you the oppertunity to 70/70 a server with out allies.

3) Alliance system not being cluster bound - You should only be able to have 3 tribes in an alliance and only able to have one alliance so you can not have again 900 man mega alliances all in the same FoB on the same server. This combined with the tribe limit keeping a server 66/70 in favor of your alliance 24/7 for 20 days in a row is near impossible people will have to sleep then the server can actually do a counter push against the invaders. At the very least it would mean 2 separate alliance would have to commit a fob if they wanted to raid a server with 300 members.

4) Region locking - The biggest thing people do is during their prime time they search servers By list and go ohh this has 1/70 or 0/70 lets raid this server. 70-85% of players are not people that stay up to 4-5 am so Region locking would make a huge difference to quality of game play. Not that PvO is a bad thing it should be allowed but having smaller clusters means more consequences for the ones doing these PvO if they are caught.

5) Tribe cool down - Now this is by far the biggest issue in the game. Lets say i am from server 20 and i want to raid people on server 21 i join server 21 with other people from servers 22,23,24,25,19,109,292 and we are all in the same tribe. The people on server 21 kill a dino from server 20 and know that are the people raiding. They then try a counter attack to pull people off the server by hit and run tactics on server 20. They just transfer back to their server and are back in their own tribe making it easy to defend and attack different servers.

 

I feel like i am rambling a bit with this so sorry about that also before people jump on me and say tribe limit is stupid and what not i am in a tribe that has 80-90 active players daily so that would affect me more then it would affect 95% of the player base.

[CaptoBraunch]

The only people who would actually quit ARK forever after a server wipe are the spoiled manchildren who buy wyverns and gigas with real money. This behavior is both enabled and encouraged by the transfer mechanic. But Wildcard miraculously doesn't seem to see any issue with transfers OR not wiping. In fact, i get flamed anytime i dare oppose it. It's not possible that the devs dont see the pitiful state of Official servers, i've heard one acknowledge it. What could possibly motivate them to turn a blind eye to the obvious poison their world is becoming?

 With my knowledge of American politics, its highly likely that someone high up at WC is infact producing and distributing these illegitimate dinos and making a killing. Our leaders have forsaken us for the almighty dollar, surprised i am not.