Server Wipe

[Insomniak]

24 minutes ago, Ulta said:

@Lucifina I do agree, it would be a bit of a 'lie' if they did do a wipe after Jeremy said they wouldn't. But that quote was how long ago? 1 YEAR.

Ark has changed a lot in one whole dang year, so much so that now any wipe or no wipe question aimed at a dev today have been met with either silence or 'we are still thinking about it'. So clearly something has happened in that 1 whole year that's making them go a bit silent on the matter.

This is a dang EA game, meaning it's subject to change at a moments notice. Sure that still would mean he lied, but really you are gonna hold THAT over his head? when you knew full well that it's an EA game and that change happens more than once? Now I'm wondering what else you'd pack into your review that you'll try to use to convince people to stay away...because AFTER release, players will NOT be experiencing what we Early Access people did. Ark will be solidified by then, so WC would have no reason to 'lie' about anything because it's all practically IN the game and no huge changes like wipes or blanket nerfs should happen. you'd basically be telling people to avoid this game because the devs fibbed or made changes to a game WHILE IT WAS STILL BEING MADE that you didn't' agree with. That's a completely selfish reason to try and keep players from getting a game that by then will not be changing anymore gameplay wise. So are you still going to tell me that you'll blindly post a negative review if the wipe does happen? Just because you feel you were lied to by a dev to a game that was in EA and just that one 'lie' on one subject that ONLY AFFECTED EA players?

We will wait and see for sure. Sparks are gonna fly if it does happen, and I have a feeling it's going to happen.

Nope. The only reason they would wipe at this point is to rid servers of items/dinos that were glitched instead of patch fixes for each little thing. I would fully expect in the months after 1.0 hits shelves to see two things... one is the wild dino level cap increased to 200ish and two higher level and  models of equipment and saddles not yet implemented to make everything else we have now (glitched or not) crap. Heard it here first folks! 

[Dark2084]

I still can't believe that there are still people that think a wipe will make everyone equal... it won't. A good example, let's say a brand new company moves into your town. They are creating 1500 brand new jobs. You go and apply for one of those jobs (say for example making dust bunnies) and find that 99 other people have also applied for the same job. Now there are only 50 openings for that particular job, so you have a 50/50 chance at being hired.... now here's where the reality sets in... out of the 100 aplications recieved for that position 60 of them have 1+ years of experience.... you're chances of getting that job if you aren't one of the experienced applicants just got flushed down the drain. So no, there is no chance of a "level/equal/even" playing field if they wipe the servers. If you don't play on an official server then (I might be mistaken) you should have nothing to worry about. Now as for people complaining about no room because of bigger tribes... If I'm looking to buy a house I look at listings in good neighborhoods, the same can apply here... if you go to a server and the first thing you encounter is rude people or you look around and there's no room because of pillars everywhere then try checking another server. I have sat on the server I play on watched a new player join and within 30 seconds watched them go straight to chat complaining about pillars everywhere. They just got on the server and saw a pillar where they spawned at so naturally the whole server had to be covered in pillars. Oh and my personal favorite, the people that join and "demand" pillars (and one actually wanted a base) be removed to give them room to build. I have offered to bring my quetz over to pick people up and fly them around the map and help them find a spot to build. The majority of the responses I get to my offer of help is being told "F*** YOU I bought this game and I can do whatever I want" (yes that is exactly what they say). Even with all of this I still try to help new players that are honestly trying to learn and play the game. As for the players that come on to the server and constantly beg for items, dinos, food, and various other things... well I tend to ignore them until they give up and go away.

Now another thing I am seeing... "a server wipe will get rid of all the duped stuff". Yes it will but only for a short period of time. The people exploiting glitches and duping stuff will continue to do it until they are caught and banned so if you want those things to stop you need to start reporting people that you know are guilty of doing it.

[Ulta]

10 minutes ago, Insomniak said:

Nope. The only reason they would wipe at this point is to rid servers of items/dinos that were glitched instead of patch fixes for each little thing. I would fully expect in the months after 1.0 hits shelves to see two things... one is the wild dino level cap increased to 200ish and two higher level and  models of equipment and saddles not yet implemented to make everything else we have now (glitched or not) crap. Heard it here first folks! 

I never said that was the ONLY reason they'd do a wipe =P But you are right, the duped items and such need to go once they actual fix the duping.

Interesting though, I never thought about doign that as a workaround. But people have duped things with no 'quality' stats like Ind. forges, chem tables, adn the stuff you need ot make a LOT of resources quickly. There wouldn't be any way to get rid of those except for a wipe or the devs track down every offender...

Speaking of, don't they still do bounties for if you report with proof of someone duping? Why has no one mentioned that? It could at least help thin the herds of offenders while they work on trying to fix the actual dupe bug. (which I hear tons of people mentioning yet no one seems ot ever say HOW to dupe...people need ot be posting in the bugs section and saying how it's done so they can fix it)

[Insomniak]

18 minutes ago, Ulta said:

I never said that was the ONLY reason they'd do a wipe =P But you are right, the duped items and such need to go once they actual fix the duping.

Interesting though, I never thought about doign that as a workaround. But people have duped things with no 'quality' stats like Ind. forges, chem tables, adn the stuff you need ot make a LOT of resources quickly. There wouldn't be any way to get rid of those except for a wipe or the devs track down every offender...

Speaking of, don't they still do bounties for if you report with proof of someone duping? Why has no one mentioned that? It could at least help thin the herds of offenders while they work on trying to fix the actual dupe bug. (which I hear tons of people mentioning yet no one seems ot ever say HOW to dupe...people need ot be posting in the bugs section and saying how it's done so they can fix it)

Not sure.. probably on the reward..  and don't think they are worried as much about non-quality items being duped like forges etc... if someone wants to be stupid and risk a ban to make a forge they will eventually delete their character accidently... darwinism at its finest. I think they are letting it go now to see every possible angle so they can patch it all.. that's when the ban beatdown will happen and after we will see the increase they don't want to release yet

[JamesDoty]

I am closing in on 3000 hours on ARK since 2015.  I am on my 4th server.  After a while, I get bored with maintenance so I abandon everything and start new on a different server.  While a wipe would suck, it is nothing that you can't rebuild from.  I really don't think they would lose a significant portion us long term players if they enacted a wipe.

[Thexone]

14 hours ago, Dark2084 said:

Those same "alpha's" (I've always hated that term because it implies superiority) will then take even greater pleasure in making it totally and completely impossible for any new player to get established because they will blame the new players for their loss. As for everyone being on an even playing field.... that will only happen if they take the game as we know it and completely change every aspect of it. I have over 4800+ hours in this game. I know which dinos are going to be the most benificial early on, which engrams I'll need, which stats will help me survive at a low level... not to mention I know the best places to build, best plaves to collect resources, and the most effective ways to tame the dinos I'll need to make surviving a lot easier. So the thought of an even/equal playing field can honestly never happen.

Now that you've mentioned it I'd hate to be a new player on any official server after the wipe and having to deal with all the upset players that had over 2k hours of game play wiped out.  If trolls weren't an issues on some servers before they will be after the wipe. And even generally decent players probably won't be all that kind to these new players. 

On 6/24/2017 at 7:38 PM, Kurbbie said:

It would do the game alot of good by getting rid of all the duped items and dinos. Its not the land its the crap theyre duping.

I admit I haven't looked into the latest duping issues much at all as I'm not sure it's affecting me much over on PVE.  I see this as a significant issue for PVP but I still maintain that a wipe isn't the solution. It's an easy fix. Maybe the developers need to make the effort in finding a way to find and remove these items. It could be valuable for them when the next exploit presents itself. Or they can always just wipe the servers whenever they need an easy fix...

[craigy]

Pretty sure all they're doing is making new CrossARK servers and the ones we're on now won't be able to transfer to them.

[BookofBlade]

People are warping the idea of fairness in this thread. Fairness in the sense of a wipe isnt about putting two people at a totally equal level, this is impossible simply due to experience and everything related to that.

Fairness that is achieved by a wipe is mechanical. To look at it in a vacuum if player 1 played early access and put in X amount of effort using an unlimited weight speed quetz to build a base. Player 2 picks up the game on release and puts in the same X amount of effort with the flying mechanics of today they would not have the same base as output. This is mechanically unfair two players putting in exactly the same amount of effort should be able to obtain the same thing which is currently not the case

[YUSHOETMI]

This might take the sting away a little for some.....

[Thexone]

3 hours ago, craigy said:

Pretty sure all they're doing is making new CrossARK servers and the ones we're on now won't be able to transfer to them.

This seems like the best option.  Wipe/convert dead servers as they originally said they would. Disable transfers from current servers and add a few new servers.  As long as there is some indication of which servers were early access and which are new servers it should be fine.  This gives all the players who wanted a "fresh start" their opportunity. And also avoids screwing over/losing a large number of EA players.  

Of course this does nothing for truly noob players who will have to deal with the nightmare of servers full of players with 2 years of experience under their belts but there is no patch for that.

[Tshx85]

Ark official servers are rotten to the core. The devs have clearly lost control over their own game. The dupin of items over the last 14 days has flooded the servers with cheap tek trades and max dmg weapons. This ruins the competetive nature of ark. And the devs clearly dont care about this or lost control. Seen numerous reports about server being crashed to dupin and ppl make tickets. But nothin really happens to the dupers.

So in my opinion, Wildcard should either take control over their own game or wipe everythin..

[Vrallox]

21 hours ago, Ulta said:

@Lucifina I do agree, it would be a bit of a 'lie' if they did do a wipe after Jeremy said they wouldn't. But that quote was how long ago? 1 YEAR.

Ark has changed a lot in one whole dang year, so much so that now any wipe or no wipe question aimed at a dev today have been met with either silence or 'we are still thinking about it'. So clearly something has happened in that 1 whole year that's making them go a bit silent on the matter.

This is a dang EA game, meaning it's subject to change at a moments notice. Sure that still would mean he lied, but really you are gonna hold THAT over his head? when you knew full well that it's an EA game and that change happens more than once? Now I'm wondering what else you'd pack into your review that you'll try to use to convince people to stay away...because AFTER release, players will NOT be experiencing what we Early Access people did. Ark will be solidified by then, so WC would have no reason to 'lie' about anything because it's all practically IN the game and no huge changes like wipes or blanket nerfs should happen. you'd basically be telling people to avoid this game because the devs fibbed or made changes to a game WHILE IT WAS STILL BEING MADE that you didn't' agree with. That's a completely selfish reason to try and keep players from getting a game that by then will not be changing anymore gameplay wise. So are you still going to tell me that you'll blindly post a negative review if the wipe does happen? Just because you feel you were lied to by a dev to a game that was in EA and just that one 'lie' on one subject that ONLY AFFECTED EA players?

We will wait and see for sure. Sparks are gonna fly if it does happen, and I have a feeling it's going to happen.

As a developer of an early access game I'm sure Jeremy Stieglitz knew full well what being an early access game entailed and yet he still made that promise. Which means he fully expects to be able to fulfill the promise, made in an official statement on behalf of the development team, knowing all about the need for changes.

Unless of course Ulta's implying that  Jeremy Stieglitz, as a developer of an early access game, DIDN'T know that. In which case I'm pretty sure Ulta just called Jeremy an imbecile. That's not very nice.

Also, plenty of released games experience blanket nerfs. Warframe, a simply fantastic action game, has done plenty of blanket nerfs. Starbound and Terraria do it once in a while too. Nerfs happen in many different released games.

[Manding0]

1 hour ago, Tshx85 said:

Ark official servers are rotten to the core. The devs have clearly lost control over their own game. The dupin of items over the last 14 days has flooded the servers with cheap tek trades and max dmg weapons. This ruins the competetive nature of ark. And the devs clearly dont care about this or lost control. Seen numerous reports about server being crashed to dupin and ppl make tickets. But nothin really happens to the dupers.

So in my opinion, Wildcard should either take control over their own game or wipe everythin..

I first hand have seen tribes wiped by devs, although I do feel they can do a better job. It only takes one admin to log into the server and snoop around. 

The issue with a server wipe is that it will only be a temporary fix to the problems people complain about. The game will be toxic in a year once tribes get built up and attached to items. There will be new bugs that permit duping. Alpha's will still be Alphas. If anything many Alpha tribes will come back stronger then they are now.  In a game this size, there is always going to be some exploit players will discover and take advantage of.

MOST of the players asking for an official server wipe have already had their base pushed in multiple times and think "well if the servers reset, i can build back up and play". News flash buddy, if you can't get build up on PvP now, You won't last in PvP on release with a fresh server wipe.

-For the record, I am on the fence about a server wipe. I wouldn't mind a server wipe if they announce it right now, but the longer they wait to announce it, the more I will feel like I got kicked in the balls. 

[SumDuud]

I'm in the boat of preferring they cluster existing servers and stand up new servers independent of the current ones.  It gives options to new and old players.  It allows new and old players to start fresh (new alliances and so on) while giving current players the opportunity to build and stay strong or bring new people in to existing environments.  As server population dies, kill the server off. 

OR

I also like the idea of going free for all extinction for the remaining days and then full wipe.  lol

[X111]

cluster all old servers as island, centre, SE and Rag per cluster

once people start getting bored because they cant migrate to the new servers they will slowly loose interest and either quite altogether OR start a new character on the new servers.

WC runs a analyst on each cluster every 3 months to monitor population levels (no new players able to join), if a cluster population falls below 30 for example they then notify the server that the server cluster is being wiped and then reintegrated into the rest of the community. WC could then offer to protect 5 creatures from the those legacy players and provide them on the new servers without timers so that a chance is given in finding a new home.

 

easiest peaceful way of conducting business

 

[CrackerJackx13]

roar.

[Sup3riorArs3nal]

After having just wiped a duping tribe, I now fully see the need for a full server wipe or at least the total elimination of duped items/tames. Scouted their server awhile back, decent but easily attack bases. Then they got scared and brought their duped structures to the surface. In one day all bases had layers of Tek behemoth, and twice the amount auto turrets. Instead of taking a few hours it took all day, then after they were defeated the next day they spammed our server with Tek foundations and started rebuilding on their server with their duped stash uploaded before their base was breached. Luckily they didn't seem to have duped bullets so we just blew up more stuff. 

Like, we won. Fair and square no duping. Yet they can continually rebuild for zero effort over and over with thousands of tek structures stashed cross server? That's unacceptable really. I don't care if all of my bases and tames get wiped, I have confidence in my tribe and allies to get back to the top again the honest way as we've done before and still do.

However, if they wipe without 100% stopping duping, problems will be even worse as dupers will be unstoppable with honest tribes set back to zero.

[Vrallox]

2 minutes ago, ComradeRyu said:

xDDDD Wow, you actually said all that? "Jeremy Stieglitz knew full well what being an early access game entailed and yet he still made that promise. Which means he fully expects to be able to fulfill the promise, made in an official statement on behalf of the development team, knowing all about the need for changes." It seems to be that you didn't take into consideration the fact that things do change. Even an "official statement". Also thanks, after taking many breaths, I still think you are uhm... "Dense, unintelligent, think, dull"... I guess those words are ok right? If it was that easy to get the rexes they would've done so already. The duped items are broken, and people are still duping to this day. You must not play official. Or if you do SURELY it's PvE for you to have that logic, that this kinda stuff is not gamebreaking

It appears to me you seem to not understand what's being said in my posts. I am not in fact Jeremy Stieglitz or Ulta's version of Jeremy Stieglitz. Please reread the previous posts. Once again, I at no point said I believe things don't change. A very clear point backed up by the evidence of my posts and yet you seem to not be able to comprehend it. It's growing rather obvious that instead of fully understanding what I've said you are instead replying to some fictionalized version of my posts that you make up entirely in your head with things that were never said. More breaths and time are definitely needed for you.

If duping's gamebreaking then only dupers would be on those servers. I guess that must be the case for you to not be entirely wrong about it. Not really a problem then if no non-dupers have to deal with them. Your logic seems flawless. Keep up the good work.

Are those magic rexes then? How would a melee nerf not work on them? Could you please share your insight?

 

[StrangerDanger42]

2 minutes ago, Vrallox said:

It appears to me you seem to not understand what's being said in my posts. I am not in fact Jeremy Stieglitz or Ulta's version of Jeremy Stieglitz. Please reread the previous posts. Once again, I at no point said I believe things don't change. A very clear point backed up by the evidence of my posts and yet you seem to not be able to comprehend it. It's growing rather obvious that instead of fully understanding what I've said you are instead replying to some fictionalized version of my posts that you make up entirely in your head with things that were never said. More breaths and time are definitely needed for you.

If duping's gamebreaking then only dupers would be on those servers. I guess that must be the case for you to not be entirely wrong about it. Not really a problem then if no non-dupers have to deal with them. Your logic seems flawless. Keep up the good work.

Are those magic rexes then? How would a melee nerf not work on them? Could you please share your insight?

 

I dunno about the back and forth going on here...but i doubt a melee nerf would work on those rexes since eggs could easily be put on an ark the same way that ppl have kept illicit bps this whole time since the nerf to items...  The comment concerning only "dupers being on duped servers" is ridiculous considering the sheer amount of dupes in this game available to the player base because you are a tester playing Alpha.

[Vrallox]

17 minutes ago, StrangerDanger42 said:

I dunno about the back and forth going on here...but i doubt a melee nerf would work on those rexes since eggs could easily be put on an ark the same way that ppl have kept illicit bps this whole time since the nerf to items...  The comment concerning only "dupers being on duped servers" is ridiculous considering the sheer amount of dupes in this game available to the player base because you are a tester playing Alpha.

Bah. That dupers on duped servers was just me using that whole "attribute some entirely fictional thing to the other person" deal that he has going on. Of course now that's ruined.

What's that about using arks to keep blueprints? Do you mean people are avoiding the nerfs by uploading them with obelisks? Couldn't the devs just give a warning beforehand that any uploaded items or creatures will be destroyed when they release the nerf patch and then do so?

[StrangerDanger42]

15 minutes ago, Vrallox said:

Bah. That dupers on duped servers was just me using that whole "attribute some entirely fictional thing to the other person" deal that he has going on. Of course now that's ruined.

What's that about using arks to keep blueprints? Do you mean people are avoiding the nerfs by uploading them with obelisks? Couldn't the devs just give a warning beforehand that any uploaded items or creatures will be destroyed when they release the nerf patch and then do so?

if they really did wipe everything from the ark that could fix the uploaded issue.  Last i checked not everything was being wiped from the arks on server restart/update.

 

[Kurbbie]

As it stands a server wipe is mandatory. Very mandatory. Everyone is duping and exploiting. A wipe would be great. 

[ComradeRyu]

Amen to Kurbbie

[Vrallox]

27 minutes ago, StrangerDanger42 said:

if they really did wipe everything from the ark that could fix the uploaded issue.  Last i checked not everything was being wiped from the arks on server restart/update.

 

Ah. So if the devs manage to iron out that kink they could very well rid the servers of those exploited rexes. Nerf them down to appropriate strength or delete them entirely if still uploaded when the nerf patch hits. They could also take care of those blueprints in one fell swoop too.

[YUSHOETMI]

I'd love to see a show of hands for those who are against the wipe and have never participated in the duping, glitches or exploits that have come about in the time this game has been EA. I bet there wouldn't be many. 

Also if you're against the wipe. Imagine, for a moment if you will, you have just bought the game today and joined an official server as they are now, you take a look at it and wonder how you would manage to play the game given the lack of knowledge and the mess the servers are in. How you would stand a chance against the bases and dinosaurs already 2 years ahead of you. Would you enjoy the game then? Didn't think so.