100 servers with 5 or less people online (PC)

[Ceranai]

As per title. I've suggested and seen it been suggested that empty servers could be recycled or something similar, I'm curious if the devs have given this any thought. I literally just did a rough count and there are currently 10 servers with exactly 0 people online and about 100 with 5 or less people logged on. I appreciate this is not peak play time but there are servers that are still just as empty at peak times.

I lose count of the number of people who log into my main server and ask 'how old is this server?' and 'are there any new servers' per day. I would bet my favorite pteradon that if just a few servers were recycled, say 5 of the 0 all the time servers, those servers would see 70/70 people playing for a good month or so. I know so many people who got wiped by an alpha and want to play a server where they have as much of a chance as any other player.

PS- Also as a slight side topic suggestion why don't the devs use these servers to test new server rules FOR EXAMPLE-Base protection. Offline raiding has been a problem since the game first came out and there are numerous mods that un-officials use to prevent it. Part of the reason my tribe is the alpha on our server is because half of us are nocturnal and offline raiding is so so so so so easy. Why not recycle dead servers and use the opportunity to try out new server settings?!

Seriously though there are servers that are so dead it must be a waste of money paying to host them I bet 100% if you announced servers would be recycled you would get a massive surge in active players.

[Coanunn]

17 minutes ago, Ceranai said:

Seriously though there are servers that are so dead it must be a waste of money paying to host them I bet 100% if you announced servers would be recycled you would get a massive surge in active players.

Or a massive surge in complaints from players who just had their effort wiped while waiting for the next content update that matters to that player.  I am not saying you are wrong but every day we see people calling for wipes, server recycles and everyday we see people threatening to leave if there is another wipe.  The doom and gloom vs rose colored glasses arguments aside, any action like this will not have a universal reaction to it and isn't as cut and dry as you are presenting.  I think you are right that it would have a net positive effect but it would also have several repercussions not least of all is the time it would take Developers to identify servers with the least active player base in all time periods, wipe and reset the server.  Even a few hours spent to accomplish that is taking time away from other projects, especially when there are thousands of private servers that are not being hosted by Wildcard, cost Wildcard no man hours or hosting fees as a result, that do precisely what you describe.

[Ceranai]

9 minutes ago, Coanunn said:

Or a massive surge in complaints from players who just had their effort wiped while waiting for the next content update that matters to that player.  I am not saying you are wrong but every day we see people calling for wipes, server recycles and everyday we see people threatening to leave if there is another wipe.  The doom and gloom vs rose colored glasses arguments aside, any action like this will not have a universal reaction to it and isn't as cut and dry as you are presenting.  I think you are right that it would have a net positive effect but it would also have several repercussions not least of all is the time it would take Developers to identify servers with the least active player base in all time periods, wipe and reset the server.  Even a few hours spent to accomplish that is taking time away from other projects, especially when there are thousands of private servers that are not being hosted by Wildcard, cost Wildcard no man hours or hosting fees as a result, that do precisely what you describe.

I agree it would have to be handled well but I think there is a large number of nomadic players who are server-less for one reason or another and want to play a new server without having to play a private server. I dont think it would take that much effort to check the server list maybe 3 times a day for a couple of weeks to identify servers that are totally dead and never have more than 2-5 people on them. I think that having a few new servers which would be 70/70 all day long for at least a month or so is worth wiping a server than has less than 70 people log into it over the course of a month. Before I cleaned up my friends list I had 100 or so people who played ark on officials but had been wiped and most of these people said that they would be interested in starting fresh on a clean server, unfortunately there hasn't been a clean server in over 5 months now so most of them are playing other games.

They have stated they dont plan to do a general wipe and they will obviously not release new servers while so many of them are empty so Im asking if a compromise like this would be remotely feasible. 

[Jerryn]

They can simply look in the saved files directory at the timestamp on the player profiles to determine who has recently logged in to the server.  Not sure what info is stored in the player profile as far as timestamps go, but if they store the creation timestamp and the date of last login and logoff, you could download the profiles, parse out the important info, and then put together a decent profile of the activity of the server.

For example, are people creating a new character, getting onto a an empty server, bailing, and never coming back.

[Ceranai]

30 minutes ago, Jerryn said:

They can simply look in the saved files directory at the timestamp on the player profiles to determine who has recently logged in to the server.  Not sure what info is stored in the player profile as far as timestamps go, but if they store the creation timestamp and the date of last login and logoff, you could download the profiles, parse out the important info, and then put together a decent profile of the activity of the server.

For example, are people creating a new character, getting onto a an empty server, bailing, and never coming back.

This is the kind of thing i am talking about. I'm currently looking around on servers and the low pop ones seem to be almost totally dead. Seems like a waste of space.

[Coanunn]

27 minutes ago, Jerryn said:

They can simply look in the saved files directory at the timestamp on the player profiles to determine who has recently logged in to the server.  Not sure what info is stored in the player profile as far as timestamps go, but if they store the creation timestamp and the date of last login and logoff, you could download the profiles, parse out the important info, and then put together a decent profile of the activity of the server.

For example, are people creating a new character, getting onto a an empty server, bailing, and never coming back.

Again, I'm not saying this is a bad thing but all of the stuff you describe is man hours spent on a problem that has a solution in place in the form of unofficial servers during a time when Wildcard doesn't have the resources to deliver on established goals.  How often do we see the list of deployed versus projected features change because they failed to finish the content prior to the patch being pushed?  It's a question of resource management, and dedicating even 1 developer to write a program to parse the data, run said program against the DB, make the decisions and implement them (even if we assume no oversight is required and they don't have to have a meeting to discuss the data before wiping servers), then dedicate an admin away from tickets and bug report sorting to instead handle the PR on the servers being recycled is actually quite a few man hours for the "simple fix".

[Jerryn]

2 minutes ago, Coanunn said:

Again, I'm not saying this is a bad thing but all of the stuff you describe is man hours spent on a problem that has a solution in place in the form of unofficial servers during a time when Wildcard doesn't have the resources to deliver on established goals.  How often do we see the list of deployed versus projected features change because they failed to finish the content prior to the patch being pushed?  It's a question of resource management, and dedicating even 1 developer to write a program to parse the data, run said program against the DB, make the decisions and implement them (even if we assume no oversight is required and they don't have to have a meeting to discuss the data before wiping servers), then dedicate an admin away from tickets and bug report sorting to instead handle the PR on the servers being recycled is actually quite a few man hours for the "simple fix".

Sorry...hit the wrong button.

Anyway, there is also a cost of maintianing those servers and not getting any value for them.  What is the cost of customer satisfaction.  What of negative word of mouth about empty servers, pillared servers, etc.  And, for the record, I only play unofficial, as I currently help to admin one.

And, while I have looked at the files, I have not done so in detail.  But, if the information is there, then extacting it is not rocket surgery.  We are talking some basic data analysis and not building an entire dataware house and BI infrastructure.

Cerani also pointed out they could use this as a foundation to build experimental servers to test out other setups than just basic PVE and basic PVP.  It could be an opportunity.

Finally, I am only pointing out it could be done.  I am not saying that it should or should not be, as I can see both the value and cost of doing this; the very type of stuff I deal with everyday.

[Ceranai]

5 minutes ago, Jerryn said:

Sorry...hit the wrong button.

Anyway, there is also a cost of maintianing those servers and not getting any value for them.  What is the cost of customer satisfaction.  What of negative word of mouth about empty servers, pillared servers, etc.  And, for the record, I only play unofficial, as I currently help to admin one.

And, while I have looked at the files, I have not done so in detail.  But, if the information is there, then extacting it is not rocket surgery.  We are talking some basic data analysis and not building an entire dataware house and BI infrastructure.

Cerani also pointed out they could use this as a foundation to build experimental servers to test out other setups than just basic PVE and basic PVP.  It could be an opportunity.

Finally, I am only pointing out it could be done.  I am not saying that it should or should not be, as I can see both the value and cost of doing this; the very type of stuff I deal with everyday.

My main experimental server would be one that utilized altered offline base defence, its one of the things that is always complained about on official pvp servers and when i look at unofficial it is one of the most common rules they have.

[Jerryn]

14 minutes ago, Ceranai said:

My main experimental server would be one that utilized altered offline base defence, its one of the things that is always complained about on official pvp servers and when i look at unofficial it is one of the most common rules they have.

Though, to make that work, they will need to improve the server selection interface in the game, including giving the ability to filter for certain settings and displaying a usable summary, plus a way to click on a server and read a more detailed description.  

That was the hard part of find private servers, even with the abbreviations people put in the titles; I usually just ended up looking through the server advertising forum since most admins would at least give you some details about their server, beyond the basic settings.

[Crumplecorn]

1 hour ago, Ceranai said:

Offline raiding has been a problem since the game first came out

Offline raiding isn't a problem, it's an intended part of the game.

Regardless, these sound like servers ripe for taking over for any aspiring tribe if they really are as dead as you say. Why wipe away other people's stuff when the server is available anyway?

[Ceranai]

9 minutes ago, Crumplecorn said:

Offline raiding isn't a problem, it's an intended part of the game.

Regardless, these sound like servers ripe for taking over for any aspiring tribe if they really are as dead as you say. Why wipe away other people's stuff when the server is available anyway?

Its a problem for the countless number of people who complain about it regularly. They do this on the forums and also in game, i lose count of the tribes that suddenly start shouting in global about being offline raided, and Im sure you could count the forum posts where it happens but it would be a large number.

It is a problem because the amount of effort it takes to online raid is about 10x more than an offline raid and on the rare occasions that you do get online raids the defenders usually drop the loot further encouraging offline raids. It is a problem because it encourages pvo at the expense of pvp. My tribe is firmly the alpha tribe on our sever but we still raid offline most of the time because it is safer to do and guarantees the loot.

Who would want to take over a dead server anyway? If I wanted to play by myself I would play single player or host a private server with some friends.

[Crumplecorn]

2 minutes ago, Ceranai said:

Its a problem for the countless number of people who complain about it regularly

Bad players whining about something does not make it a problem. If I complain about being shot in Battlefield, is that suddenly a problem with the game? Of course not.

3 minutes ago, Ceranai said:

Who would want to take over a dead server anyway?

Well... you want it to be wiped... which would make it a dead server...

[Oponn]

I posted this topic 1 week ago and was met with rage by people who care about the bases they had built and nlthe dinos they have tamed. This is a very heated topic atm but here we go.                                                                                                    Pvp servers have a life cycle, be it 3 or 6 months. Once a tribe is dominate enough that server is for all intensive purposes dead. Now if you love base building and taming go play a pve server, the current state of pvp servers is the same that rust legacy officals fell into, lack of dev foresight to understand that wipes are nessessary to keep servee health. Now with all that in mind since they have said it will never wipe they should create 5-10 new servers with a regular wipe schedule every 3,6,9 months or somthing along those lines to keep things fresh. What rust had was a good community of public servers doing this, ark sadley has a community of modified servers that some players like and some dont, not only that but the ease of finding an offical server is always easief for new players.

[Ceranai]

Just now, Crumplecorn said:

Bad players whining about something does not make it a problem. If I complain about being shot in Battlefield, is that suddenly a problem with the game? Of course not.

Well... you want it to be wiped... which would make it a dead server...

You assume that the players who whine are 'bad', maybe they were just offline at the time and don't like logging in to see their base gone? Sounds pretty arrogant to assume that anyone who complains is bad, if only we could all be pro like you eh? No base is un-raidable, if you plan in advance you just need 2 or so hours to totally wipe out any base when they are offline because none of the base defenses are particularly strong.

Plant X? Tank them easily and eat them

Auto-turrets? drain them easy

'Guard' dinosaurs? don't make me laugh

I am still looking at the server list and there are still servers with 0/70 people logged on and many more that have less than 5, that is dead. I am 99% sure that if they wiped even just one of these servers it would be 70/70 for at least a few weeks if not months.

[Oponn]

1 hour ago, Coanunn said:

Or a massive surge in complaints from players who just had their effort wiped while waiting for the next content update that matters to that player.  I am not saying you are wrong but every day we see people calling for wipes, server recycles and everyday we see people threatening to leave if there is another wipe.  The doom and gloom vs rose colored glasses arguments aside, any action like this will not have a universal reaction to it and isn't as cut and dry as you are presenting.  I think you are right that it would have a net positive effect but it would also have several repercussions not least of all is the time it would take Developers to identify servers with the least active player base in all time periods, wipe and reset the server.  Even a few hours spent to accomplish that is taking time away from other projects, especially when there are thousands of private servers that are not being hosted by Wildcard, cost Wildcard no man hours or hosting fees as a result, that do precisely what you describe.

And no their are next to zero vanilla private servers and the ones that exist have no population due to terrible advertising or none at all.

[Jerryn]

If the server was covered in foundations and such, coming in as a level 1 could be very difficult.  And, who wants to clean up all of that stuff.  Now, if it is a server where there are just old bases, no foundation/column spamming, then I could see the possilble appeal and benefit.

As for offline raiding, it is not necessarily bad playing if you are low level and constantly getting wiped by the alpha tribe(s).  Yes, it is part of the game play, but not everyone enjoys that, and they never will.  So, offering a few options for game play is not necessarily bad.

[Ceranai]

1 minute ago, Oponn said:

And no their are next to zero vanilla private servers and the ones that exist have no population due to terrible advertising or none at all.

This as well. When I look through the private server list the only ones with half decent populations have crazy modifiers and restrictive rule-sets.

[Crumplecorn]

3 minutes ago, Oponn said:

   Pvp servers have a life cycle, be it 3 or 6 months. Once a tribe is dominate enough that server is for all intensive purposes dead

Tribes don't last forever.

There's no point in building up if it's going to be erased by admins.

The devs are (supposedly) working on rinse-and-repeat gameplay to address monotonic progression, probably a better solution than flushing the game down the toilet.

You're just talking about cutting out the late game that will (and to some degree already does) distinguish ark from standard survival games.

If you want freshness, just start again on a server friendly enough for you to build in peace. If you actually just want to take on the alpha tribe, asking the devs to delete them is not the answer.

[Ceranai]

Just now, Crumplecorn said:

Tribes don't last forever.

There's no point in building up if it's going to be erased by admins.

The devs are (supposedly) working on rinse-and-repeat gameplay to address monotonic progression, probably a better solution than flushing the game down the toilet.

You're just talking about cutting out the late game that will (and to some degree already does) distinguish ark from standard survival games.

If you want freshness, just start again on a server friendly enough for you to build in peace. If you actually just want to take on the alpha tribe, asking the devs to delete them is not the answer.

I am in an alpha tribe... there is no late game beyond grinding to expand your base. What late game are you referring to?

in the last two months there has been absolutely nothing my tribe doesnt have that we wanted. We build a rocket turret the day it came out, have two industrial forges and grills have 500 c4 in storage as well as having a vast backup supply of gear weapons and ammo. All there is to do late game is farm more and if you can be bothered do some breeding. 

[Crumplecorn]

5 minutes ago, Ceranai said:

if only we could all be pro like you eh?

Well in 8 months of playing on official PvPs I've been offline raided about 3 times. And they never got anything of value. So...

 

6 minutes ago, Ceranai said:

No base is un-raidable, if you plan in advance you just need 2 or so hours to totally wipe out any base when they are offline because none of the base defenses are particularly strong.

Well, this is just plain wrong, but I'll accept it for the sake of argument. So what? Wouldn't the solution here be to improve offline defences (which the devs have been doing, slowly), rather than giving up and hitting PvP with the nerf sledgehammer?

 

7 minutes ago, Ceranai said:

I am 99% sure that if they wiped even just one of these servers it would be 70/70 for at least a few weeks if not months.

Yes, I'm sure if we brought the servers from 0 players to 0 players people would suddenly start joining.

[Oponn]

1 minute ago, Crumplecorn said:

Tribes don't last forever.

There's no point in building up if it's going to be erased by admins.

The devs are (supposedly) working on rinse-and-repeat gameplay to address monotonic progression, probably a better solution than flushing the game down the toilet.

You're just talking about cutting out the late game that will (and to some degree already does) distinguish ark from standard survival games.

If you want freshness, just start again on a server friendly enough for you to build in peace. If you actually just want to take on the alpha tribe, asking the devs to delete them is not the answer.

I dont want to take on an alpha tribr from level 1 and have their mammoth bases to take on, i dont want peace i want pvp progression that starts the game from arrows then onto guns, this late game you speak of teaters off very quickly, like i said many other survival games have had this problem and you know what solved it and filled servers? A wipe thats what. Im not speculating here or blowing smoke out my butt, what im talking about is a proven concept.

[Allcor]

I start over now and then. The progression from barely taming a dilo to taming a giga is what keeps me drawn to the game. I would love to see season based (or player end game initiated) restarts.

as for the offline raiding,

1 minute ago, Crumplecorn said:

Well in 8 months of playing on official PvPs I've been offline raided about 3 times. And they never got anything of value. So...

sounds like you don't know what you are talking about then. Besides, give people a option how they want to play. I can see how offline raiding can feel very frustrating.

[Ceranai]

Just now, Crumplecorn said:

Well in 8 months of playing on official PvPs I've been offline raided about 3 times. And they never got anything of value. So...

 

Well, this is just plain wrong, but I'll accept it for the sake of argument. So what? Wouldn't the solution here be to improve offline defences (which the devs have been doing, slowly), rather than giving up and hitting PvP with the nerf sledgehammer?

 

Yes, I'm sure if we brought the servers from 0 players to 0 players people would suddenly start joining.

In what way can you ever have a base that is un-raidable? every single type of base defense is relatively easy to counter.

Are you being deliberately obtuse or are you just a bit dim? wiping servers would generate a huge influx of players looking for a fresh server to start new on those servers I know so many people who would give ark another go if it meant they could start fresh on a server that they actually had a chance on. it wouldnt be 0->0...

[Oponn]

6 minutes ago, Crumplecorn said:

Well in 8 months of playing on official PvPs I've been offline raided about 3 times. And they never got anything of value. So...

 

Well, this is just plain wrong, but I'll accept it for the sake of argument. So what? Wouldn't the solution here be to improve offline defences (which the devs have been doing, slowly), rather than giving up and hitting PvP with the nerf sledgehammer?

 

Yes, I'm sure if we brought the servers from 0 players to 0 players people would suddenly start joining.

Your not bringing the servers from 0 to 0. Your converting a 0 player base wasteland into a 0 player lush server that would lure new and old players alike. As opposed to the server gravyard you have now.

[Crumplecorn]

5 minutes ago, Ceranai said:

it wouldnt be 0->0

 

2 minutes ago, Oponn said:

Your converting a 0 player base wasteland into a 0 player lush server that would lure new and old players alike.

You are looking at the server browser and seeing servers with 0 players. They have 0 players because no-one joins them. No-one wants to play on an empty server. If people joined empty servers, people would join these servers. There is no difference between an old dead server and a new server. Demolish timers are a thing now. There is no need to destroy the stuff belonging to the few last hangers-on.