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The Center vs Valhalla?


Lupen

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I'm sorry if this is the wrong forum for this, but I was hoping to get some opinions from players who are familiar with both of these maps to get a better idea of what would be a better choice.

I have researched a little and played on both in single player, but I've only managed to get a good idea of the cosmetic differences. It's hard to get the full effect by just flying around in single player without actually experiencing everything...  what are the caves like, and their loot/difficulty? Or ocean exploration, stability, Dino spawns, etc. 

As mentioned I'd just love to simply get others opinions and hear about their experiences. Some Pros and cons to each, and what made you choose one over the other. Anything helps. :)

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The Center - im playing on this map since 24.03.2016. I have to say - this map is just made for taming dinos and flying. Also many goods spots for metal, obsidian, pearls and oil. Great spots for bases. 

Really nice "water bubbles" where you can build base. Underworld is soo nice :) And there are many small "things" like frozen Rex... Many ruins where you can build bases.

This was really good change in oure server :D

I played while on Valhalla and i didnt like the map - maybe in long way it is as good as Center but definitly in my opinion The Center will be exellent choise for your server :P

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I have been playing on Valhalla for about a month, and like it quite a bit...  main reason i liked Valhalla was its size, and the caves meant for building bases in..  There is one cave that is big enough to build a community in.  The map has varied terrain, multiple areas of each biome,

 

I played 1000+ hrs on offical, then started my own server.  Valhalla + Annanuki Genesis + Ark Advance, its an entirely different playing experience...

 

Maybe you should have a weekend of each map, not that hard to switch back and forth between configs, just swap out the Saved Directory. let the player base voice an opinion on which they prefer..

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the center map itself is larger than the island not counting the caves. there are a few islands spread out a little with a lot more water than the island. the spawns are also more spread out so it is not as overcrowded. the caves are huge and look amazing. i think were some people might think it is smaller is because the islands are split up and separated by water. so if they build a base in the forest / pillar regions (3 islands separated by lakes) then they would not have to go as far for say obsidian on the volcanic island or for penguins in the cold region. but if you build on the north or south tropical island then you will have to cross the entire map to get to the penguins.

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If i had to pick on to PLAY on it would be Vahalla. But both come with their own drawbacks.

 

Vahalla is big, VERY BIG and dinos are too sparse. Its more demanding on the server, and probably wouldn't be great if there wasn't a decent compliment of people playing on it. Center I feel is too small, and a bit too thrown together. I know the guy openly states he only spends a week on each biome. Its a nice map but it lacks the complexity that Valhalla has.

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lacks the complexity that Valhalla has ? i took another look at valhalla recently and yes it is HUGE. but to say it is more complex you have apparently not looked at the massive caves in the center. i find that the center is nicely blended between the biomes making it "feel" abit better than the island. i do see how people can think the center is abit small with how the islands are laid out. build in a good spot and you would not have to travel very far for anything.

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Is there a printable map of both of them?  I am leaning more toward the Center as it is smaller although I do like the looks of Valhalla, the different trees are appealing and some of the landscape I like better.  But it appears too big and from the reviews it is quite large and the dinos too spread out.

Anyhow, I would love to have printable maps of both to get a better idea of the layout, see where mountains are at, read where are the safer spots for bases.  Have been doing a search but can't seem to find any of either of them, just the ARK island.

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We've got two servers running in our little community, one running each of these maps.

Personally I'm a huge fan of the Valhalla map, but it's gigantic. Possibly too big depending on your needs. For us this is great as we aren't heavily focused on PvP so people can find the place they want to do stuff and… well… get to doing it. But the distance makes doing stuff with people a bit trickier.

I also find the quality of the Valhalla map to be really high quality, with very few issues having ever being encountered.

The downside with the map is that it's not finished yet, and some of their latest changes have had a huge impact on the map, which isn't so great for stability with things.

The Center… I'm of two minds with it. It's smaller than Valhalla, but bigger than The Island. On the whole I've really enjoyed playing on it (and I've not been playing for long), but there are lots of little details that have been irking us since we got started with things.

The main issue I've had with it is lack of polish. I'm based on the northern tropical island on the map, but every time I go to get metal around the island it feels like I'm walking on nothing… because I'm walking around underneath the texture for the area. We've had this happen in lots of places, and it really takes away a lot from the map. The second is that we had a lot of weird teleporting issues for people. Fortunately this has been fixed as of last night.

One thing that I do like about both maps is that they're both being actively updated and maintained. The Center is updated weekly, with emergency patches as needed. Valhalla is updated pretty regularly as well. And both maps seem to have Developers that listen to feedback and address issues.

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I have played both maps. I personally am enjoying the Center Map more than Valhalla. Valhalla does have some huge caves, but so does The Center.

The different areas of the center are quite different than both maps. Example is the Pillar area, with massive natural pillars sticking way into the air. Then there is the Volcano area like nothing else in either the Island or Valhalla.

Both maps are better than the Island. Valhalla is huge, but the Center seems perfect in size.

 

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Thanks all for the input :)

We set up two small "test" servers for both maps this past week, hosted by our server admin, just to spawn in some of our flyers via beacon and explore/experience things together with our settings/mods. ...Definitely a lot more fun than doing it alone in single player.

Our community is on the smaller side - we're PvE, with maybe 12-14 players on at most. It's worth mentioning we have Small dragons installed, which does affect travel by a fair bit, but aside from that, an increased level cap and excellerated rates we don't have any other major changes from vanilla on our server.

We ended up trying Valhalla first. It really is a gorgeous map - I love how many caves there are purely for building, the desert island, the large snow biome and the giant mountain ranges... and overall it does feel a bit more polished than the Center. But I think we've come to the consensus that it's just too big and too spread out for us; the dinosaurs, the players, the different areas. The map currently just feels very... empty. I'm sure If we had more players or were a pvp server that wouldn't be as big of an issue, and I'm sure as new Dinos are released and the map is further worked this will be improved as well, but as it stands I feel like we'd rarely see one another. That's a problem as we're more of a tight knit group that actually enjoys doing things together, whether it be breeding, taming, farming etc.

Then we tried the Center. It is quite a bit smaller than Valhalla, naturally, but for us that's a good thing... and I have to admit it didn't take long for me and the others to fall in love. It does have its flaws (the oddly placed glacier while minor bugs me a little) but I just feel like the Center, while lacking the polish Valhalla has, makes up for it in character. It's so much more diverse and exciting as far as biomes are concerned, and the resources & dinosaurs are more evenly distributed so that it doesn't feel so empty and barren. And despite the smaller map size, even after hours of exploring on the back of a dragon, I was still finding new caves or neat areas to potentially build in. Giant lava, swamp and ice caves large enough to fly dragons through, underwater air pockets, jungle ruins, pine forests, the floating island, the Underworld...

But one of the biggest things was that it ran much better than both Valhalla and the Island. While that may not be a concern for everyone it is a concern for us, as some of our members do have weaker PCs and the Center is much kinder where that's concerned, especially when it comes to Ram usage. That's no surprise of course, since Valhalla is so large, but it is pretty nice being able to actually turn on shadows as well as increase everything else and still get the fps I was getting on the base map...

Both maps are amazing, with their own pros and cons, otherwise we wouldn't have had such a hard time choosing in the first place. But I think at this point, for our server and our community, the Center is definitely winning our vote. 

 

I also uploaded some screenshots when we were exploring both maps, for anyone interested. http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198077705831/screenshots/?appid=346110

 

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I'm not sure on the exact number you'd see but all of our members including myself reported improved fps when running the Center, as well as a faster reboot time for the server. As I mentioned in my previous post I was actually able to turn on shadows for once, which I normally have to have turned off on The Island to be able to run it without freezing up constantly.

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22 minutes ago, Janna3921 said:

okay, what is the FPS?  I have seen that and some other acronyms that I don't know what they mean and I am tired of being lost, confused and just plain puzzled as to what they mean.  

Can someone please clue me in on its meaning?

FPS = Frames Per Second

Basically, the higher the number, the smoother the game looks.

It is related to how well your video card renders the area you are in.

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okay l bought an IBuyPower Inteli5 16 Memory 1TB

SATA Cache6 memory DDR4

Graphic Card NVIDIA GeForce CTX 950 (I think, the 95 is right, but can't remember the third number)

bought it just after Christmas

I am assuming that is is good enough to handle ARK and also The Center or Valhalla maps.  I don't know much about computers. 

 

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32 minutes ago, Janna3921 said:

okay l bought an IBuyPower Inteli5 16 Memory 1TB

SATA Cache6 memory DDR4

Graphic Card NVIDIA GeForce CTX 950 (I think, the 95 is right, but can't remember the third number)

bought it just after Christmas

I am assuming that is is good enough to handle ARK and also The Center or Valhalla maps.  I don't know much about computers. 

You should be fine, might not handle epic too well, but shouldn't have any issues running things.

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25 minutes ago, Janna3921 said:

okay l bought an IBuyPower Inteli5 16 Memory 1TB

SATA Cache6 memory DDR4

Graphic Card NVIDIA GeForce CTX 950 (I think, the 95 is right, but can't remember the third number)

bought it just after Christmas

I am assuming that is is good enough to handle ARK and also The Center or Valhalla maps.  I don't know much about computers. 

 

Do you have the model number?

Assuming the CPU is up to the task(my first guess it will be), it will be up to the GPU.  It would be a GTX 950.  For the NVIDIA cards, the 2nd number is probably as important as the first, if not more so.  However, there are many variations of every card, which will also make a difference.

You will not be able to play the game on epic settings.  My first guess will be Low, with maybe a few settings on Med; especially in an area with a large base or a lot of dinos; especially until there are more optimizations for the game.

Supposedly, the two conversion maps are a bit easier on graphics cards.

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7 minutes ago, Janna3921 said:

Model number is BB706 SKU 4513603

I think the specs will run the this game, with the only weak spot being the video card.  I think you will want to start with lower settings first, and then see what happens when you bump them up, a few at a time.

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14 hours ago, Janna3921 said:

okay, thanks for the info.  I may check into a better video card.  There was something else I was planning on making better, don't remember what  o.O right now.  It will come to me later on.  Probably when my son picks his computer out.  Which will most likely cost us a very pretty penny

If you get with a new video card, I would look into the 970 with 4GB of VRAM; assuming the next gen cards are not out.  Just make sure you have room in your case for the card; some versions are longer than others.  And, you will want to make sure the power supply in the PC is big enough.

The other upgrade would be going to a Solid State Drive(SSD).  They do make loading programs much faster, but they are not cheap.  The more inexpensive ones will not have much capacity, and the ones with enough capacity cost a pretty penny.

With the 16 GB on your computer, you should be in a good shape for a while; that is enough to run Ark and also other programs.

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