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Morality and Ark


2OLEgend

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I am a relatively late comer to Ark and I exclusively played PvE for about a year. Recently a good server friend of mine and close neighbour has been playing ark less and less. To be honest I never noticed their vast amount of dinos disappear. The only  sign was their ring of behemoth gates auto-decayed when I was on a meat run. Well most of their main structures were metal so I was able to set plans in place to be there when they met there demise.

I got the usual armour, weapon and saddle bps. Cryo-fridges of named dinos, materials and resources.

But then it struck me, should I have given the player involved a heads up or in the very least saved their stuff incase they come back later. Before I greedily stuffed the spoils into my storage boxes. 

 

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There is no right or wrong answer to that question, its totally up to you and whatever you choose I wouldnt consider to be a bad decision nor a good one. Now if that guy jumped back on and went to you like hey I know you took some of my stuff when my base decayed, could you give me my tames back or something and then you refused to, then I would say that you are making a decision that I would say call morally bad. But even then, that would just be my opinion and others could differ.

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42 minutes ago, 2OLEgend said:

should I have given the player involved a heads up or in the very least saved their stuff incase they come back later. Before I greedily stuffed the spoils into my storage boxes. 

Up to you. I've seen people do that on a server before. They sat on the stuff for a while. The guy came back, had a family medical emergency.

He gave him all his stuff back. Was pretty cool.

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Tames are not a problem I put them in a separate cryo fridge. I learnt that the hard way when someone said they were quitting for good, gave me 20+ cryopods and decided to come back 2 months later. I either gave away or sold most of them. I started to give them stuff back from my own stuff, but pretty soon they started to ask constantly for better and better stuff. So I had to tell them where to get off. 

The main problem is the bps, I have accumulated so much I have mixed them with mine. 

I also have built structures around their vaults, which have a longer decay time. I have done this a few times before, but never so close to home and to someone whom I have actually played the game with.

Maybe I'm a secret PvP'er but just don't know. 

 

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Personally if it was someone on my steam friends I would have given them a heads up if I had spotted ahead of time that the timers were about to run out. 

After they have run out I would collect as much as I could and store it for them message them give them maybe 6 weeks to reply.

But if you just want to keep the stuff that is fine too, everyone knows the timers exist no one can expect anything if they don't refresh them 

If they arrive back and ask awkward questions you could tell them you didn't get there quickly enough for the BPS and cryos and those are lost to some of the scavengers on the server but you did manage to protect their vaults for them :D 

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13 minutes ago, Hemplethwaite said:

Personally if it was someone on my steam friends I would have given them a heads up if I had spotted ahead of time that the timers were about to run out. 

After they have run out I would collect as much as I could and store it for them message them give them maybe 6 weeks to reply.

But if you just want to keep the stuff that is fine too, everyone knows the timers exist no one can expect anything if they don't refresh them 

If they arrive back and ask awkward questions you could tell them you didn't get there quickly enough for the BPS and cryos and those are lost to some of the scavengers on the server but you did manage to protect their vaults for them :D 

I like the idea of keeping the stuff and saying my structures are for their vaults preservation. Seems like the best solution. 

Now I wish I had unlocked the halo in the previous event. Or its in the vault I'm preserving 😇

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When a friend of mine had to quit with ark for some months due work needs, I saved all his stuff and made a secure vault room for him in my base. Now he is back, I gave him back all his stuff and he is a member of my tribe 🙂

 

As for other member of the PVE community, if they are nice/friendly people, I usually advice them if their base/dinos are near decay. Sometimes they forget since they play on other servers too, sometimes they reset timers but a crash happens just after, rollback and no decay timer reset at all.. We cannot save everyone, that's for sure.

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13 hours ago, 2OLEgend said:

I am a relatively late comer to Ark and I exclusively played PvE for about a year. Recently a good server friend of mine and close neighbour has been playing ark less and less. To be honest I never noticed their vast amount of dinos disappear. The only  sign was their ring of behemoth gates auto-decayed when I was on a meat run. Well most of their main structures were metal so I was able to set plans in place to be there when they met there demise.

I got the usual armour, weapon and saddle bps. Cryo-fridges of named dinos, materials and resources.

But then it struck me, should I have given the player involved a heads up or in the very least saved their stuff incase they come back later. Before I greedily stuffed the spoils into my storage boxes. 

 

look at it this way, if they ever do get back on, you can tell them you saved some of their stuff.....then the moral buisness is on your end as to what you give back to them

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My opinion is that a decayed base with all it's contents are given back to 'the game', and as part of the game, I can claim them. They are mine from that point.

If that person was a stranger, and they came to me asking about it, I'd simply offer to assist them in getting set back up. I'd give several good tames(some from the looted and some from my own stock) and resources, build materials, and help set them up with a base in a location they choose. Whatever story was behind the decay is neither here nor there, because they are a not a friend, but we dig the same game and I'd just want to help. But, if they came at me with demands claiming THEIR stuff... I'd tell them to shove off. They I would put it to the open chat and get the feel of the server (I'm pretty confident my rep would hold up). This situation... is part of the social gameplay. You foster relationships, expecting nothing in return other than good will. If the other player doesn't get that, and thinks my game owes his game something, then he will never get ahead.

If that person is a 'game friend', I'd go out of my way to get them their stuff. I'd make sure they were setup grand. If I'd traded away any of their tames, well that is what happened... but I'd be sure they walked away thankful they had a friend to turn to.

If that person was a real life friend, I'd have them join my tribe and then we share all. 

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On 2/23/2021 at 1:07 AM, 2OLEgend said:

I like the idea of keeping the stuff and saying my structures are for their vaults preservation. Seems like the best solution. 

Now I wish I had unlocked the halo in the previous event. Or its in the vault I'm preserving 😇

Carefull with that. Blocking players from their bases or items is against coc. No matter if the base has decayed. Someone could report it. 

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On 2/22/2021 at 3:41 PM, 2OLEgend said:

But then it struck me, should I have given the player involved a heads up or in the very least saved their stuff incase they come back later. Before I greedily stuffed the spoils into my storage boxes. 

If you would like to know if your decision was moral or not, there is a simple thought-experiment that you can do to give you a clue:

Imagine you are on the other side of the situation: you are an active player with a nice base, resources and tames.  Circumstances arise where all the sudden you can not play.  Maybe a medical emergency for you or a loved one - maybe your character is deleted in a transfer and you are waiting for WC to serve your support ticket, but the appointment with a GM is 2 months out (happened to many of us, and if you are a solo tribe, you will lose everything).  

In your absence, your neighbor notices your decaying base and claims all of your stuff:  all the creatures you tamed and raised over generations, all the BPs collected, all the fruits of grinding for years.  When you are finally able to return, your neighbor claims "that's how it goes - within the mechanics of the game, I had a right to it".

If imagining this scenario you might think, "what an opportunist!  That is cold!".  You will likely think poorly of your neighbor.  Regardless, most people would be unlikely to do this in real life: there is an advantage of being good to your neighbors.  In my opinion, making claim to and keeping your neighbor's hard-earned gear falls on the wrong side of the morality spectrum.  This is just another opinion.  Where I in the same situation, I would hold on to their tames and gear in case they return.  If they do, they would get it all back so that they don't have to start from nothing.  It is a really terrible feeling to work on a breeding line over years and lose it all because of a pervasive transfer bug and unreasonably slow customer support.  I might use some of the gear while waiting - not recklessly - repairing anything worn or damaged.  I might breed some of their tames to add the offspring to my arsenal.  I would profit in a way that it would not ruin the game for them if they happened to return.  

I am not claiming moral superiority at all - Ark is a game that tends to benefit opportunism for many players.  This is just another opinion, and you happened to ask.

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After looting from more than 15 decayed bases in the last year, I can say that its more of a feature than a moral issue.

Most people do not come back asking in global for their stuff.

And most of what is looted is generic stuff that isn't anyrhing to write home about. All the dinos I have taken from cryofridges have served their purpose as a breeder or as fodder that I have no remorse using until they die.

Its a game that demands you make the most of an opportunity.

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14 hours ago, 2OLEgend said:

Oh, didn't know that. Thank you very much for the heads up. 

I often put foundations around the vaults.  Then on the last day i would wall up or bring a tek forcefield and set it down before the timer is up.  That way you give them as much time as possible to come save their stuff before you clean them out.  Less chances of someone reporting you of boxing up their stuff.

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51 minutes ago, GrumpyBear said:

I often put foundations around the vaults.  Then on the last day i would wall up or bring a tek forcefield and set it down before the timer is up.  That way you give them as much time as possible to come save their stuff before you clean them out.  Less chances of someone reporting you of boxing up their stuff.

Yeah. I were gonna write this originally on my reply but never did. 
But like you said, toss pillars around, wait until last day on timer.

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In my opinion, take everything.  Then after decay has wiped out their structures go put up a sign at his base location telling him you saved what you could... and to contact you if he ever comes back.  It would not take too much effort to build a small room and some vaults to keep everything of his together and intact.  

If he has better dinos than you... breed them, keep  babies, but put original dinos back in fridge.  

If he has better BPs.... construct as many as you want, then put BP back in storage with the rest of his stuff.

I think you get the picture...

Win-win, he gets stuff back and you get something in return for your effort.

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