Ark 2 Server Owners - Suggestions

[Zed3kiah]

Any server owners, people who have owned, or is wanting to have their own server (e.g. cluster or not). What are your suggestions or requests for Ark 2?

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As an owner of a very popular server cluster, the game would greatly benefit if the developers allowed friendly API's to help owners enhance the gameplay on the Xbox platform. Although many things can be manually done, it is costly and requires an admin to write it and not be part of the gameplay. Therefore, always having to survey user interaction rather than having the experience from playing the ideas. Here are some examples:

 

 1) API that allows us to read tribe logs from a specific clan with an id/name and/or with tribe members having xbox usernames.

Ex. Can find tribe's id by clan name, clan name having a player(s) name, or clan name having a player(s) with xbox username. The tribe id can be used to get the tribe logs.

• This metadata is helpful for me when I want to capture issues like complaints from other players. On my website I can have a player submit a complaint about the server with their tribe name and have the backend save their clan's tribe logs for me to mitigate issues when I get to it. The tribe id is important in case they change the tribe name before I get a chance to look into the issue.
• This metadata is also helpful to find ways to engineer the optimal game settings for our dedicated players based on the data accumulated over the course of the game.

2) Admin commands ran by API. I strongly believe a server owner should be capable of activating admin commands over API, but not by default when a server is first created. We are already paying for these servers and if you'll prefer to charge for these services, I think the market is quite accepting if wildcard takes opportunity of this. The following are only a few examples of many many:

• Many of the players love the idea of there being an "admin store". Its a fantastic idea but it requires some automation which the Ark Community has been trying to do. Most accomplish this via discord and communication directly with an admin but it would be so much easier if we were given the opportunity to use an Admin API command to do so. 
• Custom gameplay by admin automation: On my OnlyTwoTribe server, I can force new players to join the Red Tribe or Blue Tribe. If suggestion (1) is approved, tribe logs can be used to optimize a balance between the two tribes (e.g. decide if one tribe has a team betrayer and kick them automatically if done too much).

3) Its not Roblox nor Minecraft but is there any way for an item to be like a command block in Minecraft? 

Ex. An inventory item programmed to act like keycard which acts like a chest key for a specific loot box/vault because it was found like an easter egg or treasure trail hunt.  

• As growing developers, I think its more inspiring for Ark to encourage players to engage in the development world. I can find a number of uses for an inventory item to function to a player if I'm able to customize its interaction with the surrounding environment. 

My ultimate goal as a server owner is to provide a pleasant gaming experience different from other servers. The only issue is, its much much harder to see first hand the game play experience if I have to manually be admin to provide these services. Therefore, I'm always having to survey other players and their interactions rather than acquiring the the knowledge from playing my own creations.