Closed. Ark: Survival Evolved Official Servers

[Noffek]

So they screwed up an important piece of recorded data?  Possibly an attempt to suggest that you rent from Nitrado even for PC players.  I wouldn't be surprised if such a move would also limit your desktop hosting options.  Then WC/SG will rather hit the delete key for that game.

[darkradeon]

why not just editing with an hex-editor the last ip used by chars with a bogon one? it's just an useless information since you could always connect with a different ip..

plus isn't storedata meant to merge arkprofiles in the worldsave? those extra profiles should be kept is the backuptransferprofiles flag is enabled.

[darkradeon]

OK, I just tested with the "updated" saves that pulled out the char profiles files... and as I supposed, with stored data format those aren't necessary at all. It works like a charm -newsaveformat -usestore (and I suggest also BackupTransferPlayerDatas) I don't have any issue on login.

THIS of course for dedicated PC servers.

For single player/local host this is really an unfortunate  decision. Better: it's a dumb decision: char profiles were extracted manually for the single player / local host games -.-

As for console players: that's a nitrado issue. Looks like -usestore parameter is missing or there are issues with the sony/microsoft account bits.

[darkradeon]

if you are in solo/local host, make a new char, search your old char, look at it, and try to use this command:

cheat ExportTargetPlayerData

check if it creates a YOUR_STEAM64_ID.arkprofilecheat . Close the game rename it in LocalPlayer.arkprofile

 

don't have time now to test this.

Edited September 4, 2023 by darkradeon

[Sangaria]

I did hear ps4 and xbox do not give or can not give anny save files of the onlne shut down servers to the users?
some people just say to themself, i did conquer all the maps, i am ready with ark. but i see there are over 50% who are not.
do you know what is possibel? when i joined a official server, on this one there was for years never more then 5 players from all tribes of the whole map online!
it is like a ghost town.
why not inform users and tranfer the account datas?  put them together till a map is full.
1rst they never have to close all official ark server. they can minimize the number of official ark server.
2nd why not to pay a rent to  keep official running?!
better than loosing every progress!
`\o/`

[Mike585x]

@ladymarinaand whomever else possibly interested:

If you are on Xbox, and don't mind moving to another server, I have rented a Nitrado server for the Official Save with 17+ other players and counting (all of which are friends/tribemates/good players from the server).

I have last months saved currently imported for testing purposes, but will be importing the new save when released (GenTwo).

It will mostly mimic Official settings to a T, with slight QoL tweaks (permanent 3x, Tribe Imprinting, etc).

Message me for more details!

[Titan1021]

Is there any way to reduce RAM consumption? I have 16GB of RAM and it's not enough for large maps (~2GB).

[darkradeon]

35 minutes ago, Titan1021 said:

Is there any way to reduce RAM consumption? I have 16GB of RAM and it's not enough for large maps (~2GB).

you can try to kill wild dinos, then kill all enemies, then destroy tribe id structures.. sadly for big saves 16GB of ram isn't enough. At least 32 GB are strongly recommended. you need to use the console commands to do this: https://ark.wiki.gg/wiki/Console_commands

Edited September 4, 2023 by darkradeon

[DirkInSA]

So I almost made a new thread: However @ladymarina started this conversation a while ago, and this comment fits there, and further @darkradeon has done a lot of investigative work that is really good in this thread - so I choose to continue the thread:

My experience and observations so far are:

1) For PC (steam) saves, the saves (from what I have seen) do not include a steamid.arkprofile. So if you figure to download, put on a server (Nitredo or no) and play as you were - forget it. Admin cheat commands will be requisite.

2) For the published saves, you need a MONSTER machine to run them as a server instance. I run a cluster, with 3 or 4 maps going concurrently. Sure it's unofficial and the "active player base" was never more than 10 peeps. But I tried to host an "Official Save" on this box and it failed to start. Further experiments (with different machines and etc) showed that ONE official PVE instance is looking for a minimum of 20 GB of RAM. (from task manager & etc). 16 Gbytes ain't sufficient! (And sure I am lazy - I ain't run a linux instance of a server for ever - windows was easier in the short term)

3) As this thread started - there is NO download for console dudes (unless I am reading the download list wrongly?) Console may be impacted by dodgy Sony / Microsoft encryption "requirements". Therefore that save may be encrypted and not immediately useable. However (certainly for PS4) that encryption is public domain for a loooong time now, and can be worked around.

4) For both X-Box dudes and PS4 dudes, I would guess that the actual "Save Game" data is really no different to a steam save game - except it may be encrypted with some dodgy console requirements (I cannot definitely comment here because no console game are available to look at). Which same is amenable to decryption. In short, I believe (and and am well open to criticism / comment here), that the restriction on console stuff goes more around the Console providers (Sony / X-Box) making their authentication service (to check if you own the game or not) public or no?????. This is historically in steam a thing that one could in the past "skip", but since epic was introduced as a valid client, that "skip" has gone away. For console guys, the opportunity to "skip" is maybe mandated by Sony / Microsoft. But the getting of "authentication" may drive the ability of the code to decrypt the save?

[darkradeon]

15 minutes ago, DirkInSA said:

So I almost made a new thread: However @ladymarina started this conversation a while ago, and this comment fits there, and further @darkradeon has done a lot of investigative work that is really good in this thread - so I choose to continue the thread:

My experience and observations so far are:

1) For PC (steam) saves, the saves (from what I have seen) do not include a steamid.arkprofile. So if you figure to download, put on a server (Nitredo or no) and play as you were - forget it. Admin cheat commands will be requisite.

2) For the published saves, you need a MONSTER machine to run them as a server instance. I run a cluster, with 3 or 4 maps going concurrently. Sure it's unofficial and the "active player base" was never more than 10 peeps. But I tried to host an "Official Save" on this box and it failed to start. Further experiments (with different machines and etc) showed that ONE official PVE instance is looking for a minimum of 20 GB of RAM. (from task manager & etc). 16 Gbytes ain't sufficient! (And sure I am lazy - I ain't run a linux instance of a server for ever - windows was easier in the short term)

3) As this thread started - there is NO download for console dudes (unless I am reading the download list wrongly?) Console may be impacted by dodgy Sony / Microsoft encryption "requirements". Therefore that save may be encrypted and not immediately useable. However (certainly for PS4) that encryption is public domain for a loooong time now, and can be worked around.

4) For both X-Box dudes and PS4 dudes, I would guess that the actual "Save Game" data is really no different to a steam save game - except it may be encrypted with some dodgy console requirements (I cannot definitely comment here because no console game are available to look at). Which same is amenable to decryption. In short, I believe (and and am well open to criticism / comment here), that the restriction on console stuff goes more around the Console providers (Sony / X-Box) making their authentication service (to check if you own the game or not) public or no?????. This is historically in steam a thing that one could in the past "skip", but since epic was introduced as a valid client, that "skip" has gone away. For console guys, the opportunity to "skip" is maybe mandated by Sony / Microsoft. But the getting of "authentication" may drive the ability of the code to decrypt the save?

for PC Steam/EGS servers the .arkprofile is NOT required since the profiles are merged in the worldsave with the stored data feature (-usestore flag). Those profiles are required for easy solo / local host migration. unfortunately the dumb decision to remove such profiles made everything harder for solo / local host.

Edited September 4, 2023 by darkradeon

[DirkInSA]

1 hour ago, darkradeon said:

for PC Steam/EGS servers the .arkprofile is NOT required since the profiles are merged in the worldsave with the stored data feature (-usestore flag). Those profiles are required for easy solo / local host migration. unfortunately the dumb decision to remove such profiles made everything harder for solo / local host.

Noted! Ill comment later after more " fiddling". -usestore is a definite requirement, the save will not boot with out it!

[darkradeon]

-usestore is a requirement to correctly read the tribe and chars ownership data, otherwise everything related is screwed. -newsaveformat is mandatory to reqd the savefile without a crash on startup. -backuptrasnferplayerdatas is recommended to keep extra char copies on transfer to avoid char loss. those copies on default are on but -usestore remove their creation

[Duffmek]

I just found the uninstall button and said feck it - enough is enough I am not messing around with more code just to make my game run in SP - let alone renting a server todo the same crap, wishing now that I uninstalled when this whole BS about ASA surfaced wouldve saved me a 'little' more time.

Feels bad kissing at least 7600 hours of my life away

[Noffek]

2 hours ago, Duffmek said:

I just found the uninstall button and said feck it - enough is enough I am not messing around with more code just to make my game run in SP - let alone renting a server todo the same crap, wishing now that I uninstalled when this whole BS about ASA surfaced wouldve saved me a 'little' more time.

Feels bad kissing at least 7600 hours of my life away

Welcome, my 22800 hours.

Disappointed that a few years of work will go to the sand.

[Solo0]

56 minutes ago, Noffek said:

Disappointed that a few years of work will go to the sand.

Exactly. It's a good thing that the memories will still be with you for quite a while yet. Even if you get a server your character data is still lost. Has this been addressed for console players?

Edited September 5, 2023 by Solo0

[Mike585x]

14 hours ago, Solo0 said:

Exactly. It's a good thing that the memories will still be with you for quite a while yet. Even if you get a server your character data is still lost. Has this been addressed for console players?

I rented a Nitrado server on Xbox for a few days now, testing with the save they gave us last month. Characters are fine, but they just aren't in their respective tribes but Nitrado/Experts say that it is normal since the tribe doesn't technically exist since it wasn't created on said server. So you need to admin command GiveTribe for yourself/tribe and every other person/tribe that joins the save. Fun.

 

But alas, everything else is right where it was the same exact way it was during the saving process, ready to continue on as normal.

 

Edit: It looks like the issue was fixed, so now there are no issues and the server is an exact perfect mirror of Official to keep on playing with all of my friends and other server players 

Edited September 5, 2023 by Mike585x
Fixed

[darkradeon]

for me looks like nitrado servers for console arent starting with -usestore launching argument, since the described behaviour is the same you get on pc without -usestore

Edited September 5, 2023 by darkradeon

[anpimer]

For private server owners Nitrado servers will be worse

 

[Bobcant]

   We were lied to that the UE5 engine update would be free, then we were told we would have to pay for it. 

      We were told we'd be able to download our saves up until this month, now console users have to pay for a server to get their save.

 

Why have the UE5 update at all? 

You've alienated your base. Is this supposed to inspire us to purchase ASA or ARK 2 if it ever comes out.

Instead, you've destroyed the game we love to hate and replaced it with lies and empty promises.

 

I'm not spending another dime to support WC. I expect I'm not the only one.

[Zargh]

 

https://mein-mmo.de/ark-survival-evolved-snail-games-marbis-gmbh/

Interesting article i think...

[Noffek]

I invite you to the topic.

https://survivetheark.com/index.php?/forums/topic/701942-data-transfer-oficial-to-sp-in-ps-and-xbox/

Soon something for PS and Xbox

[Frack]

23 days to the end

[Joebl0w13]

[Zincht]

Okay, sorry it is taking me so long to get back to this thread, I work 8-5 and kids just started back to school. I got a reply from WC/SG, I will post it below. It looks like the issue with survivors is in fact intentional.

Greetings Survivor,
 
Thank you for contacting Studio Wildcard Customer Support. We're very sorry to hear that you're having an issue with the your save. It is intended that no .arkprofile data is provide as it provide sensitive information. Please make sure that you are using the command lines, this should resolve the issue. 
 
https://survivetheark.com/index.php?%2Fserver-backups%2F
 
Steam: Library > Right-click on ARK: Survival Evolved > Properties > General Tab > Launch Options and paste this command line: -newsaveformat -usestore
Epic Game Store: Library > ARK Survival Evolved > Click the [...] > Toggle on Launch Options >Paste in this command line:  -newsaveformat -usestore
 
Sincerely,

GM Remy
Studio Wildcard
http://www.studiowildcard.com

I have rented server space on Nitrado, I cannot figure how to make those launch options work. If I use the direct server transfer function in Nitrado, I cannot access any of the files. (This means when I can't afford to pay for the server, I can't "save state" until I can afford it again) So I took the server offline, and used the FTP to put my downloaded server up there. There's still no option for those launch options, and I feel way out of my depth (I'm a manufacturing guy, not a computer guy).

The server is still not started, as I sort of need some help to figure out what I'm supposed to be doing - I haven't even gotten as far as making the 3rd admin command (takealldino, takeallstructure, maketribefounder) that Nitrado suggested as a workaround, to work for me. If someone is available in about 24 hours (my Friday night) I will have time to try and figure it out. I made a discord server just for the Nitrado server, https://discord.gg/PxbzsxkkGG

Otherwise, I am certainly open to suggestions from here, or private messages, whatever. It looks like there will need to be some sort of workaround for me to keep playing, and one of the things I have liked best about the game is to have other people online while I play. It's only PVE-theIsland47, but I would love to have others join - once I can figure out how to get it working right for me.

[raxus]

On 9/5/2023 at 2:48 AM, Mike585x said:

I rented a Nitrado server on Xbox for a few days now, testing with the save they gave us last month. Characters are fine, but they just aren't in their respective tribes but Nitrado/Experts say that it is normal since the tribe doesn't technically exist since it wasn't created on said server. So you need to admin command GiveTribe for yourself/tribe and every other person/tribe that joins the save. Fun.

 

But alas, everything else is right where it was the same exact way it was during the saving process, ready to continue on as normal.

 

Edit: It looks like the issue was fixed, so now there are no issues and the server is an exact perfect mirror of Official to keep on playing with all of my friends and other server players 

This was the annoying part for me. Day 1 of making the server, no one spawned into their tribes. But their characters were fine.

So as admin, I started doing taketribe command and then giving it to the real owner and transferring the ownership. However, this also made every structure as personally owned by me. They couldn't do personally owned structures anymore. 

Then a couple of days ago, something happened and either WC or Nitrado "fixed" the original problem. Now, players spawned into their tribes complete with tribe logs. But since I used taketribe on their structures, they didn't own them anymore. Had to do taketribe all over again. And still, I personally owned their structures.