IS ARK DEAD

[Hardox]

Been awhile sense I have played, last I seen all non-official servers were empty. (Due to launch)
How are the severs now?

[Vesuvius]

Non official servers were never empty due to launch..... just that 30,000 players spread over 30,000+ unofficial servers is always going to look deadish.

[Hardox]

Originally posted by Vesuvius:

Non official servers were never empty due to launch..... just that 30,000 players spread over 30,000+ unofficial servers is always going to look deadish.

I "heard" when the game launched they force all unofficial servers to join Official servers or be wiped.... but that's what I heard

[Vesuvius]

Originally posted by Hardox:

Originally posted by Vesuvius:

Non official servers were never empty due to launch..... just that 30,000 players spread over 30,000+ unofficial servers is always going to look deadish.

I "heard" when the game launched they force all unofficial servers to join Official servers or be wiped.... but that's what I heard

Yeah nah.

They made a pile of official servers into "Legacy" servers and those servers have No WC/support... and as those legacy servers depopulate... WC closes them and opens new ones that have WC support.

Nothing to do with unofficials.

[Vesuvius]

Use battlemetrics.com to do a server search... you can check for player numbers on servers there.

[RepresentTexas]

The short answer is yes. Specifically official servers were killed during years of anti consumer practices.The early access mindset of changing everything, the legacy server migration decisions, the poor DLC launches...the decision to release a pirate game instead of fully supporting their unfinished game first.

The longer answer is that there seems to be tens of thousands of people playing on unofficial servers. Who are these people? I have no idea. All I know is of the many people I met in the past several years of playing Ark they have mostly moved on with the exception of maybe 1 or 2 (out of hundreds). No one anywhere is still talking about the game, most gamers that I know have to think really hard to even remember there was a dinosaur game called Ark.

I personally believe the "active online users" numbers are skewed. If anything I bet mostly bot accounts on unofficial servers from people who don't want to let go of the hours they put in. Another thought is that it could be somehow linked to the developers but I don't want to put on the foil hat and start with those theories. It could also be a lot of people running their own version of a single player game but on their own server open for other's to join but technically it's just a single player game.

Official is dead. If you are going to go unofficial might as well just make a single player game unless you have a group of friends that want to play (doubt). Just find a new game for multiplayer honestly... anything else.

[Vesuvius]

Originally posted by RepresentTexas:

The early access mindset of changing everything, .

What on earth does this even mean? .... early access (Alpha) is precisely where things are supposed to get changed.

[Revan1977]

The game is still going strong. Lots of populated servers to play on. Most of the people i know that play it play on modded servers anyway. it's still fun. It's not dead. I take breaks from it, sometimes for months. But i come back, and have fun again. Honestly, anything else?

[Reeva!]

I mean, I'd check the server list and sort it by the most amount of players on any server with any amount of ping, official or unofficial, on any map. Unfortunately, the server list is still broken, so I can't do that. The most people I've seen on a server were 10/70, unofficial obviously. I started playing on an official server, surprise surprise, pillars. Pillars everywhere. Pillars underwater. Pillars on mountains. Pillars on the sh!ttiest spots known to Ark. Can't do anything... Oh well! Let's just go full scavenger! Oh wait that's right, Alpha tribes everywhere, massive builds everywhere, tames actually set to wander on aggressive near beaches. Whole areas on beaches walled off with 1 little exit... somewhere. If you spawn in it, good luck. (look I'm not saying all official servers are like this, I bet not. What I am saying is that the amount of complaints I've seen that are similar to my own experiences are really funny to read.)

There are tons of servers on Ark so I'd hardly say it's dead. It just sucks that there are so few players on most of the servers that the server list allows me to see. I'm not the type of person who has time to sit around and wait for a 20 minute load time, or more, so I don't join heavily modded servers which are about the only servers I can actually have fun on. Having a Sarco on some beach jump out of the water and eat you alive with your level 200 Parasaur set to flee is really annoying unless I have a mod like the Pet Finder rock.

edit: I know people advertise their own servers in a subsection on these forums, with links that you need to use with Steam (not Ark) in order to join some maps. Either that or you have to find the server's name and search for it. If you do the latter, the server list can sometimes take longer to find the specific server you're looking for than it takes to actually join said server.

[larxyz]

if you have trouble finding ark servers that are populated, try using arkservers.net its alot more reliable then the ingame search. Keep in mind that most servers arnt fully populated all the time, so look for a server thats populated when you play.

[Anticarry]

Official servers are mostly ran by alphatribes or are completely dead. Either 20/70 most of the day or 2/70. If u want to start new and have fun play unofficial or have a friend that plays in a megatribe. Only ways to have fun

[Vesuvius]

Originally posted by larxyz:

if you have trouble finding ark servers that are populated, try using arkservers.net its alot more reliable then the ingame search. Keep in mind that most servers arnt fully populated all the time, so look for a server thats populated when you play.

arkservers.net only shows servers that have been registered with them by server owners. battlemetrics shows 99% of servers.

[RobbEJay]

Originally posted by Vesuvius:

Originally posted by RepresentTexas:

The early access mindset of changing everything, .

What on earth does this even mean? .... early access (Alpha) is precisely where things are supposed to get changed.

I'm going to take a wild guess and say "they changed/removed things I liked". People tend to either ignore the big disclaimer on the store page, or they get upset and think if they whine loud enough the devs will change things back. That's the only way I could see this being labeled as "anti-consumer".

[DarkFred666]

Originally posted by Hardox:

Originally posted by Vesuvius:

Non official servers were never empty due to launch..... just that 30,000 players spread over 30,000+ unofficial servers is always going to look deadish.

I "heard" when the game launched they force all unofficial servers to join Official servers or be wiped.... but that's what I heard

Can confirme its not true, i play since early access launch on Steam unoffi Ark.

[[]]

Originally posted by Hardox:

Been awhile sense I have played, last I seen all non-official servers were empty. (Due to launch)
How are the severs now?

the game is dead man, i looked into it too and the game is not worth it anymore