Official vs Rented vs Non Dedicated differences?

[Senkoau]

I'm looking into a number of things to decide if buying a pc copy is worth it but I've not been able to find the information on these I want. There's plenty of discussion on the pros/cons of playing on them but not on the purely physical differences I can find.

Can someone point me to a place with a summary of how they differ e.g. if I pay for a private sever can I change the settings or are they set by whoever I'm renting from, do only official severs get events like winter wonderland that sort of thing. What are the differences between official severs, rented severs, private severs and non dedicated servers on a purely physical sense rather than the impact players have on the game in them.

[Hrodh]

I can only answer a few of these questions, but I'll give it a shot:

The main difference between official servers and the one you rent is that you control everything on the one you rent. You can add mods, remove them, change rates, etc. Basically you're just short of God on your own server, no-one can restrict you if you stay in boundries of the game (can't really roce gravitiy to not work...)

As for the different types of unofficial servers... There are a ton of companies that specialize in Ark Servers. They'll set it up for you and you can tell them what you want and they'll do it. Or you could rent a normal Server and have Ark installed on it.
The latter option offers more freedoms (you can add special maps für events for example and remove them afterwards), but is more difficult to manage.

I hope that helps a little.

[Senkoau]

A little. May as well post what I've been able to dig up. It'll help others see what information I'm after and correct anything I've got wrong.

Official
Run by wikdcard
Regular resets
Patches
Special events and bonuses in game
Default values
No mods
Anyone can join

Rented
?
Cost per month

Dedicated
Run by you
Resets/patches dependant on you
Can only be played when your computers running the program.
Values/Mods set by you
No events
World only runs around players
Requires separate server program on your computer running in background
No special events/bonuses like winter wonderland.
Access can be limited to those you want

Non Dedicated
As dedicated except people are tied to the host and it doesn't require a seperate program running in the background.

[Hrodh]

AFAIK, most Events can be turned on by the Admin, like Winter Wonderland.
As for Mods, Rates, etc. main difference is a Rented Server is less intense on your end. The company will do it for you (the good ones at least).

Big difference is official (all those things you wrote, except resets if you mean wipes since they're not common to my understanding) and unofficial (run by the Players).

Unofficials are basically the same, whatever you do, mods, rates, Events are all variable and can be set by you. The main difference is, who does the work. If you rent it, you don't do much at all, you tell the company what to do (like add a mod, change rates, etc.), with the other methods, you have to do it yourself.
But you've pretty much summed it up.

[Hrodh]

On a related note: conider carefully if you want to add another server to the 17.000+ unofficial ones... Many stay empty or with only 1-2 players. If you only want one for yourself and a friend, either dedicated or non-dedicated server are preferable (if you want your own).

[Senkoau]

Resets was a bad term (working nightshift) I meant when they take it down for maintenance at a given time.

Hmm turning on events sounds promising I'd like to do that over Christmas.

It's only intended for me and maybe a few others. I was mainly looking into them for events e.g. winter wonderland, dodorex, etc which I was getting the impression were official only anyway and because solo play seems to have issues the servers official or unofficial don't.