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Discussions Rules and Guidelines
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The biggest difference between unofficial and official servers is that the hosts (and admins if they have any) have absolute control over it. This means 3 things, they can set up rules, they can set up rates, they can also add mods.
1. They can set up rules to improve the gamestyle, such as no harrassing, no cheating, no blocking spawns, etc. These rules are not normally enforced by Wildcard and can immensely improve game life.
2. The rates can be modified in any way they like. Such as making speed lvl up 2x more, making harvesting higher (you farm more thatch, wood, and rocks 5x more than you would on officials for example), and lowering breeding times.
3. Mods can be added to change a person's lifestyle. There are THOUSANDS of functional mods, the most popular being S+ (Short for Structure Plus). There are mods that adds new dinos, change a dino, cosmetics, decorations, and even a complete gameplay overhaul. There are even mods that will make Wyverns, Rock Drakes, and Reapers tameable through KO method rather than the original option.
As amazing as it sounds, there are some negative drawbacks to relying on unofficials. There are 3 drawbacks to keep in mind, they are Searching for the right server, host unreliabilty, and overcustomization.
1. Searching for a new server is really difficult as there's literally thousands of servers available. It'd take a lot of investigation, research, and understanding the community. They usually come in with mods as well that you may need to look into before playing as well.
2. Unlike wildcard, these are players whom have lives, and it's not their own business. They can shut down a server without a warning if they chose to, and you might find yourself without a server. Even if the host does warn you, chances are that you won't be able to save your stuff as someone else would have to take over the reins.
3. Overcustomization is also another annoying problem. Sometimes people crank up the rates too high that it might actually lag the server, or make the game too easy. Sometimes people are just nearly invincible that they can just walk through threats and one shot threats. Sometimes one lvl up in weight, and you can carry the whole world. It's not always for everyone, but some people might prefer it that way. If you prefer it, then that's fine too!
And there you have it, the pros and cons of official vs. unofficial, lemme know if you have any questions. I'll be happy to help out as much as I can.
Because I read a reddit post saying that official servers reset
You could play both but perhaps what you're stuck in is a sunk cost fallacy.
They've never "wiped" servers in the sense you think on things. What they did when the game officially released was to convert all official servers before August 29, 2017 to "Legacy" servers of which 250+ were removed outright due to low player activity(with warning given ahead of time for players to move them to other servers). Then they made newer "official servers".
Chance that they wipe servers thus is non existent. They would either employ a similar system to what they have previously done or just simply merge servers that become inactive.
But with the majority playing on the 49k+ unofficial servers and WC run servers amounting to only around 1k, this is really a minority issue.
Best way I can tell you to think on official servers is that they are simply demonstration servers for the basic offerings of the game. The majority of the playerbase play on unofficial servers that then take those basic offerings and typically adjust settings, add a plethora of modded content(where Ark really shines btw) and tend to police/maintain servers the way those owners see fit(for good or ill and thus why you vette servers accordingly).
Also, dont use the in game search for servers. Its a mess. Use sites like battlemetrics instead which not only show all the servers but give you accurate statistics on activity of the servers and even can let you search servers by more variables(mods too).
https://www.battlemetrics.com/servers/ark
-Only- official servers that reset are the Apocalypse servers which reset every 30 days. All else do not.
And what evidence do you have to back that up? I've found loads of great servers. Maybe you just had bad luck.
Currently there are over 49,000 unofficial servers but let's round it down to 49,000 for the sake of your arguement. You're thus stating that 5% of the server pop is thus high pop and exciting.
Well hate to use your math against you but that comes to around 2450 servers then of that 49,000.
Still well over double the Wildcard maintained servers(the 1k WC servers are technically the legacy and official servers combined btw).
But the OP can simply hit up the battlemetrics website link aboive and see the pops for servers on their own. They and you should also keep in mind that pops are tracked in semi real time so different regions with more servers during their peak hours will have higher pops and less in their low times.