Ark. Steam Family Sharing, multiple characters, one computer.

[biohazardbob]

Sorry, this question probably has an obvious answer that I feel like I should know.

Been enjoying ark enough to buy it for a friend who also has a steam account. That was easy.

Lately I've had my niece and nephew over to play who are both really into dinosaurs. The simple thing to do would be for them to each have their own steam account, but they're a bit young (under 10).

The grand vision is that they'd be able to go onto their own windows 10 login and access their own individual characters and we can play on a map together on a server I setup (not always at the same time). The server part *should* be easy.

Not quite sure how the multiple characters part would work logistically though. Would this mean I'd setup a family sharing account on their computer and that would work? This would be one at a time, but that's fine and shouldn't cause too many fights. Sharing characters might!

Also, how many copies of ark am I buying for this, one or two?

[zerassar]

I don't think thats how family sharing works... Only one person can play the game at a time as far as I know. If you're using sharing though and want to use DLC the owner must first subscribe to it before the sharees get access to the DLC.

If you are connecting to a proper dedicated server then the server will save their details based on their steam64ID's so yeh as long as you each had separate steam accounts you would have your own characters on the server.

So if you use sharing sure they can connect to a dedicated server as their own character. However i don't think they'll ever be able to "play together".



What you refer to regarding sharing characters is a problem for SP and Non-dedicated.
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\ARK\ShooterGame\Saved

The above directory is the local storage for everything SP for that computer. It does not separate between different steam accounts or even different Windows users. You all share the one saves if using SP.

Should also note that your progression achievements even whilst playing online are also saved here. Hairstyles, skins etc. So if you all play on dedicated servers from the same PC you will have your own characters... But your achievements will be shared.

[Vesuvius]

Family share only works if the 'owner' is not in Ark... cannot have 2 instances running off the same account.

when you say
"The grand vision is that they'd be able to go onto their own windows 10 login and access"

Be sure to buy the Steam version and NOT the Windows 10 version.... Win10 is not then same as Steam (PC)... it is basicaly the console version for Xbox and NOT cross-compatible with Steam version.

[necaradan666]

Family Share only works if the owner is not using their library at all. If your niece is playing Ark and you start up any game she'll be automatically kicked.

[Ancient]

Originally posted by necaradan666:

Family Share only works if the owner is not using their library at all. If your niece is playing Ark and you start up any game she'll be automatically kicked.

^This is correct. You can technically "trade" libraries where you use theirs while they use yours (I do this with my wife and can play her games while she plays mine), but only one account can access anything in a given Steam library at one time. It actually pops up a notification for me whenever my wife exits a game on Steam saying that her library is "now unlocked and available for Family Sharing". And the actual owner's account supercedes any Family Sharing accounts, so if you try to play anything in your Steam library (not just ARK, and even F2P games) while someone else through family sharing is using it, they would get kicked out of the game because it's your library (you can kick them out of using your library by accessing anything in it, but not the reverse).

Like Vesuvius said, if you were to run (or rent) a dedicated server, then set them up with family sharing, you and up to 5 shared accounts could access the server, one at a time, and play using your one game license for ARK. To play together at the same time on said dedicated server, each account would need their own copy of the game in their own real library.

I assume because you said "one computer" in the thread title that only one person would ever be playing anyway, so yeah, you can do that. You just need to have a dedicated server running, though that might prove trickier if you intend to have them log out of your Windows account and use their own. You'd need to set up the dedicated server to launch on Windows startup for each of their individual accounts so it is running for them to connect to or be running it on a different PC (or rent one that is always running on a commercial host).

If you choose to go that route, you can access the Startup folder for individual users by logging into the account and opening a Run box (Win+R) and typing 'shell:startup'. Then just paste in the shortcut to your server's Start.bat file. Or you can do the same for all users of the PC with the 'shell:common startup' command from the Run box and likewise add a shortcut to your server's Start.bat there. That will make sure that the server starts loading with Windows so it's available for that account (or all accounts) to play on.

[biohazardbob]

Originally posted by Vesuvius:

Family share only works if the 'owner' is not in Ark... cannot have 2 instances running off the same account.

when you say
"The grand vision is that they'd be able to go onto their own windows 10 login and access"

Be sure to buy the Steam version and NOT the Windows 10 version.... Win10 is not then same as Steam (PC)... it is basicaly the console version for Xbox and NOT cross-compatible with Steam version.

Thank you, that's a good tip especially as I just saw the windows 10 version of ark and thought it might streamline the process!

[biohazardbob]

Originally posted by necaradan666:

Family Share only works if the owner is not using their library at all. If your niece is playing Ark and you start up any game she'll be automatically kicked.

I think this works out still.

- One computer with a steam family account owned by me and shared between two kids. Only 1 kid would be able to connect at a time, which seems fine (for now). This computer is in a different household (my sisters with her two kids).
- One computer that I have (AMD 2700, AMD RX 5700).
- Another computer setup as a dedicated server (AMD 1600, AMD RX 580, Ethernet connection). Understandably, uptime and connection with datacenters would be better, but IMHO unnecessary here.

[biohazardbob]

Originally posted by Ancient:

Originally posted by necaradan666:

Family Share only works if the owner is not using their library at all. If your niece is playing Ark and you start up any game she'll be automatically kicked.

^This is correct. You can technically "trade" libraries where you use theirs while they use yours (I do this with my wife and can play her games while she plays mine), but only one account can access anything in a given Steam library at one time. It actually pops up a notification for me whenever my wife exits a game on Steam saying that her library is "now unlocked and available for Family Sharing". And the actual owner's account supercedes any Family Sharing accounts, so if you try to play anything in your Steam library (not just ARK, and even F2P games) while someone else through family sharing is using it, they would get kicked out of the game because it's your library (you can kick them out of using your library by accessing anything in it, but not the reverse).

Like Vesuvius said, if you were to run (or rent) a dedicated server, then set them up with family sharing, you and up to 5 shared accounts could access the server, one at a time, and play using your one game license for ARK. To play together at the same time on said dedicated server, each account would need their own copy of the game in their own real library.

I assume because you said "one computer" in the thread title that only one person would ever be playing anyway, so yeah, you can do that. You just need to have a dedicated server running, though that might prove trickier if you intend to have them log out of your Windows account and use their own. You'd need to set up the dedicated server to launch on Windows startup for each of their individual accounts so it is running for them to connect to or be running it on a different PC (or rent one that is always running on a commercial host).

If you choose to go that route, you can access the Startup folder for individual users by logging into the account and opening a Run box (Win+R) and typing 'shell:startup'. Then just paste in the shortcut to your server's Start.bat file. Or you can do the same for all users of the PC with the 'shell:common startup' command from the Run box and likewise add a shortcut to your server's Start.bat there. That will make sure that the server starts loading with Windows so it's available for that account (or all accounts) to play on.

Okay, having just read the above, kind of reconsidering the family account part of things. It would also make sense for each kid to have their *own* account managed by me. Ramp up the privacy settings, etc. This would mean buying the game twice - but it does allow the future possibility of everyone playing at the same time should we want to in the future (assuming an additional computer is thrown into the mix).

[ѕєкυѕнι]

It doesn't work with ARK. Been through this before. Only one account on the computer can use ARK, period, if connecting to a server. Even if you wipe all the MODS. Once you reinstall, the first account to login to a server on ARK will be able to from then on, however other accounts will not. The only workaround is purchasing a separate copy of ark and installing it in a different directory/hard drive. ARK can't be shared on the computer with different accounts

[zerassar]

Originally posted by Kage:

It doesn't work with ARK. Been through this before. Only one account on the computer can use ARK, period, if connecting to a server. Even if you wipe all the MODS. Once you reinstall, the first account to login to a server on ARK will be able to from then on, however other accounts will not. The only workaround is purchasing a separate copy of ark and installing it in a different directory/hard drive. ARK can't be shared on the computer with different accounts

Tell this to all of the people where it's working perfectly? Including a number of people in my own community. Connecting to servers registers the user based on their Steam64ID.

The problem in this context (the OP's issue) is single player or non-dedicated. It doesn't segregated based on steamID, or even windows user, so every steam user on that PC has the same single player worlds. This can be worked around through fancy use of symbolic links to redirect the save directories to separate folders per user. But not something the average PC user would be familiar with.

But as far as connecting to dedicated servers... Multiple steam accounts from the same PC works perfectly fine. The only qualifier to this is that some servers have settings/plugins that don't like you doing this because they consider alt accounts to be a form of ban avoidance. So if they detect an alt, they block it automatically.

I am personally a fan of using whitelists... So such a plugin is not a requirement on my servers, or any other clusters that make use of whitelists.

[DadPool]

Reading through and haven’t found an answer to my issue just yet.

My two daughters want to play ARK with their uncle. He hosts a server and uses 6 MODs for quality of life stuff and makes the gameplay super easy for my new gamers here at home. Both have steam accounts. “Uncle Jeff” gifted a copy of ARK to one girl and that account runs just fine. I set up family sharing and try to launch on the other girl’s account. Get all the way to the server join and the mods don’t load, then I get an error message about the server needing a patch update.

Tried validating the files, says two were missing and will be reacquired. That never happens. The copy of the game license is unique to our home machine, and runs just great on one profile but not the other. What am I missing here?

[retsam1]

Originally posted by DadPool:

Reading through and haven’t found an answer to my issue just yet.

My two daughters want to play ARK with their uncle. He hosts a server and uses 6 MODs for quality of life stuff and makes the gameplay super easy for my new gamers here at home. Both have steam accounts. “Uncle Jeff” gifted a copy of ARK to one girl and that account runs just fine. I set up family sharing and try to launch on the other girl’s account. Get all the way to the server join and the mods don’t load, then I get an error message about the server needing a patch update.

Tried validating the files, says two were missing and will be reacquired. That never happens. The copy of the game license is unique to our home machine, and runs just great on one profile but not the other. What am I missing here?

Necroing the thread aside, family sharing these days with ark is a bit less of an issue occurrence than it used to be, but:


1. 1-3 redone files is normal for ark and has to do with the dynamic issues related to the server list(long story). Nothing is afoul with that.

2. "Server needing a patch update" can you be more specific as to the error message?

3. Potentially due to your circumstances each profile may need to download the mods. You may not be necessarily family sharing the mods essentially.

[DadPool]

I figured out my issue through a little more digging. I had to get the names of the mods my brother in law was using, sub to them in the borrower's account, and everything worked out fine. Now my kids can switch between accounts and everything works as it should. As I suspected, I was missing something on my end.

[retsam1]

Originally posted by DadPool:

I figured out my issue through a little more digging. I had to get the names of the mods my brother in law was using, sub to them in the borrower's account, and everything worked out fine. Now my kids can switch between accounts and everything works as it should. As I suspected, I was missing something on my end.

Essentially what I mentioned in point 3 then. Glad you got it sorted, then.