Why is there so little players in Ark Online?

[FearCatalyst]

There's an average of 10-30 players always online, does it ever go over, say, 50 players active at a time? Are all the players playing other MMOs nowadays?

[FinweGP ®]

what u mean server r general game? there is like 40k players on ark right now

[Ak_Spectre]

why cant i make private servers? i put admin code but it says letters and numbers only when i make passcode

[FearCatalyst]

Originally posted by - FinweGP ®:

what u mean server r general game? there is like 40k players on ark right now

Like when you go in "Join ARK" and select say Official PVE Ark Servers, but i only see some with 11-15 players, the rest with like 2, 1 or even 0 Players. (Cap of players per server is 70, but it should be more than 40 players active at a time)

[william_es]

Because the official servers are sort of a joke, plagued by many many issues.

Super tribes set up and curbstomp new players, and basically take over whole official servers. Some of them will capture your player character, handcuff you and lock you in a cage. Everytime you log into that server, your character is still locked up, and you can't do anything. Seen posts where people bragged about doing this for 6 months straight. the only way to get out would be to die, and they will make sure you can't kill yourself. Even to the point of healing you with meds or forcefeeding you. Creepy and weird.

There was (and pretty sure still is) an issue where people would build dumb a$$ pillars all over the entire island, so everywhere counted as their territory. You couldn't build too close to another person's base, so the pillars made everywhere their base. EVERYWHERE. I saw something about a fix wildcard made to that, and then posts saying it was still happening. Shrug.

And then you have the dupers, the uindermeshers, and probably 20 other cheats and scams I haven't even heard of because I stopped paying attention to official ark servers. there used to be bug that's come back multiple times where you create a new clan, but name it _exactly_ as an existing clan... and you instantly become owner of the older much bigger clan. You own all their stuff, their buildings, their dinos. I saw something about that bug popping up last year.


Did I leave anything out?

[Liralen]

Originally posted by outspace:

Originally posted by - FinweGP ®:

what u mean server r general game? there is like 40k players on ark right now

Like when you go in "Join ARK" and select say Official PVE Ark Servers, but i only see some with 11-15 players, the rest with like 2, 1 or even 0 Players. (Cap of players per server is 70, but it should be more than 40 players active at a time)

Having a lot of players on a server is not necessarily a good thing, if you are new player. The competition for access to resources is intense.

That's good for existing players who have had time to protect those resources for their own usage, but not so good for new players who will find it difficult to progress without access to resources.

[Bullwinkle]

More players play unofficial server. Visit the Server Hosting subforum.

[zerassar]

Strictly speaking yeh Ark is an MMO... But not really.
Most games people call "MMO's" are a large network of servers slivering off instances for dungeons and regions of the maps off onto their own servers. Allowing for much much larger populations spread over multiple servers.

Were you to actually see the real "servers" in games like FF/WOW/etc you'd see a similar situation of many servers being really low in pop. Before they disappear completely as they startup/shutdown based on requirements.

Keep that in mind when looking at the ark server list... Look at the overall cluster pop esp for unofficial. Rather than individual servers in that cluster.

Ark is closer in design to round based FPS games just on a larger scale. Think CS/TF/COD/MF etc. in that its a single perpetual server having to run the entire environment.

The problem with Ark is that the higher the concurrent online player population is... Means the offline population is even higher. Results in exponentially more idle dinos and buildings in peoples bases. The game is just simply not able to handle that. Just look at how unstable the official network is for a taste of that.

So for most MMO's a large player pop in a "region" makes for good gameplay. For Ark... it makes for a lag/crash fest.

[FearCatalyst]

Originally posted by william_es:

Because the official servers are sort of a joke, plagued by many many issues.

Super tribes set up and curbstomp new players, and basically take over whole official servers. Some of them will capture your player character, handcuff you and lock you in a cage. Everytime you log into that server, your character is still locked up, and you can't do anything. Seen posts where people bragged about doing this for 6 months straight. the only way to get out would be to die, and they will make sure you can't kill yourself. Even to the point of healing you with meds or forcefeeding you. Creepy and weird.

There was (and pretty sure still is) an issue where people would build dumb a$$ pillars all over the entire island, so everywhere counted as their territory. You couldn't build too close to another person's base, so the pillars made everywhere their base. EVERYWHERE. I saw something about a fix wildcard made to that, and then posts saying it was still happening. Shrug.

And then you have the dupers, the uindermeshers, and probably 20 other cheats and scams I haven't even heard of because I stopped paying attention to official ark servers. there used to be bug that's come back multiple times where you create a new clan, but name it _exactly_ as an existing clan... and you instantly become owner of the older much bigger clan. You own all their stuff, their buildings, their dinos. I saw something about that bug popping up last year.


Did I leave anything out?

Thanks for the info, i looked up in Internet and many sites say what you're saying

Originally posted by zerassar:

Strictly speaking yeh Ark is an MMO... But not really.
Most games people call "MMO's" are a large network of servers slivering off instances for dungeons and regions of the maps off onto their own servers. Allowing for much much larger populations spread over multiple servers.

Were you to actually see the real "servers" in games like FF/WOW/etc you'd see a similar situation of many servers being really low in pop. Before they disappear completely as they startup/shutdown based on requirements.

Keep that in mind when looking at the ark server list... Look at the overall cluster pop esp for unofficial. Rather than individual servers in that cluster.

Ark is closer in design to round based FPS games just on a larger scale. Think CS/TF/COD/MF etc. in that its a single perpetual server having to run the entire environment.

The problem with Ark is that the higher the concurrent online player population is... Means the offline population is even higher. Results in exponentially more idle dinos and buildings in peoples bases. The game is just simply not able to handle that. Just look at how unstable the official network is for a taste of that.

So for most MMO's a large player pop in a "region" makes for good gameplay. For Ark... it makes for a lag/crash fest.

Thanks for responding, i've played other MMOs before and i see the same thing you say, low player count. Although when i watch youtube videos and other website, it looks like they're very recommended MMOs and sociables because of their big community; but when i join, it's not really like that. So i was looking for an MMO where there's a lot of Players and active chat.

I comprehend what you say about the Servers, the players being split up between the Servers, in other MMOs all the Players are together, even sometimes there's a "Chat All" for all of the Players currently online. That's why i didn't really understand what was happening with Ark.

I thought that the Servers Ark showed me without me adding any Filters were close to my Location and it wasn't showing me all of the Servers; only the ones that had a good Ping Level without me turning on the Ping Filter, or that i was missing to config something in the game's options menu.

Anyways, i'm seeing various MMOs as i said, and the same thing is happening with them, there's a low player count. It was a lot of effort to buy a new PC and truly Graphics Cards asked for by these games are expensive.

I now see that in Android there are Millions of downloads but i don't know if they have Active Players and if there's a "Chat All"

[FearCatalyst]

Originally posted by Bullwinkle:

More players play unofficial server. Visit the Server Hosting subforum.

Thanks, but where do i see the Server Hosting Subforum? I can't seem to find it....

[GobboKirk]

Originally posted by outspace:

Originally posted by Bullwinkle:

More players play unofficial server. Visit the Server Hosting subforum.

Thanks, but where do i see the Server Hosting Subforum? I can't seem to find it....

https://steamcommunity.com/app/346110/discussions/10/
This one I guess.
In the end the trick is finding a server that suits your playstyle and with ARK the odds are decent you can find that :)

[JaceOh]

you should really check out WRP. It is a private multiplayer server on ark that you have to turn in a small, little application to get whitelisted.. its a server based off of Game of Thrones, although if you havent watched any of GOT's thats fine too you can still play. Its literally the most fun ive ever had while gaming at all and ive been playing on these servers just like it for years and met so many awesome friends over that time. i love recruiting avid ark players because the ones that take my advice and actually check it out and give it a shot they get addicted to it just like i am. Haha. hope to see you there and if you want to ask any questions or anything feel free to DM me on discord or steam (*ps i do not own this server in any way just a player!) on steam my username is /kitkattyyy the server link to discord if interested is https://discord.gg/westerosroleplay