Less people playing multiplayer?

[ShepirotGamer]

Haven't played in like 2 years and i wanted to play with a friend but searching on every map most people i saw were like 50 in an island map, is this normal since they removed the official servers and stuff? Remember this game a bit more lively.

[🦊 Hermit]

It may have slowed down just a little with Ark Ascended now being out, but there's also a good number of players who tried Ascended and came back here because they didn't like it for one reason or another. So this game is far from dead yet.

One thing you should be aware of though - the in-game server browser is known to be really bad. You might be better checking a third party site like Battlemetrics to get a better idea of how many servers there are and which are the most populated.

[Fuzzy]

Originally posted by 🦊 Hermit:

It may have slowed down just a little with Ark Ascended now being out, but there's also a good number of players who tried Ascended and came back here because they didn't like it for one reason or another. So this game is far from dead yet.

One thing you should be aware of though - the in-game server browser is known to be really bad. You might be better checking a third party site like Battlemetrics to get a better idea of how many servers there are and which are the most populated.

I'm one of those people lol
Never been a better time to play the original

[Aquinaz]

same here... I've never played multiplayer, but i did like this game when it came out, but only played SP... i tried multi before, but always got frustrated with PVP aspects... i just like to build and be with a community. does this exist?

[william_es]

Originally posted by Aquinaz:

same here... I've never played multiplayer, but i did like this game when it came out, but only played SP... i tried multi before, but always got frustrated with PVP aspects... i just like to build and be with a community. does this exist?

On the right unofficial servers yes.

The best ones won't let in random people. They'll want to sort of "interview" you first, check out what games you play, etc. If the games you have the most hours in are Rust and Dayz, they might be less likely to believe you're looking for a PVE community. They avoid issues by pre-sorting people, and only letting in those who are looking for the same kind of gameplay experience.

Just my opinion, but the pickier the server owners/admins are, probably the better the experience will be playing there.

[berk_danulka]

official servers were removed in Septermber 29th due start of Ark Survival Ascended in October 29th)

[Aquinaz]

Originally posted by william_es:

Originally posted by Aquinaz:

same here... I've never played multiplayer, but i did like this game when it came out, but only played SP... i tried multi before, but always got frustrated with PVP aspects... i just like to build and be with a community. does this exist?

On the right unofficial servers yes.

The best ones won't let in random people. They'll want to sort of "interview" you first, check out what games you play, etc. If the games you have the most hours in are Rust and Dayz, they might be less likely to believe you're looking for a PVE community. They avoid issues by pre-sorting people, and only letting in those who are looking for the same kind of gameplay experience.

Just my opinion, but the pickier the server owners/admins are, probably the better the experience will be playing there.

I've mostly played 7days... i love building and crafting... was part of a few communities in 7d2d, but a bit tired lately.... waiting on a22... saw and ad for ARK and thought I'd try this again with people this time. Never really played Rust or Dayz.

[retsam1]

Originally posted by ShepirotGamer:

Haven't played in like 2 years and i wanted to play with a friend but searching on every map most people i saw were like 50 in an island map, is this normal since they removed the official servers and stuff? Remember this game a bit more lively.

1. In game search system isn't capable of comprehensively listing all 60,000+ unofficial servers. This is why many folks for many years instead use the battlemetrics website as it is the only place that does list them all, has a more robust search filter system and even has good secondary stats date pages for each server.

https://www.battlemetrics.com/servers/ark

2. Remember these days, many maps are in clusters (ie multiple maps) run by an owner. Dont then take server population on 1 map to reflect the health of a server cluster community as a whole.

3. The key flaw with the Ark games(and many different survival games btw) is ecocide. Players therefore tend to play on server communities with small-medium populations because they prever to duck and weave between trees and rocks vs ducking and weaving between mall sized bases and dino parking lots.

4. Server communities can also have specific peak times or even days in the week. I know some servers that are for example gated communities where you have to apply to join because their game play is to join together as 1 tribe and play to build a large base in a specific(server owner designated) location (changes per map in a rotation by the owner) to then defend it against waves of dinos that the server has that attack them, then they wipe and do a different map and location etc.

Obviously this is a niche example but the point is that different communities and players based on various factors play at different times too.


So use battlemetrics and find servers that best suit your wants and start checking them out and engaging with their community(or not) as you see fit.