[PVE] Twitch.tv/Rainicorn | 127 SLOTS | 24/7 | NO LAG (Texas)

[Rainy]

The Official PVE Server Of Twitch.tv/Rainicorn

I am operating a 24/7 PVE server located in Dallas, Texas with 127 slots.

All friendly players are welcome to join!

Server IP: 66.151.244.22:27015
If this does not show up, try adding 66.151.244.22:7777

The server is focused on socialization and community building on a massive scale. I want to build a community where people are more focused on cooperation than killing each other. If you are friendly and looking for a more social gaming experience, then I would love to see you become a part of my growing community!

MOTD: http://nerdorable.net/ark
Group: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/Nerdorable
Mumble: vx31.commandchannel.com 2037
Forum: http://forum.ponyville.net/topic/7428-ark

Server Rules:

1. No Disrespectful Behavior
   Don't harass, bully, threaten, or impersonate other players. Statements which serve to annoy, incite, provoke, or offend others are in violation of this rule. This rule governs all forms of behavior; spoken, typed, or practiced in gameplay.
   
   
2. No Disruptive Behavior/Building
   Do not disrupt or impede the normal gameplay of others. This is an early access game which was not designed with PVE gameplay in mind, so use common sense and discretion. It is a violation of this rule to kill a creature which is in the process of being tamed by another player, or to build structures which block access to cave entrances and other areas of the world.
   
   
3. No Racist/Homophobic Hate Speech
   This rule applies regardless of intent or perceived sense of entitlement. Being of a certain race for example does not entitle you to violate this rule. Perception of a phrase or term as being a "meme" or adjective does not entitle you to violate this rule. Egregiously offensive player names can violate this rule.
   
   
4. No Hacking or Abusive Scripts
   Hacking of any kind -- especially in the form of aim/trigger bots and wall/speed/flying hacks -- will result in an unnegotiable permanent Ban. This rule encompasses scripts and macros which exceed the scope of normal gameplay.
   
   
5. No Exploiting
   This being an early-access game, bugs and exploits will be unavoidable. However, it is prohibited to intentionally abuse exploits which exceed the scope of normal gameplay and/or provide you with an unfair advantage.
   
   
6. No Belligerence Towards Staff
   Admins and Moderators have the authority to exercise their own discretion when enforcing these rules. If they ask you to cease a behavior because it violates one of these rules, it is not open for debate.

Server Settings:

• 127 Player Slots with whitelisting available.
  
• Dedicated Server with 24/7 uptime, no lag, centrally located in Texas.
  
• PVE Mode Enabled to promote community building and fun without griefing.
  
• HUD Enabled so you don't have to guess how hungry or thirsty you are.
  
• Show Map Location Enabled so you can easily meet up with friends.
  
• Proximity Voice Chat Enabled so it is easier to communicate in groups.
  
• Global Text Chat Enabled so you can communicate anywhere in the world.
  
• Third Person View Enabled although it is experimental.
  
• Crosshair Enabled due to community request.
  
• Structure Decay Enabled after structure has been abandoned for 18 days.
  
• Allow Flyer Carry Disabled due to griefing.
  
• Tribute Downloads Disabled due to exploitation (Single Player imports).
  
• Joining Notification Disabled so that you don't get text spam.
  
• Leaving Notification Disabled so that you don't get text spam.
  
• Global Voice Chat Disabled temporarily until players can disable it clientside.
  
• Hardcore Mode Disabled so that you don't lose your character when you die.
  
• Difficulty Offset 0.0 until players request it changed.

Server Setup and Reliability:

This server isn't like all the others that you see being hosted out of somebody's basement, or from an unreliable reseller like SurvivalServers.com. This server is being run from a datacenter machine centrally located in Dallas, Texas and operated from the OS up. Restarts and backups of the world, characters, and tribes are automated. I am working on getting server updates automated, too.

Future Plans:

Once modding is supported for the game, I plan on doing a lot to make this server stand out from the rest. I am the creator of the Ponyville.net community of servers and "Versus Ponyville" mod on Team Fortress 2, so you can expect to see an interesting experience in the future built around input from the community on this server. Oh, and no, it won't have anything to do with ponies -- just dinosaurs. =P

How To Connect:

1. Right-click on the Steam icon in your taskbar tray and click on Servers.
   
2. Once you have the Servers window open, click on the Favorites tab at the top.
   
3. Click on the Add A Server button at the bottom of the window.
   
4. Enter the IP 66.151.244.22:27015 and click Add This Address To Favorites.
   
5. The server should now show up in your Favorites when you launch ARK.
   
6. Server sometimes appears offline in Steam browser due to a bug. It is online!
   
7. If you do not see the server, try adding 66.151.244.22:7777 in Favorites.
   
8. Visual version of this guide: http://forum.ponyville.net/topic/7428-ark

[Rainy]

Първоначално публикувано от Polly:

Първоначално публикувано от Yukumazi™:

The Server will be Updated Later in the Day, I apologies for the wait.

(To be honest, It's a holiday. you guys should be celebrating with family and such)

No offense though but I believe this server only had 1 SA ?? But I recall in the past several patches this server has always lagged behind in getting updated. Just kind of disappointing to be unable to play on your character because the server isn't updated when there are other unofficials updated.

This game is early access and the server application is extremely primitive. I can't even execute commands from the server application. This prevents me from being able to automate the process of updating the server in a way that would be reasonable for the community (IE, giving advanced notice to connected players), because I am forced to do everything manually.

Complicating matters is that the devs do not have a predetermined schedule for releasing updates. Some of these updates are released to the community at strange hours, such as past midnight Pacific Standard Time on a holiday weekend like today when I was already asleep. Every unofficial server has to deal with this issue -- not just ours.

The first thing that I did upon waking up today was update the server. I guarantee you that my server does not "lag behind" other servers in updates. Updates for ARK are literally released daily and I implement the majority of them within minutes of their release. Most delays of 30 minutes to an hour between updates are out of consideration for connected players who need time after being notified to get to a safe location.

[Setari]

Първоначално публикувано от Polly:

Първоначално публикувано от Yukumazi™:

The Server will be Updated Later in the Day, I apologies for the wait.

(To be honest, It's a holiday. you guys should be celebrating with family and such)

No offense though but I believe this server only had 1 SA ?? But I recall in the past several patches this server has always lagged behind in getting updated. Just kind of disappointing to be unable to play on your character because the server isn't updated when there are other unofficials updated.

Think before you speak. This isn't an official ARK server where servers are updated on the fly whenever a new update comes out. An actual PERSON runs this server, who has a life. Give the server owner time to update, because they will do it eventually. In the meantime, play on another server or an official ARK PvE server.

[Sephora]

Hey there, outside of in-game, what website/forum should be my go-to spot to see if the servers are down due to them being updated? For instance, yesterday this server was updated, apparently people were talking about it in-game, but I wasn't able to find a "hey the server is about to be updated/is being updated/server was updated" anywhere outside of game. I've been loging onto the game for several hours now to see if the server has been updated so I could play, having a regularly updated place outside of game would be most appreciated. :)

[madman514]

when might the server be updated so i can play?

[Rainy]

Hi Sephora. The Steam Group for the server is http://steamcommunity.com/groups/Nerdorable and the current forum/thread is http://forum.ponyville.net/topic/7428-ark

I post announcements in the Steam Group following any major update. I also post advanced notice in the Steam Group of an impending update if there is no way for myself or staff to connect to the server to warn connected players.

I just updated the server and also made some changes that players requested, such as increased taming speed time. These values are experimental (literally no documentation exists regarding them), so I will need player feedback.

I am sorry for the delay today.

[tryggerhappy]

I'm dissapointed that the taming time was decreased. People asked for increased dificulty then when it was more difficult complained to make it easier again. Lowering taming time will literally provide everyone high level dinos and remove the only challenge left for PVE.

There was a relatively heated discussion the other night on the server with several people on both sides for and against changing the taming speed.

The deciding factor for me is this question:

Is there any content that a player cannot experience with taming speed as it is? The answer is no... so why change it then?

Some of us have invested well into 150+ hours into this server and these changes devalue my time.

[Rainy]

Hi tryggerhappy.

Timesinks are an artificial difficulty that are universally disdained by most gamers. There are few players who are able to stay connected and consistently playing the game for 10+ hours straight until their dinosaur has been tamed. If the taming process could be paused or resumed after a player logged out, it wouldn't be so much of an issue to leave these values at default; but unfortunately, that is not possible in the game's current state of development. Simply put, taming time (within the realm of PVE) is a mechanic so poorly conceived that it exceeds the spirit of difficulty by chaining the player to performing an onerous task of monotony and minutiae that is neither fun or engaging. This may be due to the fact that the game was not conceived with PVE in mind.

Please understand that I do not devalue the 150+ hours that you or any other player has put into this game or my server by making this change. Ultimately, we both desire to keep gameplay on the server engaging and difficulty is an important factor in accomplishing that. I simply believe that this can be achieved in ways other than a timesink if the community is willing to approach the issue constructively and creatively. There are many values at present that can be altered or changed to make the environment more threatening or difficult. I would invite you and any other players within the community to discuss those possibilities with me here or on my forums at http://forum.ponyville.net if you have the time and interest. I am not averse to feedback.

One last thing. The values that I changed on the servers today, including taming speed time, were experimental. There is very little documentation for ARK servers and even less for the values of ARK commands and attributes. I added these values hastily because I received so many requests from players to reduce the time that it takes to tame. I am willing to change these values to whatever the community desires if they are too "easy" at present.

See you in ARK!

[tryggerhappy]

I wholeheertedly disagree with you regarding timesinks. MOST games recognize that timesinks are mechanisms developers put into games to stretch content. This keeps you playing their game longer. I don't have any disdain for that.

You should spend time playing the game on the server to understand the mechanics. I think your decisionmaking would be different. Taming does not take 10+ hours. Only one dino currently in the game would take that long. A level 70+ bronto.

Plenty of dinos at low and medium levels can be tamed in a couple of hours easily. If someone has less time to play, you make choies about what you want your experience to be. One session might be taming a dino and thats all you do. Another session might be base building or exploring or caves. Join a tribe and this gets even easier to do.

You are catering to a crowd who want to play the game solo when it isn't designed to be played that way. You should change the server name to "come play solo here".

[cccwebs]

Sorry, but sitting at my computer for a couple of hours just babysitting a dino waiting to be tamed isn't my idea of fun at all. The problem with the dino taming timesink is that it often restricts what you could be doing in the game while waiting for the tame to complete. Getting too far from the dino isn't feasable as they can be attacked (by carnivores) or you could mistime the torpor loss. Incresed taming time doesn't stretch the content, it only extends the waiting time a player has for one (important) aspect of the game.

[Sephora]

Cool beans, I'll refer to the server group, thanks!

I personally don't consider "tame time" to be an intrinsic property of "dino difficulty" after all, sitting there and watching a progress bar for 7 hours doesn't have anything to do with difficulty, that's just flat out a time sink.

[Ryuken]

So since you basically took out the ONLY challenge on a PvE server by making high level dino's easier to be tamed.. can we atleast increase the environment difficulty to 1.0?

[Ryuken]

Also why are people taking 6, 7, 10+ or whatever exaggerated number of hours to tame 1 dino? Is everyone only taming level 60+ Bronto's and feeding it poop or something?

Do people know that if you feed the dino what it likes (prime meat/mejo berries) the taming time is a lot faster right? Eh whatever I guess it doesn't really matter now anyway.

[Mindgames265]

umm a level 65 mammoth is 7+ hours with a mejo berries. this was before the adjustment to tameing time.

[Ryuken]

Then get a level 30 Mammoth, it does the same thing.

[tryggerhappy]

Първоначално публикувано от cccwebs:

Incresed taming time doesn't stretch the content, it only extends the waiting time a player has for one (important) aspect of the game.

Първоначално публикувано от Sephora:

I personally don't consider "tame time" to be an intrinsic property of "dino difficulty" after all, sitting there and watching a progress bar for 7 hours doesn't have anything to do with difficulty, that's just flat out a time sink.

So I was going to write a detailed and lengthy post about how significantly the game is modified with taming high level dinos, but I decided I dont actually care that much. The TLDR is armor, specialized leveling up, and not so random point distribution on wild dino spawning.

You can literally tame 10-15 Trex and level them all to 45+ in about 15 hours. Run them around on aggressive and follow and you can clear out whole sections on the game map quickly without any danger. If I kill all the dinos on the north side of the map, that wont make anyone upset right?

The only difficulty that remains on a server with high level tamed dinos is:

1) Caves which is only to get the artifacts if you care about summoning the boss
2) Underwater deaths via drowning if you dont pay attention to chowder timer
3) Accidently jumping off a flying mount without a parachute

These are all easily avoided.

What I have concluded is that any server where the admin is not an active player the experience will be flawed for this game because small changes impact the game in a big way. I am all for modding the default game because it is super boring but to do it when you don't understand the impact is ignorant. Raini talked about how timesinks aren't fun but she plays the Final Fantasy MMO. Everyone knows MMO's are just one big time sink so clearly she understands the concept of people with more time have more stuff and better stuff.


To anyone who is considering joining this server, this is the current state of the community:

1) There are around 10 or less max level players including myself. Orth and lorthgar are two others that come to mind.

2) People are generally nice, but quite a bit of misinformation is also spread through global chat. In addition, you have to put up with things like one person calling someone else a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ and them responding with calling that person autistic for like an hour.

3) There are plenty of tribes of 1-3 players but don't expect to get an invite. No one wants to share all their hard work with someone new they don't know.

4) People have built some really cool bases.

5) The only server admin doesn't play the game, so don't expect help if you have an issue in-game.

6) The server settings are not what is listed in the original post which has not been upated.