Unofficial vs official servers ?

[Det. Dave Starsky]

As a person that plays games on singleplayer I was wondering what the difference between unofficial servers and the official ones.

I read a few threads where people wrote to play on unofficial as its less demanding on your system ?
I can guess official servers are on the 'play online' at the start menu ?

So how to play on unofficial, are they rented servers ?

Im just a curious noob..

Cheers

[Natjur]

Official servers, hosted by a company the dev's picked and they are the GM but .....you will never really ever see a GM. All rates at the default level. Will not be closed down (but make wiped)

Unoffical servers, hosted by any one who want to make a server and controlled by the guy who made it and paying the bills. Can use custom rates (eg x2 exp, x3 harvesting)
But the owner can cheat as they are the admin and can use admin commands and can close down the server when ever they feel like it but they also police their server so less likely to have problematic players

Which is better? Everyone has different views on that

[Det. Dave Starsky]

So official server settings are set by the devs ? and cant be modded ?

Unofficial are rented servers which an admin can change settings to how he likes, or how the poeple that play on the server want them to be also ?

I read that rented servers are less demanding on your desktop ?
How so as your still using your hardware to play the game.

[mad viper]

well offical has no GM or admin on ever so you are on your own and players hacking and exploiting will be everywhere. unofficial there will be admin on probably hourly or daily to play or see if all is well, unofficial will be smaller so less lag also admin will be able to kick exploiters and such or people not obeying rules. there are good unofficial that are less lag and much more enjoyable as you get to know all on the server however there will be some bad ones out there too where the admin is never on or dont care what happens...best bet is to log into some and talk to the people or admin and see how things are and if they are being run fairly for all. then you can decide on the one that best fits your style .best unofficials will be one that has admin on daily one where admin is ok for you to add them as friends on steam so you can message them if things go wrong.

[Det. Dave Starsky]

Are all official on the same settings ?
I need to adjust taming speeds as I cant play on default.. i dont have the patience to wait for hours per tame lol

[Det. Dave Starsky]

Ah so are unofficial on the list of play online on the menu list ?
Im such a noob

[Det. Dave Starsky]

Why would people play on official if people log on just to ruin the fun.
Im guessing there a tons more unofficial than official in all games ?

[mad viper]

ya officials are all pretty much basic x1 some games have x2 or 5 w/e but unofficals have a number of changes that is also something to consider what the unoffical has as mods(when available) and xp rates

[Talamar1]

Unofficial servers usually have adjusted rates, rules that are enforced by the owner or their admin team, and if/when we get mods, typically are modded to hell and back again to make the game more interesting. Using a server to play on reduces the load on your PC because your PC isn't doing the server calculations and AI management, that is being handled by the server you are logged in at. Your PC is only handling the end user experience.

[Alpha]

My unofficial server is one of the safest from griefing, most responsive, has custom levels up to 120 and balance changes and fixes. By far the best place to play dark & light. Emberstonegames.com for all of our details

[mad viper]

not sure why anyone would ever play on official lol and its never ,never , never a good idea to play offical on a EA game, so many will use every exploit and hack they can until they get nerfed and noone gets kicked from official where unofficial all that can and will be controled on a good one.

[wildbill]

All official servers should be the same rate, but some may be PVE others PVP (haven't tried any myself).

There are filters you select so you see official or unofficial. Both are in the online section.

There are no mods yet, so none are modded, but official are likely to never have mods.

Neither is less demanding of the PC. You will probably get better performance on an unofficial though, as I think there are usually too many players logged in for the weak servers they have for the officials (at least that is what people say here).

[『Eyece』]

Pro's and Con's

Official - Updated automatically Focused by the devs to ""try"" to fix the bugs, Less hackers/cheaters...Official is the way the game is ment to be played at the rates that are standard Cons - Get ddosed to wall glide unless they fixed that. There is no way to set the respawn rates of NPC's Etc in towns so it takes for fu cking ever to wait for them to respawn.

Unoffical servers - Can be modded for more resources respawn rates speed of exp, Can host greater RP events due to item spawning via cheats and trainers (cheat engine can grant admin to Anyone) Unlikely to get banned if you do not abbuse your cheats/hacks. Unofficial generally run better as people who buy their own servers tend to go overboard on the spec requiresments for the game to make ♥♥♥♥ cleaner in hopes of people to join.

Cons - Can be hacked to hell and back, servers are more likely to be down while the admin is at work or what ever and a update went live (conan exiles unofficial had this issue) The pleathora of updates often fu ck up the server as its hard to keep it up to date. SIDE note rubberbanding etc would be less due to the fact they have better servers and less load on them.

I know this was short but its all i could think of at the moment. Hope this helps.

[Natjur]

You will get better performance (normally) playing online then playing single player.
This is cause single player, your PC is both the client and the server. (more ram required)

When playing online, your end only has to be the client, but you may have other performanace issue caused by other players. But it more fun playing with other players (normally)

[Det. Dave Starsky]

I just checked the online servers the vast majority of official servers have people playing on them.
but the unofficial is the opposite....

So the vast majority of people play on official it seems..

I cant play on official from reading about hackers being common plus the settings would be way to long for me to level up and tame ect..

I dont want the game handed to me in a day but yet I dont want the game to be a pure grind fest..

Why are less people playing unofficial ? is official more of a challenge because of less xp ... ?

[XxSTOZZYxX]

Just depends on what you want. The base game is fine, but, the official servers are essentially unmoderated at the moment. Hopefully they changed that in the future and distance themselves from what happened in ARK officials... but till then, I can't condone playing officials.

Privates offer a variety to the extreme, the trick is finding what you like. Especially when mods become a thing because private servers will be saturated. Some may run 2 or 3, some may run 50. And the amount of settings to tweak in the ini is staggering and can completely change the way the game is played.

Best bet, before committing to a server, just talk to people. There's plenty of open privates that may or may not last, which happens, but locked/whitelisted is the way to go. Something that has people AND requires an application is typically gonna be worth lookin into.

The biggest thing is we're super early in development and it's just hitting the calm after release week, so expect a crap load of the privates to shift in population as people with potatoes realize they can't host 20 people and play locally or hosting costs just aren't worth 3 people playing at a given time.