Thanks! So far, the active players on your server are very happy with the recent changes. We’ve been actively seeking out and taming new dinos all weekend and it’s been working out very well so far.
Hmm. Patch 237.1 has me thinking. It triples the Easter Egg drop rate (no one on Kelan’s server cares about that because in the end all you have are … new hats!) but also prevents building in front of new caves on PvE…
…AND also allows flyers to go into caves by default on custom maps (won’t work for us), BUT also allows admins to force flyers into caves via server commandline “-ForceAllowCaveFlyers” (we may want this at some point). And more.
Either way, go for it if you get the chance – the only big risk is the stuff I put up around and in the new snow cave entrance in preparation for future adventures, and I rarely mind rebuilding.
Sounds good. I thought I checked before work, but didn’t see an update this morning. Maybe I forgot to check :).
I should have time when I get home later and will check for that CaveFlyers command. I may wait for the ARK Server Manager update for it, though, as that makes it so much easier :).
The notes I linked were from an hour ago, but the version appears to be active now.
Honestly, I’m not clear on what that CaveFlyers command signifies, but I assume it just means that flyers able to fly in caves before will continue to be able to do so. Which I think we want. :)
Also to be clear, I’m only walling off the outside of the new snow cave to allow folks on the server to park there without fear of a nearby giga or rex spawning and causing trouble. Which can happen, as Lebbrin and I just tamed a wild 96 giga tonight in that location.
The new snow cave is beautifully designed, as far as I can tell. They’ve even added new audio stuff. Really liking it, even if I haven’t ventured in very far yet.
Starting to feel the itch to get back to this… So few choices of a good survival sandbox today. I gave a solid attempt at “The Forest” this weekend and ended up thinking to myself “Why am I not just playing Ark?” Still not a huge fan of the taming mechanic, but I do miss the rest.
Dinosaurs… that you can ride… and fly!
= The crafting system can be fun (but grindy)
You can build truly cool bases
Oh s**t moments will get the heart pumping
In order to tame a dinosaur you basically have to stand over it and baby sit the thing with berries and drugs until it all of a sudden likes you. On the default settings some dinosaurs can take literal real life DAYS to tame in this fashion. I believe Kel’s server has this cranked way up.
Once your base becomes large and you have a nice stable of dinosaurs and machines, your days playing can quickly become an hour or two a day of just maintenance. The introduction of new dinosaurs may have lessened this part.
I stopped playing for the tedium bits, but in Ark’s defense, that was after a solid 100 hours or so of playtime on an AE game.
Good summary, Fozzle. I believe it can, sharaleo, although I have never played Minecraft :).
I have quite a few dinosaurs now, but maintenance really only takes me 5-10 minutes every couple days. I grab my pack of raptors and clean out the countryside of dinos and have enough meat for 4-5 days. Berries take a bit longer to gather for me, but in 20 minutes I can get enough for over a week.
Some dinos are really good at harvesting various materials, and we have also boosted the dino harvest rate to 3x, I believe, and overall harvest all rate to 2x, so that helps quite a bit. There really is quite a variety in dinosaurs to tame, ride, gather with, breed, fly, swim, that it is quite a unique experience and well worth trying, I believe. Plus, as you advance through the recipes, you gain access to more technological features and even electricity and lights, if you want to use them, and more advanced weapons that can open the game up a bit more as you level up.
The new caves look to be a much bigger challenge than the other caves, and we’re getting ready to attempt a cave run in the next week or two if schedules allow. Lots of preparation will be required, but they look to be doable and challenging in the right ways. And as far as active players, it’s back to just Ragan, Lebbrin and myself at this point. We’re still finding new things to do and having fun, and still welcome other players.
The next patch with the new dinos (v238?) could hit any time this week, but I’m guessing it won’t be before Friday.
v238 hits tonight at 10pm EST (if on time, which it won’t be) and brings those new dinos I mentioned as well as mysterious changes to breeding, display improvements (“all textures at source resolution”) and an interesting new “Extinction” type server in which, after a countdown, a meteor hits at the end of every month and obliterates everything.
Warning to folks who have built ocean structures: it seems that the new Dunkleo will be the second dino able to chew through stone structures. Here’s to hoping they are confined to the deeper parts of the ocean.
All is well on the Qt3 Kelan server since v238 and the difficulty increase / level increase. We’ve been taming higher level dinos without too much issue, some of us more eagerly than others. The new Rhinos and Dunkleos are appearing in good numbers. The Rhinos are super cute, and I think they’re the first dino after the Giga to exhibit a new type of feature: as you sprint (shift key), they accumulate speed much like the Giga accumulates rage when taking damage, and they get faster and faster during the charge.
A new minor version patch was rolled out a day or so ago to nerf beaver spawns and beaver dam creation that we won’t see until Kelan decides to update again. Assuming/hoping that it won’t be a huge change.
I have to say, those Dunkleos are super tanky. They are reported as such, but tonight I burned through a new crossbow on one during my first try near Carno Isle, and had to head home. I came back with a bunch of spare crossbows and used nearly 200 tranq arrows on the same one, until my scuba tank failed. She still hadn’t gone down, so clearly I was still underprepared. Tomorrow if I have time to play, I’ll head back with more spare tanks and as many tranq arrows and crossbows as I can carry. Still a satisfying fight. :) I’m thinking this is probably a group tame thing. Which is cool.
Weird bug: I had a female Giga mysteriously vanish yesterday or the day before. I couldn’t find her death in the tribe log and couldn’t explain it as all nearby dinos were fine and there’s no real way for a wild dino of any significant strength to get into my compound. I was planning to find another higher-level female at some point anyway, so it’s not really a big deal but her name was Fachen, Kelan, if you have time to poke through the server logs.
Edit: Next week’s ambitious v239 brings the new Direbear and Manta dinos, a “chemistry table” and some of the other planned features that keep getting pushed back. I’m betting that it’ll just end up including the new dinos.
When I got home from work yesterday, the server application had crashed so I updated to .3 while I was at it, and that included the beaver fix, I believe. I think one update also tweaked the Dunkleos:
v238.2
Increased Eurypterid spawn frequency by 60%
Rhino can now be picked up by Quetz
New Saddles are now craftable on Beaver-Smithy
Official Extinction Event servers now have 2x-3x settings
Rhino tames 40% faster
Non-Official Extinction Event servers will now auto-restart properly
Reduced Dunkleosteus maximum Torpor
This was from .2 which has been in for a little while so not sure if that was before or after you tried to knock out the Dunkleo.
I am actually excited to get back into the game again doing more than just maintaining my base and dinos, but I just have too many other things going on right now with the TGCTours golf tournaments and weekly events and bowling 3 days a week again like my younger days between league, tournaments, and practice.
I am hoping that the dire bear is awesome, because I want one badly.
I’ll also chime in and say that the new extinction servers are a super cool idea. Fresh start and wipe out by meteors at the end of the month. The rates are like 3x and I really like started fresh on a pvp server knowing that it’s all fair play and no piles of crap all over. I do think they could extend the time to two or three months to give people a chance to get farther, but it’s still very cool.
I think the voice said, “John, I want you to be a golf pro.”
The Dire Bear is pretty exciting, agreed. One thing I’ve noticed about later game play, though: we no longer have a practical reason to move around on the ground much, out in the wild. Pretty much only when we need to gather specific resources like wood or stone. Still, I can’t wait to see one.
The new extinction server idea is really interesting, also agreed.
Kelan, thank you for the update and the info. Seems that the max torpor is still quite high, though. I went out again tonight with a few scuba tanks and sunk a hundred or so arrows into a level 60 Dunkleo to no effect. That torpor is ridiculous. They seem to hang out in groups of 2-3, which makes it hard to keep your focus on the main target and secondly once you start tranqing, they swim directly towards you with only their faces available as a target, and their heads are totally armored and impervious. So without a lot of luck, a lone dude doing it alone faces a pretty difficult task.
Next time I try, I think I will have to set up some sort of taming cage near where I find one. Pick a target, lure it over to the cage, enter the cage and shoot it from within. And given their unique ocean dino ability of smashing stone, unless the stone can withstand them for long enough, it may need to be made of metal.
Or it could be a group tame. Two or three people shooting one (or more perhaps) should be much more effective. Maybe a bunch of us could team together for it this weekend.
I am now ready to return. I got the Xbox 1 version for my son to play and watching him do so has got me itching to try again.
Is there anyway I can restart from the start on the server or do I have to be the old me with all the points spent etc. I would really like to start over but don’t think this is possible.
Or is it possible for the Admin to reset my points etc?
Perhaps someone else knows? I will also ask at my guild forum who has a couple guys that also run their own personal servers.
EDIT: I know where the player profile file is so I wonder if you could just delete that. It is really encrypted (or at least seems to be), though, so hard to tell who is who on the filenames.
