ARK: Survival Evolved on Steam

Fretmute · Post by **Fretmute** » Wed Jun 29, 2016 6:09 pm

GreenGoo wrote:My son picked this up during the sale. I think I removed it from my wishlist when I heard about how cutthroat the pvp was. Now my son is begging me to get it so we can play together. He originally bought it because he had heard that they were patching in the ability to play as the Dinosaurs. Turns out that isn't happening until December (or so my son says).

After watching some videos, it looks like fun. A sort of 3D Don't Starve with differences.

I'm pretty sure we can play a local game/private server, so there would only be the 2 of us, so no ganking, no losing a month's worth of work. If that's not the case I'd appreciate someone telling me so.

The game comes with Battleye, which is an incredibly intrusive cheat detection software. I refused to let my son install it until I could read about it, and while it doesn't seem to do anything overtly nefarious, the kind of control it has over the system is a little too scary for my liking. I'll let him install it on the second computer, but not mine. The second computer is so rife with malware it's already compromised, so who cares. This only matters for multiplayer on com0pany servers anyway, I think.

I think I may pick it up, but I need to do some more reviewing of the game itself before I commit.

I believe you can opt not to install Battleye, but then can only connect to servers that have opted out of it. I know that Ark has a launch option to play without it, which is what I do.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Wed Jun 29, 2016 11:43 pm

Yeah, my son was playing solo without battleye. I assumed it was just a local instance of the game but I wasn't watching when he started it.

Of course if don't play on a public server, then you miss out on the interaction with real people, which is often a huge part of games like this, for good and bad. I doubt my son could handle having his work destroyed, but if we played on a pve server, then who cares if others are cheating or not (depending on the cheat of course).

Cylus Maxii · Post by **Cylus Maxii** » Thu Jun 30, 2016 10:54 am

I ran an ARKSE sever that was hosted by gameservers.com. It was up for about 3 months (I shut it down in early May, waiting for more content). At peak we had only 8 active players in two allied tribes. BattlEye came out during that time and I went to great lengths to remove it. My impression was that most of the other hosted (non-official) servers were eschewing the use of BattlEye.

My advice would be to look into hosting a server of your own - that way you can adjust the difficulty as you please and make the experience fun for the both of you. The configuration work was pretty easy and even adding mods was pretty straightforward. We added several mods that provided additional objects for construction.

FWIW - I plan to re-launch a hosted, non-BattlEye ARKSE server in September and will probably use one of the custom maps. There are a couple of really nice ones out.

EDIT: I was able to download my server save and get it running on my local box when I decided not to host it anymore.

Kelan · Post by **Kelan** » Thu Jun 30, 2016 11:16 am

Yeah, running your own server is the way to go in my opinion. It is even better if you can get a good group of friends to play regularly too.

I ran my own server on a spare i7-920 box I had for almost a year (I shut it down a few weeks ago for now as there wasn't activity anymore) and opened it up to people at Qt3 and other friends. We had some really good times and I only really stopped playing there when a guildmate of mine started a new one up with the new The Center map, which is quite fun for a change of pace. He also has quite a few mods installed that make the game more enjoyable including temp structures that let you test build with almost no resources to see if a build will work and then you just replace the items one by one with the final built pieces. It also has a device you can build and place that disables fog and a few other QoL items like an oil compressor that turns fertilizer to oil.

I am really looking forward to the official release and starting over with hopefully a larger group of people on a private server somewhere.

EDIT: Oh yeah on the BattleEye thing, I never installed it nor considered enabling it on my server and it doesn't seem to be too popular and probably not necessary among associates and friends.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Thu Jun 30, 2016 1:55 pm

Cool. Someone was nice enough to pm me that they were running their own server and offered to give my son and I access. With that in mind, I'll buy the game before the sale runs out and we'll probably take the forum member up on his offer.

That said, my son and I are almost diametrically opposed as far as gaming ideology. He's all about cheats and getting to the "fun stuff" as fast as possible. He's also prone to distraction (Squirrel!), so it's very possible he would get heavily involved for a few days then move onto something else.

Working towards rewards is not something that interests him. I'm sure that's typical of most kids, but he doesn't give 2 craps about a balanced work/reward equation.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Thu Jun 30, 2016 7:46 pm

Is there a V-sync setting somewhere? The game looks good and fps seems reasonable, but I'm getting a fair amount of tearing.

wire · Post by **wire** » Thu Jun 30, 2016 11:27 pm

How is the solo game?

Paingod · Post by **Paingod** » Fri Jul 01, 2016 7:45 am

wire wrote:How is the solo game?

I'm bound to find out - I just bought it for $16.50. I figured I'd get at least that back in entertainment given everything I've read here. I also expect my kids to enjoy watching me ride around on dinosaurs.

I think coopasonic played a lot of solo and got upwards of level 60+. According to Steam he's got 89 hours logged; it can't be all bad.

Reemul · Post by **Reemul** » Fri Jul 01, 2016 8:13 am

I played mostly solo, even on Kelan's server I played alone.... The game works fine solo, so much to do build and tame.

But it is a lot better with more players in a PvE setting.

I am always planning to start again I just don't have the time at present but I will definitely be revisiting it again. There is so much to do and see and tame.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Fri Jul 01, 2016 9:03 am

Paingod wrote:I think coopasonic played a lot of solo and got upwards of level 60+. According to Steam he's got 89 hours logged; it can't be all bad.

Some of that is my oldest playing, but yeah it was 95% solo. I played on a public server for 3-4 hours just to see how it changed things, but since I didn't want to play with others all it changed was how often I died while logged off. The solo game is just a big sandbox like minecraft with better graphics.

Cylus Maxii · Post by **Cylus Maxii** » Fri Jul 01, 2016 11:40 am

Wow - I've got 265 hours into ARKSE. And I'll certainly be adding to that this fall. So yeah - this can be a lot of fun.

wire · Post by **wire** » Fri Jul 01, 2016 12:32 pm

Cool thanks...may go ahead and get it. I'm not much for pvp so if there are others who enjoy playing pve in a cooperative setting let me know.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Fri Jul 01, 2016 1:28 pm

I've been watching this one for a while. I'd love to play this one coop with the kids. The only thing holding me back on this sale is that I can't afford three copies.

Would it work well for three people sitting together in a room? Can you set up a private server for just those people?

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Fri Jul 01, 2016 5:51 pm

Blackhawk wrote:I've been watching this one for a while. I'd love to play this one coop with the kids. The only thing holding me back on this sale is that I can't afford three copies.

Would it work well for three people sitting together in a room? Can you set up a private server for just those people?

My very limited time with the game suggests that it would be fantastic with 3 players coop. Not sure about a private server but I assume so.

mori · Post by **mori** » Fri Jul 08, 2016 11:55 am

Picked this up during the summer sale. Playing solo. It is a difficult game but a lot of fun. It has a way of letting the player feel safe and content and then disaster will strike. Dying in places that you cannot go back and retrieve your gear really sucks. Losing all your pets also sucks when a Carno spawns near the base and kills them. I have not had anything destroy my shelter yet but I am sure that will come when I start getting a little complacent.

mori · Post by **mori** » Sat Jul 09, 2016 11:46 am

So I went out exploring and got turned around and lost. Trying to make my way back to the coast and all of a sudden I was ambushed by huge f'n snake, a titanoboa. I literally jump back from the screen and screamed, "WTF is that!" It freaked me out so bad I had to quit the game and walk away. Never had a game do that to me before. That was worse than swimming at night in Subnautica and first encountering the Leviathon.

Tampa_Gamer · Post by **Tampa_Gamer** » Sat Jul 09, 2016 7:04 pm

Blackhawk wrote:I've been watching this one for a while. I'd love to play this one coop with the kids. The only thing holding me back on this sale is that I can't afford three copies.

Would it work well for three people sitting together in a room? Can you set up a private server for just those people?

That is exactly how my kids and I play. We have an old server (failed attempt at a home theater computer) that I use for dedicated server games and we all log on via wireless or direct for a strictly LAN game. It is a blast - we all join, and form our own tribe to share experience which levels us up slightly faster. We use a number of mods and tweaked server settings. We tend to restart with a fresh world every couple of months. If you decide to go that route and have problems setting up a dedicated LAN server game, just let me know. I made a lot mistakes, but kept notes due to my failed memory...

[edit] although in order to do this, we did have to buy 3 copies since we are all playing it at once, but not one for the server since it doesn't require a separate Steam account to run.

Kelan · Post by **Kelan** » Mon Jul 11, 2016 1:31 pm

mori wrote:So I went out exploring and got turned around and lost. Trying to make my way back to the coast and all of a sudden I was ambushed by huge f'n snake, a titanoboa. I literally jump back from the screen and screamed, "WTF is that!" It freaked me out so bad I had to quit the game and walk away. Never had a game do that to me before. That was worse than swimming at night in Subnautica and first encountering the Leviathon.

Heh, yeah. Don't let them or the scorpions bite you as it will poison your making your torpor drop. If it reaches zero you will fall unconscious and have to watch your screen as they slowly kill you while you can't do anything. It takes a bit to get up to, but make some stimulant to carry with you to take when this happens to keep your torpor from dropping

.

morlac · Post by **morlac** » Wed Jul 13, 2016 10:10 am

If I had a dedicated server to play on with like minded individuals I would definitely buy this. The griefing on a public server is the main reason I have not tried this genre of games. I'm to old to put up with that crap

WarPig · Post by **WarPig** » Wed Jul 13, 2016 10:48 am

As I recall from my few months of playing, there are PvE servers; the griefing might exist there but it's not as direct. I was more worried about logging in in the morning and finding that my fort had been demolished by a rampaging trike.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Wed Jul 13, 2016 3:42 pm

The owner (well, renter) of the server I'm playing on is away for about a week. I'll check with him when he gets back to see if he's willing to open it up to more OO'ers.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Wed Jul 13, 2016 3:46 pm

morlac wrote:If I had a dedicated server to play on with like minded individuals I would definitely buy this. The griefing on a public server is the main reason I have not tried this genre of games. I'm to old to put up with that crap

Ok, now that I actually bought it and looked around a bit (just to get a feel for things), it's not nearly as bad as it sounds. There are a large number of servers out there, all with different rules, scaling for taming, hunger, thirst etc. Different mods, what have you. So yes, some servers are free for alls, but there are a lot of other servers and chances are you could find one that shares the same mindset as you.

Think of it like mindcraft and/or roblox or whatever.

morlac · Post by **morlac** » Thu Jul 14, 2016 2:02 pm

GreenGoo wrote:
morlac wrote:If I had a dedicated server to play on with like minded individuals I would definitely buy this. The griefing on a public server is the main reason I have not tried this genre of games. I'm to old to put up with that crap
Ok, now that I actually bought it and looked around a bit (just to get a feel for things), it's not nearly as bad as it sounds. There are a large number of servers out there, all with different rules, scaling for taming, hunger, thirst etc. Different mods, what have you. So yes, some servers are free for alls, but there are a lot of other servers and chances are you could find one that shares the same mindset as you.

Think of it like mindcraft and/or roblox or whatever.

Hmmm....resistance fading. I am moving a week from Saturday and getting my dedicated Office/Game room back! I might have to treat myself to a new game. Is this game best with gamepad or K&B? I'll have my PC hooked up to a TV and desktop monitor so big screen gaming will be a new thing for me

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Thu Jul 14, 2016 2:38 pm

I'm playing with KB&M, but that's my default for most first person or 3rd person games for me. It works perfectly fine that way, although there are a couple of things I'd change if I could. Tiny things.

Not sure how it plays with a gamepad.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Thu Jul 14, 2016 4:09 pm

I'm thinking about adjusting the food requirements. I want to need to eat. I don't want to go from fed to starving every ten minutes. I don't have enough time for anything but chasing food!

Reemul · Post by **Reemul** » Thu Jul 14, 2016 5:37 pm

Blackhawk wrote:I'm thinking about adjusting the food requirements. I want to need to eat. I don't want to go from fed to starving every ten minutes. I don't have enough time for anything but chasing food!

Yeah I have food on but slowed down consumption, same with water as well.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Fri Jul 22, 2016 11:31 pm

Not a peep out of my son about this since the last time we played about 2 weeks ago. You would think I would learn.

mori · Post by **mori** » Sun Aug 14, 2016 6:08 pm

Got a solid base built and do you know what destroyed it? Angry beavers!

Paingod · Post by **Paingod** » Mon Aug 15, 2016 12:04 pm

I have issues with the game crashing - a lot - and it's very frustrating. To the point where I gave up and am hoping it gets fixed somewhere down the line. I don't think it's heat, since I can load my game on a cold-booted PC and it'll crash 20 seconds in. It seemed to correlate to video settings, but sometimes I still crash frequently with everything I can turned off and the game looking very pixelated and not-great.

I had fun, though, when I could play. Sometimes for hours at a stretch.

The only dinos I ever legitimately tamed were dodos, spitters or turtles - anything else I got was bugged and stuck on trees (so they don't count) and my level was pretty low, like 14. I managed to get a nice little pack of 3 spitters going, they worked great against low-level fodder. The bane of my existence, though, was raptors - out of nowhere, dead; mount, dead; pets, dead. WTF?! I also had a duck-billed dino mount and a triceratops pack-mule.

Someday I'll get back to this one.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Mon Aug 15, 2016 1:38 pm

mori wrote:Got a solid base built and do you know what destroyed it? Angry beavers!

I believe it was a beaver that was first to create a corpse outta me.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Mon Aug 15, 2016 1:40 pm

mori wrote:Got a solid base built and do you know what destroyed it? Angry beavers!

If you want it to last you build it out of stone! It's much harder on their teeth.

Also, are there really beavers in the game? It has probably been a year since I've played.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Mon Aug 15, 2016 1:41 pm

Paingod wrote:I have issues with the game crashing - a lot - and it's very frustrating.

Do you happen to have an Nvidia 580 GTX card?

mori · Post by **mori** » Mon Aug 15, 2016 5:35 pm

coopasonic wrote:
mori wrote:Got a solid base built and do you know what destroyed it? Angry beavers!

Also, are there really beavers in the game? It has probably been a year since I've played.

Yep. They call them something else but they are the size of large hogs that swim very fast and have a lot of hit points. I have stolen resources from their houses before without ramification, but the last time they got pissed. It did not help that it was a mated pair and they set up their house right next to my base. I seen one of these beavers take out a croc that was higher level. They are not to be trifled with.

Paingod · Post by **Paingod** » Wed Aug 17, 2016 9:20 am

GreenGoo wrote:
Paingod wrote:I have issues with the game crashing - a lot - and it's very frustrating.
Do you happen to have an Nvidia 580 GTX card?

Nope. I've got a MSI GeForce GTX 980 4G. It's performed beautifully on every game I've thrown at it, and handles this one with high video settings just fine - but the crashing. I don't know if it's CPU, heat, video, hard drives, or what. It's very frustrating.

I don't see high temps in the CPU or Video card. Case and video fans are a little faster, but not on screech. There's no video artifact issues I'd see with heat. the game can run for hours and then crash, and when I restart it from my last save I can almost time the crashes to the same moment over and over. When that happens, I change a jumble of settings in the video and gameplay, reload, and it gets past that crash point. Then somewhere down the road, I get another consistent crash, so I change a jumble of settings... and so on.

The first time the game crashed on me, it also took my computer with it. It insisted I had no RAM, or that the RAM was bad. In the end, I had to reseat the RAM, flash the bios, and re-create my RAID array to get the f***ing thing to boot again. Thankfully, the RAID rebuild lost no data.

So maybe the game managed to corrupt a sector of my RAM? I dunno.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Wed Aug 17, 2016 1:24 pm

Paingod wrote:
GreenGoo wrote:
Paingod wrote:I have issues with the game crashing - a lot - and it's very frustrating.
Do you happen to have an Nvidia 580 GTX card?
Nope. I've got a MSI GeForce GTX 980 4G. It's performed beautifully on every game I've thrown at it, and handles this one with high video settings just fine - but the crashing. I don't know if it's CPU, heat, video, hard drives, or what. It's very frustrating.

Ok, sorry, I was hoping I could help. I run the same card but different manufacturer and haven't had any issues that I can recall. Certainly not frequent crashing.

I asked about the 580 because my second computer has one and it crashed on ARK constantly. Like, every 5-10 minutes. A little online research showed that rolling back to an older version of the Nvidia drivers might help. And it did. I don't think it crashed again.

You might want to try that if you're willing to try a shot in the dark. The page I read was specifically about the 580 but maybe it would help with your card too? If you can't find the driver version being recommended in a google search, I can look when I get home and post it.

edit: That crash that took your whole system down is nuts. Lost the array? Seriously? Holy crap.

Paingod · Post by **Paingod** » Wed Aug 17, 2016 1:36 pm

GreenGoo wrote:You might want to try that if you're willing to try a shot in the dark. The page I read was specifically about the 580 but maybe it would help with your card too? If you can't find the driver version being recommended in a google search, I can look when I get home and post it.

I did that too.

I installed the newest, ones I had before the first crash, and then went back to like December 2015 and tried those. Same results each time.

GreenGoo wrote:edit: That crash that took your whole system down is nuts. Lost the array? Seriously? Holy crap.

Yeah - when it wouldn't boot my mind was racing with "no.no.no.no.no.no.no" - I didn't want to reinstall 215 games. Thankfully, when I rebuilt the array in the BIOS, it picked right up where it left off and I didn't have to do anything else.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Wed Aug 17, 2016 3:39 pm

yeah, pretty sure the ones I used were the Dec 2015 ones. Oh well. Sucks.

Victoria Raverna · Post by **Victoria Raverna** » Thu Sep 01, 2016 9:40 pm

You heard of day one DLCs? Now we have something worse than that. Selling DLC for an Early Access game.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/512540/

Suitably Ironic Moniker · Fri Sep 02, 2016 12:49 am

Yeah, this is ridiculous.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Fri Sep 02, 2016 10:08 am

I'm actually a bit surprised STEAM allows early access games to have DLC. That seems...odd.