wildbill

Or how about just add large walls? Instead of taking stuff away, add something more useful and people would use it instead.

Yup, been reported previously. Nothing new and apparently still not fixed.

I'm liking this one the best. Make everything decay very fast, but not so fast that someone can't make a temporary taming pen and tame a few creatures. So not 30 minutes, but maybe 12 hours for stone is more like it. Quicker for wood. Maybe 6 hours for wood, 3 hours for thatch. The repair structure acts as a claim, with a large no build radius. You put stuff in it for repairs. You can have just one per grid though. So just one base per grid per company. You want more bases, you have them on other grids. No limit other than the number of grids.

Ya, not that easy to solve. What you need to realize, is griefers are not dumb. This problem is like the problem of designing a computer to beat a chess player. Yes they finally did it, but it took years and years, and I'm guessing that computer has like 100 times the power of any server running Atlas. And that just solves one "simple" problem, not all the problems present in a game like Atlas. You can't make fences decay fast, any good base needs a good fence to keep the wild creatures out. And yes, any griefer would take less than an hour to figure out they just need to snap stuff together like a fence to defeat the fast decay. I've probably read a hundred different "solutions" to this problem, but they all seem to have some flaw that could be exploited by a griefer. The best solution I've heard so far is to design the map with build and no build areas. It doesn't stop all griefing, but does stop resource blocking. I've played custom maps for ARK that did something like this. The biggest problem with them though, is they are very difficult to make and get everything done right. The one I played had all kinds of problems. There were parts of the map that when you passed through them, you were instantly killed. I can't imagine having like 500 islands (not sure how many unique that is, but lots), and get them made with all the customization in any kind of reasonable amount of time.

I agree. Official servers really only work as PvP. I think the reason they have PvE official servers, is they do want to cater to the large PvE crowd, but need there own test servers (really, all official servers are test servers). If there were only private PvE servers, it would be difficult to design the game for both PvP and PvE. Unfortunately, some players on the official PvE servers expect a little more than is realistic about how well the game can work in the barely moderated official PvE server environment. On official PvE, the game does need to provide content. It doesn't hurt on unofficial servers to have content, but the server owners themselves can create some of the content too. The players also are part of the content. If they weren't, more players in ARK PvE would just do single player, but many play online with other players.Also, there are mods like you say. For me, the mods are a big part of the content too. And no, having only PvP official servers would not send PvE players to the official PvP servers. It would either make them quit the game or go to private servers. Possibly some would go to private PvP servers that have a few rules against griefers, but most would find their preferred play style in private PvE servers. It would though send some PvP players that for who knows what reason play on PvE servers to the place they really belong.

I've no idea what the above does, but what I've seen some servers do is place a claim by the server admin at the locations where you want no one to claim. You then set it to allow all to build. Building near a freeport isn't really the problem, it is dropping a claim that prevents other players from building that you don't want.

Very good idea, but would require a lot of edits to each island and every grid. Would probably require a wipe to properly implement

Some very good ideas. I can see how this could work in practice. The ship resource chest can hold a large amount of resource. Change it so that the weight of items in it are reduced instead of increasing the amount of weight a ship can hold. Make it like 1/10 normal weight. You pull in to a settlement on your ship and anchor or moor to a dock. Once anchored or moored, you ship resource chest is available for pulling resources for various things. For instance for trandes at the settlement, using crafting benches, and purchases there. Instead of having to haul gold or resources for buying NPCs or the resource trader, they come from your ship resource box. You are out exploring, and want to collect some resources. You anchor your ship nearby and locate the resource. You place a structure to "store" the resource. You gather and deposit the resource into it. The structure transfers the resource to the ship resource chest. When done, you pick up the structure and go back to the ship. Would be cool if your ship would always be the center off all activities. Currently I have a mess hall on each ship and then also one at my base. Why all the redundancy between the base and the ship? Mainly because the ship just can't be made that secure in PvP (or even PvE). I can imagine a different type of game where that would not be the case. Not going to go into it, as I don't see that happening here. The big problem with any concept like this one where the ship is a mobile base, is that the game needs to change from one where you ship could be sunk at any moment or make it easier to retrieve all the resources from a sunken ship. Simply dropping anchor can be enough to damage a ship to where it is sinking a few minutes later the way the game is currently designed. Ships are just too easily destroyed, from typhoons, hitting a rock, to SotD destroying it.

Atlas isn't actually anything from Earth's history. I think the story is more fantasy than anything. Not meant to represent any historical period, but does resemble some stuff from the age of sail. Not sure about anyone else, but until I hear all the details and see what the big March 20th update really is, I'm kind of bored of speculating about Atlas. I'm still having fun playing the game, but I'm now in a kind of wait and see mood right now.

Kind of depends which gates. The small gates could be 1/2 height, but current height is fine I think. They could add a medium gate, there is at least one mod that adds one. I think the large gate is generally used for all kinds of stuff, but I've never used it. Seen it usually for walls around a base. Does seem ridiculously tall.

It is at least a week out. Are you planning to schedule vacation time or something? Do you really need to know more than a few days in advance or is this something else to complain about?

Keep playing on unofficial servers, like I've been doing. They made us wait a few weeks to even begin playing the game. Anyone that can't handle delays hopefully never started playing Atlas at all.

Ya, I didn't mean to imply I haven't read those, I have read many. Not sure if I commented on the upkeep or limit threads. I'm just adding my two cents here as to why I think having settlements on PVE would be a bad idea, or at least without also having lots of other changes to make them work. I'm thinking there is no simple solution for PvE that could be implemented in a few weeks to make PvE work. It does work on private servers, where they add rules to limit the number of claims, so a fairly complicated system of claim limits could work. The problem is on private servers, they will make soft rules like not more than 1 water claim per grid and 2 more land claims. If it is a water claim, you must have a shipyard and a base with it, etc., etc. Really hard to code that sort of stuff in as rules. The private servers have admins that resolve stuff and just boot players that don't want to play by the rules. You can't easily run an official server like they do a private server. The private server also make all kinds of exceptions to rules when needed. They do stuff like sell a whole island for actual cash to a player to keep the server afloat.

Ya, if programmers only coded that way. I've worked with them, I test their code for a living. I've written a bit myself. More than likely, they change the way claim flags work. They didn't add a 2nd type of claim flags for settlements. That would probably have been the smart thing though. Still, were you happy with how claim flags worked in PvE? You want it to just stay the same? Personally I tried the officials, but when I saw what they had implemented, where essentially they added a land claim mechanic, which you'd only typically see in PvP to PvE, I immediately started looking to see if there were any unofficial servers up. When there were I left and never came back. Lots of threads in these forums complaining about claim flags and many of talking about PvE officials. Lots of suggestions though, like limiting the number of flags. Not sure why they didn't go that route, but there are plenty of threads on it. I think this thread is about why no settlements, and I think what I discussed makes sense as to why no settlements. Why not limited claims? That could be a whole other thread. I'd comment on that there maybe.

Ya, they could work differently, I'm just stating what I've observed from several games that use this same game engine. Stuff never works differently in PvE except it might have a multipliier, like 2x gather in PvE, 1x in PvP. Or it might be enabled or disabled. Those are the only two things I've seen. I don't recall a feature ever working differently between PvE and PvP. You'd have to ask the devs why they wouldn't do that. So based on this observation, they disabled claim flags in PvE, not changed claim flags to block building. But still, if they did somehow code in a flag to enable or disable claim flags blocking building, there were still tons of issues with the flags that they solved by having one fixed location flag per island. With a single player able to own a whole island, how could they have it block building and still have room for all players?

I agree with you. There are not just two types of players, PvP that fight other players and PvE that fight the environment. What you are really saying is PvP online and PvP single player. There is a whole different type of PvE than what is described by the OP. A lot of PvE players love the game for all kinds of reasons, none having anything to do with fighting the environment. The sailing, the building, the breeding, the player interaction (could be role playing or just sharing ideas and adventures with other players), the exploring, all kinds of reasons. My wife likes to kill stuff, but she doesn't want to actually have her character killed by some random NPC or creature.

Why shops? The main purpose of shops is to trade goods with other players. Yes, governments and settlements in this case like to tax any shop that is on "their" land, but that doesn't mean shops in any way need to be taxed to work. They just need a currency, which is gold in this case and PvE will still have the gold. Also they need something to sell, and there will be plenty of that in PvE. So no reason we can't have shops. I too saw something that made me think we won't have shops, but I hope i misunderstood that and that there are shops in PvE. It think shops will be a great addition to the game for all players.

Or, the above could easily be a mod you play on a private server, but ya, maybe they will make a hardcore server. I do think the majority of players do not want the above. I play on private servers, some of the above list is about the opposite of what I look for in a server. I'm also not looking for a home of any sort on a server. I in fact like to start on a new server every few weeks. I like the initial few weeks where everything is new and you need to search for islands and resources and build a base. Unlike you though, I wouldn't want that to go on for months on the same server. I want it to go for a few weeks and have a conclusion. Then start it again on a different server. Different play styles for different folks I think, which is what I love about the private servers. If you look long enough, just about anyone can find one that they like, or even make their own.

I love the idea of shops too and would never play PvP just to get shops, so I hate the idea that I can't have a shop in PvE. I think I can understand the logic of no claim flags. So they are changing the claim flags to be only for settlements, and settlements are for an entire Island. You must pay upkeep for a settlement, so you need the Bank for that. Players can build anywhere in PvP, the claim flag no longer prevents building, it is just to control the area that has the limited 9 hour war window. Also the owners of the flag can attack and destroy any building built on their settlement at any time. They will only let people build there as a means of collecting taxes to help with upkeep. In PvP, like always, you limit where people can build on your settlement through threat of destroying unwanted buildings. I assume companies will use billboards and such to show where building is allowed. So since claim flags don't restrict building, there is no purpose for them in PvE. Using the normal way that PvE/PvP works, nothing really works differently between the two modes, some things are just enabled or disabled or have setting adjustments. So since claim flags can't work differently in PvE, they can't exist. They can no longer work the prior way that they did in PvE when they are changed in PvP. Two problems, 1) They claim an entire island, 2) they don't restrict building. The 2nd could be made a setting that is enabled/disabled, but the first would be hard to enable/disable I would think. So no claim flags, no banks. I can live without the claim flags, but give us shops!

Ya, I assumed that post made sense, but now that you made me think about it, not sure it does. I think the logic was something like this: You can tax shops on your settlement using the same rate set by your bank for resources gathered on your settlement. You must have a bank to pay the settlement upkeep fees. A settlement must have a flag on each island owned by a company. No claim flags, no bank, no shops. But, shops can also exist not on settlements, I think, so why not on land with no claim flag and no bank? I don't think a shop has to be taxed to exist, as they say in the notes: Player shops in freeports. Players can set up automated shops in each Freeport, listing loot for sale and naming their own gold coin prices. I assume the gold goes into the shop and you need to show up once in awhile and remove it. Or maybe the bank is somehow involved? I think the assumption in that post was you can't have shops without a bank, but no where do they say that. Hopefully we will hear more on this soon. Honestly, I think the feedback from PvE players has been that they like the flags, just not the unrestricted use of claim flags, so maybe there will be some adjustment to how the next big patch roles out for PvE servers.

I personally wouldn't want to play a game where it looks like they added 1 or 2 islands to each grid as an afterthought. At some point it would need to be fixed. Might as well do it now along with all the other reasons a wipe is a good idea. You can read plenty of threads in these forums about why the wipe is a good idea, not going to list all those things here. The private servers do have some grids with a lot of islands, most don't though. To do that you need small islands and also there are restrictions to what will and will not work. It is a bit tricky from what I've heard and not a simple thing to do. Some server owners will not do it (edit a grid map), they will just wipe. Some will.

Not sure if you have read all that they are doing in the update. They are adding 1 to 2 new islands for every grid. That is 225 grids that will be changed. Try getting their map tool and updating 225 grids and figure out how you are going to do that and not destroy almost every base on the map. Maybe you don't think they need to add more islands? They are adding the islands so that there will be enough for when a claim is an entire island. They are also adding a whole new biome. Can't add that without changing the maps. I think, but am not sure that the PvE map is the same as the PvP map. Anyone know this for sure? So to keep this consistency, if you update the PvP, you also update the PvE servers. Even some of the private servers I play on are talking about possibly doing a wipe so they can add the new content. Things like the underwater biome and the new Eastern Tundra biome.

Dark and Light (another snail game) had PvE with the option to do an approved war. Never seen a single player use it. Most PvE players are pretty hard core, never PvP, so what would be the point of that. It would just be an option that is almost never used. PvE players like to build something and come back a few days later and find it is still there.That is the main reason they don't play PvP. I've played PvP, but never like it in a game world that is persistent. To me, that makes no sense. I'd play it where you lose but come back to fight again. Or where when you log off, you and all your stuff doesn't remain in the world. Some of us have jobs and take vacations and can't watch our stuff 24/7 or don't like to be in a large tribe that has people online 24/7. Nothing worse to me than logging in to find that my character is dead and all the work I did the last few weeks is gone. Hmm, kind of like a wipe that seems very unpopular lately.

Is this server still up? I was playing on this server until it just disappeared from my server list.

Probably. This ain't ARK, where there is just one server with like 7 biomes. This is way more complicated and a bit delicate. I would guess a few more wipes before the game leaves Early Access in about two years.