Hey all! I know I've been fairly quiet for the past few months. But I come to you now with news and an excitement for future developments for Isla Nycta's Ark servers! First and foremost:
Moving from the Rewards Vault to the Web Shop
Regarding the desire to transition away from the Rewards Vault for certain content packs like tames, weapons, armor, and tools - it comes from having to deal with certain frustrating limitations imposed by the Rewards Vault mod, which are likewise eradicated by the Web Shop entirely. Issues like:
● Inflexibility and rollback with editing shop packs in the vault.
● Restrictions of only whitelisted admins being able to help players with Vault ARc discrepancies and delivery issues.
● Inability to apply cluster-wide role sync and support for special players in an automated fashion*.
● Easier for abuse and deceit regarding glitches in purchases.
With the web shop, we can address the issues listed above and more, including but not limited to:
● Custom creature shop packs that spawn tames with imprints, specialized stats, and a "Nycta" flair of coloration (some creatures ineligible).
● Greater flexibility for delivery of shop packs, including scheduling them to be delivered only when the player is online.
● Greater admin backend functionality, access, and logging.
● Changes and fixes can be implemented without requiring waiting for an admin to get online and stand at a vault.
● Additional support for modded creatures.
● Everything is hosted externally; no reliance on any mods (besides Dino Storage v2 for the tame deliveries).
But because this will require a tremendous amount of labor (for the creature packs alone, think of all the viable tames out there and multiply them a few times over regarding the load), I want to put out a poll to gauge community interest. Note, this does not mean that we will be removing the Rewards Vault mod entirely, nor should it depreciate ARc in its current value. But this is the first start to slowly transitioning away from the mod. If the interest of the community is more favorable than otherwise, I will begin prioritizing development of the web shop to support the features I want to include for you guys.
To give you all a taste of what to expect, I've already gone and set up a (PvE Cluster only at this time) shop pack for a "Nycta Achatina" that you can purchase, for free, a couple of times.
https://nyctark.com/shop/fb96adcc-6802-462a-a93b-99ee5e38317b/show
The poll is here.
https://nyctark.com/page/18113-poll
Please also take your feedback to #ark-general.
*The webshop will soon be able to support Patreon authentication, allowing for our players to sync their patreon pledges and have access to special hidden shop packs.
Auto Decay Timer Boosts
For our decay timers, the default auto decay for tribes is 14 days since the player logged out. Now, we are revealing options for players to purchase permanent boosts to their auto decay timers. These boosts are connected to your steam 64ID, so they carry over no matter what cluster you're playing on. They can only be purchased on our website through Paypal. The process is securely handled through Paypal's oAuth checkout process.
So, how does the tiered decay system work, now that boosted auto decay timers are available? Decay is based on the highest value between all tribe members based on the last login for each player.
Scenario One:
Tribe has 2 members. Player A has the 14 days (default) decay timer, and player B has the 30 days boosted timer. Player A stops playing on the servers. Player B is active/the last person of the tribe recorded logging in and out. The tribe's decay timer across the cluster is set to 30 days.
Scenario Two:
Tribe has 2 members. Player A has the 14 days (default) decay timer, and player B has the 60 days boosted timer. Player B stops playing on the servers. Player A is active, and will be the last person of the tribe recorded logging in and out consistently. **The tribe's decay timer will count down from 60 days of Player B logging out, until 46 days pass and there are 14 days left out of 60. With Player A being the last recorded tribemember, the tribe's max decay timer is reset to 14 days.**
**Scenario Three:**
Tribe has 3 members. Player A has the 14 days (default) decay timer, Player B has the 30 days boosted timer, and Player C has the 60 days boosted timer. Are players are consistently active. The tribe's decay timer will be 60 days, prioritizing the highest boost in the tribe.
Grace periods are not stackable; your most recent Auto Decay Grace Period purchase will override the previous one.
Please note, while tames will no longer auto-decay at the standard 7 day rate, the system will not account for their depleting hunger meters. It is the tribe's responsibility to make sure that tames have plenty of food or are put away to avoid starvation.
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This is the first time we are directly implementing any feature to monetize our Ark servers. While we will always do our best to ensure that our Ark servers never become pay-to-win, we are still faced with the unfortunate reality that, while our sub-community may be smaller than the rest of the games in our Nycta family, Ark is the most expensive venture for us, and we hope that Ark picking up its weight can help to alleviate that cost. We are planning to offer more solutions to players that would like to financially support our costs for dedicated machine upkeep, maintenance, premium features, and development of more cool perks, including a way to finally have our beloved Patreon supporters become automatically integrated within Ark. In no way will basic game features prevent player progress, access, or otherwise deprive the player's user experience of enjoying the game the way the developers intended on our servers.
Banner by staff member Nyx'Zamamai!