Jamie

I will see who can help, I'm having some personal issues that are affecting my life and some life changing things have become known to me, I apologise for my lack of communication in relation to this issue. I'll pass this to management to see if they can resolve this some how.

It's a sad time to see you go, But I understand exactly what you are going through personally and I understand why you have to make this choice. JR wouldn't be where it was without you, I hope you remain an active member with our community and if ever there was a time that you'd like to become staff again I will reinstate you without delay. While you haven't had much to do currently it's due to my fault, I'm going through quite a bit of stuff to properly run JR. I want to apologise about that. I'm not going to make this a big thing about me. Again, thanks a million and I hope you do continue to be an active member to the JR community

Apologies I'm having a hard time with a few things recently. In relation to our ARK servers we will review some mods to install but we are not putting everything back as before as it will just cause another issue similar to what we have just resolved. We don't want to have a crashing experience and as you said there has not been problems as of late. Please confirm a few of the mods that you'd like to see added and we will put a poll after reviewing mods that are okay and don't show any issues in the reviews / bug section. Thanks

I don't believe though you should have to setup parental controls just to setup a password for your profile. Pokemon 2 player while in it's infancy just really was a bit of a let down. I do enjoy Let's Go, don't get me wrong, playing with pickachu still makes me chuckle and I do hope they improve and add the two player to the next game as it is fun to battle with friends rather against them. As for 3 button press, you can disable this feature from what I have found, it's in the settings!

Well, I treated myself to a Nintendo Switch for a Christmas present to myself. As a gamer who has not purchased / owned a nintendo console since the Nintendo Gamecube I thought I'd give my own personal view on the Switch from someone who plays Xbox and PC. The experience To be honest, when I bought this baby home I was rather excited to say the least. I was reminiscing unpacking a silver GameCube which had Mario kart double dash installed that my brother bought me and my other brothers for Christmas, Sonic, Mario and Rainbow Six, those days of the GameCube to me were some of the best times I've had in my gaming life. When I was younger I didn't have a PS2 or a Xbox, gaming back then was GameCube and PC. Nintendo really holds something deep down. I didn't get a Wii because to be honest, there wasn't many titles on the Wii that interested me, sure there was mario kart, party style motion controls but the same magic I had with the GameCube just wasn't there. Anyway, back to after I picked up the switch. I opened the box and was delighted on the size of this device, it to me is a brilliant size, not too big, not too small. Including the Dock, Joycon grip and everything needed to get going was a plus. I bought with the console, Mario Kart 8, Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle and Pokemon, Let's Go Pickachu. After attaching the JoyCons to the console I was sure that I was now ready to start playing. This unfortunately was not the case. The battery was dead, not a little dead. Fully dead, I had to attach the console to the dock and literally leave it an hour before it would even start up, Even when it was in the dock it did not power up till the battery had enough charge to power it up. Well, okay. I work with electronics, I know sometimes they are in a warehouse and the batteries die, just generally most mobile devices at least power on and say you need to charge, this did not. Not that it's the end of the world but if a kid saw that they'd be pretty upset when it looked like the new shiny Nintendo isn't working. Anyway, apart from that when I got it up and running putting in mario, having it load without needing to install anything and enjoying mario kart as I once did was a breath of fresh air. It was exciting, it was fun. Another thing which I haven't missed on the switch is an achievement system, I get so involved in trying to get all the achievements on the game I loose the actual fun of the game. I know it sounds stupid but it's true. There is no competition with your friends for gamerscore or trophies, it's just play and enjoy playing. I love the fact you can be in the middle of the game and you can just pick up the switch and take the game away with you. While it does use a lower graphics clock rate and tones down the CPU the game still feels really nice to play, hat's off to nintendo for making it seamless and the joycon batteries, No more will I have to worry about plugging in a controller. The bad To be honest, there is not many negatives from what I have experienced so far. But alas, let me share a few disappointments so far with the console. Nintendo Switch Online. While this isn't a big headache for me, it annoys me to think that being the little capable machiene the switch is that currently Nintendo still does not have a decent online service. Yes it's 3.99 a month, While yes the games do not lag while playing online from my experience. It's just missing a few things. The friends list is clunky and I do not really understand what the point of a friends list is if all it shows is if your best friends and the other players activity. There is NO messaging functionality even though the touch screen is more than adequate to type with (and the switch supports full keyboard support). There is NO voice chat (unless you use the phone app through certain games, seriously you have to download an App and it supports only like 5 games... Not what I was expecting in 2018 - 2019 which is especially annoying as when I look down the headphone socket it would suggest that it is capable of using a microphone / headset). To add a friend you have to share a friend code which is basically a UUID, a string of numbers. (Unless you add your facebook / twitter account and find them that way). For those feature's I'd pay more but for 3.99 a month all you get is basically a free nes mini integrated in to your switch and online support for games that support online. It's a shame not to have these features, but I can say, I do like not having raging kids shouting down my ear as I whooop ass on mario kart. User profiles. Unless you use parental controls, there is no way to protect your profile, NONE! You can not setup a simple pin, or key combination to secure your game saves and to stop users purchasing items on the eshop (if you click remember my password). There doesn't even seem to be a way to forget your password in the eshop after remembering it. Weird. This is a small handy thing for people who share a switch amongst a family. Another issue with profiles is that when you start your switch if you have multiple accounts on it, it should ask who you want to sign in as and not ask constantly what account wan'ts to open the app / game you want to play. Currently everytime you open a game it asks who you want to play as. This is more than annoying. Pokemon Let's Go Pickachu, Cloud Saves and Multiplayer. When I bought this game, I couldn't wait to play and while I do enjoy playing it, I hate a few aspects about this game. Cloud saves, you can't save your progress to the cloud, while nintendos take on this is to avoid duplicating items etc. What happens if you loose your switch, or it breaks. The game save is lost with that save and there is NO way to back it up, not even to Micro SD. This is ridiculous. I can not believe this, I can just imagine an unlucky sole getting a bad console, spending hours on pokemon (maybe even the only game the play) and it breaks, get's sent to nintendo who replace it and you loose everything and have to start from scratch. What a bummer that would be. I wouldn't play it again for sure. This isn't just a problem with Pokemon though, a lot of nintendo switch games do not support cloud saves and it states it on the game box. Let's GO Together! Share your adventure with a second player. Now, this is stated on the box and I bought it due to the fact me and my girlfriend love pokemon, what a thrill it would be to be able to play together! And while yes, you can play together. It can be a drag, Why? (You might be asking) Well. For a few reasons. I thought that this mean't you'd be able to roam the same portion of the map together (whether splitting off into split screen or staying within the bounds of each other, picking up items, reading stuff etc. But no, this is not the case. Player 1, can play as normal and player 2 just wanders. That's it, you can not pick anything up for player 1, you can not read signs, go through doors, hit pokemon to catch, you just wander! WTF! In battle's you fight together yes, which is cool, it's really good to be able to battle together, it makes the matches easier yes but it is entertaining to take on gyms and people together. Catching pokemon is fun too and you get bonuses catching them together too! Just the annoyance of not being able to help the main player collect things and do small things is annoying, it really is. My girlfriend gets bored and we switch who's the main character because she wants to be more involved. Multiplayer pokemon is a great idea, but it really isn't implemented in the best way. No internet browser and limited media support Nintendo wanted to develop a games console and this is why it isn't a huge problem for me, but the fact that there is indeed a limited web browser to login to wifi access points, to login to facebook and more is a weird one. You can't use the browser but for those abilities. Just why nintendo? Allow users to use the damn browser already coded and on the switch, it works great! There is no real way to watch films / music apart from the YouTube app, don't hold out if you want to use this for media content. (even though you can put a big micro SD card in to the console) Don't get me wrong The switch is a great console, but Nintendo have a lot to learn in my view and need to work on these kinks. If you want to buy the switch and like the idea of it, BUY it! If you're buying it as a travelling multiplayer game console / tablet, don't hold your breath. All of these views are mine, if you have any queries, message below and I'll answer honestly. If I'm wrong about something let me know as I'd love to have a better experience with my switch!

That is brilliant xD

Hi Guys, As of this post: We have chatted with the community and we have been working to create a better server. (AS frosty says, tirelessly through the night) - at this moment we are chatting on discord. A few things to note about the new servers: Clustering - Is in beta but working, Please note if when you transfer and your survivor doesn't show right away give it 30 seconds and try and download again. We have installed the following mods to begin with, we will add mod's through suggestions as previously, BUT we will be going through all bug reports and will be checking better to see if any conflicts exist so we do not have an issue with the map as previously. Structures Plus Death Recovery Mod Taming Sedative Backpack We have also updated our mod pack - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=940316400 Stacking Mod - We have left this out currently due to the fact we can not find a mod without any issues reported. If you can help find a working / better mod let us know Classic Flyers - WE HAVE NOT INSTALLED THIS YET. Due to the following bug reports: https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/discussion/895711211/133261369999910543/ If the community still wants to go ahead and install classic flyers please say below, we just don't want to cause any issues to dinos by installing the mod. Please read the bug reports to see if installing it will affect your game experience. Levelling - Is standard currently, a few reasons to this, I do not want to copy our badly designed level structure, if we are editing levels we need to make the levelling structure better and more balanced than before. Dino Levels - Are standard currently due to the fact normal levelling is in place. I'm sure this will change in time GAIA - For the next week or so this is disabled till I can properly review this. We may continue it, we may remove it. Depends what people want. It's a hefty weight to our server resources but I do not mind keeping it but we will be doing the same but adding GAIA on as well as the other mods chosen. SERVER MAINTENANCE & REBOOT - This has now been changed to run at 12 at night and also 12 midday to ensure the servers update mods and have a good restart when necessary We want to provide the most stable experience in ARK and we really hope you understand why we have only selected certain mods to begin with. We will be adding more but at the same time we want to ensure that it doesn't cause us another issue like before.

No offence but me and Frosty have a full time job to attend to, and I am still here working at work as I type this. You will receive your items, but please be patient, we have a lot on our plate. We are trying our best to attend to everything...

Apologies, was so busy forgot the dmg numbers :') Thanks Chris!

I have been looking at the servers with Frosty, We have installed the following to help: Stackmemore Tek Helper We have not installed the upgrade station yet due to a few reasons, we may install it at a later date. We have fixed a minor issue causing players to be lost in the cluster. This was happening as the file sync was every 15 seconds causing a problem that if you uploaded your survivor and the sync happened just before the download it would replace your character with a 0byte file. In relation to the water issue we do see that it drains quicker, but I believe this due to standard stats now. Frosty has slowed down water drain and it should be better now. We updated the mod collection here also : https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=940316400

This is a test for the community support. Please disregard this topic. - Jamie

Again I will be looking at the small minor problems with water etc today with Frosty. Can you let me what mods that are absent are causing frustration?

We will check in to this later today. I note the requirement for a stacking mod and we may replace the backpack mod with a stacking mod. AS for consumption of water, I believe that is due to the way that we used the original character enhancements to weight, harvesting etc. WE will review this soon DMG numbers may have been part of a mod, but I don't see it a massive concern. I will see if I can find out more about it. The upgrade station I do not see as a must have. It's nice but currently is not needed in any way, we used the upgrade station on the previous server as a end game ability. No one is near end game yet so I will not be installing it and I do not know our view as I haven't communicated this with the management team yet. PLEASE NOTE, WE will not install classic flyers just yet due to the huge amount of bugs with the mod, we want a stable server. We will take a vote upon this seperately next week. In relation to other mods we may not put them back until we have discussed as a management team, again we want a stable server, piling on unnecessary mods causing slow downs / conflicts and longer load time for players. We want everyone to have the best experience. So we need to find that balance. AFTER today I will not be around for the rest of the week and will be back at the weekend / next week so some things may not get resolved till then.

So the time has come, I'm working to get the new servers online today. Please note the following: I will only be picking 3 - 4 mods to begin with. Mods may be added in the future I will keep the old game data if anyone wants a download PM me and I'll send you the map I will only get the new servers online if clustering works I will release the list of mods and more information when ready.

As you guys know our ARK servers are constantly resetting after reboots. This seems to be due to a corrupt ARK map and on update / restart it resets the map randomly. I need ideas on how to resolve this issue with you guys, I do not want to reset the map or take off mods but to stop all this happening it may have to be the case. The main problem we have is that the map highly revolves around Structures Plus and Small Resource Stacks. If we remove these mods a lot of structures will be lost and all items will be lost due to the way the small resource stacks works. I have a funny feeling that something is conflicting. I can't diagnose or find this out due to the following: ARK has crap linux support All our servers are linux, we can not afford more servers ARK has no logging for linux servers in any way. I feel that the best plan of action is the following: Remove all mods, entirely. Reset all maps, clean out game save files to ensure nothing corrupted stays Have a huge supply drop for our members that have stayed at JR to compensate. The drop will be the same to ensure that people will start at the same level. Gift 5 dinos to each player that has played on our ARK servers for more than 2 hours (we can check due to our JR Website logs) Add one mod a week to see if it causes a problem, we will only use tried and tested mods with a high rating. While I have this plan it may or may not take place, I want your view. The community. How would you feel starting again? It would mean that everyone would be able to find new land, it may draw more players on to the server, resources would be once more balanced and we would all be happier with a stable server. I hate that our server is stable all day but then when it updates due to the corruption it resets the map and peoples things get lost and we look like the bad party. We want to do the best for you guys at JR. If you have any other ideas please let me know, don't be quite. SPEAK UP! I want everyones view as this is a huge decision and while I understand some members will be upset at the thought of loosing everything. It's something I do not want to have to do but I feel that this resetting bug has gone on long enough. We just want our community happy in the long run. We can't keep patching over problems, I'm not going to lie, I don't have another solution that I can think of right now, this would 100% sort the issue I'm sure. Again let me know what you think, please!

The new servers are currently under development, I will report back with news as it is available. Please note that while they are under active development, this does not mean they will be deployed today.

Hi Jake, Welcome to JR, what brought you back ? And why did you join JR to begin with ? I've noticed you around discord more alright sorry I haven't said anything to you yet been so busy with work and other commitments. Hope you enjoy JR and continue to converse with the community 😀

Guys, Its been a week, we don't want to fully rush things and as I stated to @Snowball privately I wouldn't have time till the start of the week to make any more movement. You guys have to understand I work a full 40 hour a week job have many more responsibilities than just JR. JR of course has admins to help at any times they can but we all have a life. I'd understand if this was dragged out 2, 3 weeks without any staff input on the topic but we have been posting when we have chance. Restarting an entire ark cluster isn't a two second job. I have many checks internally to complete before I do this as I want to ensure this does not happen again. Please stay patient our new ARK servers will be operational at some point during the start of next week i imagine. Just remember i pay big money for our servers out of my back pocket and we work on JR when possible. Unfortunately sometimes life gets in the way and I hope you can understand this. JR isn't a quick and easy thing to run, to run correctly I do more behind the scenes than people actually are aware. We run Linux servers for a reason but that also complicates some things. Things aren't like your computer such as clicking one button to install things. There is a lot of automation to keep things running while I am away and this has to be all setup before things are put in place. As for this week it took me a few days to sort a serious issue on our servers that caused major issues with how our servers were running. In relation to this ARK install I want to make things easier for our admins to manage the server so I will be looking at a new way of integrating ARK in to our panel. This will take a few days in it self of testing to ensure everything works as intended. Please again remain patient we will be working very hard on this when I get back so JR ARK will exceed your expectations and be a way better experience than in the past few weeks

In relation to the current plan half seemingly going ahead. Could I ask what 3 mods you guys think we should have on the reset, We will start with 3 mods (as long as the management team agrees). Please let me know your thoughts on the 3 most valuable mods. We will add more in the future. Please note also we will be highly looking at these mods for any issues, if they have any issues they will not be used on JR

We can attempt to spawn in but we can not guarantee exact like for like levelling, this is due to ARK, not us. Also in relation to this we will have to create a topic that users can put screen shots of their 5 or so chosen Dinos to keep.

As users were unable to change their vote on the Poll if you'd like to change your vote to enable us to move forward please post a yes or no below and any other queries or requests in relation to this so we can move forward with a improved finalised plan

I do agree with @Snowball I like the idea, but i have been contacted by some players that have joined us due to the fact we don't regularly restart the maps

This idea would also transfer any possibly corrupted dino's/items. I'm sure we could spawn dinos in with mutators or help to get it back to that level?