No ‘ARK: Survival Evolved’ Server Wipe At Launch, Here’s What You Need To Know

The illicit duplication of items and tamed dinosaurs has become a major issue in ARK: Survival Evolved leading up to its August 8 official release. Studio Wildcard has wavered on its decision not to wipe existing official servers at launch, and the developer came up with a split decision Wednesday. The studio will go with a different solution to give new players fresh servers to experience while giving existing PS4, Xbox One, and PC players the option to hang out in their current homes, at least until those older servers die off.

Existing ARK: Survival Evolved official servers have many tribes who have used glitches to duplicate items and dinosaurs, some with dozens to hundreds of the most expensive items to craft. This has had a negative effect on the servers and sparked a massive debate in the game’s official forums and various Reddit communities. Studio Wildcard was going to wipe all servers, per a PC Gamer interview, but elected to split the existing PVE and PVP servers off into “Legacy” clusters while fresh server clusters without the various issues will be setup.

Studio Wildcard will also take steps to prevent future exploits at the same time the new ARK: Survival Evolved official servers are being deployed. New server code and other infrastructure changes will be introduced to prevent duping, DDoS attacks on servers, and exploits that cause server crashes.

How many new PVP and PVE servers will be created has not been confirmed yet. However, servers will be created for all four maps – The Island, The Center, Scorched Earth, and Ragnarok. Additionally, Legacy servers will be deployed for the free new Ragnarok map. This comes at a significant cost to Studio Wildcard.

“We’re basically looking at $100,000 per month additional to host the legacy servers, in addition to the $100,000 it costs a month to host the new servers. This is something we can afford as a successful company but it’s expensive and it’s non-trivial,” lead developer and studio co-founder Jeremy Stieglitz told PC Gamer.

There are also the support costs to take into account. Studio Wildcard will have to hire new employees and spend time monitoring and fixing the new servers.

Say “adios” to some servers

This does not mean every ARK: Survival Evolved server will survive. The game does have an issue with a number of servers with a non-active server population. Studio Wildcard plans to determine which servers have a near-zero active player population across the PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Ten percent of these low-population servers will be repurposed, or essentially wiped and added to the fresh server population.

The Legacy server population will be reviewed every three months to determine if any other servers with an inactive player base can be retired or repurposed. With a significant chunk of ARK players likely to move to the new servers and make the “Legacy” ones obsolete, this allows Studio Wildcard to performs shutdowns or wipes with little to no fuss from the community.

Those concerned about losing the bases, items, and tamed dinosaurs they’ve amassed on these servers will have a chance to revive them. The development team will hold on to the save files from these servers and make them available to download and use on private servers. As covered earlier, Studio Wildcard will allow PS4 and Xbox One players to rent their own private dedicated server at launch.

The ARK server breakdown

• Existing PVP and PVE servers on all platforms will be given the “Legacy” moniker.
• Ten percent of existing PVP and PVE servers with no player activity will be repurposed.
• New ARK: Survival Evolved official servers will be deployed at the official launch on August 8.
• Ragnarok servers will be deployed for both Legacy and new server clusters.
• There will be no transferring between Legacy servers and the new servers.
• Studio Wildcard will deploy fixes to prevent duping and other exploits.
• Players will not be able to transfer anything from “Legacy” ARK servers to new servers.
• The fate of “Hardcore” and isolated servers has not been determined.
• The save files of repurposed servers will be available for players to download for their own privately run servers.

[Featured Image by Studio Wildcard]