FAQs

As the Admin, I get to read through Global Chat often.  There appear to be a number of recurring questions from new folks.  Allow me to save you the time of having to log into our server if these answers do not satisfy you.

Q: What is Ark?

A:  It is a poorly-coded game based upon an engine that powered many games from the last decade.  This "quality" coding will in turn make you mad and tear at your hair or scream profanities into your headset at your buddies who are just as frustrated as you.  It also provides me with a full-time job administering its deficiencies.  Oh, it's also got some dinosaurs and survival elements, too.

Q: What is "TMC" Ark?

A:  It's a bit of a self-serving extension of my online persona.  I am Maestro.  This is my cluster of servers.  As I'm quite confident there aren't any other Maestro clusters, I used the definitive "The" to describe it, hence The Maestro Cluster [for] Ark.  My original friends who came to play this game back in Vanilla wanted to be able to find it in the list of Unofficial servers which is when I gave it the name.  It worked then, it works now.  Why change it?

Q: What?!? No Mods?!?!?

A:  No, there are no mods installed.  There are no mods that I plan to install.  Mods are not always updated as frequently as the Devs push out updates (especially major ones).  This leads to a situation where there is a lag time impacting the player base as a whole because broken mods break servers, and in turn break you of the desire to log in which means that I end up with a ghost server.

Q.  I get that, but why no S+?

A.  S+ is a wonderful mod.  At one point, many months ago (pre-Aberration), I made the decision to allow S+ on the servers.  Right about that time, the Devs realized that S+ was addressing some glaring deficiencies in their game code (which it is highly unlikely they will ever fix).  They, in turn, announced that they would put some of the elements of S+ into the base game.  A more significant reason why I do not have S+ on the servers is because it makes you lazy.  The servers are already 5x-10x in most respects.  I get that there are some QoL issues that S+ addresses, but they do not outweigh the issue that mods in general present (which I addressed in the question before this one).

Q.  Why can't I gamma?  Officials let me gamma!

A.  Officials suck.  Be honest with yourself.  That's why you're looking at joining our server.  There are horrible issues on officials that may never be addressed - the core of which is the population of a**holes they cater to.  But, I digress.  Remind yourself that this is a survival game.  And in a survival game, you do have some limitations.  One of which is an inability to see in the dark.  Remember that first time your heart began racing because something jumped out at you in the darkness and mauled your face?  Yeah.  That's survival.  And naturally, you should be afraid of the dark.

Q.  Why did my character/tribe name change?

A.  It probably violated our wonderful rule set.  Which can be accessed here.  Generally, I like to operate in the background with subtle reminders that I am watching and nudging to correct when you go astray.  If you need something less subtle, I do have a nice ban hammer.

Q.  Can I advertise on your server?

A.  No.  Unless it is advertisement for sending money to me to help support the server.  You can spam that once a day.  If you decide to advertise another server, you will be banned.  Go poach people from Officials, they are always looking for a reason to leave.