I would have never bothered to put in 200hrs into the game (much less 2500 that I have) if not for this option.
@Jagar I don’t believe you are seeing duping or exploits. You vastly under estimate the ability of players working together to build and gather. I can honestly tell you it is greater than the sum. Just having one other person makes gathering even simple mats like stone and wood a ton faster.
Then you have the ability to gather exotic mats with very much more efficiency. To give an idea, this castle structure was built in about 24 hours after a server wiped and came online:
That was made by only 2 people in that time. No hacks, no cheats, no exploits. Just coordinating delegation of building and material gathering. Now imagine what 3-4 or more could do? Hell I’d even say those focusing primarily on PVP and not aesthetics could do better than what is pictured.
Also large clans have the benefit of not being screwed with. Which means they don’t have to restock, they don’t have to rebuild. Anything they gather goes right back into building bigger and better structures. So after a week, or two, or a month… it just gets exponentially bigger and massive.
But as stated in the quote, you have private servers if you’re looking for something a little more ‘sane’.
You see the Official servers are without limits. You can build as big as you want, wherever you want, and as much as you want. For a solo player it means you will feel boxed in by larger groups. Even with no hacks, no exploits, no bugs, you will still get boxed in.
When you play on private servers, the individual servers’ rules will mitigate that by limiting claim areas or even how you may raid someone. This means efforts going towards building vaults of explosives are done to other endeavors. Usually a bit of aesthetics in the buildings. And why not? If you can’t spend days and days building multiple and larger and larger structures, why not make the ones you have look nice?
And since in many cases you cannot be offline raided, you don’t have to spend measures of time and resources to defend against that sort of thing. Though there is one slight downside. PVPers on these servers are quite a bit more skilled against an active opponent due to the focus being online interaction rather than scoping each other out during offline times.
Personally if I were to play on an official, I would do it with no less than 2 other friends. Those friends would need to be very active (at least as much as I am). Then I would feel comfortable about making a dent in things. As things stand now, you can’t as a solo player. You need to play private on a server with rules that protect solo players.
Without that, what chance you got? You’re at the whim of those who have those massive structures. Who demand tribute that you can’t hope to pay. Some people thrive as solo players. But @Jagar you are not one of those. You see they have no qualms about losing stuff. To them equipment is just a tool, another mat they can gather.
To you, and many like you. Your gear and equipment is your accomplishment. Its a symbol of everything you’ve done. When that is taken from you, what else do you have left? To these other people, their fame and infamy is their accomplishment. Every sword or spear they lose can be remade. Every armor piece replaced.
There’s nothing wrong with associating buildings and gear as your accomplishments. But you need to rethink how and where you are playing to be compatible with that sort of playstyle and philosophy.
