Ranked vs Unranked

To expand a bit on Zak’s post in regards to item quality, he brought up the definition of a ranked server as:

Ranked Server: a server running unmodified code with VAC enabled

Obviously, this will mean an unranked server is one that runs modified code (probably with VAC enabled, who joins servers without it?).

What exactly are the benefits to a ranked server? Ranked, in my experience, typically applies to the competitive elements of a game, so the terminology here is a little confusing. I’m not sure what part of the game, if any, is competitive, and how they will translate to either ranked or unranked servers.

What exactly is considered unmodified code? Does this mean strictly genuine items (as in no Workshop material whatsoever) or the base game itself is unchanged?

Also, will all ranked servers be officially hosted by PixelTail, or can they be independently hosted?

Thanks!

From the FAQ:

How will hosting work?

We will be hosting a couple official servers of our own, but you’ll be able to host Tower Unite servers yourself!

That’s right, host your own Tower server!

There’s two types of servers:
• Ranked: Saves progress across all Ranked servers and distributes Units (our in-game currency).
• Unranked: Saves progress on its own server, doesn’t distribute Units, but allows for complete customization of the gameplay.

You’ll also have a slew of moderation tools built in to handle players to enforce your own rules. With your own servers you can even create your own items and accessories, ranked or unranked!

Thanks for that! Always in the most obvious places you neglect to check :wink:

Now, my understand of that is that there will be no Units available in Unranked mode. That’s not particularly good to hear, because, though I’d like further customization, I’d also want to earn Units as normal through gameplay.

Can a developer confirm whether or not there will be a healthy medium between the two? I’d like to hope there is.

I feel like the FAQ means that if there are Units handed out in the Unranked servers, they will only be on that server, and will not sync to other servers.

That actually makes the most sense, and what I’d go for, but the way the wording is, that’s not quite what it says. It seems more like Units will be unnecessary as there’s free everything (sort of like a Creative mode for TU) with the “complete customization of the gameplay”.

Allowing Unranked servers to determine whether or not Units are used would also be neat, if that’s not already the case.

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Yeah, I think if the server host wants their unranked server to be “infinite units” or something, they can totally do that.
But then, would you be able to decorate your condo with the furniture you bought from that server? After all, the condo is a separate instance from server. Would it somehow know to mark those furniture items as non-genuine?

Yes. Anything earned from an unranked server will be considered non-genuine.

Read:

Yeah, that’s cool, just as long as there’s a way to obtain units regularly as well.

@macdguy Can you clarify what the plan is for this?

@macdguy clarify pls

You get units, but they aren’t the same as ranked units. Ranked units are stored on Steam inventory. Unranked units would be stored on the unranked server itself.

We might consider new terminology for unranked currency to avoid confusion.

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Oh, no! That explains it perfectly! Thanks a bunch! Perhaps unranked currency could be relabelled depending on the server and, as a whole, just be referred to as unranked.

I can understand the need for separate units. I’m glad that you can still acquire them on Unranked servers, since they would end up being pretty dull without being able to work for anything.

inb4 next community poll is names for unranked credits.

So is there an indicator to display whether a server is vanilla or not or are all ranked servers vanilla? Also the currency change sounds like a good idea.

I’m going to assume so. Tower Unite has a pretty damn nice server browser right now, and there will certainly have to be an indication as to whether or not a server is ranked.