PlaytimeRewards

PlaytimeRewards pays your players shop points for time online, with VIP group boosts and hour milestones that keep your regulars coming back for more.

Time on your server ought to be worth something. PlaytimeRewards counts every player's minutes and turns them into shop points on whatever schedule you pick. You set the pace and I keep the books. VIP groups earn a boost, hour goals drop a one time bonus with a shout across the server, and an idle check stops anybody farming points while they make a cup of tea. Totals live in a database, so a crash never wipes anybody's progress.

Supported Features

• Points for minutes: I pay each player points every set number of minutes they stay online, and you pick both numbers.
• A boost for your VIPs: map a Permissions group to a multiplier so your supporters earn faster, with a ceiling so a pile of groups cannot print money.
• Hour goals: a player passing an hour mark you set gets a one time bonus and a shout across the server.
• No paying the AFK: switch on the moving check and a player standing perfectly still earns no time toward their next payout.
• A playtime leaderboard: one command shows who has put the most hours into your server, which regulars rather enjoy.
• Their own numbers: a player can see time played, points earned and how long until the next reward.
• Almost nothing lost in a crash: the running counter is saved on a timer, when a player leaves, and when the plugin unloads, so a crash costs a minute at worst.
• SQLite or MySQL: SQLite needs no setup whatsoever, or point me at MySQL to share totals across a cluster.
• Discord on the milestones: an optional embed goes out each time somebody passes an hour goal.
• Quiet or chatty: the payout message in chat can be on or off, so the rewards can tick along silently.
• Your words, in your language: name the language in the config and the payout and milestone lines come from a plain text file you can edit, so your players read them properly.

Console & RCON Commands

Player Commands

The player command names live in config.json, so rename them or switch one off whenever you like.

Permissions

There is no node to hand out and no command is gated. Permissions does exactly one job here: it tells me which groups a player is in, so the VIP multiplier can pay your supporters more. With it missing or switched off, everybody simply earns the base rate and I carry on as normal.

Config

To see every configuration option, visit our docs. To edit your config files the easy way, open our configuration editor.

Requirements

• AsaApi v2.01 or newer
• A Windows server running ArkAscendedServer through the AsaApi loader
• ArkShop or WShop (optional, and time is still counted while both are away)
• Permissions (optional, works without it, and everybody earns the base rate)
• MySQL (optional, works without it, since SQLite is built in and needs no setup)

Installation

1. Unzip the download so you end up with a PlaytimeRewards folder.
2. Drop that folder into ArkApi/Plugins/. AsaApi loads a plugin only when the folder name and the DLL name match, so leave the name alone.
3. Open PlaytimeRewards/config.json and set your interval, your points, your VIP group and your hour goals.
4. Want MySQL or Discord? Fill in those blocks. SQLite runs with no setup at all.
5. Restart the server and check ArkApi.log for the loaded line.

Support & Help

Setup fights back sometimes. Bring your question to the Discord and I will get you sorted: https://discord.gg/8GGaEzWk9p

Frequently Asked Questions

What does PlaytimeRewards do?

PlaytimeRewards pays your players for the time they spend on your server. It counts each player's minutes and hands over shop points on the schedule you set, with a bigger rate for VIP groups and one time bonuses when somebody passes an hour goal.

How do I install PlaytimeRewards?

Unzip the download and drop the PlaytimeRewards folder into ArkApi/Plugins/, keeping the folder name so it matches the DLL. Set your interval and points in config.json, then restart the server through the AsaApi loader and watch ArkApi.log for the loaded line.

Does time still count without ArkShop?

Yes. PlaytimeRewards keeps counting everybody's minutes and totals either way. Points only move when a shop is there to hold them, and that can be ArkShop or WShop, whichever one your server already uses. The day you install one the payouts begin, and nobody has lost the time they already put in.

Can players farm points by standing still?

Not with the moving check on. I look at each player's position every second, and one who does not move earns no time toward the next payout. You set how far they have to move to count as awake.

What happens to progress when the server crashes?

Very little is lost. The running counter is written to the database on a timer, when a player leaves and when the plugin unloads, so after a crash a player picks up within about a minute of where they were.

Can a milestone bonus pay twice?

No. The database remembers the last milestone each player reached, so an hour goal pays its bonus once and once only. A restart, or even a reinstall on the same database, will not hand out old bonuses again.

Was any AI content used in the making of this?

The source code itself was fully created by myself. I do use ChatGPT occasionally to generate product images, and I do use ChatGPT to generate the website descriptions. I do this because I don't speak native English perfectly. I am natively from Sweden, so I use GPT to help translate and write product descriptions. I also will sometimes use GPT to write better English logs. Majority of my Free plugins are open source, so you can review the code yourself and freely fork and edit it to your liking.