Community Crunch 355: ARK Roadmap, EVO Event, and More!

Radio silence about the game from all devs and community managers for about a week (some, almost 2 weeks). 
 

And absolutely nothing said about this announcement since it was posted. 
 

It seems as though these decisions were made by Snail and even the devs aren’t on board. 

Edited April 2, 2023 by Joebl0w13

On 3/31/2023 at 11:33 PM, darkradeon said:

http://web.archive.org/web/20230331222837/https://twitter.com/jeremystieglitz/status/1617365411510554624

 

This

On 3/31/2023 at 11:25 PM, Vaiks said:

If you're surprised/upset/etc by the delay you must be new to all this ARK/WC thingy...

Not upset or surprised, just…

disappointed.

I'm so annoyed I replied to the wrong person. my bad

Edited April 2, 2023 by Sativa420
replied to wrong quote

On 3/31/2023 at 3:25 PM, Vaiks said:

If you're surprised/upset/etc by the delay you must be new to all this ARK/WC thingy...

this is so much more than just a delay--- closing ark official for a new improved version they're charging us for.

we all expected ark 2 delay it's WC. But the rest is BS.

On 4/1/2023 at 7:49 PM, CosmicSkeleton said:

Man, wildcard really just sat back and assumed everyone on official was a mindless consumer who'd shell out money for a product they already own but prettier and thank them for deleting nearly a decade of hard work. You guys vastly, and I do mean VASTLY overestimate the value of this game if you think that'll fly for all but the most diehard braindead ark stans. What next, rhyniognatha will be exclusive to ASA?

The funny thing is that everyone who plays official plays on lowest settings possible for less lag we don't care about how good the dinos looks 

Edited April 2, 2023 by Sarfaraz69

45 minutes ago, Joebl0w13 said:

Radio silence about the game from all devs and community managers for about a week (some, almost 2 weeks). 
 

And absolutely nothing said about this announcement since it was posted. 
 

It seems as though these decisions were made by Snail and even the devs aren’t on board. 

The same holding company of publisher that decided to quit mobile version support that alone worth 4 to 6 millions income per year (hard to estimate precise, but you can get an idea between average license solds of PC, average license prices difference and remove all this from 2021 income) despite all the issues and the non-existent support? If they cared about server costs they would have reviewed them every year to see what to cut and what to keep, how to better setup them (ie server settings) to allow more people in the same server playing in a better way and so requiring less servers... The same company that made in 2022 additional 4 millions of administrative costs compared to 2021? The same holding parent publisher company that invests less in research&development (aka ark2 development and switch porting)  than this additional administrative costs? 3ml in development vs 22.3 (16.4 in 2021) millions in administration? If they cared about income they would have made different choices. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2023/03/29/2637127/0/en/Snail-Inc-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-Full-Year-2022-Financial-Results.html

Edited April 2, 2023 by darkradeon

Only been playing this since late 2019, but I enjoyed every map I played on official (legacy), mostly for the people I played with, and got to know a little, sharing stuff as time went on etc.

Im very disappointed by the recent decisions that have been given to us via this roadmap. for players that come from official servers - and I guess thats more or less the majority of the ark gaming community - this feels like being kicked out of the door and left in the cold

without wanting to go into detail (thats been done by all the posts already typed down in this thread), I just feel as if the people that are in charge of the making of decisions, have no idea about who the gaming community really is, and what they have evolved to in a long peroid of gaming together
still, I cant help but feel the urgent need to post my thoughts here aswell, maybe to give this reflection by the community a very tiny bit more weight by just doing so

for the moment I believe neither saturday nor sunday are office times for anybody in charge to respond to all those posts.. but I am hoping that they will do so during the next working week, even though Im not holding my breath for it

good luck ya'll

So I have been contemplating upgrading from a PS5 to a PC for a while now and was wondering if anyone would know about what the Spec requirements might be for Ark: Survival Ascended? I figure this thread would be the place to have those.

14 minutes ago, Nonow237 said:

So I have been contemplating upgrading from a PS5 to a PC for a while now and was wondering if anyone would know about what the Spec requirements might be for Ark: Survival Ascended? I figure this thread would be the place to have those.

at least an RTX 2060 according to Epic to run decently basic rendering features of UE5. UE5 can run also in DX11 mode but it is considered deprecated and will be tossed off a day, plus it doesn't run on lumen and other stuff due nanite and dynamic virtual shadows compatibility and performance (since 5.1). The last 5.2 cool preview, that was still far from being rock solid performance, was running with an expensive RTX 4090. I don't expect ARK2 to be more optimized than basic UE5 rendering at all (at least using same rendering features).

 

edit: here are hardware and software requirements for UE 5.1 and related features https://docs.unrealengine.com/5.1/en-US/hardware-and-software-specifications-for-unreal-engine/

 

edit2: in 5.1 nanite isn't supported anymore in DX11 mode at all.

https://docs.unrealengine.com/5.1/en-US/unreal-engine-5.1-release-notes/

Quote

• Fully removed Nanite and Virtual Shadow Map SM5 vendor extension, lockbuffer hack, and DX11 support from UE5

 

Edited April 2, 2023 by darkradeon

Dear Ark Development Team,

 

I was deeply disappointed to hear the recent announcement that you will be shutting down all official servers for Ark: Survival Evolved. As someone who has invested over 1000 hours into the game, I cannot express how devastating this news is for me and many other players.

 

I understand that managing servers can be expensive and time-consuming, but this decision feels like a betrayal to your loyal player base. Many of us have spent countless hours building our bases, taming our dinosaurs, and exploring the vast world of Ark. To have all of that effort and time go to waste is truly disheartening.

 

As someone who earns around 20 euros per hour, I can't help but feel like this decision is a massive waste of time and money. Assuming the average player earns around 15 euros per hour, the collective hours spent playing Ark likely amounts to millions of euros. To shut down all official servers and erase all of that progress and investment is simply unacceptable.

 

I urge you to reconsider this decision and find a way to keep the official servers running for your dedicated player base. If this decision stands, I fear it will irreparably damage the trust and loyalty of many Ark players.

6 hours ago, Scoffy said:

Ark Ascended - Why will it cost money for this previously stated "free upgrade"?

At the end of 2022, Snail Inc launched on the NASDAQ. In their registration statement, the first risk factor listed was:

Fast forward six months, and after an initial starting price of $3.00, SNAL currently sits at $1.33.

Additionally, Snail Inc. recently released their Fourth Quarter & Full Year 2022 Financial Results, a key highlight being:

While the initial plan by Wildcard may have been to offer the upgrade free, decreasing revenues from the self-proclaimed 'dependent franchise' and a prolonged delay before Ark 2 hits the shelves (see you in 2025) may have resulted in some prompting (or pushing) from Snail Inc to monetise the upgrade.

The cash grab might not directly be Wildcard's fault, but it's what happens when a company becomes a subsidiary to another who doesn't neccessarily share their values.

Another amusing risk factor as part of the registration statement:

Good luck with making those decisions Studio Wildcard! Full statement from the SEC website can be found here "https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1886894/000110465922100894/tm2128835-10_drsa.htm#tSUM" and Forth Quarter Financial Results here "https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2023/03/29/2637127/0/en/Snail-Inc-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-Full-Year-2022-Financial-Results.html" 

Unreal Engine 5

So ARK 2 is significantly delayed due to complexities of the UE5 engine, and "new technologies". The main question i have is therefore, why is Ark Ascended going to be ready in a mere four months?  Or will it be a buggy, laggy, unmitigated disaster, and essentially a paid test server for Ark 2?

Disclaimer - Everything above is speculation on my part, and has potentially no basis in truth or fact.

I'm not sure how to like but this was probaby the best post on here so far as it explains so much about the decision to charge again and likely other monetary decisions in the future as money after all comes first, profit for the shareholders is a must no matter the punishment on the payerbase! Thanks so much for this info, its just a shame it will be ignored by so many!

So.. if you're shutting down the servers we have now when Ascended comes out.. Doesn't that mean you plan on using these same poopball servers for your "New Game".

 

I really feel like these guys are trying to run us all off and burn the game to the ground at this point.

For over two months ArkSE was being sold along with the suggestion that a remaster would be included. Does this amount to a case of fraud?

2 hours ago, darkradeon said:

The same holding company of publisher that decided to quit mobile version support that alone worth 4 to 6 millions income per year (hard to estimate precise, but you can get an idea between average license solds of PC, average license prices difference and remove all this from 2021 income) despite all the issues and the non-existent support? If they cared about server costs they would have reviewed them every year to see what to cut and what to keep, how to better setup them (ie server settings) to allow more people in the same server playing in a better way and so requiring less servers... The same company that made in 2022 additional 4 millions of administrative costs compared to 2021? The same holding parent publisher company that invests less in research&development (aka ark2 development and switch porting)  than this additional administrative costs? 3ml in development vs 22.3 (16.4 in 2021) millions in administration? If they cared about income they would have made different choices. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2023/03/29/2637127/0/en/Snail-Inc-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-Full-Year-2022-Financial-Results.html

Ya I read all their quarterly reports. Some interesting finds in there sometimes. 

16 hours ago, CosmicSkeleton said:

That's a lot of anger for someone with such a pathetically poor understanding of the issue. It sounds like you're  mostly just mad at alpha tribes wiping you and projecting the idea that everyone upset is part of that alpha group rather than people that hate the fact that 7 years (if you can't into math that's roughly 2,556 days, 61, 349 hours, or 4,504,800  minutes including a leap year) of work will go down the drain with no way to fight it while being told to re-purchase the product they already own to start from zero.

So much irony in this post I'm not sure where to begin!

Ok first I agree with everyone saying the decision to charge money again stinks, its all wrong but a post from another user explains why the decision has been made to rip the player base off again. Its been done by so many gaming companies in the past and people will still mindlessly pay again and again, theres a reason the term cashcow came about! WC have proven time and time again they are no different, they know there are far to many people willing to pay money again no matter how much they are mugged off, its why there are so many scammers out there! Charging whats basically full price and then charging extra for the DLC's is why NO ONE SHOULD BUY IT AGAIN! PLEASE DO NOT BUY IT! If you do then you have no right to complain as you are part of the reason they do this!

Ok on to your point about "Alphas" & "Anger" Frustration 100% but not anger and if you cannot see why then it shows your ignorance so I'll explain it a bit better just for you!

A solo, duo or small tribe joins an official server which seemingly looks low to no population only to be wiped either within hours or maybe if lucky a few weeks by an alpha or mega with nothing better to do or just scared that this small tribe will wipe their vast base and highly bred dinos if given longer than an hour to build! THIS HAPPENS ALL THE TIME, there is so much evidence of this it should be clear to anyone! What this causes is the player base to diminish each time this happens due to players realising that its pointless to even attempt to build on official anymore, this causes the servers to slowly die, WC see that the servers are slowly dieing which gives them a part excuse to be able to wipe servers due to no one using them. What part of this you dont understand is beyond me, its literally self defeating! It also proves the ignorance of the playerbase on Ark PVP now.

PVP as explained so many times by some far better than me does NOT mean kill everyone and everything. You build a community to keep servers alive. Imagine if players were allowed to build up and more people joined, more servers fill back due to more players coming back, it makes it harder for WC to wipe those servers for good, the exact opposite is happening daily so its obviously part fault of idiot big tribes that decisions like wiping are made. "Empty servers" Its why Ark when first released was so good, people understood to a point that having high pop servers worked.

Ok now some of you are anoyed that you will loose all those hours you put into breeding etc, I have one question:- How long do you expect WC to keep servers alive? Forever? it was always going to come to an end but I admit the time given is disgusting! Some of you also think that you should be allowed to take all that work over to ASA! All of the above shows why that would be a major mistake, bring out an updated Ark just for cretins to kill servers by not allowing anyone to build on them, yea no thanks!

The only way I can see for the above to happen is to cluster the most populated servers, say anything with an average of 10 players over the previous month (there are far to many empty maps or low populated ones to port them all) and then port them over but not allow them to in anyway affect new servers, make them legacy if you will! You get to keep your hard work for longer and new updated graphics but are not given the opportunity to crossover any characters or tames to new servers. This keeps the old player base happy and the new player base atleast get a chance to build up without dipsticks with level 450 dinos wiping their wooden bases!

Money decision WRONG on all accounts!
Decision to wipe in part correct but in part wrong for obvious reason but hey its only a game and it doesn't matter! Isn't that true BSM! You know who you are 😁

So no not anger but frustration! Reasons why above

18 minutes ago, doverbeach said:

suggestion

Key word. You can suggest all you want. That's not fraud. 

37 minutes ago, Aldain420 said:

S.. if you're shutting down the servers we have now when Ascended comes out.. Doesn't that mean you plan on using these same poopball servers for your "New Game".

It doesn't mean that at all. They didn't say they are repurposing servers for the new game. They just said they are shutting down the current servers. If you take that literally, it means they are not re-using the same servers. 

2 hours ago, darkradeon said:

The same holding company of publisher that decided to quit mobile version support

They aren't quitting mobile. They are bringing out a new version of the mobile game. 

Guess I am pirating both the remaster and Ark 2!

Arrr, Maties.

7 minutes ago, Joebl0w13 said:

Key word. You can suggest all you want. That's not fraud. 

Haha ffs I doubt the semantics of my wording would have any bearing. However, an announcement by a 'lead designer/programmer & cocreative director of ARK: Survival Evolved, cofounder StudioWildcard' could be very relevant.

14 minutes ago, Joebl0w13 said:

They aren't quitting mobile. They are bringing out a new version of the mobile game. 

they say they will reboot it. in the meantime the game is basically dead outside solo and private games.

they said a lot of things for sure.

Edited April 2, 2023 by darkradeon

So u  will sunset servers

ARK 1  in 2023

ARK AS 2024 when ARK2 launch ?

ARK 2 ?

please give love to controller UI design to improve a lot of QOL 

like tools with radial menu or<in> any shortcut item in inventory with less micro management

example with good design + ui for inventory management in the game you can look into it
monster hunter world + rise
red dead redemption 2
no man sky for easier inventory management in grid [ like you're planing controller gamepad cursor ]

thank you 

13 minutes ago, darkradeon said:

they say they will reboot it. in the meantime the game is basically dead outside solo and private games.

they said a lot of things for sure.

Sounds a lot like another game doesn't it.