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

17 minutes ago, Xvixx said:

Still waiting for the "Aprill fools !!" part ...

Still awaiting a human response from anyone at wildcard/snail I think they are in their shells.

7 hours ago, Joebl0w13 said:

It might be because Snail Inc is in trouble:

https://www.aaii.com/investingideas/article/24787-is-snail-inc-snal-stock-a-good-investment

https://www.pocketgamer.biz/news/80852/voxpop-games-brings-on-studio-wildcard-founder/

Lets hope Snail will sell the Ark franchise along with the great Studio Wildcard to another major company as part of cutting losses.

We got clear answers of the situation here inside official
Snail, Inc. Reports Fourth Quarter (of 2023) & Full Year 2022 Financial Results:

https://investor.snail.com/news-releases/news-release-details/snail-inc-reports-fourth-quarter-full-year-2022-financial

Weird think is that they are surprised that they have decreases when literally nothing has appeared in ARK in 2022. If you don't care about the playerbase, don't expect profits.

Edited April 4 by slejo

On 4/3/2023 at 3:30 PM, Joebl0w13 said:

It's also not that simple. More than half of Ark is custom C++ code. It's not just using the UE4 framework. So I direct simple port like you are suggesting isn't on the table. 

I didn't say simple though. Simple is very different to 'not possible' and in their very own words the groundwork had already been done in the Switch version. 

The reality is it could have been done and they could have charged say $5-$10 for a patch upgrade for their PS4/Xbox customers and given how numerous they are, the income would have still been very high. Sure, the visuals and performance would not be that much better on the older hardware (same seen on Fortnite UE5 version on those systems), but that would have meant nobody was being left out/behind and could still share mods, cross play etc so would be reasonable to pay for it. Plus no loss of servers etc...

Would this mean more time to get it done? Yes. Would it have been better for the customers? Yes. Would it have meant not releasing a full priced game in ARK2's place and profiting the same keeping stocks higher? Yes. And that is ultimately the choice made. 

Plus, I see a lot of content creators defending the $50 price as effectively getting two for one while avoiding the obvious fact that PS customers pay 80% of that price for one game(how's that math working?). And lastly that the vast majority of the console Ark customers do have the old consoles and are being shut out. I'm sure if they could have afforded it and it was possible they would have upgraded and will now be left behind. 

There is one obvious downside I can really see. If you didn't do the upgrade for all the DLCs before releasing the patch, those would become unplayable unless you run both side by side until the DLCs are also remastered. So one could say the 'remaster' is away to go around this. But, what kind of remaster have you seen that doesn't include the already released DLC in the base price? And this is not a 'TLoU' type remaster when all the assets/animations have been re-done from the ground up that we're talking about. If it was a remake ( like Daemon's Souls) with all new assets/animations/gameplay, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

And one last thing. Why aren't they doing one bundle for Xbox/PC and a separate one for ASA ON LAUNCH DAY do you think? Because anyone who buys it over that first year will be counted and touted to be a pre-order boosting the numbers for the shareholders etc.

No, anyway you cut it, this is an anti consumer move that could have been handled far better

Edited April 4 by KingOfAshes

I get it, they need to eat and relying on Ark 1 sales (8 year old game) which they basically give away for free now isn't enough to support development until 2024 or further.

What is suspect is not allowing one to buy ASA separate and also charging for DLCs we already paid for.

Sell ASA as a standalone game with all the DLC included.

We have no idea if we will even like Ark 2 as the game doesn't exist yet. Doesn't make sense for force us to buy it.

Fresh servers will defn revitalize the community and full cross-platform support and mods is a welcome change.

It's extremely unusual that a company announces a game and doesn't even file a trademark or copyright for it. Hmm. And there is no "Studio Wildcard" or "Wildcard Studio" or "Wildcard Studios" registered in the United States. 

Edited April 4 by gonsec

I bet they'd finally address the player base disapproval to this idea by saying how much they value our feedback and after consideration they're a "generous gods" and they might drop requirement to rebuy DLCs again. They'd also say how much to listen to our feedback. Typical meaningless PR stunt from the game studios or the publishers. 

But let's be real people, this is also know as boiling a frog in a pot slowly (but I guess Wildcard decided to pour boiling water into the "pot" instead). Presenting terrible idea at first, then present a bit less terrible so it'd be easier to swallow. That tactic is as old as the world itself probably.

Edited April 4 by Lewiatan

Well I'm out..The way the rug is being pulled out from under us is even more of a reason not to buy into the UE5 version.. how long before that one gets shut down too?

Are they going to pull the plug on Ark UE5 the moment they release Ark2, because that seems to be the path they are taking, release a new game/version.. shut down the old one, we saw this with legacy servers, and we are seeing it again now.

How long after Ark 2 is released will that get shut down?

I will not pay twice for the same game, and again for every single DLC with a few extra bells and whistles, and anyone who does needs their head read.

Nor will I start from scratch and spend years rebuilding what I had only to have it nerfed again and again, every time they decide they want a few more dollars from us.

This is nothing but a desperate cash grab, one that many of us predicted would happen the moment WC started bragging about the long list of overpaid celebrities they bought on board for the cartoon series and Ark 2.

And then the fact that they are bundled as a packaged, effectively forcing us to buy both games, especially when ARK 2 seems like it's going to be a flop anyways.. terrible game mode ideas, unoriginal and copied control systems and content from other games, forced fight combo modes, forced 3rd person.. I've not seen a thing that makes me want to buy it so far, and bundling it with another game is only making me LESS likely to buy it, not more.

I don't think I've seen a single pre-order game that has met expectations, and no one should be pre-funding the development of a game they might not even like, If they know the game will sell no matter how bad the thing is upon release then they wont put the effort in, 

Remember No Man's Land?, Battlefield 4?, Diablo 3?

If your company relies on pre-orders to pay for development, there are clearly bigger issues at play here,

 

 

On 3/31/2023 at 6:33 PM, darkradeon said:

 

 

does this count for singleplayer save data to? carrying over from ark1 to ark ascended?

Edited April 4 by danlillis

wildcard  never buy another game... save the ofi or bye bye

 

On 4/2/2023 at 8:14 PM, gulik said:

So u  will sunset servers

ARK 1  in 2023

ARK AS 2024 when ARK2 launch ?

ARK 2 ?

I think they're still going to update ARK AS even after ARK 2 will be released. After all, PS players won't be able to play ARK 2, so...

Hey! Wildcard! Just make one way transfer of character (from ARK Survival Evolved to ARK: Survival Ascended) with his gamedata (limit 20-40 items), and after this start close official servers during 3-6 month. 

This variant will arrange most players

Esto es una burla y una auténtica vergüenza por parte de una empresa, puedo entender que retarsen ark 2, y sinceramente no me preocupa, de momento lo único que tenemos de eso, es un Trailer y un poco de hipe, pero en serio, me importa una mierda yo miro por lo que tengo que es ark 1, bueno no, ya no, que tengo que recomprarlo si quiero jugarlo y aúnque lo haga no disfrutaré de el al máximo, entonces es un remaster o desastre, me lo compré el año pasado y ahora que me gustó tengo que comprarlo de nuevo EL MISMO JUEGO, SOLO POR PASAR LOS DATOS A UE5 pero esto que es?

1 hour ago, danlillis said:

does this count for singleplayer save data to? carrying over from ark1 to ark ascended?

Nothing from Ark: SE will carry over or transfer to Ark: A.

Unless something changes.

1 hour ago, TheMoschopsGuy said:

I think they're still going to update ARK AS even after ARK 2 will be released. After all, PS players won't be able to play ARK 2, so...

Until they don't.

26 minutes ago, Joebl0w13 said:

Until they don't.

I highly doubt they will be able to maintain 2 games at the same time with high standards. I question if they'd even be able to maintain a remastered game while there is ARK2 in active development that got delayed by 2 years already. 

This is worrying. 

On 4/4/2023 at 12:56 PM, Lewiatan said:

I highly doubt they will be able to maintain 2 games at the same time with high standards. I question if they'd even be able to maintain a remastered game while there is ARK2 in active development that got delayed by 2 years already. 

This is worrying. 

I simply don't trust a thing they say anymore. Starting back with the release of paid Scorched Earth while the game was still broken as hell in Early Access and again when they lied about how they would handle what ended up becoming legacy servers. Fool me once, fool me twice. Never again.

If I get released as a mod, it shouldn't surprise anyone at this point. We are told three things when we join up. Don't break the NDA, don't break forum rules, and we are allowed to speak our mind as any other user here. We'll see if that last part holds true.

EDIT: Over the years I've worked with a lot of great people here on the site and many WildCard staff members. A handful of mods have been hired by WC. These people are all awesome. They are also not the people making these decisions.

Edited April 6 by Joebl0w13

1 minute ago, Joebl0w13 said:

I simply don't trust a thing they say anymore. Started back with the release of paid Scorched Earth while the game was still broken as hell in Early Access and again when they lied about how they would handle what ended up becoming legacy servers. 

Fool me once, fool me twice. Never again.

I feel ya.
I joined on Early Access game when the game was released in 2015, I've seen everything Wildcard was capable to do or not. Varying from ingoring the community's needs who begged for fixes, poor communication, paid EA DLC, feature creep and ignoring to work on core game mechanics (do you wonder why server tick rates got so low as 4Hz at some point?). Constant delays.

I did want this game to be good, because there was no good Dino game on a market back then and now. However, when I realised this game is vast as an ocean and deep as a puddle I gave up. It felt great to get out from "Sunken Cost Fallacy" that this game uses soooo much to keep people playing. So I don't trust them either. 

Still no further word from them?

I'm trying hard to remain positive but as pointed out by others, we've seen nothing of ASA. What if it's a complete balls-up or their well intentioned 'improvements' break what we love about the game - and tbh anyone who has been around here for any amount of time knows that's highly likely, especially in the first few months.

They should have kept support up for Ark1 until ASA was at least established, let people see how great it is and move over naturally, then do a rolling shut down of official servers as the population dwindles, keeping a few Legacy++ up for posterity for those who's systems can't cope with UE5 or can't afford $90. Not everyone has a great PC or can afford to upgrade their console - in these times there's a lot more people in that boat than is usual.

I'm tempted to find some other game to play and just get ASA after the year's bundle offer is over - don't want Ark2 (a game I know absolutely nothing about apart from it's probably got some dinosaurs in it) and ASA which could be a nightmare (we've seen absolutely nothing of that either btw).

Meh.

 

2 minutes ago, Luizza said:

I'm tempted to find some other game to play and just get ASA after the year's bundle offer is over - don't want Ark2 (a game I know absolutely nothing about apart from it's probably got some dinosaurs in it) and ASA which could be a nightmare (we've seen absolutely nothing of that either btw).

Meh.

 

I've stopped playing. What's the point? It's all blasted in 4-5 months.

28 minutes ago, Luizza said:

Still no further word from them?

Nothing spoken about Ark (the game) from a dev on Twitter since the crunch. 

I don't monitor Discord (bleh), so I can't help there. 

So does this mean player dedicated servers will finally be available on PS4 and PS5, and XBOX for Genesis 1 and 2, Fjordur, and Crystal Isles? Player dedicated servers haven't been a thing since those maps were released. 

I'm not sure how to reply on this forum, but I mean on ARK 1. And if not, I really hope they have player dedicated servers on ASA. I'm so sick of that cursed host barrier on Non-dedicated servers ruining everything I try to do with my friends.

On 3/31/2023 at 7:01 PM, Kartix said:

Well Jeremy said this was going to be a free update if this is no a joke then im done with all of your games we dont know anything about ark 2 gameplay and if this unreal engine 5 update its not free then bye honestly after reading all these things i dont want to play anymore

Jeremy also had a no-business-agreement with Tandy.

in the end it cost WC $40mill and ever since Snail Games runs the party.

would i trust that guy ? not as far as i could possibly toss him

2 hours ago, Joebl0w13 said:

and we are allowed to speak our mind as any other user here. We'll see if that last part holds true.

Your confession is like a game changer to me. One of the hardest fundamentalist become apostate.
Welcome to the club!

 

BTW. Im still love Ark franchise, Im still play Ark, Im still believe WC is able to do great things. I just dont believe Snail games.. All started to get worse since they came. And they came (correct me if im wrong) after Extinction with Atlas. Wildcard Studios have true geniuses when it comes to game design but this artists deserve to have better management imho.

Edited April 4 by slejo

19 minutes ago, slejo said:

Your confession is like a game changer to me. One of the hardest fundamentalist become apostate.
Welcome to the club!

 

BTW. Im still love Ark franchise, Im still play Ark, Im still believe WC is able to do great things. I just dont believe Snail games.. All started to get worse since they came. And they came (correct me if im wrong) after Extinction with Atlas. Wildcard Studios have true geniuses when it comes to game design but this artists deserve to have better management imho.

Well I'm not a torch holder for the company, never have been. I love the game and I enjoy working with WC and offering my time to help with the forum. I understand software development and I understand a lot of what and why they do things. 

But this is business. Bad business. I speak up when I smell something. If you go back far enough you can catch me bitching about Scorched Earth before I was a mod.

Edited April 4 by Joebl0w13