Community Crunch 356: ARK Roadmap Update, Rhyniognatha Concept, and More!

On 4/7/2023 at 7:17 PM, Tiddlywinkly said:

This price point isn't great but it's better than before and at least more reasonable, people need to remember that ASA isn't just an upgrade anymore but a remaster. No decent remaster and definitive edition (which is what ASA should've been from the start) is gonna be free, especially with all current dlc included.

The difference is that most companies OFFER a remastered version, not force it down your throat by shutting off servers so you don’t have a choice. Yes companies stop supporting their servers eventually but it is typically years after they have already released the new and remastered games.
 

This turned purely into a money grab. They realize they are changing Ark II so much that their current community will not be completely happy (they stated We also recognize that ARK 2 has some pretty significant design changes from the original game, which may not make it as appealing to everyone (looking at you, Souls-like combat, primitive-only weaponry, and strict third-person mechanics – and an overall “very serious” tone), which is why we feel it is essential to provide players with a fully next-gen version of the original experience to ensure that fans can continue to enjoy the ARK they know for years to come. ) The delay of Ark II is going to cost them money as well. So they thought two birds one stone. Release a remastered version for current fans because a portion of the community is not going to like/support Ark II and charge for the remastered to keep money flowing in the meantime. Actually not a bad move on their part, until they decided that people will not have the option to upgrade. It’s either give us more money to continue to play (and still lose all of your stuff) or stop playing/play solo/pay us monthly to play. 

I honestly think the community would have better received all of this if:

1. ASA was offered as multiple different bundles - one with dlc and one with Ark II. So people can choose what fits best with their interests.

2. ASA was announced, but keeping ASE servers up so people can make the choice to upgrade or not (at least for a period of time).

3. ASA upgrade price gets modified to lower amount appropriate for only updating current content. Lots of people talking about willing to pay $30 to $40 for update and all dlcs. 
 

This way the players wouldn’t have felt so forced. There would be time for transition. WC can still make money to carry over for Ark II. Players would stop feeling like they are paying a brand new game price for a game they already own, rather it would be seen as an upgrade fee. 
 

I can’t think of a single time I’ve seen a game that has told their current players “hey, in 4 months we are shutting the servers you are currently on, off. You will only be able to play on official on a new game that comes out the same month, that you haven’t seen yet”. Companies are always announcing non-support or server shutdowns but it is years after launching their new title and giving players ample time to transition.

Just get the Xbox game pass for 10 dollars for a month. See how bad the game is then still have 29 days and 8 hours to play other better games.

Easy fix wild card. Make it 40$ with all dlcs. Sunset servers as they die not all at once. Make ark 2 early access late 2023 or early 2024 for 30$. Your putting all this money into ark 2 what if it flops like atlas? Do the smart thing and EA your product. Especially if you're changing so much like you did with atlas..... Release the full game for 60$ and rake in the money. Hell I would even be willing to put in another 30$ on launch from my initial 30$ if you did this...

Edited April 9, 2023 by RenFangs

9 hours ago, PikaSaurus said:

I agree with some of what yu said, but you're on crack if you think cross pla6form is bad

while I understand the wish of some players to play together and having different platforms this will face against the issue I pointed. This already happened in SOTF and between ARK Xbox and Windows Store players, all those issues. Account authentication issues also already happened in PC too with sometimes between Steam vs EGS players. It is math, adding more platforms will sum ("or" operation in probability/logic) the problems for each platform affected

Edited April 9, 2023 by darkradeon

14 minutes ago, darkradeon said:

while I understand the wish of some players to play together and having different platforms this will face against the issue I pointed. This already happened in SOTF and between Xbox and Windows Store players, all those issues. Account authentication issues also already happened in PC to with sometimes between Steam vs EGS players. It is math, adding more platforms will sum ("or" operation in probability/logic) the problems for each platform affected

Yep. Path of titans has cross platform official servers since a while now (and full cross platform mod support btw), and since that was introduced updates have slowed down a lot. Because it takes ages for them to go thru console verification and it can be hard to coordinate all platforms together. There have also been times where switch players were excluded from the official servers because there were some issues and switch ended up with a different version number of the game. This would be a big issue in a game like ark. The difference between controller and keyboard + mouse is also a big factor in ark, pc players have an advantage. And, depending on how they pull it off, crossplay might mean console players get to experience a whole new level of cheating.

I don't understand the need for ASA at all.  Just put all development effort into Ark 2.

In the meantime ASE has decent graphics and performs well on mid-range PCs and current gen consoles.  A complete UE5 remaster and trickling in content we already played over the next few years sounds like a complete waste of development time.

Edited April 9, 2023 by Hixbot

3 hours ago, darkradeon said:

while I understand the wish of some players to play together and having different platforms this will face against the issue I pointed. This already happened in SOTF and between ARK Xbox and Windows Store players, all those issues. Account authentication issues also already happened in PC too with sometimes between Steam vs EGS players. It is math, adding more platforms will sum ("or" operation in probability/logic) the problems for each platform affected

That's such a minor issue compared to the slew of benefits cross platform allows

YOU SAY "Initially, when we had first considered doing an Unreal 5 upgrade, we planned just to port the Switch version of the game and undo the ‘graphical’ limitations required for that hardware. We weren’t going to maximize the potential of the new technology, we weren’t going to introduce new gameplay changes, and we weren’t going to make critical design changes that would have had an impact on existing save data. " WELL you shouldn't have because people already enjoying ARK1 and graphics already fine but u guys greed for more money and players are not stupid we all can easly see that and almost half a year for realese SAME maps ??? wow your marketing awful you just lost so many players and that players do not buy ARK2 i promise you.    

It's a tough pill to swallow because they want a big lump sum for the whole bundle at once for content that won't be available until next year, instead of breaking it down into bite size chunks and charging us when the products become available.

It feels a very weird way of doing things to me. 

 

1 hour ago, Frael said:

It's a tough pill to swallow because they want a big lump sum for the whole bundle at once for content that won't be available until next year, instead of breaking it down into bite size chunks and charging us when the products become available.

It feels a very weird way of doing things to me. 

 

one main reason all DLC is  'still' not been available on day 1 is because I am 100% betting that they STILL need to convert it into UE5 (and i dont bet) im also saying right now that all the content that has been listed will NOT be included at launch (they got a little oppsie it will come out when its ready line).

16 hours ago, Frael said:

Uh, yes it is. It's a graphical update with some QoL additions. The core gameplay is still the same. Other than bases, all existing items, characters, and tames should carry over to ASA.

No. No it shouldn’t carry over. They literally said they’re fixing the code. Don’t buy it please. We don’t need any more complainers on the new game. 👎 Stay on boring stale ASE. Where there’s nothing to do because every useable dino is overpowered AF. Nothing is challenging. Bosses all done. BORING. It’s been 8 years. Move on. 

99% of my gameplay is on Gen2. I'm not paying $60 bucks to play it for a short amount of time before Ark 2 launches.

I hate the idea of Overwolf, but I understand it. You need it for cross platform. I get it. But I refuse to buy Ark 2 if there are paid mods. That will destroy the game and seriously cripple the community. Imagine private servers running all paid mods. Someone would have to buy them all just to play on that server. Nope. Not happening!

Oh and update that god awful Dev Kit. It's terrible!

Edited April 9, 2023 by gonsec

On 4/8/2023 at 1:59 AM, dgkforlife said:

pve is a joke. try fighting and defending and actually EARNING your way then having it all taken.

When should the servers shut down?

Suggestion for creature submission: please put the final round vote available only ingame or at least force the use of the survievetheark account login. Don't let other scammers, influencers powertripetc ruin this round.

Edited April 9, 2023 by darkradeon

2 hours ago, TimeBomb2003 said:

On 4/8/2023 at 7:59 AM, dgkforlife said:

pve is a joke. try fighting and defending and actually EARNING your way then having it all taken.

When should the servers shut down?

its been said a couple of times, how other companies or game publishers deal with it, and would have made perfect sense with this 1 too: have it running parallel to any successor before closing down servers of the existing game

3 hours ago, MissRin said:

No. No it shouldn’t carry over. They literally said they’re fixing the code. Don’t buy it please. We don’t need any more complainers on the new game. 👎 Stay on boring stale ASE. Where there’s nothing to do because every useable dino is overpowered AF. Nothing is challenging. Bosses all done. BORING. It’s been 8 years. Move on. 

u hold far far too much faith in WC to be able to 'fix' the code in 5 months (less now)

 

You do realise that the whole game is / was to breed better dinos for bosses / traveling farming etc so yeah used dinos get all the attention - EXACTLY the same will happen in asa it will just take a few months possibly years with some dinos and who even knows if asa is going to be still up and running when they 'finally' release ark2.

 

Just a added thought at no point in the games progress did anyone 'force' any OP dino onto you and say use this, so u could have done the same bred / mutated etc etc all by yourself (just see how long that takes)

 

AND if 8 years of doing bosses and raising op dinos is not for you any more dont buy asa either its clear you have had enough of the 'boring' game ......

On 4/7/2023 at 9:20 PM, LeoTheYutyrannus said:

Interestingly enough, while they are now saying it will not be transferable, judging by Jeremy's earlier tweet, I'm guessing it will still be possible to transfer over files from game to game by copying-and-pasting (although only for unofficial) unless they purposely screw the game up to prevent it.

I hope they think about this, many players play on singleplayer to enjoy the game their way and it would be unfair not to consider this types of players myself included because who would buy an upgraded version of the game if you can't play your progress you worked on day and night on the older version, they really should consider this.

Edited April 9, 2023 by Leosaurus

51 minutes ago, HotblackDesiato said:

its been said a couple of times, how other companies or game publishers deal with it, and would have made perfect sense with this 1 too: have it running parallel to any successor before closing down servers of the existing game

yes until a game sells well enough, closing servers is just a move to force people buy the new version. ARK SE still sells really well and userbase was really growing.. for sure until 1st of april. Based on Snail official documentation for shareholder 2022 was an amazing year about ARK players number, despite no more new paid content. The issue was only about lower prices (and no new content). Real income issues were beeing related about Snail administration costs that really rised a lot. There are also many ways to rise money without subscription and p2w: skins, char slots (which doesn't mean bypassing pvp char cooldown!) and I could add thinking about ark longer ark data uploads... sometimes also adding music OST but this wasn't even possibile on steam since it is bought now with the "ultimate" survivor bundle.

Edited April 9, 2023 by darkradeon

I am super excited about ASA. The price is good for a bundle with all the expansions. 
 

I have run a private server since 2016 and we all are looking forward to an updated Ark experience. 

This is significantly worse than it was before. Some people need to learn basic math skills. You traded out paying for 2 DLCs ($40), to giving up a bundled game with ASA (Ark 2 ~$60-$80). We have no evidence that ASA will be better than ASE, they haven't even mentioned server stability, pillaring, or duping concerns that have ruined ASE. At least before Xbox/PC players were paying $50 for ASA and Ark 2, then we had time to consider whether or not ASA was worth investing more into before the DLC came out. Now it's all upfront and no Ark 2 bundle. If ASA sucked at least you got Ark 2 in the bundle. ASE servers are still sunsetting. What exactly is the Ark community so proud of in this moment? I'm confused at the people saying this is a win lol. 

Edited April 9, 2023 by QueenAahlyia

On 4/8/2023 at 2:52 PM, Frael said:

Not if they shut down ASA servers when Ark 2 is released.

Except in the updated post they said the point of putting all the work into ASA instead of just porting over the switch version into ASE was so they could have an evergreen version of Ark 1 for YEARS to come...meaning they're making ASA so people who have no interest in buying Ark 2 will stay there (and still give them money via future DLCs).

On 4/7/2023 at 9:11 PM, Joebl0w13 said:

Starting over.

They should really reconsider this because that would make ASA a product for new players and those who play on official excluding those who play on unofficial and singleplayer. If they want ASA to be successful they need to listen to the community 

On 4/8/2023 at 4:43 PM, Duffmek said:

ok u seem to be misinformed .. those 'free' maps where designed by modders not working with WC and WC used them - also an upgrade to the game included a quite a few bits from a mod called S-plus and gave the creator nothing (afaik)

I am glad u had lots of enjoyment with your brother i have had similar with lots of friends and my own wife and son - and no there is afaik no game quite like this.

Dude, they PAID them for the mods. Several of them such as the guy that made S+, the guy that made the center map, and the crystal isles creators even hired by Wildcard. 
 

IIRC the center was bought for between 40&60k. 

37 minutes ago, Lucian said:

Dude, they PAID them for the mods. Several of them such as the guy that made S+, the guy that made the center map, and the crystal isles creators even hired by Wildcard. 
 

IIRC the center was bought for between 40&60k. 

but did no work to make them that was the point and i wasnt sure on the payment if any as i said (afaik) so ty for correcting me however i do remember some controversy with the S+ mod been used

1 hour ago, QueenAahlyia said:

This is significantly worse than it was before. Some people need to learn basic math skills. You traded out paying for 2 DLCs ($40), to giving up a bundled game with ASA (Ark 2 ~$60-$80). We have no evidence that ASA will be better than ASE, they haven't even mentioned server stability, pillaring, or duping concerns that have ruined ASE. At least before Xbox/PC players were paying $50 for ASA and Ark 2, then we had time to consider whether or not ASA was worth investing more into before the DLC came out. Now it's all upfront and no Ark 2 bundle. If ASA sucked at least you got Ark 2 in the bundle. ASE servers are still sunsetting. What exactly is the Ark community so proud of in this moment? I'm confused at the people saying this is a win lol. 

this, plus nobody pointed out if pve will have some decay times improvements (cables at 8 days really suck!)