In an alternate reality

[Fealthion]

Why didn't anyone at WC have a plan for financing the servers long term, and when they realised the costs of keeping the existing playerbase's efforts intact why was no option made available?

An in game shop or a potential subscription model for servers would have worked (dividing hosting fees and support staff costs over all the legacy cluster). The hack, shock, and awe approach to existing players has meant what should have been a universally positive community has turned into a noose around WC's neck.

In the long run feedback can and will break a game or a developer (no mans sky has proven that) and I for one despair that it was just so unnecessary.

Depite my recent tone of negativity - I love this game, it had and still has the potential to be great, I just wish they would actually think a little ahead.

[jdizzy2010]

I would have no issues paying a monthly access fee for premium official servers. They would earn additional income which would help fund official servers and maybe they gain a little profit from it.  I would pay 15 us a month for that. 

[Orion]

42 minutes ago, Fealthion said:

Why didn't anyone at WC have a plan for financing the servers long term, and when they realised the costs of keeping the existing playerbase's efforts intact why was no option made available?

An in game shop or a potential subscription model for servers would have worked (dividing hosting fees and support staff costs over all the legacy cluster). The hack, shock, and awe approach to existing players has meant what should have been a universally positive community has turned into a noose around WC's neck.

In the long run feedback can and will break a game or a developer (no mans sky has proven that) and I for one despair that it was just so unnecessary.

Depite my recent tone of negativity - I love this game, it had and still has the potential to be great, I just wish they would actually think a little ahead.

I don't understand what you're getting at here.

Wild Card has never made an official statement relating or having to do with anything about "not being able to afford the servers."

They've made several statements that the now 'Legacy' Servers simply got out of hand, and exploits were abused far more often than Wild Card could put out a fix(es) for. Their decision to basically wipe the slate clean for full release was made to not only attract a new audience, but to allow veteran players to get a restart or continue doing what they've been doing either on Legacy servers or with the save in the Cloud.

To put it bluntly; if Wild Card had not opted to release new Servers upon full release, and instead made any and all potential new survivors attempt to do anything on the Legacy official servers, it would have deterred ~90% of the potential new player base. 

[Fealthion]

How, the current state of servers doesnt seem to impact new players and never has done. No attempt to retrospectively fix the flaws in legacy will be attempted and they wont even accept future support requests.

If Wildcard dont have an issue with the money why close ANY servers in order to make a new set, why not have some GM's dedicated to legacy? - nope this is all about the cashflow

[Arkasaurio]

11 minutes ago, Orion said:

I don't understand what you're getting at here.

Wild Card has never made an official statement relating or having to do with anything about "not being able to afford the servers."

They've made several statements that the now 'Legacy' Servers simply got out of hand, and exploits were abused far more often than Wild Card could put out a fix(es) for. Their decision to basically wipe the slate clean for full release was made to not only attract a new audience, but to allow veteran players to get a restart or continue doing what they've been doing either on Legacy servers or with the save in the Cloud.

To put it bluntly; if Wild Card had not opted to release new Servers upon full release, and instead made any and all potential new survivors attempt to do anything on the Legacy official servers, it would have deterred ~90% of the potential new player base. 

I think what OP is getting at is that one day there will be no more DLC coming, and if there's not another route to monetization what happens then? They've said repeatedly that there won't by micro-transactions, even cosmetic, but it seems to me it's a membership fee, micro-transactions, or all official servers are shelved reasonably short order after the last DLC drops. What else is there, ads? Garner support for a future sequel or similar game maybe, but with dev cycles that's a long time to run servers.

Even if the servers don't cost much to run, why run them if doing so will only ever lose you money because you're literally not selling anything new?

[jdizzy2010]

They have said they wouldn't or would do many things and have consistently changed their minds.  What makes u think they won'tchange their mind on this? Lol

[Orion]

3 minutes ago, Fealthion said:

How, the current state of servers doesnt seem to impact new players and never has done. No attempt to retrospectively fix the flaws in legacy will be attempted and they wont even accept future support requests.

If Wildcard dont have an issue with the money why close ANY servers in order to make a new set, why not have some GM's dedicated to legacy? - nope this is all about the cashflow

That's your assumption that has no foundation or facts to back it up.

As per the new player argument you made, you can look on Xbox or Steam's charts. ARKs popularity has been dying off as time progressed, mainly due to the fact that those who want to play Officials and not SP/Dedicateds simply can't unless they're an Alpha-tribe on PvP or they pay someone for land on PvE.

[Arkasaurio]

1 minute ago, jdizzy2010 said:

They have said they wouldn't or would do many things and have consistently changed their minds.  What makes u think they won'tchange their mind on this? Lol

Nothing at all, in fact I kind of HOPE they change their minds, because if not we get the shelving of servers I mentioned. Was simply following what OP was saying, they don't seem to have a publicly announced long term plan for how they keep the lights on after they're done with DLCs.

[Fealthion]

1 minute ago, Orion said:

That's your assumption that has no foundation or facts to back it up.

As per the new player argument you made, you can look on Xbox or Steam's charts. ARKs popularity has been dying off as time progressed, mainly due to the fact that those who want to play Officials and not SP/Dedicateds simply can't unless they're an Alpha-tribe on PvP or they pay someone for land on PvE.

Can't play unless they are an Alpha tribe or pay? now thats an assumption with no facts to back it up.

I've seem plenty of new players join the servers I play on - in general the community helps them not hinders them. If people are 'charging' for land in PvE then they should have been reported, banned and jobs done - however with no support in place for legacy thats not happening.

Do you truly beleive the new servers are not going to go the same way so fast dust wont settle - I'm afraid you are in for a shock

[Klakky]

1 hour ago, Fealthion said:

Why didn't anyone at WC have a plan for financing the servers long term, and when they realised the costs of keeping the existing playerbase's efforts intact why was no option made available?

An in game shop or a potential subscription model for servers would have worked (dividing hosting fees and support staff costs over all the legacy cluster). The hack, shock, and awe approach to existing players has meant what should have been a universally positive community has turned into a noose around WC's neck.

In the long run feedback can and will break a game or a developer (no mans sky has proven that) and I for one despair that it was just so unnecessary.

Depite my recent tone of negativity - I love this game, it had and still has the potential to be great, I just wish they would actually think a little ahead.

9 million copies of game sold, thats alot of $$$, they probably have more than enough to finance it for decades, with their cut (paycheck) probably at least 5 years(opinion not fact) hosting is preety cheap, one game copy is enough to host the game for 6months (1 year hosting has a better discount usually)

[ScorchedSoul]

30 minutes ago, Orion said:

ARKs popularity has been dying off as time progressed, mainly due to the fact that those who want to play Officials and not SP/Dedicateds simply can't unless they're an Alpha-tribe on PvP or they pay someone for land on PvE.

You sound like someone that has been reading about Ark rather than playing it.

Yes these exist but they aren't the only options. In fact, Ive never actually come across a PvE server in which the only option is to pay someone.

[SmokeyB]

Just now, jdizzy2010 said:

I would have no issues paying a monthly access fee for premium official servers. They would earn additional income which would help fund official servers and maybe they gain a little profit from it.  I would pay 15 us a month for that. 

Trouble is when you start with a stone pick you probably wouldn't want to pay to play, only people with large alpha bases would consider paying 15 a month for their Base,  anyone who cannot build because they get wiped everyday would not pay the sub,  this would leave only the alphas basically renting their own official server And with no new players joining the alphas would quickly get bored and stop paying also.