Thank you for continued disappointment

[CrackerJackx13]

On 12/15/2017 at 12:12 AM, TrumpTrain said:

Dear Wildcard, 

Thank you so very much for consistently letting down players whom have been with you since Arks inception, new and old customers alike which have payed heaps of money to a company which has delivered empty promises and glitchy content to those of us currently "trying" to play. Wildcard as a whole seems inept at fixing multiple known issues while trying to produce new content, how can a company expect to retain its customer base if you're selling cars with no motors? Having spent some years in the tech industry, I understand all to well that setbacks can and do occur when least wanted, however, Wildcards track record is spotless, if we were speaking in terms of unsatisfactory. I hoped and still hope that Wildcard can get it's act together before it goes full Titanic as Ark is a fantastic conecpt and enjoyable to play with friends, however your execution I can say with certainty is atrocious.

Signed, 

            Unsated paying customer

Im sure they are like...
 

 

[hollander]

1 hour ago, HalfSlabBacon said:

I agree they should work on fixing official servers (ditching Nitrado). It's bad PR to have them in such a state.

However, the statement about paying customers is wrong and flawed logic. No one playing on those servers is paying for them. You get that part free. What you payed for is a copy of the game. That doesn't entitle you too public servers and never has. Acting as if Wildcard owes you something is wrong. You got what you payed for.

There also is no valid argument for anyone who says they have to play on official servers. Every single person that bought the game can play single player, host LAN, play unofficial, or even run their own server.

All these options, plus free official servers and the enormous amount of content & customization makes this game a bargain.

But still its a part of the game thats not working. Atleast not as its intended to be.

i live and work in the netherlands, we make hybird solar panels which are attached to a aluminium plate which works as a heater. When we deliver the product to our costumers we insert this technology which make you see howmuch energy you got that day and howmuch u got in a week month etc.. 

its a free product, which is not really a part of the product itself. Its like an attachement that belongs to our product which we can deliver to our costumers. To make it more appealing you can say. But the thing is, it has alot of errors and flaws. You can say it costs us money. But it makes us stand out against rival companys. When you deliver a product and you give by certain attachements, you cant just say: ah its free and does nt belong to our product. So dont complain sir! 

If you do. It might work and some will poop up. But the people that wants to use it(because you delivered it) will owe it up to you..

you get my point? Im not pissing at the game. I love it, but there "attachement" is broken. And they hardly give feedback about there solution to it. Which makes certain costumers dissapointed. And they are ventilating there dissapointment here. 

I do understand that some people tske the dissapointed next lvl to bash on the game. But i try not to. 

[Guest DJRone89]

43 minutes ago, hollander said:

But still its a part of the game thats not working. Atleast not as its intended to be.

i live and work in the netherlands, we make hybird solar panels which are attached to a aluminium plate which works as a heater. When we deliver the product to our costumers we insert this technology which make you see howmuch energy you got that day and howmuch u got in a week month etc.. 

its a free product, which is not really a part of the product itself. Its like an attachement that belongs to our product which we can deliver to our costumers. To make it more appealing you can say. But the thing is, it has alot of errors and flaws. You can say it costs us money. But it makes us stand out against rival companys. When you deliver a product and you give by certain attachements, you cant just say: ah its free and does nt belong to our product. So dont complain sir! 

If you do. It might work and some will poop up. But the people that wants to use it(because you delivered it) will owe it up to you..

you get my point? Im not pissing at the game. I love it, but there "attachement" is broken. And they hardly give feedback about there solution to it. Which makes certain costumers dissapointed. And they are ventilating there dissapointment here. 

I do understand that some people tske the dissapointed next lvl to bash on the game. But i try not to. 

Yeah it’s the radio silence that probably grinds on people the most but given their history, they are only likely to comment on something if they have news to share. If they speak out without a solution, the same people asking will be just as angry. It’s a lose lose situation for the devs.

[HalfSlabBacon]

4 hours ago, hollander said:

But still its a part of the game thats not working. Atleast not as its intended to be.

i live and work in the netherlands, we make hybird solar panels which are attached to a aluminium plate which works as a heater. When we deliver the product to our costumers we insert this technology which make you see howmuch energy you got that day and howmuch u got in a week month etc.. 

its a free product, which is not really a part of the product itself. Its like an attachement that belongs to our product which we can deliver to our costumers. To make it more appealing you can say. But the thing is, it has alot of errors and flaws. You can say it costs us money. But it makes us stand out against rival companys. When you deliver a product and you give by certain attachements, you cant just say: ah its free and does nt belong to our product. So dont complain sir! 

If you do. It might work and some will poop up. But the people that wants to use it(because you delivered it) will owe it up to you..

you get my point? Im not pissing at the game. I love it, but there "attachement" is broken. And they hardly give feedback about there solution to it. Which makes certain costumers dissapointed. And they are ventilating there dissapointment here. 

I do understand that some people tske the dissapointed next lvl to bash on the game. But i try not to. 

I get your analogy and it's kind of a fair comparison. As I said, it's bad for them to leave those servers in such a state.

Like you pointed out though, it's not actually part of the game, but an additional service they provide for free. This is why it's unreasonable when people act like they are owed something for the state is in.

The being frustrated part I understand and sympathize with. Certain behaviors associated with it, I do not however. This is why I point out that it's a choice to play on those servers.

[Krizdug]

The devs care about paying customers not being satisfied.

[HalfSlabBacon]

14 minutes ago, Krizdug said:

The devs care about paying customers not being satisfied.

You realize Thick didn't hack that right?

They gave him access, it's called a teaser promotion. He's also not the only one that got access. That's why she Lol'd.

[Eli]

19 minutes ago, HalfSlabBacon said:

You realize Thick didn't hack that right?

They gave him access, it's called a teaser promotion. He's also not the only one that got access. That's why she Lol'd.

We most certainly do not give Thickfreedom any sort of access.

Spoiler

That little blurb that he makes a lengthy video about is just the area that you see at the ending cinematic when you beat the boss of aberration. He's making a big deal out of nothing, which is why the only response to it is "lol".

 

[seventhirteen]

so people are actually arguing that game isn't unstable and buggy? wonder how many of these people have had something "happen" after spending days developing something, so many bugs and quirks currently

that said, it's still a great game with great potential, let's just hope it works out, I'll continue to play while we wait

Quote

 

 

[Guest DJRone89]

12 minutes ago, seventhirteen said:

so people are actually arguing that game isn't unstable and buggy? wonder how many of these people have had something "happen" after spending days developing something, so many bugs and quirks currently

that said, it's still a great game with great potential, let's just hope it works out, I'll continue to play while we wait

 

Strawman much?

[MayonnaisePlease]

Heaps of money lol i bought ark for $20

[KingGalahad]

I will give wildcard props on one thing, while aberration has been a buggy mess since release, they have been quite on top of fixing things when they are found. 

[Guest DJRone89]

1 minute ago, KingGalahad said:

I will give wildcard props on one thing, while aberration has been a buggy mess since release, they have been quite on top of fixing things when they are found. 

Which begs me to believe that the ongoing persistent bugs are harder to resolve than first anticipated, and will take much longer to fix.

My guess is that they will require a bigger development team to so that they can allocate more resources to resolve them.

[HalfSlabBacon]

2 hours ago, Eli said:

We most certainly do not give Thickfreedom any sort of access.

  Reveal hidden contents

That little blurb that he makes a lengthy video about is just the area that you see at the ending cinematic when you beat the boss of aberration. He's making a big deal out of nothing, which is why the only response to it is "lol".

 

Interesting... Guess any of us could have done that then. I would've figured you had suggested it be done as a few of the larger You Tubers have done the same thing. Missed opportunity I guess... Good thing they're creating the hype for Extinction for you then.   

40 minutes ago, DJRone89 said:

Which begs me to believe that the ongoing persistent bugs are harder to resolve than first anticipated, and will take much longer to fix.

My guess is that they will require a bigger development team to so that they can allocate more resources to resolve them.

That's the thing about bugs... Some are downright impossible to clean up, and often finding what causes it is a monumental task.

There's also the consideration of priority. As it is a business, you can only allocate so much time to focus on Bug fixing. Critical exploits are obviously first, followed by easy fix bugs... The though ones can take years as a result, and sometimes aren't even feasible to fix.

[Ranger1]

9 minutes ago, HalfSlabBacon said:

Interesting... Guess any of us could have done that then. I would've figured you had suggested it be done as a few of the larger You Tubers have done the same thing. Missed opportunity I guess... Good thing they're creating the hype for Extinction for you then.

Well, to be honest, you or I could have gotten the same thing just by taking the ending video and going through frame by frame and zooming in.  By going the route he chose he did manage to get probably a clearer look at some of the art assets though.

You'll notice they didn't put anything too spoilery in that final cut scene, other than dropping a big (and rather obvious) hint about the location of the next DLC.  They knew people would dissect it one way or another.

[Steveetrnal]

The game is great, however ps4 has a lot of glitches. I play unofficial PC dedi and single player and both have lost multiple characters, most of my skins (even though I still have the trophies) single player keeps resetting the game settings, and I keep timing out trying to get in my PC dedi unless someone in the game sends me an invite. Once they log out the game invite is invalid so I can rarely play. Connection time out is my biggest issue and loosing characters. Stop releasing new content til all the bugs are corrected.

[HalfSlabBacon]

3 hours ago, Ranger1 said:

Well, to be honest, you or I could have gotten the same thing just by taking the ending video and going through frame by frame and zooming in.  By going the route he chose he did manage to get probably a clearer look at some of the art assets though.

You'll notice they didn't put anything too spoilery in that final cut scene, other than dropping a big (and rather obvious) hint about the location of the next DLC.  They knew people would dissect it one way or another.

Yeah, it seemed a rather deliberate tease by WC. That's why I figured they reached out to a couple of the big YouTuber's to help hype it up.

I can't say that the earth part was a surprise though. That was kind of obvious after seeing the ascension cave.

[Chair Breaker]

Officials are frustrating but they are free, with no subscription, and maybe that was a calculated business decision to mitigate risk as supporting Ark - with it's servers on multiple platforms, as an ambitious game, all the DLCs, mod support, etc - makes sense. It's the logical route. What irks me the most is the vague and sporadic communication from WC, but I can appreciate the PR strategy as I'm sure not all problems and unforeseen roadblocks are digestible for public consumption. I love Ark enough for me to stick to unofficials and singleplayer. But I do think it's imperative for those who it matters to, to be vocal but constructively critical of the issues plaguing officials.

[Vaiks]

It's a really difficult decision that WC has to make: does it "pay out" to dump Nitrado's crap servers in favor of better ones to please 10% of our player base? Does the PR damage pays for the upgrade? I had dedicated servers on Nitrado and I'm glad I left for other hosting and we all can see that by the performance of this site where we all are right now.

If you improve officials more ppl will flock to them and that would put more stress on said servers... it's a real catch 22 and I'm glad I'm not the person responsible to make that decision.

 

[IamTANK]

On 12/14/2017 at 11:12 PM, TrumpTrain said:

Dear Wildcard, 

Thank you so very much for consistently letting down players whom have been with you since Arks inception, new and old customers alike which have payed heaps of money to a company which has delivered empty promises and glitchy content to those of us currently "trying" to play. Wildcard as a whole seems inept at fixing multiple known issues while trying to produce new content, how can a company expect to retain its customer base if you're selling cars with no motors? Having spent some years in the tech industry, I understand all to well that setbacks can and do occur when least wanted, however, Wildcards track record is spotless, if we were speaking in terms of unsatisfactory. I hoped and still hope that Wildcard can get it's act together before it goes full Titanic as Ark is a fantastic conecpt and enjoyable to play with friends, however your execution I can say with certainty is atrocious.

Signed, 

            Unsated paying customer

for me ark does continue to dissapoint.

i started running a xbox dedi in feb . i kept having problems with the server corrupting or getting to a point where it crashed a lot. there was even a point where xbox dedis were broken for a month straight. only reason i kept going was wc kept saying crossplay was coming soon and id be able to host my xbox dedi on my built rig and avoid the constant memory issues i got with xbox.

every time the crossplay release date drew near it got delayed. after ark finally officially released and crossplay didnt launch as promised again, i decided to stop running a server until crossplay finally came out.

i was happy when crossplay finally released. i bought the season pass , downloaded it on my pc and then found out about the dedi save issue. but it was ok that patch that was going to fix it was in cert! only a few more days! right?....... wrong the patch only released for xbox .. the crossplay version failed cert. and wc didnt tell us until a day later after bugging them for solutions cause they were tired of us asking..

im  still waiting for that patch and prolly wont see it till after the holidays .... you know after all my extra time off is over.

this is why im so unsatisfied with wc.  people may not have the same experience as me and i understand that. i just wish people would understand that some people are having very bad experiences with ark, just as i have. and that our dissatisfaction isn't unwarranted.

[iAmE]

All I can say is that Wildcard is the perfect example of why a company made and run by game developers, is a bad idea. I like the game, and the work they do, but there are so many fundamental problems with the player experience of the game, and Wildcard has consistently been wholly incompetent in handling them, that it almost eclipses how good the game is. 

 

You don't have to fix all the bugs, if you have a support staff capable of fixing the issues in a timely manner, not a 4-6 month ticket turn around time (Also releasing a major dlc right before the holidays when you know perfectly well, through history, that it will likely be a buggy mess, is probably not a good idea.)

At the same time, you could just have a couple playtesters and actually playtest the content you're about to release so that the bugs aren't so incredibly obvious and prevalent that they will inevitably adversely affect a majority of the playerbase.

It's unreasonable to expect the developers to catch all the bugs, but it's not unreasonable to expect the game to be released in a fashion where you can not have your progression inevitably roadblocked by various bugs and glitches. We're not exactly talking about small glitches here, and there. We are talking about major glitches with the primary end game of the expansion/game. Dinos asking for kibble imprints that aren't in the game, for instance, or a mesh so porous that carrying anything with anything can easily end with that thing being lost under the mesh forever. Even the flagship tame (The reaper), is riddled with problems. From being weaker in a fight then a Carno,  to the impregnation process being so riddled by bugs that you can spend hours trying to do it, and fail because the lag causes the queen to miss her tail attack, and then despawn. Literally any amount of playtesting by any semi-competent playtest group would have caught a number of these bugs, and they could have been addressed prior to release, or the expansion could have been released post-holidays, in an environment where they could be addressed in a timely manner so that the impact they had on the playerbase was minimized. However, neither was done, and it shows, again, a chronic mismanagement of the company and the game that ARK is. 

[HalfSlabBacon]

3 hours ago, Vaiks said:

It's a really difficult decision that WC has to make: does it "pay out" to dump Nitrado's crap servers in favor of better ones to please 10% of our player base? Does the PR damage pays for the upgrade? I had dedicated servers on Nitrado and I'm glad I left for other hosting and we all can see that by the performance of this site where we all are right now.

If you improve officials more ppl will flock to them and that would put more stress on said servers... it's a real catch 22 and I'm glad I'm not the person responsible to make that decision.

 

Agree it's a catch 22 now. Thing is it could've been avoided if they had chosen a decent partner to start with. Obviously the only research done was on price and that's ridiculous for something that effects a companies brand image.

56 minutes ago, IamTANK said:

for me ark does continue to dissapoint.

i started running a xbox dedi in feb . i kept having problems with the server corrupting or getting to a point where it crashed a lot. there was even a point where xbox dedis were broken for a month straight. only reason i kept going was wc kept saying crossplay was coming soon and id be able to host my xbox dedi on my built rig and avoid the constant memory issues i got with xbox.

every time the crossplay release date drew near it got delayed. after ark finally officially released and crossplay didnt launch as promised again, i decided to stop running a server until crossplay finally came out.

i was happy when crossplay finally released. i bought the season pass , downloaded it on my pc and then found out about the dedi save issue. but it was ok that patch that was going to fix it was in cert! only a few more days! right?....... wrong the patch only released for xbox .. the crossplay version failed cert. and wc didnt tell us until a day later after bugging them for solutions cause they were tired of us asking..

im  still waiting for that patch and prolly wont see it till after the holidays .... you know after all my extra time off is over.

this is why im so unsatisfied with wc.  people may not have the same experience as me and i understand that. i just wish people would understand that some people are having very bad experiences with ark, just as i have. and that our dissatisfaction isn't unwarranted.

I wish more people were as civilized and descriptive when voicing concerns like these... If they were, maybe the collective voice would be paid attention to.

30 minutes ago, iAmE said:

All I can say is that Wildcard is the perfect example of why a company made and run by game developers, is a bad idea. I like the game, and the work they do, but there are so many fundamental problems with the player experience of the game, and Wildcard has consistently been wholly incompetent in handling them, that it almost eclipses how good the game is. 

 

You don't have to fix all the bugs, if you have a support staff capable of fixing the issues in a timely manner, not a 4-6 month ticket turn around time (Also releasing a major dlc right before the holidays when you know perfectly well, through history, that it will likely be a buggy mess, is probably not a good idea.)

At the same time, you could just have a couple playtesters and actually playtest the content you're about to release so that the bugs aren't so incredibly obvious and prevalent that they will inevitably adversely affect a majority of the playerbase.

It's unreasonable to expect the developers to catch all the bugs, but it's not unreasonable to expect the game to be released in a fashion where you can not have your progression inevitably roadblocked by various bugs and glitches. We're not exactly talking about small glitches here, and there. We are talking about major glitches with the primary end game of the expansion/game. Dinos asking for kibble imprints that aren't in the game, for instance, or a mesh so porous that carrying anything with anything can easily end with that thing being lost under the mesh forever. Even the flagship tame (The reaper), is riddled with problems. From being weaker in a fight then a Carno,  to the impregnation process being so riddled by bugs that you can spend hours trying to do it, and fail because the lag causes the queen to miss her tail attack, and then despawn. Literally any amount of playtesting by any semi-competent playtest group would have caught a number of these bugs, and they could have been addressed prior to release, or the expansion could have been released post-holidays, in an environment where they could be addressed in a timely manner so that the impact they had on the playerbase was minimized. However, neither was done, and it shows, again, a chronic mismanagement of the company and the game that ARK is. 

Game devs can run companies, just not this guy... You'd think he would've figured that out by now given his track record of train wrecks.

At least they are aggressively hiring. Let's hope part of that is proper play testers. Aberration totally felt like a beta release, which isn't acceptable at this stage. Additionally, Marketing and PR still need a ton of work.

[iAmE]

10 minutes ago, HalfSlabBacon said:

 

Game devs can run companies, just not this guy... You'd think he would've figured that out by now given his track record of train wrecks.

At least they are aggressively hiring. Let's hope part of that is proper play testers. Aberration totally felt like a beta release, which isn't acceptable at this stage. Additionally, Marketing and PR still need a ton of work.

Game devs can run companies, but, generally speaking, it's a bad idea. I've seen many more companies fail, then succeed, in such a scenario. It generally leads to exactly what Ark is having issues with. A complete lack of coherent company assets. The developers usually do good work, but as with ark, they tend to lack the auxiliary support staff that game development needs. Such as game testers, customer support, legal and middle-management. All things that Wildcard demonstrably lacks.  

[HalfSlabBacon]

1 hour ago, iAmE said:

Game devs can run companies, but, generally speaking, it's a bad idea. I've seen many more companies fail, then succeed, in such a scenario. It generally leads to exactly what Ark is having issues with. A complete lack of coherent company assets. The developers usually do good work, but as with ark, they tend to lack the auxiliary support staff that game development needs. Such as game testers, customer support, legal and middle-management. All things that Wildcard demonstrably lacks.  

I couldn't agree more. It's understandable for a start up as having those wings to a business cost a considerable amount of funding. However, after millions of dollars in success, like WCS, the appropriate skill sets need to be hired on.

At this stage it is costing them considerably to not have these assets in house... The terrible timing, communication, marketing strategy (or lack there of), and polish for both the launch of the base game and Aberrations release are perfect examples of why. Seeing how much revenue was lost, and brand equity was damaged during this period makes me cringe to be frank. 

[IamTANK]

1 minute ago, HalfSlabBacon said:

I couldn't agree more. It's understandable for a start up as having those wings to a business cost a considerable amount of funding. However, after millions of dollars in success, like WCS, the appropriate skill sets need to be hired on.

At this stage it is costing them considerably to not have these assets in house... The terrible timing, communication, marketing strategy (or lack there of), and polish for both the launch of the base game and Aberrations release are perfect examples of why. Seeing how much revenue was lost, and brand equity was damaged during this period makes me cringe to be frank. 

i fully agree.

i want to say that i think ark is a great game. it has all the things that interest me as an adult gamer. i work hard long hours and love the freedom ark provides to accommodate my play style and schedule. 

im 36 years old and sadly my reflexes are not what they used to be and i dont have the free time i once had. so dedicated lets me still pvp/pve with the settings that make it doable for me.

my problems with ark have nothing to do with game design, and everything to do with lack of communication  and broken expectations. 

i understand that stuff happens. for example the win 10 patch that failed isnt really what made me mad. it was that i spent a day trouble shooting my pc thinking the problem was on my end. all that wasted time could have been avoided with a simple 2 min tweet. i find it hard to believe that no one at wc knew the patch faild cert and that no one had 2 mins of time to post that info anywhere.

after hassling them for a day i got a snobby (in my opinion) reply on twitter saying that the patch wasn't even necessary.  its necessary for the way i play ark. as running win 10 dedi requires the ability to save. that comment gave me the impression that people who run/play on dedis are not important to wc. as they dont view them working properly as a necessary function. and because of this is why they never announced the patch fail. because us cross play dedi hosters arnt important enough to bother informing.

it really bothers me.

 

[LouSpowells]

3 hours ago, iAmE said:

Game devs can run companies, but, generally speaking, it's a bad idea....

 

1 hour ago, HalfSlabBacon said:

I couldn't agree more. It's understandable...

 

55 minutes ago, IamTANK said:

i fully agree...

 

All 3 of you are touching on an issue that has and will continue to be the biggest obstacle I encounter in my in my profession: Just because you can build an amazing ship doesn't mean you should be the Captain. Once the ole girl is floating, bring in someone who can steer it in the right direction. I've watched far too many companies fail for that precise reason. Hopefully WC is figuring that out because their potential is high.