What Has This Game Become?

[InnitG]

5 hours ago, DJRone89 said:

Also never compare real life to video games because it’s a stupid argument.

A valid point was made though. It may not perfect or a great example but the point still stands. Hitler thought he could do whatever he wanted and he did and in the end Im sure he still believed it as no one stopped him. He probably thought that he was some form of God or Deity that the only person that could stop him was himself. Which could be what players on an official pvp server who wipe everything they see might think to a degree. They might think they can do whatever they want and because the new players they wipe leave no on stands in their way so in the end when they log off or move server they might think that theyre the only ones that can stop themselves. And in no way am I saying that they think theyre a God or Deity as I said "to a degree" yet a state of mind as such can lead to bad things. Although in the sense of a video game it is toned down to almost be meaningless.

[LouSpowells]

59 minutes ago, InnitG said:

A valid point was made though. It may not perfect or a great example but the point still stands. Hitler...

For future reference, that is the point where people stop listening. 

[DarthaNyan]

1 hour ago, InnitG said:

He probably thought that he was some form of God or Deity that the only person that could stop him was himself. Which could be what players on an official pvp server who wipe everything they see might think to a degree.

They might think they can do whatever they want and because the new players they wipe leave no on stands in their way so in the end when they log off or move server they might think that theyre the only ones that can stop themselves.

And in no way am I saying that they think theyre a God or Deity as I said "to a degree" yet a state of mind as such can lead to bad things.

Except that it is exactly the opposite: they wipe everything to protect themselves from being wiped - an easy concept to comprehend, but some players still seem to miss it.

[DizzyDo]

Wow this got way off topic.  For the op I would recommend finding a low pop server for resource gathering and do all you pvp on a different server, look around and talk to alpha's this is a pretty common tactic.  As for the whole moral argument seems pretty silly comparing real life actions to those in a video game.  I'm normally friendly to noobs and will help them out giving them weapons or armor, but sometimes I'm in a weird mood and will kill everyone I see and raid every base even the thatch ones just to cruel.

[CrackerJackx13]

9 hours ago, Ranger1 said:

This is true, although the word "necessarily" should be in there before "mean you should".  Truly skillful players will often make wise decisions on who to attack and who not to.  "Attack All The Things" strategies are rarely well thought out, and usually end up in a brief moment of glory followed by boredom and flitting off to another game... or eventual loss to more strategically minded groups of players.

This part is not true, and frankly a somewhat silly thing to say.  Comparing aggressive game play (in a game mode that is hyper competitive by design) to people responsible for real life atrocities does nothing more than give the impression you are vastly over reacting (to put it mildly).  Consider taking a step back and getting some perspective.  it really is only a game, and in this case one where no-holds-barred aggression is a valid tactic.

Edit:  In case it isn't clear, no one is saying YOU need to play in an extremely aggressive manner.  However, if you are going to succeed and be competitive, you do need to be prepared to handle tribes that will play in that manner.

one must consider though that many sociology and psychology graduates who would have a field day with this game based on the study of human behavior of the community and its acting on  primal instincts as whole with the flight or fight mechanics along with ego and vanity..

[Z0mbie]

Op if you're tired of getting wiped all the time try a different strategy... Think guerilla warfare. Think small and sneaky. And always always remember to kill yourself before logging off or you'll wake up in a prison somewhere.

[CrackerJackx13]

36 minutes ago, Z0mbie said:

Op if you're tired of getting wiped all the time try a different strategy... Think guerilla warfare. Think small and sneaky. And always always remember to kill yourself before logging off or you'll wake up in a prison somewhere.

 I have plenty of strategy's and theorys check them out they mite help, over 200k views if you combined my old post and this new one i have up.
 

's

[Ranger1]

3 hours ago, CrackerJackx13 said:

one must consider though that many sociology and psychology graduates who would have a field day with this game based on the study of human behavior of the community and its acting on  primal instincts as whole with the flight or fight mechanics along with ego and vanity..

Of course, many a college paper has been written on open world games, though most of them focus on games that have a considerably deeper focus and many more layers of complexity than ARK.  To my surprise quite a bit of my personal gaming history ended up being included in one such paper put together by a graduate student here in the states, who admitted to me one day (after flying with me for several months in EVE Online) that he had been compiling detailed notes for that paper since I had met him.

I had helped him (although he had a female identity at the time) set up an experimental scouting and intelligence gathering organization (corporation) in the game, and facilitated his relationships with some of the more prominent null sec alliances... each one comprised of several thousand players each.  He contacted me to apologize to me for the mild deception, and to thank me for my help opening doors.

His paper was well received as it focused on the spontaneous organizational structures that evolved, detailed which ones thrived and which ones failed, and outlined the complex mosaic of political inter-relationships and power shifts that took place between the various groups and their competitors.

What he did NOT focus on was making half-baked moral comparisons between aggressive behavior exhibited in a game where the most that can be lost is imaginary pixel constructs, and the real world that has a completely different and very real impact on a person.  Presumably because he wanted to pass.  

Attempts to equate in game aggressive behavior with psychotic real life behavior has surfaced on every forum I've ever visited that had a PVP and a PVE element.  Such a connection has been studied in detail, and been repeatedly debunked by experts in those respective fields every time.

 

[Guest DJRone89]

5 hours ago, ArkRage said:

I think what it is with some people is that when they think of pvp with this game they like to think of huge wars, dinos fighting, people shooting, and all that good stuff, and yet the majority of people don't get to that stage. Especially for the amount of time you'd have to put into it. 

 But I guess the main thing I think to myself is: if you reach a stage in the game where you are going around destroying new people for no other reason than "oh no, this noob could have 500 c4 to blow my base up even tho he's not even at the level to craft them," then it's time to move on. You won the game. Let others enjoy it for what it is. But oh no "it's still a threat" well man the hell up and deal with a few losses. That stone hut compared to your huge base? If someone's worried about a threat like that then idk.. clearly they're nuts. Lol.

 

Read the rest of the thread, after the part you said you would no longer respond to me. Ranger1 made some very good points as to why you shouldn’t pass moral judgement on a game that enforces aggressive gameplay and tactics.

[Guest DJRone89]

7 minutes ago, ArkRage said:

 People can do what they like on the bloody game. Get over my opinion. 

Here I am trying to be civil and you respond negatively. Try taking a step back.

[Guest DJRone89]

45 minutes ago, ArkRage said:

Civil about what? My opinion? I don't see why you keep responding to me when it's very clear we have different opinions.

 

All this stemmed from me mentioning to the op that pvp servers can be toxic. Just chill out, man. 

Now breath

[SwishPapaSweets]

Its rather simple if you don't like official servers go join an unofficial there's tons oh them on all platforms. I hate how officials are so I made my own cluster to deem what I think how ark is played and have a few others who think the same.

No one is forcing you to play official only you are forcing yourself. 

 

[CrackerJackx13]

9 hours ago, Ranger1 said:

Of course, many a college paper has been written on open world games, though most of them focus on games that have a considerably deeper focus and many more layers of complexity than ARK.  To my surprise quite a bit of my personal gaming history ended up being included in one such paper put together by a graduate student here in the states, who admitted to me one day (after flying with me for several months in EVE Online) that he had been compiling detailed notes for that paper since I had met him.

I had helped him (although he had a female identity at the time) set up an experimental scouting and intelligence gathering organization (corporation) in the game, and facilitated his relationships with some of the more prominent null sec alliances... each one comprised of several thousand players each.  He contacted me to apologize to me for the mild deception, and to thank me for my help opening doors.

His paper was well received as it focused on the spontaneous organizational structures that evolved, detailed which ones thrived and which ones failed, and outlined the complex mosaic of political inter-relationships and power shifts that took place between the various groups and their competitors.

What he did NOT focus on was making half-baked moral comparisons between aggressive behavior exhibited in a game where the most that can be lost is imaginary pixel constructs, and the real world that has a completely different and very real impact on a person.  Presumably because he wanted to pass.  

Attempts to equate in game aggressive behavior with psychotic real life behavior has surfaced on every forum I've ever visited that had a PVP and a PVE element.  Such a connection has been studied in detail, and been repeatedly debunked by experts in those respective fields every time.

 

not so much psychotic behavior as there is more moral decay/moral lobotomy, i was also on eve online and still am i run one of the biggest groups on the game.  you mite know who i am based on my behavior and work i have done.

[Ranger1]

1 hour ago, CrackerJackx13 said:

not so much psychotic behavior as there is more moral decay/moral

Actions and behavior designed to succeed in a game do not have an equivalency with real life morals or behavior.  You can pick that apart any way you like, and many students attempt to, but the theory has no traction in sociological or psychological circles.

From the way you have organized your other threads I had suspected as much, although I haven't done much more than touch base with the game from time to time over the last few years.  Needed a bit of a change of pace after that first decade. 

[GipsyDanger]

On 1/6/2018 at 9:13 PM, InnitG said:

So I'm decently new to Ark. I've seen a lot of it though through YouTube etc and I thought it would be great fun. So I play for a while, learn some things and start pvp. I genuinely haven't been able to get more than 6 irl hours on 1 server because I get in, set up (in a tribe with 3 friends btw) and boom, wiped within the span of 5 hours. Today we did well, full stone base, dino pen, metal tools and had about 6 hours on when boom, wiped. Level 170 trike gone, level 80 parasaur gone, 3 pteranadons gone. Have people genuinely gotten to the stage where nobodys allowed to play because I haven't been able to. Cant find a tribe to join thats not called "Tribe of Human". So someone either tell me how to play without getting wiped everytime or if you're playing on an official Island ps4 server recruit us. We actually wanna play the game and grind poop

Officail server are trash, play modded server. 

[CrackerJackx13]

57 minutes ago, Ranger1 said:

Actions and behavior designed to succeed in a game do not have an equivalency with real life morals or behavior.  You can pick that apart any way you like, and many students attempt to, but the theory has no traction in sociological or psychological circles.

From the way you have organized your other threads I had suspected as much, although I haven't done much more than touch base with the game from time to time over the last few years.  Needed a bit of a change of pace after that first decade. 

defintly needs a change of pace, they could add so much more into this game the base game is great but they could expand the mechanics, universe and player interaction.  we have talking about this before a long time ago. time will tell weither there are any pyschological effects with the world health orginizations saying gaming is a "addiction" will see if any studys breed further results from it. time will tell.

[Ranger1]

2 minutes ago, CrackerJackx13 said:

with the world health orginizations saying gaming is a "addiction" will see if any studys breed further results from it.

Indeed, but I think their focus is a bit different.  I feel that they are looking at the design of the games themselves, and how they are crafted to draw you in and keep you playing for extreme periods of time (and at such a high rate of frequency).  This might even be a method of laying the groundwork for taking the gambling like aspects of many loot box systems to task (which is not necessarily a bad thing).

Still, it could be argued that watching YouTube videos, or your favorite TV shows, every single night after work could be considered addicting as well... so who knows how this will pan out in the end.

Ultimately, I think I side with John on this one.

“A man’s strength can be measured by his appetites.  Indeed, a man’s strength flows from his appetites.” - John Saxon, Enter the Dragon.

[yekrucifixion187]

On 1/7/2018 at 8:45 AM, isu said:

Developers would be able to do some adjustments, but everytime we want to change for better PvP, PvE folks show up and they don't want it, because they want to run as flash to be faster than any dino on map. :))

This argument is completely false. PvE players have very little say in the adjustments made to Ark and I can point out some big ones right off the bat;

PvE player's did not request a flyer nerf, PvE player's did not request a griffin nerf, PvE player's did not request a limitation on mindwipes, PvE player's did not request platform saddles with structures count as 19 tamed dino's. All of those are counter intuitive to PvE. It slows the game down, it makes being able to have different builds for crafting, cave runs, deep sea exploration finite, and it adds to tribe and server cap, a PvE exclusive issue. 

So what else you got on why the developer's aren't making adjustments?

Quick side note: PvE player's had no voice or opinion on your turret changes either. 

 

(generally speaking)

[LouSpowells]

15 hours ago, Ranger1 said:

What he did NOT focus on was making half-baked moral comparisons between aggressive behavior exhibited in a game where the most that can be lost is imaginary pixel constructs, and the real world that has a completely different and very real impact on a person.  Presumably because he wanted to pass.  

Attempts to equate in game aggressive behavior with psychotic real life behavior has surfaced on every forum I've ever visited that had a PVP and a PVE element.  Such a connection has been studied in detail, and been repeatedly debunked by experts in those respective fields every time.

Precisely. If a graduate student attempted to write a paper on what Cracker was describing, any relatively competent professor would immediately steer them in a different direction. Frankly, any pre or post grad student that has earned their own grades wouldn't even consider writing a paper on such things to begin with because at that point they would have learned that attempting to reconcile negative human behavior, and negative human behavior in video games which require negative behavior for success is an absurd and pointless ordeal akin to providing a psychological evaluation of a rugby player based solely on his actions on the field.

The closest study I've seen to a study on the topic of video game actions in relation to IRL actions was the Corrupted Blood catastrophe in World of Warcraft in the mid 2000's. But that didn't really delve into psychology, rather the sociological relation to the outbreak and spread of fatal diseases, both rate of spread, reaction of those affected, and the response/reaction.

 

[ThomasTheTANK]

That is why I play PVE or PVP with trusted people. Nothing is worse than doing all that work, then having nothing to show for it. As an adult gamer, I have other responsibilities too even though I would like to game more.

[LouSpowells]

3 hours ago, CrackerJackx13 said:

time will tell weither there are any pyschological effects with the world health orginizations saying gaming is a "addiction" will see if any studys breed further results from it. time will tell.

The purpose of recognizing video games as having addictive properties relates to diagnosis and treatment, and has absolutely nothing to do with your proposed (and debunked by mental health professionals) suggestions that actions in violent video games have a direct and consistent relation to real-life state of mind. What this new classification means is that video game addiction will, on a more official scale, now be treated as an addiction. The studies from this point will have to do with the necessity and/or effectiveness of withdrawal treatment, effective methods of recovery, and potential for relapse after various forms of recovery.

tl;dr - Chill out on the mental health fanfiction.
 

[Buck386]

Stay hidden until you have turrets to have on your base or at least use plant x before you build the base. Everybody who is successful has to do this or you will be wiped evetytime with no defenses

[Z0mbie]

On 1/10/2018 at 7:53 AM, CrackerJackx13 said:

not so much psychotic behavior as there is more moral decay/moral lobotomy, i was also on eve online and still am i run one of the biggest groups on the game.  you mite know who i am based on my behavior and work i have done.

I agree with you on the decay/moral lobotomy of society. You need look no further than television's brainwashing construct brought to you by the mainstream media and it's so called late night comedians (and nearly all currently active tv comedians for that matter) for the source of the moral decay of society.

[CrackerJackx13]

9 hours ago, Z0mbie said:

I agree with you on the decay/moral lobotomy of society. You need look no further than television's brainwashing construct brought to you by the mainstream media and it's so called late night comedians (and nearly all currently active tv comedians for that matter) for the source of the moral decay of society.

nah its peoples ability's to not be able to agree to disagree, and take a joke, with all the generalizing(which dehumanizes and allows a atmosphere where people  treat other people less then human) and belittling people for whatever(politics, religion, etc) allows people lump a large group or small group of people as less then human, and only greaters the decay of what it means to be human on all sides...all sides do it....its really sad that groups of people for whatever reason think this behavior isnt dangerous or wrong, very evil people through history did this. sadily it shows the level of intelligence of those individuals and how weak minded they are, to not be able to look at humans as individuals. generalizing others is wrong.

[calimuscle]

as someone whos played since day 1, whos mostly been solo, whos played with 1 or 2 hes met along the way and whos also been a mega tribe thats even twitch known.

 

All i can say is there is a mentality that showing strength is by being an asshole , and that in a way nice tribes finish last.

In the alpha tribes theres a close knit kinda thing that they perputuate by being an ass to everyone else on the server. Go argue on the all chat and watch them circle jerk each other.

But theres some good news, every one in a while you could actually land on a server where the alpha will even let you build, maybe 1 in 20 official servers are liek that and if the alpha goes you go, or some servers like my old one where theres no alpha just offline grievers, this is the second best choice but ultimate you will get wiped.

This game isnt a short term easy to do well in thing, those games are more like pubg which is why its so popular.

always spend a week to sus out a new server, dont commit to any building