Ark Isn't Just Dying, It's Being Murdered

[devid20]

1 hour ago, RipRavage said:

Lets be realistic, anybody that has played this game for more than a year knows exactly how much of lazy scumbags the devs are.  The game is addictive, so we are all going to continue putting money into their pockets because we love dinosaurs.  They haven't even fixed the issue of beacons floating into the ground and being unreachable, which has been around since the Scorched Earth days at least.  The TLC screwed up the rexes color regions, they cater to the pvp whiners by nerfing the paracer and brontos HP into the ground making them pointless, Aberration got delayed for months, I mean the list goes on.  We all still throw the money at them though, I bet most of us own Aberration, I know I do.

 

"Lazy devs"- Go and play other games that came out in 2014 and find one that improved more than ark. Rust came out almost the same time, go and check it...
"we are all going to continue putting money into their pockets"- No one forces you to do it.
"They haven't even fixed the issue of beacons floating into the ground and being unreachable".- Maybe iam unluck, but iam not seen any floating bacon at the past year.
"Aberration got delayed for months". -They had a big problem on it, thats why it got delayed.

[RipRavage]

1 minute ago, devid20 said:

 

"Lazy devs"- Go and play other games that came out in 2014 and find one that improved more than ark. Rust came out almost the same time, go and check it...
"we are all going to continue putting money into their pockets"- No one forces you to do it.
"They haven't even fixed the issue of beacons floating into the ground and being unreachable".- Maybe iam unluck, but iam not seen any floating bacon at the past year.
"Aberration got delayed for months". -They had a big problem on it, thats why it got delayed.

Go play scorched earth or ragnarok and you will see the beacons, just saw one yesterday at the same spot its been on for over a year.  Never said I was going to stop putting money in their pockets, just said that is why they continue to act this way.  As far as aberration goes they created their own problem by announcing it too early, they were so eager to get everyone to pre-purchase the game that they announced it without actually knowing they could deliver on time.  Aberration was rushed, it didn't have to be, they hung themselves with that issue by rushing to grab another 20 dollars.

[yekrucifixion187]

41 minutes ago, Ranger1 said:

I"m not sure why you would feel anyone would "Have" to buy SE if they don't want it, no more so than they would "have" to buy Aberration

Have as in forced, no. Have if you want all the achievements and full story line, yes. 

I'm on the side of got my money's worth from entertainment value. I'm on the side of SE is an underrated map. 

You are factually correct by stating;

1 hour ago, invincibleqc said:

You guys tend to forget that most of the players are playing unofficial servers and that most of the issues you are describing are only affecting officials.

,but if you offer something called "official servers" do you not have an ethical responsibility to care for them? They are "official" Ark servers after all. 

Quote

 

official: having the approval or authorization of an authority or public body.

official: employed by an authority or public body in a position of authority or trust

 

Pick your definition but trust and approval is a big part of official servers. The players trust that this company supplying the servers that wants you to play this game in a tribe setting, nulling the single player is all that is required argument, is going to take care of the official servers and it feels like there are mostly cosmetic changes at this point. 

I see guys talk about .ini files and I glaze a bit. I shouldn't need any more knowledge than what my button controls do to play and enjoy this game designed and released to the public. I shouldn't need to know specific settings and how to adjust them to maximize the games potential. If I was to have that knowledge then shouldn't I be looking at making my own game? I mean Ark wasn't released as a template. It was released to the public as a full game, at full retail price, with full customer support for official servers. 

I am providing an alternate but I think valid view point here. It doesn't necessarily represent my personal feelings but from an outside perspective I believe it to be dead on. Obviously their flaws aren't enough to make me close the application, delete it, and never look back. I've gotten a lot of enjoyment out of this game. Anybody complaining has gotten a lot of enjoyment out of this game which is why they are voicing their concerns because they want this game to be the best game of all time. If they didn't care they wouldn't be here. 

Yes most of these problems are related to official servers but official servers are what is marketed ($2000 reward for beating Rockwell on official settings) and they are officially disappointing at this point. 

[Ranger1]

32 minutes ago, yekrucifixion187 said:

Yes most of these problems are related to official servers but official servers are what is marketed ($2000 reward for beating Rockwell on official settings) and they are officially disappointing at this point. 

I always enjoy your posts, even if there is the occasional point here and there I don't fully agree with. 

I tend to agree in as far as official servers have taken a beating, especially as of late.  Work definitely needs to continue to make them more stable and robust in an environment where little direct (day to day) supervision of the server is possible.  Unfortunately the hyper competitive environment of officials provides huge incentive for some players to do their best to bring those servers down.

But really the only point of "official" servers is to allow a wider scope for competitive game play (be that for combat or for marketing purposes).  Unfortunately that also provides that incentive I mentioned earlier. 

Some people seem to think that "official servers" means "the correct way to play ARK".  In reality it simply means "the most restrictive, lowest common denominator way to play ARK... but the one with the largest number of easily accessible victims/customers".   Some people go that route because they enjoy the "wild west" gaming experience they get (or create)... others seek it out purely in an attempt for personal gain.

The majority of ARK players recognize this and opt for the far more stable (and customize-able) unofficial server player experience.  Personally I have little doubt that the game could survive, and thrive, in an unofficial server only environment if necessary.  That being said, I wouldn't really be a fan of that option.  Variable ways to play (within reason) are a good thing in my book.

So yes, I fully agree that official servers definitely need to continue to work towards being more robust, but they also shouldn't be held up as the sum total (or even an overly large portion) of the ARK game play the majority of players are experiencing.

[BoboOfTheFriendlies]

I have been playing from the beginning, and the argument that the game has been in a permanently broken and unplayable state is simply not true.  Listening to this guy and a good bit of the people chiming in just sounds like an angry ex having a drunk rant.  I have been frustrated plenty of times, and think they should spend more focus on performance and bug cleanup, as well as better quality control.  But the games has been fun and worth playing throughout, and really, nobody is making you play it.  I don't really understand the attitude of entitlement and animosity towards the developers.  Just like the angry drunk ex situation, most of us at the table wish you would just move on because we are still cool with her and don't need to hear what you think.  And what does the average number of players look like?

[RipRavage]

9 minutes ago, BoboOfTheFriendlies said:

I have been playing from the beginning, and the argument that the game has been in a permanently broken and unplayable state is simply not true.  Listening to this guy and a good bit of the people chiming in just sounds like an angry ex having a drunk rant.  I have been frustrated plenty of times, and think they should spend more focus on performance and bug cleanup, as well as better quality control.  But the games has been fun and worth playing throughout, and really, nobody is making you play it.  I don't really understand the attitude of entitlement and animosity towards the developers.  Just like the angry drunk ex situation, most of us at the table wish you would just move on because we are still cool with her and don't need to hear what you think.  And what does the average number of players look like?

Nobody is forcing you to read these posts or respond, if they bother you you can just move on and ignore them.  But you didn't because you wanted to get your opinion across, just like everybody else that posts on these FORUMS and the people you are complaining about.

[ChargingParacerParacer]

5 hours ago, RipRavage said:

We all still throw the money at them though, I bet most of us own Aberration, I know I do.

I don't own it and never will. Agreed with the rest of your post btw.

The only money I have spent on this game is the original 30$ asking price in february 2016 and thats because in that amount of time WC has given me more reasons to dislike the game and to lose respect in the quality they do than to be pleased with it.

Frequent nerfs to the few bits of content that's actually worth using, ocassional snarkiness to the people actually buying their products, honestly only giving 'balances'  that are only beneficial to one of the game modes, that laughable letting cheaters get away with cheating 'once' debacle...

The TLC passes getting here are finally going back to the right direction but I can't help but wonder how many passes they will bother doing. My guess is no more than 4 then we will be reading "We feel based off of feedback that all dinos have their well balanced niche. Thank you for your patience (insert quote of excitement here about keep playing ARK!)"

[Umber0010]

at this point, there's only one thing we can do to fix it

 

 

Spam S***** fan art on the subreddit

[LouSpowells]

ArK iS bEinG MurDeREd!

...seriously though, there is a lot of gray area on this topic...certainly a lot more than the OP is asserting when pretending he speaks for "we." In my personal opinion, the game isn't perfect or completely broken. It's not dying either, but as we all know appeals to emotion get far more visibility and traffic than reasonable and balanced assessments in this clickbait time we live in.

 

[DESTROYER]

8 hours ago, invincibleqc said:

ARK is not dying. Still averaging ~40k players a day on Steam since 2015. You guys tend to forget that most of the players are playing unofficial servers and that most of the issues you are describing are only affecting officials. I personally had my share of officials both PvP and PvE and I can guarantee you that hosting my own servers was the best decision I've ever made. Players on officials are toxic. I personally don't think $60 is too much. Just check the amount of entertainment you got out of the game and you will realize that it is quite cheap for the amount of content offered. I paid some games $60 that was done in ~20 hours and there was nothing else to do once the story was over so yeah, ARK is cheap and well worth its price.

That's kinda what everyone is saying WC ruins things but when it's up to others it's better either through custom settings or some mods and even moderation of servers, without a doubt ark at its core is amazing but with all the choices WC makes they seem like they are struggling to save officials and almost always make things worse.

 

But unofficial servers are where you experience the true joy of ark, a place where the players can reverse Nerf's to an extent or completely through the use of mods decrease the grind even allow those with busy lives to enjoy the more time consuming aspects like breeding and moderate server's to tend to issues like cheaters and trolls.

[Nch1418]

Alright, I'll say my piece. The way I see it, this game is not dying or going anywhere. Does it have problems that still need fixing? Yes. Is it the best game ever made? No. Is it ever going to be perfect? In one's dreams perhaps, but again, no. I agree the devs have made questionable decisions on some things, but that makes them human, not people trying to kill their own game. I find it doubtful that's their intent. I mean, unless you are completely insane, trying to kill your own product is like hitting yourself in the face with a shovel. It hurts, so you don't do it. Do I always agree with what the devs do? Certainly not. However, I accept that this is their product and they are free to develop it the way they see fit. Let's be honest, they are never going to please everyone. It just isn't going to happen. I personally love this game and love that they keep trying to improve and expand upon it. Leaving things open for expansion is a good way to keep people invested. Do I think they could improve some things already in beyond creature TLC? Yes. Let me say that there is an old saying for something like this, I don't remember who said it, but it goes something like "A work of any kind is never finished until it is abandoned". Ark is a lot like that. It will never be finished till Wildcard completely moves away from it (which hopefully will not be any time in the near future). Instead of complaining about the devs killing the game, we should instead keep pushing good suggestions and feedback forward. That is the only way things are going to improve. Complaining will do nothing, constructive criticism will.

[ForzaProiettile]

That video is nothing but sensationalist bullcrap. The narrator spends the majority of the video talking about ARK's history instead of actually focusing on the current which is what it is meant to be about. When he finally does get to the current he launches into a rant full of hyperbole and nonsense. I finally turned it off when he called players engaging in PVP on Official servers "greifers" and said that they are "toxic". It is clear he is just another little safe space gamer that can't handle actual competition and danger and wants to be coated in bubble wrap.

In terms of the developers there seems to be a lot of genuine hate lately on here for the developers and while they have made lot of mistakes particularly with releasing paid DLC in Early Access, going easy on cheaters and not working on reducing the effects of mega tribes on the game.

If  however you compare their deeds and actions to other Early Access developers they generally come off in a better light. I have been trying Conan Exiles again recently and that is a game where the developers need to be lined up and shot. The developers in that game are truly pathetic and make the ARK devs look like gaming professors. For instance in that game even though its releasing in 2 months time there is still a commonly occurring bug where when you shoot your bow no arrow is actually fired. It makes all the sounds, does the animation but no arrow is actually fired and the enemy takes no damage. Now can you imagine ARK having a bug like that and the Devs still not being able to fix it for over 5 months?

The ARK devs are not perfect by any means but clearly there is some real crap floating around out there in the dev world. We are fortunate that the ARK devs are well above average.

My one gripe with this game is the growth of mega tribes in PVP. If you ask me the whole alliance thing since it was introduced has negatively impacted on the game. Players are holding hands more then they are fighting. In 2015 when I first got the game a week after launch, PVP was genuinely much better. Everyone was fighting everyone and boring OP flying dinos weren't really a thing just yet. If you ask me and I've said this many times before but I think tribe size should be limited to 10, alliances disabled on Official servers and the amount of Official servers reduced to cram everyone into the remaining servers.  This would foster much better and active PVP.

[Nch1418]

Honestly, I'm starting to think this guy made this thread just to get more Youtube subscribers. Not happening, fella. Also, excuse me while I dismantle your ad hominem, not to mention your straw man (see my previous post).

[Guest DJRone89]

4 hours ago, Umber0010 said:

at this point, there's only one thing we can do to fix it

 

 

Spam S***** fan art on the subreddit

I just saw the thumbnail, hand drawn I hope?

r/PlayArk certainly draws the attention of the devs though mostly Jat, but I see Jen and even Jesse pop up from time to time.

[Sphere]

The terrible handling of this game is why I went and bought a high end consumer server, and opened my own cluster.

It's a shame that the fear mongers are going around spreading crap about unofficials.

[Onimusha759]

15 hours ago, Thorium said:

I can't agree with a lot he says in the video. ARK was one of the most complete early access games, when it first hit early access. It was absolutely playable and had a lot of content untypical for a early access game at that time.

Servers are not unstable. Actually they are rock stable. Unofficials rarely ever crash and if they do, it's typically very fast fixed by WC. The problem is the official server network, which is overloaded with exploiters, searching for ways to bring down servers and the lack of WC dealing with this people. They should shut down the official servers and let the community run all servers. The game would go in a very different and much more positive direction. As you would have servers that are properly administrated and supported. A lot of his criticism only applies to officials.

I also don't think that ARK is a buggy mess and it never was. There are a lot of bugs and glitches, but it's more than playable. For a game like ARK it's not to bad. It could be better and i don't understand why some bugs are just not getting fixed, but it's still in a good state overall.

Thats debateable, "is it playable?"  on a standard compared to other games this game is an absolute mess and most other games fanbases would of rioted and left it for dead.  On a addicts comparison this game is so darn addictive that people for some reason still play it.  Its quite odd, iv never seen a fanbase so submissive to its devs.  Everyone that has this game just plays dead for these devs, the few that do call em out on there extremely bad shortcomings still submit to them in the end.  @invincibleqc , the game could actually be dying slowly.  Hes 100% right that WC has their priorities messed up focusing so heavily on content but leaving so many things that would be completely unexceptable in other gaming communities completely untouched.  This will eventually hit a breaking point if its not addressed.  There is an extreme likelihood that another studio will create their own version of this game and it will likely be a high end studio like capcom or bethesda and when they do this they will not have these extreme issues.  That will likely cause an extreme migration from Ark to its competitor and that will be arks death.

I did forget 1 thing, trophy hunters are being forced to buy dlc.  Do to a current bug unaddressed by the devs the max survivor trophy, which is required to get the platinum, is unobtainable without buying aberration.  Having to buy dlc to get platinum is absolutely unheard of and the fact that only this trophy is broken by aberrations release which causes a need to purchase the dlc and the fact it has no attention on it looks really darn shady.

[Malorne]

15 hours ago, Ranger1 said:

I always enjoy your posts, even if there is the occasional point here and there I don't fully agree with. 

I tend to agree in as far as official servers have taken a beating, especially as of late.  Work definitely needs to continue to make them more stable and robust in an environment where little direct (day to day) supervision of the server is possible.  Unfortunately the hyper competitive environment of officials provides huge incentive for some players to do their best to bring those servers down.

But really the only point of "official" servers is to allow a wider scope for competitive game play (be that for combat or for marketing purposes).  Unfortunately that also provides that incentive I mentioned earlier. 

Some people seem to think that "official servers" means "the correct way to play ARK".  In reality it simply means "the most restrictive, lowest common denominator way to play ARK... but the one with the largest number of easily accessible victims/customers".   Some people go that route because they enjoy the "wild west" gaming experience they get (or create)... others seek it out purely in an attempt for personal gain.

The majority of ARK players recognize this and opt for the far more stable (and customize-able) unofficial server player experience.  Personally I have little doubt that the game could survive, and thrive, in an unofficial server only environment if necessary.  That being said, I wouldn't really be a fan of that option.  Variable ways to play (within reason) are a good thing in my book.

So yes, I fully agree that official servers definitely need to continue to work towards being more robust, but they also shouldn't be held up as the sum total (or even an overly large portion) of the ARK game play the majority of players are experiencing.

Those aside, the lack of optimization updates while bombarding the game with new content, maps and whatnot is not really a good way to improve on your game. Even with a perfect PC you wont be able to function properly in the game. Granted thats mostly the issue with the engine and design in terms of compatibility, server issues as well as lack of protection and privacy (thanks steam) is a big issue. Being optimistic is good and all but there are times when u sit and say "hmm, this could be better" 

Even the biggest and most successful mmorpg games has bugs, its a curse of developement. It all boils down to whether the company wishes to fix them to ensure a more enjoyable game or simply ignore them for more content. In Ark's case, its the latter unfortunately.

[ZyraSeedling]

7 hours ago, Nch1418 said:

Let me say that there is an old saying for something like this, I don't remember who said it, but it goes something like "A work of any kind is never finished until it is abandoned". 

Leonardo Da Vinci: "Art is never finished, only abandoned"

 

Anyway, there is no way wildcard could ever win this fight. I bought ark in the very early days, before their first creature additions. One of the things I enjoyed most about ark was that they had new content coming all the time. It made things exciting. If they never added content it would have stagnated like I have seen with other early access games lacking enough content and then not adding any. 

No new content added= people saying "boring, moving on"

New content frequently= "but I Want you to focus on THIS not that"

People will complain either way.

As for "game breaking bugs" I have some issues with rubberbanding sometimes and the occasional  strange bug (like moving knocked out creatures)has occurred over the years I have played.  But on the whole I do feel I have never had horrible buggy experiences with ark. Maybe it is because I do not play on bogged down servers, I do not know (i only do a private server, husband and myself). But crashing etc has not been an issue other than an outdated mod that I uninstalled and replaced with an up to date mod. Seems like the servers need work to me, not necessarily the game.

 

As for the video complaining about this being the company's first title.... shouldn't that be an amazing achievement, not a whining point? They have to start somewhere, don't they?

[DeningWei]

Hey I sat down and watched his whole video.  He's put a lot of effort into creating a high quality video with an informative talk throughout, this guy is  made for YouTube.

And while I agree with some of his points, such as there is something smelly about some of WC's practices, I think overall from my experience in Ark he is a little pessimistic and uses a little exaggeration to make his points.  A lot of these issues he talks about really aren't as big of a deal as he might think.  

  Sure games have bugs, right now I'm trying to deal with the bugs in Kingdom Come, but he is basing pretty much his entire argument on the concept of "broken game".

To be honest, it isn't.

[nickwright2007]

20 hours ago, invincibleqc said:

ARK is not dying. Still averaging ~40k players a day on Steam since 2015. You guys tend to forget that most of the players are playing unofficial servers and that most of the issues you are describing are only affecting officials. I personally had my share of officials both PvP and PvE and I can guarantee you that hosting my own servers was the best decision I've ever made. Players on officials are toxic. I personally don't think $60 is too much. Just check the amount of entertainment you got out of the game and you will realize that it is quite cheap for the amount of content offered. I paid some games $60 that was done in ~20 hours and there was nothing else to do once the story was over so yeah, ARK is cheap and well worth its price.

You're paying more money into a game you just bought to play it.  That's the reason why I left World of Warcraft.  I'm not spending $60 for  game then have to shell out more money to continue to play it.  And any game that takes 20 hours to play isn't worth $60.  And if you went through the entire game in 20 hours you're skipping a lot of side quests that are really interesting and trying to just finish the game.  

[ForzaProiettile]

43 minutes ago, DeningWei said:

Hey I sat down and watched his whole video.  He's put a lot of effort into creating a high quality video with an informative talk throughout, this guy is  made for YouTube.

And while I agree with some of his points, such as there is something smelly about some of WC's practices, I think overall from my experience in Ark he is a little pessimistic and uses a little exaggeration to make his points.  A lot of these issues he talks about really aren't as big of a deal as he might think.  

  Sure games have bugs, right now I'm trying to deal with the bugs in Kingdom Come, but he is basing pretty much his entire argument on the concept of "broken game".

To be honest, it isn't.

There are a lot of videos on Youtube lately where the creator tries be as pessimistic as they can about popular games.

I don't know if its a trend as such but it seems to be just another way to earn quick $$$ by tacking on a sensationalist headline and then ranting for 10 minutes about everything bad in a game and saying the world is going to burn. Most of them only know the most basic and widespread facts on the games they rant about, something you could collect from reading a review for a minute as opposed to playing the game for any significant amount of time. 

[Thorium]

6 hours ago, Onimusha759 said:

Thats debateable, "is it playable?"  on a standard compared to other games this game is an absolute mess

I don't know what games you compare it to. But i would compare it to games of similar genre with similar development model. Examples: Space Engineers, 7 Days to Die, Rust, DayZ. ARK is the best in it's genre. 7 Days to Die is still in Alpha and hit early access years before ARK, still it's a good game.

[Thorium]

6 hours ago, Onimusha759 said:

Thats debateable, "is it playable?"

Yes it is. What is you definition of playable? And you don't need to put it into quotes, i think the meaning of the word is very clear. For me it means the game can be played without any bugs blocking you from content of the game. And that is how ARK is and always was.

[ZyraSeedling]

1 hour ago, nickwright2007 said:

You're paying more money into a game you just bought to play it.  That's the reason why I left World of Warcraft.  I'm not spending $60 for  game then have to shell out more money to continue to play it.  And any game that takes 20 hours to play isn't worth $60.  And if you went through the entire game in 20 hours you're skipping a lot of side quests that are really interesting and trying to just finish the game.  

Buying a dlc map is NOT the same as WOW pay to play subscriptions. Which is a big reason I never got WOW in the first place.... 

[JeanII]

22 hours ago, invincibleqc said:

ARK is not dying. Still averaging ~40k players a day on Steam since 2015. You guys tend to forget that most of the players are playing unofficial servers and that most of the issues you are describing are only affecting officials. I personally had my share of officials both PvP and PvE and I can guarantee you that hosting my own servers was the best decision I've ever made. Players on officials are toxic. I personally don't think $60 is too much. Just check the amount of entertainment you got out of the game and you will realize that it is quite cheap for the amount of content offered. I paid some games $60 that was done in ~20 hours and there was nothing else to do once the story was over so yeah, ARK is cheap and well worth its price.

You should log into xbox and look down the legacy server selection list,  It's a bloody ghost town. As noted by the servers being shut down by the hundreds.  And no matter how hard you try you won't just get away with blaming this all on the players. As of Right this minute we sit on xbox on a Saterday morning with rolling server outages "at least 20 servers are down right this minute including mine" and you mods still continue to have the nerve to claim toxic players are the reason the game is falling off. 

This all goes without even mentioning the way these forums are run, having been an active member of online gaming communities since the mid 90s this is literally the ONLY forum I've ever been reprimanded or suspended from EVER. But if you were to look down my account points list it's like i must be public enemy #1. 

But oh well i suppose i'm toxic "looks at clock" "hour 12 of waiting on someone to walk into an office and reboot my server"

God knows it has nothing to do with being called names by company officials.