What is the best way to update the players?

[Anarki]

Ok, so I read the forums for updates and for problem solving or just to get an idea from other players. I dont see a lot of replies from moderators and am not sure how many moderators they have on here.

I also see that people get updates from twitter and other sources.

For debate, opinion (no flaming please or full on arguments) what do you think is the best way that WC can keep us updated. I personally think 'official' forums are the best way but as I said, i dont see a lot of activity from GMs etc

Ideas please

[AngrySaltire]

For me it would be here on the official forums. This is where people come to find information, not someones twitter feed or another site such as reddit. Also depends on what they are trying to communicate but I think they could actually make use of the message of the day feature upon log in, when it comes to stuff affecting the official servers.

[iAmE]

Ark doesn't really need updates so much as it needs more interaction with the community in general. As it stands, the developers obviously do not test their content before pushing it live. In such a situation, having an open and effective line of communication with the community is necessary, actually it's outright vital. 

That being said, large portions of the community don't use the Official forums for communication, and because of the fact that the Official Forums are very seldom used for communication, neither do the developers or community managers. 

It's hard to say if there's any real fixing the problem either, because the biggest issue with these forums is one of trust. Early in the forums history, the manager of the Ark website, along with his friends (IE the forum mods), were heavy handed to an extreme, handing out bans and censorship to essentially anything that could be perceived as negative towards the game. This destroyed the trust of the community at large with this forum. While things have mellowed out to a fairly acceptable standard here, large portions of the Ark playerbase use Reddit as their primary communication hub for the game, and are unlikely to change due to that history. If they want to centralize the community in the way you seem to be asking, the biggest hurdle they have to overcome is rebuilding the trust that they (And others), left in tatters for the last few years. 

[Weiss]

*official* forums for sure.

Also for important stuff, maybe the main menu?! No one can miss that.

I still don't get why there is such outdated info on it, instead of (at least links to) the latest news that concern all the players. Why is there no new link to where the community crunch is posted every week? Why is there no button to see/report server outages? Why is there no "warning" section (like, "don't go close to the volcano on the island for now, we messed up the area and you might get insta-killed" / "don't enter the scar on SE for now, you can be randomly dismounted at some points")?

 

I absolutely don't understand why some devs use private accounts that look like an official ones on twitter. 

[WarCuck]

Always the official forums, just like what other companies have done. Just like there needs to be a section for the website about troubleshooting problems related to the game.

[invincibleqc]

In my opinion, it doesn't really matter where the information is posted because as soon as something is posted somewhere, it gets spread to the other places rather quickly by the community itself. I myself try to quotes replies from other medias whenever people are asking things here that have been addressed somewhere else. There is also a very useful tracker developed by Kokarn that centralize everything from tracked accounts which, in my opinion, should be a go-to place for everyone looking for something: https://arkdevtracker.com

[Anarki]

17 minutes ago, invincibleqc said:

I myself try to quotes replies from other medias

My concern here is whether this is verified information. I looked into the 'D3D crash issue' from many sources reddit, steam forums, these forums and they all said different things. I didnt know who to believe and spent about 8 days before I gave on ARK for 4 months. I have now replaced my GPU and have started playing again. Ive only 1500hrs on ARK so I am no major player compared to others - but having a central repositiory for verified information is key to a companies success in my opinion.

[iAmE]

1 hour ago, Anarki said:

My concern here is whether this is verified information. I looked into the 'D3D crash issue' from many sources reddit, steam forums, these forums and they all said different things. I didnt know who to believe and spent about 8 days before I gave on ARK for 4 months. I have now replaced my GPU and have started playing again. Ive only 1500hrs on ARK so I am no major player compared to others - but having a central repositiory for verified information is key to a companies success in my opinion.

There's a lot of things most companies due that Wildcard completely ignores. Such as testing their products prior to release, having sufficient customer service to support the basic necessities of their product, interacting with the community and, in general, behaving in a professional manner befitting a company servicing tens to perhaps hundreds of thousands of people.

I would temper your expectations in regards to getting Wildcard to behave in a rational or professional manner. People have tried to get them to do so for years, and they've as of yet, failed.