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WildCard totally destroyed ark survival


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9 minutes ago, Vit0Corleone said:

Wildcard co-founder about what is Ark:

 

"that leads to stuff in the future"
Clear Sci Fi hint. Statement about WHAT the game is.

"There are not only Dinos, but also Mamals"
So a Mamal and Dino Game?!
No, here he is talking about what is IN the game.

Your expectations filtered and interprated it to something you wanted to hear.
Sales People know exactly to be vague enough to create those bubbles.
A Car that is "the greatest adventure in your life" is still a car. I sell a car... not an adventure.
It a simpel rhetorical trick, do give people info in a way that seem to comply in their expectations. That's how you are tricked by every sales person/advert to buy stuff you don't want or need.

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9 hours ago, Vit0Corleone said:

No, they don't. For me, a sci-fi setting doesn't necessarily mean space ships pew pew lasers

Yeah, in a game it does, this is the point that you keep avoiding.

Sci-fi = advance tech weapon as part of combat, that's how sci-fi works, especially in games.

9 hours ago, Vit0Corleone said:

and missions with scores and AI shops.

Again you're conflating two different issues.

Issue #1 is whether a sci-fi game automatically implies pew-pew lasers and the use of advanced technology as part of the game play. It does.

Issue #2 is whether a sci-fi game automatically implies missions and AI shops. It doesn't.
Those are two entirely separate issues and you're not doing your arguments any favor by mixing them together as if they're all part of a package.

It's perfectly understandable that you don't like the game mechanics of missions and AI shops. I get it, if you wanted quests and NPC's shops you'd be playing WoW, Rift, or a zillion other games that have always featured those mechanics and there's nothing in back story or the history of the expansions that logically leads to having those game mechanics in the final xpac.

Conversely it's not perfectly understandable if you object to lasers and advanced technology featuring more heavily as the game progressed. Tek armor and weapons were introduced with the first map, it was inevitable that advanced technology would end up being featured more heavily as the game went on.

9 hours ago, Vit0Corleone said:

This is not what I expected Ark to turn into

Then you're one of the people who should be happy with the direction they're taking with ARK2.

In fairness to you, you're not alone. there are plenty of people who have not been happy with the fact that missions were added, nor the game mechanics of the missions. I mean, that has to be true otherwise WC wouldn't have gone out of their way to make sure everyone knows ARK2 will be a more primitive feeling game.

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10 minutes ago, Pipinghot said:

Again you're conflating two different issues.

You seem to want me to separate one single issue. But that's not really a thing.

For me it's the whole package. It's the direction the game took, with the combination of all those elements, from pew-pew lasers, arcade-y space ship combat, OP gear, missions, shops, etc. that turned Ark into a very different experience.

It's not one single thing.

14 minutes ago, Pipinghot said:

Issue #1 is whether a sci-fi game automatically implies pew-pew lasers and the use of advanced technology as part of the game play. It does.

Therefore Ark2, which has the same sci-fi background setting, is going to be that too?

15 minutes ago, Pipinghot said:

WC wouldn't have gone out of their way to make sure everyone knows ARK2 will be a more primitive feeling

Right, so a new game, with the same sci-fi setting, with a connected story and known characters, will be very different in that aspect. How do you even square this out with your pre preconceived notion that sci-fi = space ship pew pew?

You only know it's not going to be that because the devs told us so. If you used your previous argument and made a prediction, you would have failed.

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1 hour ago, Vit0Corleone said:

Therefore Ark2, which has the same sci-fi background setting, is going to be that too?

Santiago shuts down the last remaining technologie in the intro.
So yes, there is a SF origin, but ARK 2 is not (yet).
Therefore they can stay with a primitive Setting, or expand it later on (which they should or they will lose a lot of Customers).


You are mixing up a lot of diffrent things.
Genre =/= Setting =/= Theme

ARK Survival
Genre: Survival
Setting: SF (or Science Fantasy. THAT is discusable, but not 11!!!11 Dinos)
Theme: Partly Dinos (among other "Themed" stuff. There are also Mamals, there are also Mystical Creatures).

You can call a game either by its Genre or Setting, but not by it's theme.
There are no "Dino" Games. Games can be "Dino Themed". And ARK is SF Survival Game, partly Dino themed.

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10 minutes ago, Zayisha said:

You are mixing up a lot of diffrent things.
Genre =/= Setting =/= Theme

ARK Survival
Genre: Survival
Setting: SF (or Science Fantasy. THAT is discusable, but not 11!!!11 Dinos)
Theme: Partly Dinos (among other "Themed" stuff. There are also Mamals, there are also Mystical Creatures).

I don't think I'm mixing it up at all. I actually agree with this, except maybe for "Partly Dinos".

I happen to think that a survival exploration game with Dinos is what makes Ark unique.

The devs thought so too, so much that they stated that themselves.

And by "Dinos", obviously we use that term as an umbrella for the creatures the game has. Everyone calls them dinos, even thou plenty of them are not. Some, as you correctly pointed out, are even just made up mystical creatures that exist only on fantasy stories.

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2 hours ago, Vit0Corleone said:

You seem to want me to separate one single issue. But that's not really a thing.

Yeah, it really is two things even though you don't like that it is.

1) The game is, was, always has been, and was always going to be a sci-fi game, it was never just a game about dinos. Again, go watch the original trailer for the game, it was always sci-fi before you ever played it.

2) The game mechanics of missions and AI/NPC vendors have nothing at all to do with the game being sci-fi or not, those are mechanics that are in game with many different settings from fantasy to detective noir to sci-fi to what-have you.

3) Likewise, the game mechanics of the video that you linked are not linked to being sci-fi. It was inevitable that a sci-fi game was going to move more and more towards high-tech as the game progressed, but it was in no way inevitable that the game would include game mechanics that look like a console game platform shooter. These are separate issues.

2 hours ago, Vit0Corleone said:

For me it's the whole package. It's the direction the game took

In the sense that it was going to move more towards advanced technology then it's the direction the game was always going to take.

On the other hand, if you mean the specific game mechanics of missions, ship combat and NPC/AI vendors have been added, then yeah I'm with you, not a big fan of those mechanics either.

Sci-fi and game mechanics are two different issues.

2 hours ago, Vit0Corleone said:

For me it's the whole package. It's the direction the game took, with the combination of all those elements, from pew-pew lasers, arcade-y space ship combat, OP gear, missions, shops, etc. that turned Ark into a very different experience.

The direction of the game was always sci-fi and was always going to be sci-fi. The instant you did an Ascension on The Island you should have know that beyond any shadow of a doubt. Frankly you should have known long before then [ See: Implants, Obelisks & Supply Drops], but if you ever Ascended then you don't have any excuse for not seeing it coming.

* Pew-pew lasers - inevitable for a sci-fi game. No excuse for not seeing that coming.

* Arcade-y space ship combat - a game mechanic that is not specifically related to sci-fi, it could have been done (and has been) in a fantasy game, or just about any game in which a sub-plot could involve arcade-y action. This is certainly something valid to complain about but is a separate issue from the game being sci-fi.

* OP gear - a valid thing to complain about, in any game, but is a separate issue from the game being sci-fi.

* Missions - a valid thing to complain about, in any game, but is a separate issue from the game being sci-fi.

* Shops - a valid thing to complain about, in any game, but is a separate issue from the game being sci-fi.

* Turning ARK into a very different experience - as long as you understood that Tek tier was always going to be part of the game which, by definition, is a different experience from starting naked on the beach (then again having a large base full of rexes and wearing flak armor is also a different experience from starting naked on the beach), then there are valid complaints to be made. They could have followed the story line with pew-pew lasers, they could have had the game follow the sci-fi path to its story conclusion, all without changing the feeling of how the game is played.

This is why I'm telling you that there are two different issues you keep conflating - the game was sci-fi right from the very beginning and it was obviously inevitable that advanced technology would become more and more featured as the game progressed, but that does not mean it was inevitable that arcade-y space ship combat or a console-style shooting mission were inevitable. The progression of the game towards a sci-fi conclusion and the specific game mechanics of how that progression was implemented are two different things.

2 hours ago, Vit0Corleone said:

Therefore Ark2, which has the same sci-fi background setting, is going to be that too?

My bet? Yes, eventually it will have players using advanced technology but later in the progression of the game and it will be handled more subtley and deftly. Also, my best guess is that they're not going to use any of the game mechanics that have caused the loudest complaining. There was never a general outcry about tek rifles and tek grenades like there has been about the Gen2 missions, so the game mechanics of the advanced technology will be handled differently in ARK2 when they (eventually) get added in.

It will still have pew-pew lasers, it will still be sci-fi, they're just going to change the game mechanics for how they implement that sci-fi. Again, "sci-fi" and "specific game mechanics" are two different things.

2 hours ago, Vit0Corleone said:

Right, so a new game, with the same sci-fi setting, with a connected story and known characters, will be very different in that aspect. How do you even square this out with your pre preconceived notion that sci-fi = space ship pew pew?

You keep mixing issues. "sci-fi = pew-pew-lasers" is not the same thing as "sci-fi = space ship pew-pew", it's absolutely not the same thing as "sci-fi = arcade console space ship combat" and it's also not the same thing as "sci-fi = missions". There is no direct relationship between the sci-fi setting and the specific game mechanics that you keep complaining about. Sci-fi is a setting that implies advanced technology will be used, but it is not a setting that implies any specific game mechanics will be used.

Just as I said early in this conversation, I knew from the beginning that there would be pew-pew-lasers involved in game play at some point, but in no way did I ever expect or predict the specific game mechanics that there would be missions, arcade-y ship combat or AI/NPC vendors.

Also, you're misquoting both my words and my intent. I never said that "sci-fi = space ship pew pew", what I saw was "sci-fi = pew-pew-lasers", those are not the same thing. As I've said more than once, I never predicted nor expected space ship combat, much less arcade-y space ship combat. The fact that you conflate what I actually said with what you've attributed to me explains a lot about why you keep conflating two different issues.

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On 6/8/2021 at 9:13 AM, Vit0Corleone said:

 

Good morning Vito,

So, with a fresh mind and a fresh cup of coffee in hand I re-read this thread and it's immediately obvious that we've been talking in circles around each other.

In the interest of trying to restore our common ground I will start by saying that I apologize for anything I've misunderstood or misconstrued, and add to that by saying I (mostly) agree with some of the basic points you've been trying to make.

There are some aspects of your posting, like using the term "power rangers" that have lead to so much disagreement with you (both from me and from whoever else has disagreed with you) because they make you sound like every person who's complained about the existence of tek tier as a being inherently bad or wrong when it should have been obvious to people that tek tier was always going to be part of the game.

So talking about "power rangers" has caused some of what you've said to be misconstrued, but in hindsight I get that what you were really trying to talk about was power creep and mini-games being added to the game.

On 6/8/2021 at 9:13 AM, Vit0Corleone said:

What made them come play Ark was the proposition of playing a brutal survival game with dinos. Us against the elements. The "Survivors".

Agreed. As long as you don't count the many people who quit ARK because it was too hard.

"Survival game" means different things to different people. The history of these forums is filled with arguments about whether ARK is too hard and how hard it should be. There have been bunches of people over the years who were looking for a dino game but not a brutal survival game, and those people were disappointed by ARK.

So if you're going to complain about Gen2 being too easy, don't forget about all of the people who left ARK because it was too hard, people that WildCard would like to lure back in time for ARK2. Their money spends just as well as yours does and WildCard has to make game design decisions while trying to balance which approach to the game will get the most people to buy the game.

On 6/8/2021 at 9:13 AM, Vit0Corleone said:

It's basically a high-tech power rangers/halo farming game at this point.

Personally, I agree that it felt like too easy a start, and I'm fairly sure that I'll continue to agree with this as it feels like the rest of the map is basically going to be a series of mini-game missions leading up to the boss fights.

To be fair, I think what WildCard was trying to do with Gen2 was to publish a final chapter that would be fairly easy for a lot of old players to return to so they could say that played the game from beginning to end. From a game play point of view it's been less fun for me that playing a new character on other maps, but they know a lot more about their player demographics and specifically about the reasons people have left the game, and I suspect that they thought Gen2 would be a good way to get a lot of people to come back to the game in preparation for Gen2.

So my perspective is the same as yours, but that doesn't mean you or I actually represent the majority of the people who have purchased the game over its full history.

On 6/8/2021 at 9:13 AM, Vit0Corleone said:

There's a reason why when "best maps" polls are done, Aberration usually comes on top. It's a very good example of how a Survival experience should be.

That's true... but it overlooks a lot of important context.

Aberration may top polls, but you need to keep in mind that they are polls which have three flaws:

1) they only reach people who are still playing the game and didn't leave because of Ab

2) They are subject to a strong self-selection bias, only the people who are most motivated to answer the polls do so.

3) The polls don't measure map hatred, only map love. Ab gets more votes as best map, but if they also did a poll for worst map I have a strong suspicion that Ab would win that poll too. Ab may have the most fans but it likely also has the most haters, and that's not good for a game company that wants people to keep buying new expansions.

 

Two anecdotes to help illustrate this point:

a) Neebs Gaming - I don't know if you're familiar with them, but they're a group that plays games on Youtube. They don't create tutorial/training videos, what they do is use good editing to create narrative stories using the games they play. They're a fun group that plays a wide variety of games and have a large following (over 2m subscribers at this point). They have multiple seasons of ARK, starting fairly early in the game, they have played almost all of the maps at some point and... they refused to do a season on Aberration. They didn't think it was fun nor lent itself to good storytelling.

You're probably thinking, "So what? One group of youtubers is not a representation of the player base." That's true, but they are a good representation of a fairly large segment of the player base, people who like the survival aspect of ARK and yet strongly disliked Aberration for being too brutal.

b) I'm currently engaged in a full play through of ARK on a private server with a group of RL friends. We play one map at a time, we start every map with new Lvl 1 characters, and we only use resources that are available on that map to play it from start to finish. There are 7 of us in the group and I'm the only one who truly enjoyed Aberration from start to finish. Everyone else in the group, people who like starting naked on the beach with brand new, Lvl 1 characters, people who like leveling up and playing each new map without tek level technology, people who like taming and surviving, and 6 out of 7 people in our group thought Aberration was too much and took it too far.

A group of dedicated, long-term ARK players, and 6/7 had varying degrees of dislike for Aberration. That's only one group of people but it should help you see that Aberration is far from being the universal standard for how hard or brutal ARK should be. I like Ab, just like you liked Ab, but that doesn't mean we're in the majority.

On 6/8/2021 at 9:13 AM, Vit0Corleone said:

I guess the devs understand that very well, which is probably why they describe Ark2 as a more primitive game. Going back to its root most likely.

More primitive, yes, but not necessarily more brutal.

We shouldn't assume that placing the technology outside of the game play in ARK2 automatically means that they're going to make it harder. Maybe they will, maybe they won't, but based on the trend of maps Extinction>Gen1>Gen2 I'd suggest that you need to start getting ready for a less brutal game.

ARK2 may feel more like The Land that Time Forgot or Land of the Lost but that doesn't automatically mean it's going to be more difficult than the last three lore maps.

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On 6/11/2021 at 4:42 PM, Pipinghot said:

Yeah, in a game it does, this is the point that you keep avoiding.

Sci-fi = advance tech weapon as part of combat, that's how sci-fi works, especially in games.

Yeah, I would have to respectfully disagree.   People have been confusing or just plain lazily lumping fantasy and sci-fi together for a LONG time.  I can remember in the 90's going to the library and having to go to the SCI-FI section for my Wheel of Time, Lord of the Ring, Game of Thrones, books.

That hasn't changed much today.  20 years and approximately 5 moves later, my local library has all that stuff under "Young Adult Fiction."

One could also argue that Survival has a place in sci-fi, whether it's dinosaur related, realistic, or space ships.

It's not too far from "survival horror" either, which could easily be any genre.

Too much polarizing these days and that partially stems from our pathetic attempts to generalize everything.

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On 6/8/2021 at 5:35 PM, Martellus said:

 


The trailer that launched with the game on steam, posted on May 2015.

Speaking for myself, they did deliver on the expectation they created here.

That is all that needs to be mentioned. 

Cheers & carry on!

They clearly left out the part where peoples' vaults and other time-intensively grinded items simply just fall through the floor and disappear, while support and trolls laugh and point saying: " :D w'hell thats ark for ya!"

 

 

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19 hours ago, theopheus said:

Yeah, I would have to respectfully disagree.   People have been confusing or just plain lazily lumping fantasy and sci-fi together for a LONG time.

Of course I support your right to disagree, but I don't see any connection between your opening sentence and the rest of your post.

It's true, fantasy and sci-fi get lumped in together. This has always been true, since the labels of "fantasy" and "science fiction " were invented. We could spend pages discussing/arguing/agreeing about which specific works of literature should be classified as fantasy or sci-fi, and then the same discussion with movies & TV shows.

Having said that, I think it's pretty clear that the setting, the milleu of ARK is clearly science fiction. At no time in the game, not the lore notes, not the equipment, not the abilities of the survivors, is anything rooted in magic. Everything in this game is caused by or created by a science based tool.

Implants aren't magic, they're science. Obelisks aren't magic, they're science. Supply drops, tek weapons, the creation of the ARK, explorer's notes, etc. everything in this game says, "Scif-fi game".

 

Everything in your post after the first sentence is essentially an essay on how fantasy and sci-fi often get lumped together and mistaken for each other. And while all of that is true it ends up being a red herring, because it ends up having nothing to do whether or not ARK is sci-fi.

 So I'll just ask: Are you trying to make an argument that ARK is fantasy, or do you agree that it's obviously sci-fi?

 

And if you agree that ARK is sci-fi, what is it that you respectfully disagree about?

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2 hours ago, Pipinghot said:

Having said that, I think it's pretty clear that the setting, the milleu of ARK is clearly science fiction. At no time in the game, not the lore notes, not the equipment, not the abilities of the survivors, is anything rooted in magic. Everything in this game is caused by or created by a science based tool.

Except for the existence of Dragons, Basilisks, Wyverns, Drakes, etc. all based on mythology whether they were genetically engineered or not.  Isn't there a famous author that said something to the effect of magic is just science that hasn't been explained yet?

More to the point, you asked what me talking about fantasy and sci-fi being lumped together had to do with anything.   You're saying, "This is sci-fi" as if that is supposed to answer people's expectations, when clearly the lines are blurred.

Also, it's absolutely hilarious to me the number of people in this thread who are bashing people for being upset when it is extremely clear to anyone who has been around the game for a number of years that Wild Card never had a plan for anything and still doesn't.

They didn't build a game so much as they made a bunch of things they thought were cool and threw them in a sandbox and said,  "Here, go mess around with these."   Later they added a mild progression with the artifact caves and bosses and even that got halfway thrown out with Genesis. 

The idea of the Arks in generally is really a microcosm for their lack of foresight:  The idea to have floating Arks was brilliant from a design standpoint because they can literally add any genre to the game and it would make sense as a survival scenario, but they ruined it by putting each map on a separate server making it impossible and undesirable for anyone to play on every map for the amount of time it takes just to renew your timers and whatnot to keep what you have.  Here we are 6 years later with 10 maps and when I played official I could barely maintain what I had on 5.

People talk about Ark's "story" all the time here, reddit, youtube, etc. etc.   But Ark didn't really have a story.   It had some lore.   Explorer notes you could find that gave you clues about what you were supposed to do and talked about the history of the Arks you were on.

It wasn't until Extinction (The One Who Waits explorer notes and then more directly the end cut scene which is more hype than good) that the player was addressed personally and you began to have a story and even then it's clear they had no idea what they were planning.  Originally Extinction was supposed to be it.   But they realized there was more money to be had.   Except at the end of Extinction :

Spoiler

The earth is being repaired and you're supposed to be headed to Arat Prime to find out if there are any signs of Mei-Yin, or Diana.   Instead you're for some reason transported to a simulation that was designed for more training.   There's no mention of what happened to Earth, why Rockwell left earth behind, if he even did, etc.

Even their attempts at setting up Rockwell as a villain are half baked since we encounter ZERO enemies that are evidenced to be created by him in Aberration despite his claims that he has taken it over.  Reapers, Drakes, Light Pets, I think even Seekers, IIRC are all mentioned in the explorer notes.

They add a roar to the end of Aberration, and another to the end of Extinction to tease that he survived and is on Earth, and then they put you in a space ship because reasons. 

The end cut scene in Extinction, the first time in 5 years we're directly addressed as part of the story, was both short and a HUGE disappointment to me.

I actually feel bad for the WC writers who wrote the Explorer Notes.  They were brilliantly written and if you read them in order, they really evoke a sense of emotion.   But in the end, whoever is in charge of the game design ignored a lot of what happened in them.

They call this a "survival game" even though the survival elements become a joke the minute you get a halfway decent tame.   More to the point, it has a lot more in common than an MMO, than a PVP game, or a survival game.  The nature of it being online means have a strong directive narrative is impossible.    You can't have one person save and terraform the planet and then the rest of us stand around and watch them get made president for life.  Everything has to maintain a status quo.  Which is why the Dragon is always there to be beaten, you can always return to your old base after ascending, etc.

Regardless of whether or not you wanted a dinosaur game or a power ranger game, the real tragedy here is the number of people who are going to buy Ark II despite the continued incompetence of WC.  

Oh, but a new engine will make it easier for them!  Why?  When have they ever shown competence with this engine to show that they'll expertly learn another one?   It's been 6 years and they still treat the game like they're in Early Access.    The game has become a meme at this point for being crap and yet being addictive.    They cheaply use psychological techniques like sunk cost fallacy and addiction based on everything being random to keep players hooked.   Even that doesn't make sense from a business standpoint.

Keeping people online costs them money.  But they've designed a system that keeps people constantly maintaining and striving for that next drop, that next mutation, that next stat in a tame...   So they have to keep making DLC's to keep people paid.    They could have instituted a subscription service at any point, but it would have failed because of their complete lack of customer service.

A new engine is just going to give them license to make a whole new set of mistakes because their design choices have always been bad, or half baked and as a company they've always exuded incompetence instead of customer service.

That's the real reason why everything I know about Genesis came from the wiki, because I refuse to give them more money and I stopped buying after Extinction.   It has nothing to do with power rangers or dinosaurs.

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1 minute ago, theopheus said:

Except for the existence of Dragons, Basilisks, Wyverns, Drakes, etc. all based on mythology whether they were genetically engineered or not.

An animal that is genetically engineered, even if it's based on mythology, is still genetically engineered and that makes it science. Fictional, but science none-the-less.

There is nothing, not one thing, anywhere in the story of ARK, in the explorer's notes, in the background information and background stories published by WildCard that even remotely hint at a magical/fantasy origin for anything, not anything at all. Everything about ARK is 100% sci-fi and 0% magic.

You made the comment, "People have been confusing or just plain lazily lumping fantasy and sci-fi together for a LONG time" and that's exactly what you're doing right now. The Explorer's notes don't talk about wizards, they talk about aliens, there's no sorcery, thaumaturgy, necromancy or any other ...y's in the game, everything about it right from the seconds you first spawn in with an implant in your arm screams science-fiction, not fantasy fiction.

1 minute ago, theopheus said:

Isn't there a famous author that said something to the effect of magic is just science that hasn't been explained yet?

Yes, Arthur C. Clarke: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." That is the third of "Clarke's three laws".

He said it, but he wasn't talking about storytelling and he certainly was not trying to imply that there's no difference between fantasy and science fiction in literary terms. His three laws are commentaries on the nature of the technological progress of humanity. It's important to remember that he was a scientist in real life, and many of the things he said had nothing at all to do with literature or fiction. His point was that there were many things, in the past of humanity, that people didn't understand and attributed to magical agents, magical causes or magical origins but which we later used science to understand and explain. He was talking about the real world, not any fictional ones.

 

Now back to discussing the back story of ARK, If you really wanted to stretch things you could try to argue that that the implants, obelisks and supply drops could have been magical, except for the fact that WildCard wrote the backstory for ARK to be sci-fi. They could have written this game as fantasy, but they didn't, they wrote it as sci-fi.

1 minute ago, theopheus said:

More to the point, you asked what me talking about fantasy and sci-fi being lumped together had to do with anything.   You're saying, "This is sci-fi" as if that is supposed to answer people's expectations, when clearly the lines are blurred.

On the contrary, clearly the lines are not blurred unless someone is in willfull denial over the extensive sci-fi elements in the game and the complete lack of magic. Anyone who played this game and thought that the end-game would involve warlocks and clerics was fooling themselves, it was obvious from the beginning that the progression of the story would involve classic science fiction elements (tek weapons, aliens, etc.)

Mind you that doesn't mean that there's any real, actual science in the game, the game is not a work of science speculation wrapped in a fictional story, it means that sci-fi is the specific type of fiction the game is build on, and always has been.

1 minute ago, theopheus said:

Also, it's absolutely hilarious to me the number of people in this thread who are bashing people for being upset when it is extremely clear to anyone who has been around the game for a number of years that Wild Card never had a plan for anything and still doesn't.

They didn't build a game so much as they made a bunch of things they thought were cool and threw them in a sandbox and said,  "Here, go mess around with these."   Later they added a mild progression with the artifact caves and bosses and even that got halfway thrown out with Genesis.

Even before then, some of it got thrown out with Extinction. A large majority of the player base assumed that the story was going to lead entirely in the direction of aliens until the devs argued "Why does it have to be aliens?" in the lead up to Extinction.

But regardless of whether the origin of the ARK was earthly or extra-terrestrial it has always been a sci-fi story, not fantasy.

1 minute ago, theopheus said:

The idea of the Arks in generally is really a microcosm for their lack of foresight:  The idea to have floating Arks was brilliant from a design standpoint because they can literally add any genre to the game and it would make sense as a survival scenario, but they ruined it by putting each map on a separate server making it impossible and undesirable for anyone to play on every map for the amount of time it takes just to renew your timers and whatnot to keep what you have.  Here we are 6 years later with 10 maps and when I played official I could barely maintain what I had on 5.

All true, but has nothing to do with the discussion at hand. The benefits or flaws of their game design are a separate conversation.

1 minute ago, theopheus said:

People talk about Ark's "story" all the time here, reddit, youtube, etc. etc.   But Ark didn't really have a story.   It had some lore.   Explorer notes you could find that gave you clues about what you were supposed to do and talked about the history of the Arks you were on.

Agreed. Which is why I don't call the paid DLC's the "story maps", as I've seen a lot of people do, I call them the "lore maps". But regardless of whether we want to call it story or lore, either way it all leads to science fiction, not fantasy fiction.

1 minute ago, theopheus said:

It wasn't until Extinction (The One Who Waits explorer notes and then more directly the end cut scene which is more hype than good) that the player was addressed personally and you began to have a story and even then it's clear they had no idea what they were planning.  Originally Extinction was supposed to be it.   But they realized there was more money to be had.

Yup, also agreed. Like many games they've changed, modified, expanded their story as the game has progressed. There's no doubt that the success of the game far exceeded their expectations and grew way beyond any original concept they had. But throughout all of those changes it's still always been a sci-fi story, at whatever stage of the game you want to look at.

1 minute ago, theopheus said:

 

They call this a "survival game" even though the survival elements become a joke the minute you get a halfway decent tame.   More to the point, it has a lot more in common than an MMO, than a PVP game, or a survival game.  The nature of it being online means have a strong directive narrative is impossible.    You can't have one person save and terraform the planet and then the rest of us stand around and watch them get made president for life.  Everything has to maintain a status quo.  Which is why the Dragon is always there to be beaten, you can always return to your old base after ascending, etc.

Regardless of whether or not you wanted a dinosaur game or a power ranger game, the real tragedy here is the number of people who are going to buy Ark II despite the continued incompetence of WC.

So... it seems like you're... having a different conversation with yourself now. One that, you know, has nothing to do with the question of whether the is based on a sci-fi story.

You have fun with this and I'll see you when you're done shouting into the void.

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17 minutes ago, Pipinghot said:

An animal that is genetically engineered, even if it's based on mythology, is still genetically engineered and that makes it science. Fictional, but science none-the-less.

There is nothing, not one thing, anywhere in the story of ARK, in the explorer's notes, in the background information and background stories published by WildCard that even remotely hint at a magical/fantasy origin for anything, not anything at all. Everything about ARK is 100% sci-fi and 0% magic.

You made the comment, "People have been confusing or just plain lazily lumping fantasy and sci-fi together for a LONG time" and that's exactly what you're doing right now. The Explorer's notes don't talk about wizards, they talk about aliens, there's no sorcery, thaumaturgy, necromancy or any other ...y's in the game, everything about it right from the seconds you first spawn in with an implant in your arm screams science-fiction, not fantasy fiction.

Yes, Arthur C. Clarke: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." That is the third of "Clarke's three laws".

He said it, but he wasn't talking about storytelling and he certainly was not trying to imply that there's no difference between fantasy and science fiction in literary terms. His three laws are commentaries on the nature of the technological progress of humanity. It's important to remember that he was a scientist in real life, and many of the things he said had nothing at all to do with literature or fiction. His point was that there were many things, in the past of humanity, that people didn't understand and attributed to magical agents, magical causes or magical origins but which we later used science to understand and explain. He was talking about the real world, not any fictional ones.

 

Now back to discussing the back story of ARK, If you really wanted to stretch things you could try to argue that that the implants, obelisks and supply drops could have been magical, except for the fact that WildCard wrote the backstory for ARK to be sci-fi. They could have written this game as fantasy, but they didn't, they wrote it as sci-fi.

On the contrary, clearly the lines are not blurred unless someone is in willfull denial over the extensive sci-fi elements in the game and the complete lack of magic. Anyone who played this game and thought that the end-game would involve warlocks and clerics was fooling themselves, it was obvious from the beginning that the progression of the story would involve classic science fiction elements (tek weapons, aliens, etc.)

Mind you that doesn't mean that there's any real, actual science in the game, the game is not a work of science speculation wrapped in a fictional story, it means that sci-fi is the specific type of fiction the game is build on, and always has been.

Even before then, some of it got thrown out with Extinction. A large majority of the player base assumed that the story was going to lead entirely in the direction of aliens until the devs argued "Why does it have to be aliens?" in the lead up to Extinction.

But regardless of whether the origin of the ARK was earthly or extra-terrestrial it has always been a sci-fi story, not fantasy.

All true, but has nothing to do with the discussion at hand. The benefits or flaws of their game design are a separate conversation.

Agreed. Which is why I don't call the paid DLC's the "story maps", as I've seen a lot of people do, I call them the "lore maps". But regardless of whether we want to call it story or lore, either way it all leads to science fiction, not fantasy fiction.

Yup, also agreed. Like many games they've changed, modified, expanded their story as the game has progressed. There's no doubt that the success of the game far exceeded their expectations and grew way beyond any original concept they had. But throughout all of those changes it's still always been a sci-fi story, at whatever stage of the game you want to look at.

So... it seems like you're... having a different conversation with yourself now. One that, you know, has nothing to do with the question of whether the is based on a sci-fi story.

You have fun with this and I'll see you when you're done shouting into the void.

 

Maybe it is two different conversations.  To me it's the same.  You all are arguing whether Wild Card screwed the pooch by going tech vs dinosaurs.  I'm arguing they screwed the pooch with their incompetence.

Regardless, I'm not going to argue with someone whose opinion boils down to: "I say it's Sci-Fi.  Therefore, it's Sci-Fi."

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2 minutes ago, theopheus said:

Maybe it is two different conversations.  To me it's the same.  You all are arguing whether Wild Card screwed the pooch by going tech vs dinosaurs.  I'm arguing they screwed the pooch with their incompetence.

If the game was 100% fantasy they still could have screwed the pooch with their incompetence. Their incompetence exists regardless of whether the game if fantasy or sci-fi, their incompetence exists independently of the game setting, therefore they are two separate topics. It's pretty simple logic.

2 minutes ago, theopheus said:

Regardless, I'm not going to argue with someone who's opinion boils down to: "I say it's Sci-Fi.  Therefore, it's Sci-Fi."

It's a pretty simple concept, fantasy involves magic and sci-fi involves technology. Again, the end game features tek gear and space ships (you know, technology) and it does not feature magic. It's not sci-fi because I say so, it's sci-fi because all of the background elements behind the story fit into a science fiction story and don't fit into a magical fiction story.

Feel free to explain any elements of the game that are clearly intended to be magical rather than technological.

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18 minutes ago, Pipinghot said:

If the game was 100% fantasy they still could have screwed the pooch with their incompetence. Their incompetence exists regardless of whether the game if fantasy or sci-fi, their incompetence exists independently of the game setting, therefore they are two separate topics. It's pretty simple logic.

It's a pretty simple concept, fantasy involves magic and sci-fi involves technology. Again, the end game features tek gear and space ships (you know, technology) and it does not feature magic. It's not sci-fi because I say so, it's sci-fi because all of the background elements behind the story fit into a science fiction story and don't fit into a magical fiction story.

Feel free to explain any elements of the game that are clearly intended to be magical rather than technological.

You're missing the point.   The genre of a story is simply a wrapper.  The maker's of futurama did an episode based on moby sausage.   Some people take the bible as fact, other's call them fables.  

One of the core arguments of this thread is that people should have seen the obelisks and known it was sci-fi.   But you said you yourself, they could have explained them with magic, but chose not to.

The fact that you can't comprehend that people categorize things differently or accept the fact that people have different viewpoints than your own make you useless to talk to.

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(PVE)I have 4000 hours plus. Been my favorite game for years now. Wild card didnt destroy Ark Survival. I know every single map like the palm of my hand. 

I played every map except genesis and genesis 2. Which I didnt like much but that doesn't mean it destroyed the game. Wild card succeed in providing a very decent Story to the game which I dont care about but from what I read is pretty decent. Thing is what I love the most is the ability to stay in your own map stay primitive or in the fabricator era of the game. Nobody is forcing nobody to jump to automatic tek suit once you start.

Genesis 2 is the final piece of the story of Ark 1 which will lead to Ark 2. And they delivered more than enough DLCs, dinos, maps. Yeah is a buggy game but I had a blast playing it. Now am waiting for Ark 2 to come out🤪.

Ark is a beautiful game. I mastered it and am proud that Wild Card will deliver a sequel to my favorite game. 

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4 hours ago, theopheus said:

The genre of a story is simply a wrapper.

It's a wrapper, but it's not "simply" a wrapper. The genre that a story is wrapped in conveys important information to the reader/player. If the reader overlooks or ignores the information that is conveyed by the author's choice of genre then it's the reader's own fault for failing to notice the obvious clues.

If a story opens up the first scene with a woman having her bodice passionately ripped off of her lusty pirate lover then the reader should be able to notice from the oh-so-subtle context clues and realize they're reading a romance novel. If the reader is later disappointed because they expected it to be a sci-fi novel then it's their own fault for not paying attention.

if a story opens up the first scene with hobbits and a wizard who casts spells at a birthday party then the reader should be able to discern that they're reading a fantasy story. If the reader is later disappointed because they expected it to be a tale of the old west then it's their own fault for not paying attention.

And likewise, as applies to this discussion, if a story opens up the first scene in a sci-fi setting then the reader should be able to figure out that it's going to be a sci-fi story. If the reader is later disappointed because they expected it to be a story about adventure on the high seas, or anything other than sci-fi, then it's their own fault for not paying attention.

It behooves the reader (or in this case the player) to pay enough attention to the obvious clues in the game they're playing to realize what genre of game they've started. Anyone who fails to pay attention to the setting of the game has only themselves to blame if they're disappointed when it turns out that the setting matters and that the author is the story/game is going to continue the story in the genre it started in.

4 hours ago, theopheus said:

The maker's of futurama did an episode based on moby sausage.

True, but completely inapplicable to the discussion at hand.

An author always has the right to do some genre blending if they want to, but they are not obligated to. If an author begins with the premise of a sci-fi story and then they deliver a sci-fi story it's pretty boneheaded for someone to complain that the sci-fi story they started reading also had a sci-fi ending. How dare the author deliver on the promise that they made in the first chapter! Of all the nerve, following through a sci-fi beginning with a sci-fi ending, harrumph!

4 hours ago, theopheus said:

Some people take the bible as fact, other's call them fables.

Seriously? You're going to try to toss in a bible argument in the middle of a discussion about the conventions of different genres of fiction? You can always tell that someone has realized they've staked their claim on a failing position when they try to toss in the Bible to derail the conversation.

Not taking the bait, red herring isn't in my diet.

4 hours ago, theopheus said:

One of the core arguments of this thread is that people should have seen the obelisks and known it was sci-fi.   But you said you yourself, they could have explained them with magic, but chose not to.

Yes, they could have but that's absolutely not the point, this discussion is isn't about what WildCard could have done it's about people failing to see the obvious context clues and how people reacted to what they did do, it's about what people should have expected based on the setting of the game from the very beginning.

The simple fact is that the game started in a setting that was obviously sci-fi. It was clearly rooted in technology and not rooted in magic, and anyone who chose to ignore the obvious genre clues had only themselves to blame if they were disappointed that WildCard followed that sci-fi setting by continuing with a sci-fi middle and completing it with a sci-fi ending.

WildCard could have changed the direction of the story and moved into magic rather than continuing further into advanced technology, that would have been their right as the authors of the story. Even with that being true it's still true that anyone who failed to recognize the obvious signals that ARK started as, and would continue to be, a sci-fi story has only themselves to blame for their failure to pay attention to the obvious signals and clues that WildCard used to establish the genre of their story right from the very beginning.

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1 hour ago, olT3lo said:

@Pipinghot You really like sniffing your own farts don't you.

Sorry to hear that grown up discussions are beyond your abilities. Since you're looking for the kiddie forums you're on the wrong web site.

1 hour ago, olT3lo said:

The fact that it's sci-fi doesn't mean they had to make the primitive side of the game pointless, but apparently they did.

I never said it did. If that's your takeaway from the discussion then your reading comprehension is exactly as good as one would expect it to be.

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10 hours ago, theopheus said:

Isn't there a famous author that said something to the effect of magic is just science that hasn't been explained yet?

That was Arthur C. Clarke

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"
Basically telling you that there is no God/Gods (yes, there are still primitive people believing that BS).

 

8 hours ago, Pipinghot said:

If the game was 100% fantasy they still could have screwed the pooch with their incompetence.

ARK is Science Fantasy (not Science Fiction).
You have Dinos! No itelligent humand would revive Dinos (Carnivores) on an ARK Project.

Teleport: not possible
Even if possible, it would delete the Original. Creating a Copy that just thinks it's the original.
Beside destroying the Original, it would need insane storage capacity to do that.

Also bringing back People from the Past (like Nerva). Re-Creating their personality from some kind of Matrix that survives thousands of years. Bullpoop. When you die, it's like switching of a Computer. The RAM gets erased. There is nothing to recover "in the Future".
So yeah, "Science Fantasy" (but a good one)

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18 hours ago, Zayisha said:

ARK is Science Fantasy

So is 99.9%+ of all science fiction, ever.

Your narrow description of what qualifies as science fiction excludes nearly every sci-fi title ever written. It's all science fantasy, that's the nature of the genre. Look at the entire history of every story or book ever nominated for a Hugo or Nebula award, or Campbell award or Sturgeon award nominees, nearly all of them have one or more elements of fantasy built into them with practically none of them based only on known science fact.

If you want to draw a line in the sand between science fact-fiction and science fantasy-fiction you go right ahead, but Campbell, Sturgeon, Asimov, Heinlein, Le Guin, Herbert, Clarke, Huxley, Niven, Gibson, Anderson, Card, Brin, Crichton and a whole lot of other sci-fi authors would chuckle at the idea that the difference matters.

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