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ARK + Unreal5 = The ShenaniganingAgain


Pipinghot
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Well it's time for all of the laughing or crying, depending on your point of view.

After seeing WildCard talking and talking about how the conversion of ARK to Unreal 5 will be free now... it won't. Yup, you get to pay for the same game, again, to play it in Unreal 5 (and who wants to guess how long the current version will exists on Official servers).

And yes, they say that this new purchase will give you access to both ARK-Unreal5 and ARK2, but if you believe that I have some swampland in Louisiana to sell you. You're going to pay $50 for ARK (again), $20 for Explorer's Pass (again), $20 for Genesis pass (again)... and then somehow you're still going to end up paying for ARK2, I guarantee it.

 

From today's Community Crunch

 

ARK: Survival Ascended is a next-generation remaster of our beloved ARK: Survival Evolved, harnessing the power of Unreal Engine 5. It will be released on Xbox Series S/X, PC (Windows/Steam), and PlayStation 5 by the end of August 2023. The base game will include The Island, SOTF, and all the “Non-Canon” DLC maps (which will be added to ASA over time). 
 

Xbox Series S/X and PC players will only be able to get it via an ultimate-value bundle known as the ARK Respawned Bundle. This bundle includes ownership of both ARK: Survival Ascended AND ARK 2 and will be priced at $49.99. This bundle will be available to purchase from the end of August for up to 1 year (after which ARK: Survival Ascended and ARK 2 will be sold separately). Additionally, the bundle will provide players access to an exclusive 1-month closed-beta to ARK 2 in 2024 before the rest of the general public can play ARK 2.

PlayStation 5 users will be able to get their hands on ARK: Survival Ascended as a standalone next-gen game at launch in August 2023 for $39.99.
 

All the expansion packs will be sold separately on all platforms:

  • $19.99 for Explorer’s Pass, which includes Scorched Earth, Aberration (Q4 2023), and Extinction (Q1 2024).
  • $19.99 for Genesis Pass, which includes Genesis Part 1 (Q1 2024) and Genesis Part 2 (Q2 2024).

 

Edited by Pipinghot
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1 hour ago, MuddyArk said:

You have to have income.

You do have to have income, that I get. But like people in the Community crunch have said, there have been lots of other games that have released free next-gen updates. Plus, they explicitly claimed that the revamp was free during their announcement. What happened to that? Besides, ARK 2's going to give them income, and the revamp is going to make ARK far more appealing to the gaming community, so you'll get higher sales anyway. Why do this specifically?

Edited by Griffin998
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well its certainly put a sour taste in my mouth .... no way am i buying the ue5 ark just to test the engine for them or play for a year or 2 more before they sunset them servers too when and IF ark2 ever comes out (also not buying ark2 - my own reasons) 5 months to either play or just simply demo my bases on different maps and kill my dinos - but even that would take me AGES lol have to see what the wife does but tbh not really bothered about ark1 or ase at all now.

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3 hours ago, Yggdrassil said:

What has annoyed me most other than paying for the 'free' update, is the official server wipes!!!!!! Think they have finally killed the game.

I think they're betting that server wipes + Unreal 5 will gain more players than it loses. Or rather, will make enough money from people who stay spending money + people who come back spending money, and honestly they're almost certainly right.

People have been predicting that they've killed the game since the first couple of months of early access and it hasn't happened yet. For every person who feels ripped off there's another person who feels like it's a chance to enjoy the game anew, with fresh refreshed graphics.

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3 hours ago, MuddyArk said:

I'm more concerned with Overwolf being embedded

Yeah, Overwolf is awful, I feel for all of the platforms that will be forced to eat that pig.

3 hours ago, MuddyArk said:

You have to have income.

True, and while I never believed for a minute that the conversion to Unreal 5 would be free, I also didn't think they would try to charge this much. I was expecting something like $30. Even my cynicism feels naive now. ;)

 

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2 hours ago, Griffin998 said:

You do have to have income, that I get. But like people in the Community crunch have said, there have been lots of other games that have released free next-gen updates. Plus, they explicitly claimed that the revamp was free during their announcement. What happened to that?

What happened to that is WildCard has always been voracious for players' money, this is the same company that charged for DLC while the game was will in Early Access.

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12 minutes ago, Pipinghot said:

I think they're betting that server wipes + Unreal 5 will gain more players than it loses. Or rather, will make enough money from people who stay spending money + people who come back spending money, and honestly they're almost certainly right.

People have been predicting that they've killed the game since the first couple of months of early access and it hasn't happened yet. For every person who feels ripped off there's another person who feels like it's a chance to enjoy the game anew, with fresh refreshed graphics.

That worked out real well for a game known as Star Wars Galaxies once long ago.. They didn't listen to the community and did stupid anyway.

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2 hours ago, Garick said:

That worked out real well for a game known as Star Wars Galaxies once long ago.. They didn't listen to the community and did stupid anyway.

Then again, it worked really well for World of Warcraft and other games that rebooted the game starting with classic.

We can take turns cherry picking games that succeeded or failed, but really only time will tell whether WC is betting on the right horse. I strongly dislike what they've done, but I'll bet it turns out to be financially smart.

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50 bucks to buy the game again.....I had to buy this game 3 times now, for one console, and thats after a friend gifted it to me.......nah ....just nah.

Ill get my run in on the storyline maps, and then Ill just enjoy the free content if I want to. Im not going to burn another $50 on a game Iv already spent $300 on, but can't even play online which is what it was originally designed for.

As for Ark 2, I am NOT going to "pre purchase" or buy into it before its developed, no matter how aggressive a discount they think they can offer. With all the bugs, glitch's, and amount of times my playthrough got wiped due to wildcards screw ups, there is no way in hail Im going to buy anything else from them without a review on what they have produced. 

If its a great game and complaints are low, fine. Ill pay full price. But as for pre development sales? Iv learned my lesson already:

High res Duke 3D box art for a poster? - Duke4.net Forums

Edited by wizard03
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9 hours ago, Larkfields said:

The announcement came on April 1st !

We don't know if WildCard were joking or not !

April Fools jokes are meant to be harmless and funny.  This is neither.  So, either way, I'm done.

BTW, this is not a wipe, a wipe indicates that the server is still there and playable, but it's fresh.   They are deleting the servers completely and you can't play with the version you have on official servers.

I've been rather bored with Ark anyway and only rendering in bases because I didn't want to lose years of work/breeding.  But with this news, I'm just done with WC and their BS.  Joke or not.

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Ok, I'll try to make this a relatively impassionate analysis and what I read between the lines of what they posted.

What we know about Ark2 development

The game is a completely different title from Ark1 based on their design overview and if anything, it's more of a spin off title rather than a sequel. I firmly believe the game is in what's generally called ''in development  hell''(think of Battlefield 2042 or Anthem). This means the original design concept(not bugs or technical issues as it has never stopped them before when it came to pushing out content) has not panned out as a good marketable product based on their testing. The first one year delay was an attempt to try slightly adjust the design to try and salvage it and make it good enough for release. It failed.  So, the choice was to either release it and flop, or go back to the drawing board and completely redesign the gameplay, which will take a minimum of another 2 years to even be in early access state (if you think they'll suddenly hit the release window of 2024 when they've never hit any window before, you're still not paying attention)

From a FREE Graphical update to a FULL PRICE ''new'' game

The UE5 upgrade was unambigiously announced to be a FREE update by the Devs in January. I believe that may have been the original intention, however as I stated at the time I did not believe this would turn out to be true. This is because it made no financial sense to put effort and resources on that instead of new content for the new ARK2 game if it were to released as scheduled even with a short further delay. Also, because they have a track record of going back on their word on big promises and then pretending like nothing happened(PS5 next gen upgrade promise being the big standout for me).

Delaying a game release for another 2yrs+ would necessitate new significant funding and require something similar to the Genesis DLC Pass (which wasn't originally planned). So, the answer was staring at them in the face. Re-release Ark1 instead as a full price ''New Game'' providing the similar revenue as Ark2 would have done, but at a minimal development cost and time. If my assumption is right, the art department has pretty much done most of the work needed for Ark2 and would normally start working on new DLC stuff for that game. As most of the time consuming stuff needed for the UE5 Ark1 upgrade would be art related while the redesign of Ark2 would be the rest of the departments, this would also be a win-win for them. Also, the opportunity to add new paid for Mod content and cosmetics for added revenue in what is now marketed as a ''new game'' was a great opportunity and something they would have introduced in Ark2.  Hence, where we stand today...

Paid Mods

The description really looks like a carbon copy of Bathesda's Creation club for Fallout 4. There was outrage when that was announced. Now, personally I don't have a problem with paying for good quality content at a reasonable price. I used to be a modder for a highly successful Mod team in the game COH and we did it all for free of course. So, overall I don't have an issue with the concept even though I get it if you're used to all the free Mod content for so many years.

My Opinion on the decisions

Personally I'm not a fan of Souls type games, so Ark2 was already off the menu as they clearly want it to be in that vein. Also as a PS owner, I can't be fussed about a game that might release in 5-6 years on that platform and as before continue to get 2nd rate support. Ark2...don't care. For the UE5 upgrade of Ark1 , I fully expected a paid for 'patch upgrade'. Breaking a promise from a free upgrade to a paid upgrade is bad enough. However, calling this a full price re-master and not including all the DLC as part of that price is unforgivable. Frankly after the announcement of the free upgrade, I leaned more towards the DLC maps being sold at a discounted price. But charge full price for each again separately ? That's just way too greedy leaving a very bitter taste once again. Will I buy it? No, certainly not at launch but in some sort of sale AFTER at least the first DLC has released and if it's not just a glorified porting of the exact same assets, There needs to be a lot of new stuff(significantly different from Ark1) in it to be worth the purchase. Even with my all time favourite game, Witcher 3, when the Next Gen Free update I was waiting for a long time dropped it didn't hold my interest for more than a few hours in. It's just not enough of a reason to drop that amount of money to get the exact same experience I've been having for 2K hours.

 

Edited by KingOfAshes
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14 hours ago, Pipinghot said:

Then again, it worked really well for World of Warcraft and other games that rebooted the game starting with classic.

We can take turns cherry picking games that succeeded or failed, but really only time will tell whether WC is betting on the right horse. I strongly dislike what they've done, but I'll bet it turns out to be financially smart.

difference here wow fans ASKED for classic .... no one asked for the swg debacle and WHO asked for this on ark se?  

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On 3/31/2023 at 7:05 PM, MuddyArk said:

You have to have income.

Unofficial server owners have to pay a monthly fee of which wildcard likely takes a fat slice from the multitude of service providers that host it, people still purchase the base game and dlc maps. They had a stream of income, they wanted more.

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5 hours ago, Duffmek said:

difference here wow fans ASKED for classic .... no one asked for the swg debacle and WHO asked for this on ark se?  

No one asked for all of the other crappy stuff that WC has done and yet ARK is still here.

People have been predicting the death of ARK, right here, on these forums, since about 2 months after the game started in Early Access... and they've all been wrong.

* Released paid DLC while the game was still in Early Access (because they needed money to settle a lawsuit). People predicted that would kill ARK, and yet it "worked out really well" for WildCard.

* Went from Early Access to full release while still being packed full of bugs and failures. People predicted that would kill ARK, and yet it "worked out really well" for WildCard.

WC is, quite frankly, a crappy and greedy company, on par with the worst years of EA games and yet things have "worked out really well" for WildCard despite their many failings. This is a game that has made over a billion dollars (with a "B") just on Steam alone, and goodness only knows how much on other platforms. No matter how much WC abuses players people keep buying the game, no matter how bad their customer service is people keep buying the game, no matter how bad the official servers are people keep buying the game, no matter how many times they "change their mind" (lie) about things like this people keep buying the game. So, again, you can cherry pick examples of games that failed or that didn't listen to the community, but those examples ultimately don't mean anything.

Personally, I'd love to see them take a huge financial hit for lying about this. I'm not bothered by the idea that they would charge some reasonable amount of money for upgrading to Unreal5 but I am bothered that they lied about it, and by the fact that this is basically buying the entire game a second time (and bothered by my own prediction that ARK2 will not, in fact be free if people buy ASA, that will turn out to be yet another lie). But I'll be surprised if that happens.

WC's ownership & management has a long history of not caring about their players and still making money anyway, at this point there's no compelling reason to believe this time will be any different. Only time will tell.

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