April Fools? Cash grab? Or a welcomed change?

[Pipinghot]

1 hour ago, St1ckyBandit said:

My feelings about the moves snail games have made aside, maybe it will be actually smooth and stable.

Speaking of April Fools jokes... bwahahahahaha!

[Joebl0w13]

It might be because Snail Inc is in trouble:

https://www.aaii.com/investingideas/article/24787-is-snail-inc-snal-stock-a-good-investment

https://www.pocketgamer.biz/news/80852/voxpop-games-brings-on-studio-wildcard-founder/

[St1ckyBandit]

6 hours ago, Pipinghot said:

Speaking of April Fools jokes... bwahahahahaha!

Well one of the biggest/ugliest issues with current ark is the horrendous pop in that occurs constantly when traveling the map, especially on something fast like a Mae.

UE5 should improve that by a ton.

Its not apples to apples but playing Dayz on ps4 and then on ps5 was completely night and day in terms of performance.

Ps5 basically eliminated the really bad stutters and lag spikes Dayz had on ps4. Not to mention that was all on the same engine, just with newer hardware. Time will tell.

[zero064]

2 hours ago, Joebl0w13 said:

It might be because Snail Inc is in trouble:

https://www.aaii.com/investingideas/article/24787-is-snail-inc-snal-stock-a-good-investment

https://www.pocketgamer.biz/news/80852/voxpop-games-brings-on-studio-wildcard-founder/

I wouldn't say it's in trouble, but the financials aren't pretty. It had a small profit in 2022, although it used about $3M in cash. It had $12M in the bank at year-end.

If I had to guess, I'd say the bookkeepers are getting nervous and would like to see some dollars come through the door much sooner than the end of 2024.

The full financials are here if anybody wants a look: https://investor.snail.com/static-files/06649854-62f8-4ac6-80db-1fce8cc546cb

Raising money in the markets is an option too. It only has 7.9 million shares out.

[Pipinghot]

10 hours ago, St1ckyBandit said:

Well one of the biggest/ugliest issues with current ark is the horrendous pop in that occurs constantly when traveling the map, especially on something fast like a Mae.

UE5 should improve that by a ton.

Its not apples to apples but playing Dayz on ps4 and then on ps5 was completely night and day in terms of performance.

Ps5 basically eliminated the really bad stutters and lag spikes Dayz had on ps4. Not to mention that was all on the same engine, just with newer hardware. Time will tell.

Keep in mind I didn't suggest that UE5 wouldn't benefit the game in any way, what I was laughing about was the idea that the change would "be actually smooth and stable". This is still WC we're talking about. UE5 will be better than UE4, but WildCard will still be WildcCard, that's not going to change.

[doverbeach]

I've played since 2016 and on official servers since they dropped (PVE). Even during the odd occasion where I wasn't playing every day, not a week went by that didn't see me hop on for a few hours to feed dinos, refresh timers, etc. One thing that's kept me going has been the feeling that it would be a shame to throw away so much progress; I keep investing because I'm already so invested. That incentive will disappear once official servers are sunsetted. Disappointing? Yes...but also liberating. Most of the players on my servers feel more or less the same way.

Official servers represent years of dedication by a very proud community whose members are some of the best spokespeople for ARK. Most companies would kill for an asset like that. Yet here is one that would arrogantly throw it away, disenfranchising a significant chunk of their player base. Not only is the number of players who are going to walk away being underestimated, they will be the very players who are most likely to have been multiple purchasers of ARK.

[thelegendarydodo]

21 hours ago, St1ckyBandit said:

My feelings about the moves snail games have made aside, maybe it will be actually smooth and stable.

Afterall ps5 is a powerhouse and UE5 has some revolutionary tech under its umbrella, so I dont think its far fetched to expect a transformative experience once the game moves onto a cutting edge engine.

Of course WC will still be at the helm, which warrants misgivings rather than optimism, but hopefully even they can work out the kinks with such a technological advantage over the last game. I've always thought WC was brilliant in their concepts, so maybe now the tech can help them actually execute a stable polished product for once.

Maybe I'm in the minority, but my excitement for the dino game I've put over 4k hours into getting a breathtaking upgrade outweighs my disgust for how badly the transfer has been handled.

Well it also means you are throwing away your 4k hours in my POV. Which is how I feel about my 3k. It's also tragic if you think that I chose the official servers cause I didn't want my servers taken down after a few years and I felt more secure playing on official servers. The irony of it!!!

[Joebl0w13]

Confirmed, not a joke:

https://www.pcgamer.com/free-ark-survival-evolved-upgrade-turns-out-not-to-be-free-and-a-lot-of-players-are-mad/

In a statement sent to PC Gamer, Studio Wildcard executive producer Jatheish Karunakaran confirmed that Stieglitz had spoken too soon with his January tweet.

"We have been really excited to deliver an incredible Ark UE5 experience," Karunakaran said. "Admittedly back in January we got ahead of ourselves at that time, as the scope of the project increased, we hadn't yet realized the full time, development resources, & costs needed to produce a complete next-generation remaster."

[CosmicSkeleton]

5 hours ago, Joebl0w13 said:

We have been really excited to deliver an incredible Ark UE5 experience," Karunakaran said. "Admittedly back in January we got ahead of ourselves at that time

This is honestly why they need to shut their gobs until development is done and the product is literally a day or less from being pushed out. Time an again they've said "x will happen", usually with regards to release dates. And yet barring SE they've more or less never kept their word on such matters.  How many times must one promise rain before they learn to look at the clouds first?

[Noffek]

On 4/4/2023 at 6:54 AM, St1ckyBandit said:

Well one of the biggest/ugliest issues with current ark is the horrendous pop in that occurs constantly when traveling the map, especially on something fast like a Mae.

UE5 should improve that by a ton.

Its not apples to apples but playing Dayz on ps4 and then on ps5 was completely night and day in terms of performance.

Ps5 basically eliminated the really bad stutters and lag spikes Dayz had on ps4. Not to mention that was all on the same engine, just with newer hardware. Time will tell.

Why do you think it will be better in UE5?  The same bugs appear there anyway.  ARK 1 contains a lot of critical bugs for this to work they need to know where the problem is.  Since ARK1 is removed, it may indicate problems.  And I hope it will go away.  Once you buy a DLC game, you have little time to return it.

[Pipinghot]

On 4/4/2023 at 1:57 PM, thelegendarydodo said:

Well it also means you are throwing away your 4k hours in my POV. Which is how I feel about my 3k.

Every hobby takes time, and nothing lasts forever, if you were having fun and enjoyed the experience then it's not throwing away your time.

* At the end of watching a good movie was that time wasted, or were you entertained while the movie was playing?

* If you read a good book was that time wasted or did you enjoy it and take something away from the time you spent reading it?

If you were not having fun then it's time to re-think why you spent that much time playing a game that you weren't enjoying. Games are a form of entertainment and you should never assume that the game will be available forever.

[Frack]

So, why not just charge a player a fee per server they play on to move  them from ASE to ASA ? If they have bases/dinos on 4 servers when those servers are moved from ASE to ASA, their stuff only gets upgraded if they pay the fee(say $10 a server), no pay no upgrade.  Most have bases on 7 servers, so that's $70, $20 more than the cost of ASA/ARK2 bundle, and then if they go to ARK2 hit'm again in the wallet... And they can make some ASA servers with no paid upgrades for those that want a fresh start with no old timers already on the server. The ASE servers go away, players are not screwed, and Wildcard makes $$$ 

[St1ckyBandit]

On 4/4/2023 at 11:16 AM, Pipinghot said:

Keep in mind I didn't suggest that UE5 wouldn't benefit the game in any way, what I was laughing about was the idea that the change would "be actually smooth and stable". This is still WC we're talking about. UE5 will be better than UE4, but WildCard will still be WildcCard, that's not going to change.

"UE5 will be better than UE4" is a pretty big understatement imo. The tools are there to make the Ark game we've all dreamed of. Imagine the Genesis 2 ship firing up overhead at midnight in UE5 in all its lumen powered glory.

But as I've read about UE5, the tools are only as good as the dev team using them. I guess we'll just have to wait and see if WC can get out of their own way. With all this backlash they've recieved, they better come with an amazing product.

[St1ckyBandit]

On 4/4/2023 at 1:57 PM, thelegendarydodo said:

Well it also means you are throwing away your 4k hours in my POV. Which is how I feel about my 3k. It's also tragic if you think that I chose the official servers cause I didn't want my servers taken down after a few years and I felt more secure playing on official servers. The irony of it!!!

I'm not saying that shutting down ark 1's servers is the right thing to do. It's clearly just a cash grab to force people over to ASA. 

But personally I've been waiting for a UE5 open world survival game to come to ps5. Too many games are still dragged down by last gen hardware. Again, I recognize everyone does not feel the same and I understand the outrage, but, personally, I'm ready to move on. 

[darkradeon]

7 minutes ago, St1ckyBandit said:

"UE5 will be better than UE4" is a pretty big understatement imo. The tools are there to make the Ark game we've all dreamed of. Imagine the Genesis 2 ship firing up overhead at midnight in UE5 in all its lumen powered glory.

But as I've read about UE5, the tools are only as good as the dev team using them. I guess we'll just have to wait and see if WC can get out of their own way. With all this backlash they've recieved, they better come with an amazing product.

UE5 will not fix by magic Genesis 2 issues: lag, mission bugs, crashes, gazillion of structure spam because most of missions take place in the map and the game is not able to place spawns not under a base or under the ground mesh

[St1ckyBandit]

1 minute ago, darkradeon said:

UE5 will not fix by magic Genesis 2 issues: lag, mission bugs, crashes, gazillion of structure spam because most of missions take place in the map and the game is not able to place spawns not under a base or under the ground mesh

I know UE5 is not a magic wand. But its a chance to start over in a much more advanced engine with the knowledge of the pitfalls they faced before.

If it turns out we end up with all the same problems just with a prettier coat of paint, I wont even bother with the remaster.

[Pipinghot]

42 minutes ago, St1ckyBandit said:

"UE5 will be better than UE4" is a pretty big understatement imo. The tools are there to make the Ark game we've all dreamed of. Imagine the Genesis 2 ship firing up overhead at midnight in UE5 in all its lumen powered glory.

It's not an understatement, because the quality of the tools doesn't guarantee the quality of the product. The tools were always there in UE4 to make ARK a much better game than it has been, they weren't used properly. As the old saying goes, it's a poor craftsman that blames his tools. The issues with ARK have not been a result of having a poor tool kit, nor have they been the fault of the devs, the fault lies with WC's management and their priorities (which are not going to change with UE5). Some companies prioritize fixing problems as being more important than just pumping out content, WC isn't one of those companies. WC prioritizes quantity over quality, that's not going to change with UE5. They're still not going to give their dev teams the amount of time/money/support they will need to make ASA as good as possible, the corporate culture is not improving just because they're moving to UE5.

42 minutes ago, St1ckyBandit said:

But as I've read about UE5, the tools are only as good as the dev team using them. I guess we'll just have to wait and see if WC can get out of their own way. With all this backlash they've recieved, they better come with an amazing product.

It's not the dev team, it's the management team and the schedule that the management team forces. No matter how good a dev team might be, a difference in time commitment automatically causes a difference in quality.

For example:

ARK Survival Evolved - began early access in 2015, 8 years old, 12 maps = 0.66 years per map

Conan Exiles - began early access in 2017, 6 years old, 2 maps = 3 years per map

That is a high-level look at how different the management culture and corporate culture of different companies can be. Obviously it's a simplified comparison, we could spend days analyzing various details of the two games to decide which aspects of ARK & Conan are comparable and which aspects are not, but for the purposes of the point I'm making this simplified comparison is good enough to illustrate the difference in management culture.

Funcom cares more quality, WildCard cares more about quantity, Their publishing schedules reflect those different priorities, as does the quality of their respective products. Mind you I'm not saying that Conan is perfect, no game is perfect, but it has a history of having significantly fewer major problems than ARK does. This isn't going to change, UE5 can't make a company better than it is.

[St1ckyBandit]

33 minutes ago, Pipinghot said:

It's not an understatement, because the quality of the tools doesn't guarantee the quality of the product. The tools were always there in UE4 to make ARK a much better game than it has been, they weren't used properly. As the old saying goes, it's a poor craftsman that blames his tools. The issues with ARK have not been a result of having a poor tool kit, nor have they been the fault of the devs, the fault lies with WC's management and their priorities (which are not going to change with UE5). Some companies prioritize fixing problems as being more important than just pumping out content, WC isn't one of those companies. WC prioritizes quantity over quality, that's not going to change with UE5. They're still not going to give their dev teams the amount of time/money/support they will need to make ASA as good as possible, the corporate culture is not improving just because they're moving to UE5.

It's not the dev team, it's the management team and the schedule that the management team forces. No matter how good a dev team might be, a difference in time commitment automatically causes a difference in quality.

For example:

ARK Survival Evolved - began early access in 2015, 8 years old, 12 maps = 0.66 years per map

Conan Exiles - began early access in 2017, 6 years old, 2 maps = 3 years per map

That is a high-level look at how different the management culture and corporate culture of different companies can be. Obviously it's a simplified comparison, we could spend days analyzing various details of the two games to decide which aspects of ARK & Conan are comparable and which aspects are not, but for the purposes of the point I'm making this simplified comparison is good enough to illustrate the difference in management culture.

Funcom cares more quality, WildCard cares more about quantity, Their publishing schedules reflect those different priorities, as does the quality of their respective products. Mind you I'm not saying that Conan is perfect, no game is perfect, but it has a history of having significantly fewer major problems than ARK does. This isn't going to change, UE5 can't make a company better than it is.

You're probably right.

From everything I've seen on UE5, it makes development easier and more streamlined. Time will tell if WC can get it right.

I'll be eagerly awaiting some gameplay footage. Hopefully we get some early summer.