ASA Maps Size

[Juddt23]

Just curious if there has been any discussion on the maps becoming larger on ASA. UR5 and next gen hardware would easily be able to handle this. 

[Joebl0w13]

I don't see any reason why they would rebuild the maps.

[Pipinghot]

55 minutes ago, Juddt23 said:

Just curious if there has been any discussion on the maps becoming larger on ASA. UR5 and next gen hardware would easily be able to handle this. 

They'll be the same. All WC is doing is importing ARK into UE5, they're not rewriting or redesigning the game.

[St1ckyBandit]

2 hours ago, Pipinghot said:

All WC is doing is importing ARK into UE5, they're not rewriting or redesigning the game.

Patently false.

They've just recently shown redesigned supply drops, for one example. 

Not sure why you cling to this narrative that everything is going to be 100% the same and WC aren't bothering to make any real improvements. 

Edited May 3, 2023 by St1ckyBandit

[GP]

2 hours ago, Pipinghot said:

They'll be the same. All WC is doing is importing ARK into UE5, they're not rewriting or redesigning the game.

The basic port to UE5 was scrapped, which is why it is now becoming ASA. You're either not up on what's been happening or you're in denial.

[Pipinghot]

19 minutes ago, GP said:

The basic port to UE5 was scrapped, which is why it is now becoming ASA. You're either not up on what's been happening or you're in denial.

Need clarification please, I'm not sure what you're saying here. Are you saying that ASA will not be using the UE5 game engine, or are you saying that they're doing significantly more work than merely porting it?

Edited May 3, 2023 by Pipinghot

[GP]

11 minutes ago, Pipinghot said:

Need clarification please, I'm not sure what you're saying here. Are you saying that ASA will not be using the UE5 game engine, or are you saying that they're doing significantly more work than merely porting it?

They are doing a lot more than a simple port.

Read the Roadmap update as to how it has changed from a port to a lot more.

 

[Frack]

21 minutes ago, GP said:

They are doing a lot more than a simple port.

Read the Roadmap update as to how it has changed from a port to a lot more.

 

 

so, it is not going to be The Island? Broodmother? Pick's? rocks? Dodo's ? So, new look to drop's? they gonna be leaving behind things never before seen? We not gonna get hungery? Use no stamina? no tek? water not going to be wet? going to go to Scorched Earth in a new way? clothes are getting new paint? 4 months (minus 30 days to prep servers, GM's, getting stuff to vendors, signing leases, contracts all the business thigs to 'launch' a game ) they are not going to do more than import the code into 5, fix what brakes (maybe) change the name, and add price tag, and toss it out portal

[GP]

1 minute ago, Frack said:

 

so, it is not going to be The Island? Broodmother? Pick's? rocks? Dodo's ? So, new look to drop's? they gonna be leaving behind things never before seen? We not gonna get hungery? Use no stamina? no tek? water not going to be wet? going to go to Scorched Earth in a new way? clothes are getting new paint? 4 months (minus 30 days to prep servers, GM's, getting stuff to vendors, signing leases, contracts all the business thigs to 'launch' a game ) they are not going to do more than import the code into 5, fix what brakes (maybe) change the name, and add price tag, and toss it out portal

You guys are all in denial. They've listed a load of stuff they are doing and there will be more.

ASA is meant to be developed in parallel with ARK 2, it is NOT a stop gap.

[Frack]

so you have proof ASE is not being imported to UE5, renamed to ASA, and that ASA is a brand new, fresh code from the ground up, just using 'names' from ASE to identify things in ASA?

[Pipinghot]

30 minutes ago, GP said:

You guys are all in denial. They've listed a load of stuff they are doing and there will be more.

ASA is meant to be developed in parallel with ARK 2, it is NOT a stop gap.

Speaking of denial...

I'm surprised that someone of your intelligence and especially someone of your experience is falling for this marketing hype. This is fundamentally a port to UE5, combined with reskinning a few pretty pictures, with only a few real changes of any substance sprinkled on top.

[Pipinghot]

4 hours ago, St1ckyBandit said:

Patently false.

They've just recently shown redesigned supply drops, for one example. 

Not sure why you cling to this narrative that everything is going to be 100% the same and WC aren't bothering to make any real improvements. 

Not 100% the same, only 96%, huge difference.

Joking aside, changing the graphics on a few items (emphasis on few) is not the same as "rewriting or redesigning the game". A better questions is why do you keep believing their hype when they have a looong history of failing to live up to their promises.

You're misinterpreting my answers. I did not say, nor have I ever said, that it will be 100% the same, what I've said is that it won't be different enough to matter, and certainly not different enough to deserve the price tag. This should be at most a $15-20 DLC.

You can change something 5% and it's still basically the same. Importing a UE4 game into the UE5 game engine doesn't change the code of the game, it doesn't change taming mechanics, crafting mechanics, kibble tables, and so on. The only game mechanic (that I'm aware of) that is improved by importing into UE5 is snap points for building. That is one actual, bona fide, improvement to the game mechanics that is automatically improved by importing into UE5. So that's not 100% the same, but it's still almost the same.

My answer to the OP still stands, and here's why. No matter what changes you believe WC will make, they have not announced any changes to the map sizes, they haven't even remotely hinted that they're thinking about map sizes much less working on map sizes. Until or unless they say something there is no reason to believe map sizes will be changing. If something hasn't been announced then the only reasonable assumption is it's not going to happen. Could that change? Yes. WC could announce something tomorrow... but they haven't yet. Unless they announce something is going to change then the answer is... it's not going to change.

 

Beyond all that, regarding the announced changes... let's talk about them with some more specifics.

If you change the pictures on a deck of cards it's still a deck of cards, it's no better or worse than it was before. It still has number and suites [Edit: oops, typing too fast] numbers and suits, only the pretty pictures have changed. You might like those new images better but they don't change game play (this is true both for cards and for ARK). A different pretty picture on supply drops means absolutely nothing in terms of game play. Maybe it will be prettier, maybe it will have more polygons and be more sparkly, but that doesn't mean it will work any better. Technically that's a change, but not one that matters except for the pretty picture.

Changing some of the graphic images in a game isn't even remotely the same thing as rewriting or redesigning it. Even if they redesigned the visual graphics on every dino in the game the underlying game engine and fundamental game design would still be the same. The art department might be busy for a couple of months, but not the rest of the company. Graphics can make a game look better, but they can't make the underlying game design or game engine better.

WC has announced changes to the actual game, but most of them have not been created or rewritten by WC.

Examples:

Built into UE5, not WC - Dynamic navigation mesh and creature pathfinding overhaul (AI pathfinding)
Built into UE5, not WC - Photo Mode
Built into UE5, not WC - Nvidia DLSS

...and so on.

There a couple of things that WC is doing for example Dino/Baby Management QOL, Wild Babies, but even those may or may not not involve any actual improvements (and of course there's no guarantee they'll be included with the launch, you might be paying $60 for empty promises).

* Dino/Baby Management QOL - which means what exactly? It's an empty description that doesn't tell us anything about what they'll be doing and it might not even happen. There's a long list of features and enhancements that WC promised for every DLC, for every major patch, that didn't actually happen or happened much later in a future update.

* Wild Babies - we've already seen wild babies (kairuku) and they were disappointing, they made the game worse. When players asked for wild babies they asked for wild babies that could be tamed and instead they got wild babies that take up a spawn slot and can't be tamed, effectively reducing the number of opportunities for players to find good animals to game. So, will be new wild babies be different, improved, or will they just be a repeat of the same disappointment we already got stuck with?

WC's goal is to do the absolute minimum of real work, making as few changes as necessary, claiming it's a "new game" and trying to sell it for $60. Anyone who cooperates with this marketing lie, anyone who enables them by supporting that kind of dishonesty, is part of the problem. Never encourage grifters.

Edited May 3, 2023 by Pipinghot

[Frack]

38 minutes ago, GP said:

You guys are all in denial. They've listed a load of stuff they are doing and there will be more.

ASA is meant to be developed in parallel with ARK 2, it is NOT a stop gap.

From Dollie {Product Manager @survivetheark.  Producer ARK: The Animated Series )

quote " Excited  to get ARK SE into UE5"

 

"

[GP]

40 minutes ago, Frack said:

so you have proof ASE is not being imported to UE5, renamed to ASA, and that ASA is a brand new, fresh code from the ground up, just using 'names' from ASE to identify things in ASA?

That's not at all what i've been saying.

Are you even bothering to read properly?

[Pipinghot]

3 hours ago, GP said:

They are doing a lot more than a simple port.

Read the Roadmap update as to how it has changed from a port to a lot more.

This should have been before my previous reply to you, but I screwed it up. Anyway here goes...

 

Thank you for clarifying, that's what I thought you meant but didn't want to jump to conclusions.

Where this takes us to now is that we're basically arguing over differing views of what "a lot" means. Are they doing more than merely porting it to UE5? Yes. But are they doing "a lot" more? Emphatically, no. Obviously I can't stop you from describing it as "a lot" of work, but I'll argue that that's a terrible description.

Starting with the very first sentence they're using the weasel language of marketing, which should tell everyone what's really happening "We plan to support ARK: Survival Ascended with new features (including at launch)." Even if you believe that they will add all of the features they've listed or discussed, in no way does that mean they will have all of them when ASA launches. They said, "including at launch" but not "all of these will be part of ASA when it launches", which really means "some of these things will be included at launch, but we're just going to throw them up on the screen in the hope that you fall for it and believe they will all be included with the launch."

Even if you naively believe all of those features and enhancements will be included when it launches, that's still not enough to count as "a lot". Most of those changes are included with porting to UE5, the changes that are actually created/written/coded by WC are only a few, not even remotely enough to qualify ASA as a new game, not a sequel, and definitely not worth the price tag.

What they're really doing porting the game to UE5 and reskinning some graphics with (maybe, but not guaranteed) a few improvements to the game. This whole project should count as nothing more than a major release version or at most a $15-$20 DLC. The idea that they're doing "a lot" of work is, to put it kindly, highly debatable.

[Frack]

if I do 'a lot' of work on a '65 Mustang, replace the engine, put in leather seats, redo the headliner, put disc brakes on it, new carpet, new cassette player, new hot pink metallic paint job, name it Betty,  you know what? It's still a Ford, it's still a Mustang...

They can make ASE look cool, maybe run better, sound better, call it ASA, it's still ASE

 

..... They might make ASA as hot as a hot pink Betty, would love to take for ride... maybe push it a bit.. have to find my In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida tape now...

Edited May 4, 2023 by Frack
Betty

[darkradeon]

rework or revamp some model is a thing. Changing all the gameplay or the maps is another one. considering the timeline, a straight import of maps with minimal design changes "just work" considering what are they doing. The should call it iARK. Would be wounderful for unofficial if the devteam finds a way to add all events code in ASE (yes, I know and I saw currently there is only a single config overhoul for each map that means 1 event config only stored).

Edited May 4, 2023 by darkradeon

[Juddt23]

I guess that is one of the biggest questions around ASA. Will new skins and patches be enough to warrant repurchasing the game? I know that UR5 added longevity and the promise of much more, BUT it is wildcard. Promises have been made and missed for years, even when there was just one game to maintain. I am excited and hope there is "a lot" of changes coming, but I cant help but be apprehension when we are supposed to be excited about a new look to a tree.    

[Pipinghot]

2 hours ago, Juddt23 said:

I guess that is one of the biggest questions around ASA. Will new skins and patches be enough to warrant repurchasing the game? I know that UR5 added longevity and the promise of much more, BUT it is wildcard. Promises have been made and missed for years, even when there was just one game to maintain. I am excited and hope there is "a lot" of changes coming, but I cant help but be apprehension when we are supposed to be excited about a new look to a tree.    

In addition to that they're trying to take credit for changes and improvements that are built into UE5 (improved pathing, for example). Goodness only knows what other UE5 features they'll continue trying to take credit for in the future.

[DirkInSA]

I feel that OP's question has been side tracked by a bunch of differing issues. Further, any and all answers are a matter of opinion. The only guys that can give a definitive answer are WildCard. To date they have made no comments about maps altering at all - so @Juddt23the best guess is no - maps will not alter in size.

Having said that I just have to continue hijacking the thread

Things that inform my opinion:

• UE5 is an unproven technology. No game on the market today that is actually "live" has fully utilised UE5 and demonstrated the touted benefits of that engine. Yes Epic released an awesome demo, and Fortnite (an Epic game) has released bits the game that use SOME of UE5. But there is no real live ground up game using only UE5 anywhere.
• Wildcard has history of "Marketing Speak", and more often than not have been unable to realise a concrete reality that implements their market speak. NOTE: This is not a criticism of the company - Wildcard has for (my purposes) produced a very enjoyable and playable game. Which has had (mostly) free development and content upgrades since 2016. 
• Speaking of 2016, Ark ASE is a legacy piece of software. It has been in development since at least 2015, and more like a good couple or three years earlier than that. Code that is that old has been {hacked / altered / suffered "new standards" / had "vision" changes} many many times. From a development perspective, this is a nightmare (in any company). The guys that originally coded "Dino Movement" are (probably) long gone (documentation? what documentation? - read the code dude). 
• Wildcard is constrained (by majority Snail shareholder) to make more money. So the "natural" progression of creating a new game is pretty much denied to them. New, from the ground up, games take many years to build. Not (roughly speaking) 18 months as indicated by the first announcement of Ark 2. Therefore the existing Ark SE needs to be "leveraged" to turn some $ - no matter what.

Given all of that  (and I have no doubt that peeps will debate the points above because they are my "view" or "opinion"), I believe that ASA will release in August. I also believe that the real changes between ASE and ASA will be restricted to mostly cosmetic alterations. I think as @Pipinghot said above, a bunch of the "improvements" mentioned for ASA is stuff that comes from UE5, all that remains is how successful Wildcard is at actually using those improvements on a decade old code base. Oh yeah - and one will probably (depending on platform???) be inflicted with a very dodgy "Mod Manager" (over wolf).

It does seem that the majority of alterations spoken about in the various Community Crunches tend towards "upgrading" the various console platform installs in various ways (sure - need a wider market) and no so much that will materially alter a Steam / PC experience.

And as a last comment - somewhere "threaded server networking" was spoken about. I don't remember if that was in this forum, a UE5 forum, or in the Community Crunches? Whatever - that is just plain horse sh1t! Unreal engine has been hosting hundreds and hundreds of "clients" on a single server for over two decades! 2001 Unreal Tournament LAN with one server and literally hundreds of players in one map! Sure you could not spawn without some dude immediately shooting you. But the networking worked! (In other words, there is no way that UE4 does not have "threaded server networking")

 

[OverRannus]

On 5/3/2023 at 5:09 PM, Pipinghot said:

This should have been before my previous reply to you, but I screwed it up. Anyway here goes...

 

Thank you for clarifying, that's what I thought you meant but didn't want to jump to conclusions.

Where this takes us to now is that we're basically arguing over differing views of what "a lot" means. Are they doing more than merely porting it to UE5? Yes. But are they doing "a lot" more? Emphatically, no. Obviously I can't stop you from describing it as "a lot" of work, but I'll argue that that's a terrible description.

Starting with the very first sentence they're using the weasel language of marketing, which should tell everyone what's really happening "We plan to support ARK: Survival Ascended with new features (including at launch)." Even if you believe that they will add all of the features they've listed or discussed, in no way does that mean they will have all of them when ASA launches. They said, "including at launch" but not "all of these will be part of ASA when it launches", which really means "some of these things will be included at launch, but we're just going to throw them up on the screen in the hope that you fall for it and believe they will all be included with the launch."

Even if you naively believe all of those features and enhancements will be included when it launches, that's still not enough to count as "a lot". Most of those changes are included with porting to UE5, the changes that are actually created/written/coded by WC are only a few, not even remotely enough to qualify ASA as a new game, not a sequel, and definitely not worth the price tag.

What they're really doing porting the game to UE5 and reskinning some graphics with (maybe, but not guaranteed) a few improvements to the game. This whole project should count as nothing more than a major release version or at most a $15-$20 DLC. The idea that they're doing "a lot" of work is, to put it kindly, highly debatable.

Mind you they were teasing it for months, around 6-8 months, and probably for 6-12 months before that, so they probably have done a lot of work. So you can't say they are just porting because they properly announced it a month ago or so. They've been waiting to announce it for a long while as an update but decided to make a new version of the original game (which I would have preferred).

As for making the maps larger, I think they probably did but only slightly for the story maps and maybe also for the non-story maps but definitely for all future maps.

Edited May 9, 2023 by OverRannus

[Joebl0w13]

6 hours ago, DirkInSA said:

But the networking worked! (In other words, there is no way that UE4 does not have "threaded server networking")

 The statement (from the roadmap) was simply made that they will institute multi-threaded networking. We know the platform can do it but Ark never did.

[Griffin998]

2 hours ago, OverRannus said:

As for making the maps larger, I think they did but only slightly for the story maps and maybe also for the non-story maps but definitely for all future maps.

WC isn't making the maps larger. They're the same maps, with some new models and stuff. It's pretty much a graphical update for ark. Releasing it as "ASA" is literally just a money grab from WC/Snail Games. I for one am happy about the fact that it's getting a graphical overhaul, but less happy about, well, you know. But it is what it is-us players, despite being the people that give WC their money in the first place, apparently can't do crap about it. Hooray for capitalism?

[Pipinghot]

18 hours ago, OverRannus said:

Mind you they were teasing it for months, around 6-8 months, and probably for 6-12 months before that

What they've been teasing for most of that time was ARK2, followed by a straightforward port of ARK from UE4 to UE5, it's only been in the last month that they've talked about making ASA, a "new" version ARK.

And at the end of all that time what do they actually have to show for their efforts? Remarkably little, almost nothing.
* a couple of pre-made videos that have nothing to do with ARK2 game play, or even ARK-in-UE5 gameplay

* a handful of still images to show what they intend for the new UE5 graphical assets to look like

* half of the features that they're bragging about have nothing to do with WildCard's work and are simply a part of UE5.

 * A public commitment to port ARK from UE4 to UE5 for free which they broke, and then have the gall to try to charge $60 for it.

18 hours ago, OverRannus said:

so they probably have done a lot of work.

Not based on their published output they haven't.

If you believe that ASE is going to go live in August, that's only 3 months from now. Compare the lack of graphics and the total & complete lack of game play videos to dozens of other games that were 3 months away from being released. At this point most games have tons of images and gameplay videos, things that they have produced to demonstrate doing lots lots of work. WC has... almost nothing for ASE [Edit: oops| for ASA.

Anything is possible, it might just be that they're not publishing because they're "too busy" getting ready, but chances are what they've really done is very little up to this point and now they're running around like a monkey with it's pants on fire trying to prepare something, anything, no matter how desperate & crappy it's going to be, that they can go live with in August.

Will they do "a lot" of work between now and August? You betcha'. Have they done "a lot" of work up to this point? Maybe, it's a vague possibility, but based on the work product they can actually show people, very likely not.

That's the funny thing about work, when someone does work they have something to show for it. If they don't have anything to show for it then they haven't done a lot of work. We're not talking about reorganizing a warehouse, where it looks pretty much the same both before and after the reorg, we're talking about creating new stuff, stuff that is supposed to exist but hasn't been shown to anyone. So far it's all vaporware and empty promises.

18 hours ago, OverRannus said:

So you can't say they are just porting because they properly announced it a month ago or so.

Actually I can because, again, lack of in-game images & videos. Again, deadline is only 3 months away, that's extremely close compared to the lack images & videos they've published. Will they go live in August? Probably, because they desperately need money. Will the product we see in August look and play like they've been working on it for a year to a year-and-a-half. Almost guaranteed not.

The most likely scenario is that they started working like crazy beginning right about the time when they made that announcement. ASA is going to have four months of hard work in it, but not a year to a year-and-a-half of hard work.

18 hours ago, OverRannus said:

They've been waiting to announce it for a long while as an update but decided to make a new version of the original game (which I would have preferred).

No, it's still not a "new" version no matter how many times they say it, that's a marketing lie. You need to go back and read their announcements. There's very little new in ASA, half of the new stuff is built in to UE5, not created by WC, and almost all of WC's work is going to be nothing more than new skins. Publishing new skins is not the same as a new version of the game.

This is, at most, worthy of being a $10-$15 DLC, no one should fall for the scam of calling it a new game, that's just marketing lies.

18 hours ago, OverRannus said:

As for making the maps larger, I think they did but only slightly for the story maps and maybe also for the non-story maps but definitely for all future maps.

They did? When? Where do you get that idea?

As far as we know they're all going to be the exact same size in ASA as they are in ASE.

Edited May 9, 2023 by Pipinghot

[CervantesMor]

5 hours ago, Pipinghot said:

If you believe that **ASE is going to go live in August,

-

WC has... almost nothing for **ASE.

-

**ASE is going to have four months of hard work in it,

-

There's very little new in **ASE, half of the new stuff is built in to UE5,

**ASA

Rigth?