Scorched Earth Thread

[Ranger1]

7 minutes ago, nscheffel said:

And everything is sold while in alpha state? I need to go work for WC!! I could get used to never having to actually make my code release quality!!

ARK is in Early Access, which is not quite the same thing as Alpha.  The stage of development that would most accurately be described as Alpha happened before EA started.

War Gaming routinely released paid for content throughout all public phases of testing, in all 3 of their major releases (World of Tanks, World of Warships, and World of War Planes). 

Gaijin's War Thunder is still in development, in fact that's how they fund it's development.

There are countless examples of successful fully released games that have charged for content during their developmental phases. 

They cleverly hide this information on this thing they call "the internet".

 

[MavisCruet]

1 hour ago, Scrysis said:

They've been improving the optimization all the time.  They had a series of updates a while back that focused on that, so you do have to realize that they are working on it.  

 

"Buggy as hell" would probably be more appropriately applied to a game where you can't go 30ft in game without encountering at least a half-dozen bugs.  Yes, Ark does have bugs, but most of them are not horrifically game breaking.  And the ones that are, they do try to get to fast.

 

When you consider that this game has thousands of moving parts, AND that it works with mods AND dozens of custom configuration settings AND that it is friendly to people who want to run their own servers. . .  it's amazing that the game doesn't have more bugs than it already does.

 

There are LOTS of AAA games that release with bugs, and lots of them.  That doesn't stop people from being able to play them.

Well, as a good indicator, I can't get into Ark, not on any servers I have a survivor on, including my own server.  My infant wolf just died as a result.  

It's an impressive game, yes, but just because AAA titles can be utterly shambolic doesn't mean we should ignore flaws here.  I am not really complaining about them, just pointing out that there are serious bugs that haven't been addressed, and whilst the optimisation might have improved, though I have noticed little difference, I can play GTA with significantly higher settings than Ark.  That they have made a game so good with a team that I imagine is small is really impressive, but that's not to say there aren't things that need fixing.

[CyanicEmber]

...I apparently misread that entirely. I thought it said the expansion had been in development for 14 months... We do know however, that it has been in development for over five months because this video... 

was released five months ago and features multiple assets from this expansion.

In any case, my point stands. They've been developing this alongside the main game and planning it for awhile. It simply wouldn't have made sense for them to say, "Our game isn't quite on schedule, so we'll completely pause all work on this and focus on release of them main game," especially given what happened with the Trendy lawsuit. This was a good move on their part, even if people are upset about it.

[Zahlea]

1 minute ago, Scrysis said:

No, you misunderstand.  Players like to throw around the term "game-breaking bug" a lot, without really understanding what an actual game-breaking bug would be.  An actual game-breaking bug would be something like eating food doesn't refill your health bar.  Or if you were to walk five feet and get teleported to a random location on the map.  Or something insidious like you try to pick up anything on the map, and it's slightly different than where you think it is (which sometimes happens to dino corpses now and again, but it doesn't happen to everything).

Game bugs are sometimes notoriously difficult to track down and fix, and some don't reproduce consistently, which makes it even harder.  And some of them, such as the problems of one guy not being able to host his game server or that other guy wanting stretch his game on a double wide-screen may not even be the developer's fault.  The game server might have a networking issue (which I had for about a week of looking to host my own server), and the double wide-screen issue may not be a problem with Ark or Wildcard -- it could be that the card manufacturer doesn't do driver support on the type of graphics that Wildcard is using for double-wide screens on his particular card.

That being said.  If you were to keep an eye on the patch notes, Wildcard is CONSTANTLY fixing bugs.  NONSTOP BUG FIXES.  I applaud them for this.  A lot of big game companies do maybe a couple rounds of bug fixes, and then stop, even though there are more bugs.  Wildcard isn't doing this.

What you're seeing here is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT than bug fixes.  You're seeing the significant efforts of the ART department with some coding from the developers.  Artists aren't doing coding; so they're not doing bug fixes.  Wildcard is publishing this expansion in the hopes that people will buy it and help them retain those same artists.  The money they get will go into adding more new features and tracking down bugs.  AND it goes into keeping the official servers running (that takes money!).  I would much rather have those artists working on something to add to the game, than to have them be laid off because a couple of people wanted a flawless, bug-free game.

Wildcard doesn't have micro transactions.  If you want to disagree with me, that's fine.  But I see the expansion video, and my first reaction is "Wow!  Look at all of those new and beautiful assets!"  And then I realize how much work and hours have gone into making those (lots!), and those artists and developers need to eat.  I think I spent $30 on the original game, and I have 1000+ hours in it.  Sure, I have mods, but I'd still be playing for tons of hours even without the mods.  That's a fantastic deal, especially when you consider how much you pay to see a movie.

 

tl;dr :  Wildcard is constantly working on bug fixes, and for the functionality of the game, it works as a release.  Artists don't work on bugs, but they do work on new assets for expansions.  Artists, programmers, and servers all require money to keep going.  Regardless of personal views on development labels, original Ark and expansion are really good deals when you consider entertainment time per dollar.

Well, I do agree that the term is used a bit too liberally, but to make sure we're on the same page: are you considering vanishing tames and inexplicable deaths, or for that matter, falling through tree platforms and rafts leading to your death not being game breaking bugs? Having a masters in game development, you can trust that I'm very aware of the trouble tracking down bugs, but that is no excuse to let them be. And it has no place in a finished game, by the bar I set.

I'm aware that they're constantly fixing bugs and like you, I'm grateful for it. But that they're continuously fixing bugs does not mean the game is finished if the bugs I mentioned above are left in the game. I'm really not trying to say that Wildcard don't care about the bugs - what I am saying is that the bugs that are still present are a sign the game is not finished.

Yes, I'm also aware of there being different departments. At the moment of my writing, there are 29 unreleased dinos listed on Gamepedia. This is something the art department could have done instead of the dinos in the expansion pack. Not to mention all the new mechanics of the dinos etc. So using different departments as an argument for them to work on an expansion instead of the core game doesn't hold! The only thing I can agree on there is that they need money and fair enough, but they could have handled this change of what they said before soooo much more smoothly. Hyping something up and only afterwards telling people it's paid (when the previous promise was that it wouldn't happen) and simultaneously releasing a patch that doesn't even have all of the very few things listed on it - that's asking people to be upset! Especially when they're acting like nothing and not even addressing it. Bad form!

I'm not arguing against them charging for it or the price tag. I'm arguing that they made a poor release, setting people up to be annoyed; that I understand where people are coming from when they think the resources could have been better spent on the base game. I'm also arguing that I'm worried about what this means for myself and the others who, like me, don't want mythological creatures in the game and can't even escape it by not buying the game. I feel that's an attempt at manipulating people into bying it in order to feel like they can keep up and that's a really shameful move, in my opinion.

[ciabattaroll]

21 minutes ago, Kimsie said:

And the way I interpret it is that during the 14 months they've developed the game, they have not released any updates that were as big as this one.

14 months is the span of time from when Ark initially appeared on Early Access up to the here and now. Obviously that means they were working on the game before that, or there wouldn't have been ARK to play on the 1st of July last year.

In regards to the development of the desert Biome, the spike dragon has been teased as early as March 1 of this year. Stands to reason that the idea to develop the biome was around before that.

[JoeVandal49]

Just now, CyanicEmber said:

...I apparently misread that entirely. I thought it said the expansion had been in development for 14 months... We do know however, that it has been in development for over five months because this video... 

was released five months ago and features multiple assets from this expansion.

In any case, my point stands. They've been developing this alongside the main game and planning it for awhile. It simply wouldn't have made sense for them to say, "Our game isn't quite on schedule, so we'll completely pause all work on this and focus on release of them main game," especially given what happened with the Trendy lawsuit. This was a good move on their part, even if people are upset about it.

More likely these were features that were supposed to go into vanilla. They decided they weren't interested in developing a desert biome on the island at this point, then they saw what one guy did with the center map, and decided it would be a smart business decision to come up with a totally new map. add in some mythical creatures, and then implement all of the other engrams that should have made it to vanilla into this specific DLC.

 

Im greatly starting to wonder if Tek Teir will be another paid DLC with sci-fi creatures, tek, and possibly a new map, instead of what we are all assuming it will be- An addition to Vanilla.

[CaptainHawkeye8]

Please god has anyone found Leeches on Scorched. I have an issue x.x

[Zahlea]

5 minutes ago, ciabattaroll said:

14 months is the span of time from when Ark initially appeared on Early Access up to the here and now. Obviously that means they were working on the game before that, or there wouldn't have been ARK to play on the 1st of July last year.

In regards to the development of the desert Biome, the spike dragon has been teased as early as March 1 of this year. Stands to reason that the idea to develop the biome was around before that.

Yes, true, I spoke carelessly. 14months in EA. Apart from that, what you said was what I said ; )

To me it's not very relevant when the idea was concieved - only that it has been done taking resources from the unfinished base game. But even that is not my main issue - it's the mythological creatures!

[SoupGaming]

I am happy to this DLC release. I feel it will revamp Ark as I feel it is not growing much more as of right now. I think this will help YouTubers like me create more content for our fans, But I feel as they should work on the actual game itself as it has bugs before they actually work on DLC.

Channel Link! - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC38vSwK7BcY9PHJgIYhB7PQ

[Ranger1]

12 minutes ago, Kimsie said:

Yes, true, I spoke carelessly. 14months in EA. Apart from that, what you said was what I said ; )

To me it's not very relevant when the idea was concieved - only that it has been done taking resources from the unfinished base game. But even that is not my main issue - it's the mythological creatures!

You know, I'll admit when I first started this game I was taken slightly aback by it's inclusion of mythological creatures.  It took me a while to get used to the idea, and I started thinking of them more as genetic experiments than anything else... or life forms taken from worlds other than our own.

I think I'm okay with the concept, with one over-riding reservation... that the mythological creatures fit logically in the eco system (in a balanced way) with the other creatures in the game.  The fact that the "Dragon" boss is the most powerful creature by far does bug me a bit, and it will bug me even more if these new creatures stomp all over other creatures already in game... for a variety of reasons.

I don't think they are going that route, but time will tell.

[Delvonshi]

27 minutes ago, Scrysis said:

 

No, you misunderstand.  Players like to throw around the term "game-breaking bug" a lot, without really understanding what an actual game-breaking bug would be.  An actual game-breaking bug would be something like eating food doesn't refill your health bar.  Or if you were to walk five feet and get teleported to a random location on the map.  Or something insidious like you try to pick up anything on the map, and it's slightly different than where you think it is (which sometimes happens to dino corpses now and again, but it doesn't happen to everything).  Or opening your inventory crashes your game.  Or dismounting a dinosaur crashes a the whole server.

 

Game bugs are sometimes notoriously difficult to track down and fix, and some don't reproduce consistently, which makes it even harder.  And some of them, such as the problems of one guy not being able to host his game server or that other guy wanting stretch his game on a double wide-screen may not even be the developer's fault.  The game server might have a networking issue (which I had for about a week of looking to host my own server), and the double wide-screen issue may not be a problem with Ark or Wildcard -- it could be that the card manufacturer doesn't do driver support on the type of graphics that Wildcard is using for double-wide screens on his particular card.

That being said.  If you were to keep an eye on the patch notes, Wildcard is CONSTANTLY fixing bugs.  NONSTOP BUG FIXES.  I applaud them for this.  A lot of big game companies do maybe a couple rounds of bug fixes, and then stop, even though there are more bugs.  Wildcard isn't doing this.

What you're seeing here is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT than bug fixes.  You're seeing the significant efforts of the ART department with some coding from the developers.  Artists aren't doing coding; so they're not doing bug fixes.  Wildcard is publishing this expansion in the hopes that people will buy it and help them retain those same artists.  The money they get will go into adding more new features and tracking down bugs.  AND it goes into keeping the official servers running (that takes money!).  I would much rather have those artists working on something to add to the game, than to have them be laid off because a couple of people wanted a flawless, bug-free game.

Wildcard doesn't have micro transactions.  If you want to disagree with me, that's fine.  But I see the expansion video, and my first reaction is "Wow!  Look at all of those new and beautiful assets!"  And then I realize how much work and hours have gone into making those (lots!), and those artists and developers need to eat.  I think I spent $30 on the original game, and I have 1000+ hours in it.  Sure, I have mods, but I'd still be playing for tons of hours even without the mods.  That's a fantastic deal, especially when you consider how much you pay to see a movie.

 

tl;dr :  Wildcard is constantly working on bug fixes, and for the functionality of the game, it works as a release.  Artists don't work on bugs, but they do work on new assets for expansions.  Artists, programmers, and servers all require money to keep going.  Regardless of personal views on development labels, original Ark and expansion are really good deals when you consider entertainment time per dollar.

So, game-breaking bugs are a relative term to what people consider a deal breaker for gaming. If you are on an offical server and spend the massive time it takes to tame a 100+ quetzal only to have it disappear for no reason.. yeah. And as for your stance on use of departments, not only was the expansion by no means a small investment in coding (Look at the functionality of some of the new items) but there are still MANY art assets left to do. Wildcard has already made a substantial amount of money off the base game and while development is expensive there are MANY other models to pursue before the ol bait and switch method. If you think just because you got a ton of use out of the original (unfinished) product for a mere 15$-30$ and that makes it ok to pay for this expansion because it overlaps the previous value of your investment you are out of your mind. I don't mean any offense by that but it literally means you do not hold a business to its own wording. If I sold you a car that functioned but had problems like randomly failing to start, and no air conditioning, and other things that didn't keep the car from functioning but made it much worse to function and I sold it to you for 8k. Its brand new.. a steal of a price but I tell you that we are figuring out the issues with that car and will fix them later. Then I knock on your door a year later and tell you that I'll sell you a different brand new car based upon the old one that has similar issues but its a different color and has a few more features for 7k you'd punch me in the face. Think on that will you?

[Orion]

1 hour ago, Casanova said:

No one said Scorched Earth was in development for 14 months. What Jat said is that this is the single biggest update in our 14 month development cycle. Which it is...

I can't assume that you're part of the Development team due to your Title.
But maybe you have some insight as to why this mode was released not only with the current mode being inherently unfinished and incredibly buggy/slow.
Why wasn't it released as an expansion directly to The Island? Extend the map, adding this new 'Desert Continent'? Well, that's a rhetorical question, more money is clearly the answer there... and now people get to bring their overpowered items and tames from Scorched Earth to The Island and terrorize Island players with them.

[rawsh]

I just cannot believe, they would

1. Release a DLC before they finish the Main Game; what?? 

2. They actually propose you can Transfer Creatures to other Servers, just seems INSANE to me, i mean regardless of what the actual motive for the DLC was, NOW it looks like a shameless Moneygrab 

 

dont get me wrong, id be happy to buy Ark DLC... when the game is done ... but even then having the possibillity to transfer Items/Creatures from a payed DLC onto servers that do not run the mod is just Insane to me. 

[CyanicEmber]

I'm starting to get worried that they might never have enough steam to get their engine to the station simply because of how short-sighted the more vocal part of the player-base seems to be...

[Ep1cM0nk3y]

3 minutes ago, Orion said:

I can't assume that you're part of the Development team due to your Title.
But maybe you have some insight as to why this mode was released not only with the current mode being inherently unfinished and incredibly buggy/slow.
Why wasn't it released as an expansion directly to The Island? Extend the map, adding this new 'Desert Continent'? Well, that's a rhetorical question, more money is clearly the answer there... and now people get to bring their overpowered items and tames from Scorched Earth to The Island and terrorize Island players with them.

It does say that there will be/are gates that will allow you to go to and from the island with the scorched earth items/tames... And they can release whatever they want, it's their game, don't like all the buggyness then don't play early access, it's part of the process. And if you have spent 1000+ he's in this game, you've gotten your money's worth and then some. Besides, ark's greatest lesson is that all will be destroyed and you will have to rebuild.. 

[LinuxGyver]

Hey, the dev team make amazing works, bringing us great new content, look at the video. It didn't broke the Island or the Center, they are still improving this too. So stop whining. I don't like to see people crying about dev, when we can see it is an amazing works. You don't know anything about dev works... so just be patient, it's hard stuff.

 

[Delvonshi]

1 minute ago, CyanicEmber said:

I'm starting to get worried that they might never have enough steam to get their engine to the station simply because of how short-sighted the more vocal part of the player-base seems to be...

Most people are arguing for a long-sighted approach. Misuse of assets is usually a short sighted issue.

[Rezerk]

So basically you can choose to play on Ark only, to play on Ark Scorched Earth only, or in a server which allows both of them. So I'd recommend checking out things deeply before just hating. About the mythical creatures, I think we had a Broodmother and a Dragon in the game already, so a rideable Wyvern or a Manticore boss is not so distant from that. We also don't know anything about the Ark's Storyline, which can involve any kind of creature, prehistoric, mythical or even alien for what we currently know. It's a work in progress so the mechanics can and will change at any time, as we've already seen. 
About the pay to play for this DLC; I see the reason why in the amount of content it adds and work it required, but in the meantime, yeah, a bit weird to see for an Early Access game which has some things to fix. Like the disappearing dinos, or dinos falling through the world, which I have a nice collection of. In  my case I play on a 5x server, so not really big deal, but I understand those folks playing on Official and losing basically hours of time for a fixable (spending some time on it) glitch. 
The DLC looks awesome, can't wait to put my hands on it. 
At the end of the day I'm just sad the Tapejara is not available yet. I was looking forward to be able to ride one today... 

[Orion]

2 minutes ago, Ep1cM0nk3y said:

It does say that there will be/are gates that will allow you to go to and from the island with the scorched earth items/tames... And they can release whatever they want, it's their game, don't like all the buggyness then don't play early access, it's part of the process. And if you have spent 1000+ he's in this game, you've gotten your money's worth and then some. Besides, ark's greatest lesson is that all will be destroyed and you will have to rebuild.. 

What amazes me is that they continued to go through with this idea despite massive community backlash even when it was just speculation.
Even now it's creating a lot of backlash because of the pure nature of this game, the amount of griefers, bully-alpha tribes and trolls that flood this games' official servers, so now you can transfer even a fleet of Wyverns from Scorched Earth to The Island, fly around melting everyones tames and bases and then just transfer back to the Desert.

[Orion]

3 minutes ago, LinuxGyver said:

Hey, the dev team make amazing works, bringing us great new content, look at the video. It didn't broke the Island or the Center, they are still improving this too. So stop whining. I don't like to see people crying about dev, when we can see it is an amazing works. You don't nothing about dev works... just be patient. It's hard stuff.

I never attempted to say what they did, didn't take a lot of work or effort. I said that myself (and apparently, a large amount of their playerbase) are upset with this new map.

First off, they originally told us that all future updates, expansions and maps to the game would be free after the initial purchase of the base game. Now, Scorched Earth comes out - costing twenty, which isn't bad at all but it's the philosophy that matters - where the items and tames in Scorched Earth are significantly better than what you can get in The Island - AND you can take Wyverns and other tames from Scorched Earth and bring them directly in to whatever The Island server you want and decimate with them.

Don't tell me people won't do this, either, because we all know that they will.

[fultron3030]

I just don't understand how "part 2" can be farther along than "part 1" its like painting a house where you havent even installed the insulation. 

[JoeVandal49]

Just now, fultron3030 said:

I just don't understand how "part 2" can be farther along than "part 1" its like painting a house where you havent even installed the insulation. 

Its highly likely that the vast majority of "part 2" was supposed to actually come to Vanilla.

[Ep1cM0nk3y]

9 minutes ago, Orion said:

What amazes me is that they continued to go through with this idea despite massive community backlash even when it was just speculation.
Even now it's creating a lot of backlash because of the pure nature of this game, the amount of griefers, bully-alpha tribes and trolls that flood this games' official servers, so now you can transfer even a fleet of Wyverns from Scorched Earth to The Island, fly around melting everyones tames and bases and then just transfer back to the Desert.

And that's why they continue to add different "modes" extinction/p+/primitive/offline raid protect/pve/player dedicated/etc... If one doesn't suit you, play a different one or single player.. You have options and you act like you don't.. Take some responsibility for buying an early access game and realize that this IS NOT YOUR GAME but theirs and how they want to develop it is up to them, and to even judge them and this game so negatively and without them even being to point of a finished project is completely short sighted and narrow minded on your part. It's like someone is sculpting and all you see is an amoeba of clay so you think it looks like a pile of $@#& when the artist hasn't even carved/shaped the final parts.

[Scrysis]

27 minutes ago, Kimsie said:

Well, I do agree that the term is used a bit too liberally, but to make sure we're on the same page: are you considering vanishing tames and inexplicable deaths, or for that matter, falling through tree platforms and rafts leading to your death not being game breaking bugs? Having a masters in game development, you can trust that I'm very aware of the trouble tracking down bugs, but that is no excuse to let them be. And it has no place in a finished game, by the bar I set.

I'm aware that they're constantly fixing bugs and like you, I'm grateful for it. But that they're continuously fixing bugs does not mean the game is finished if the bugs I mentioned above are left in the game. I'm really not trying to say that Wildcard don't care about the bugs - what I am saying is that the bugs that are still present are a sign the game is not finished.

Yes, I'm also aware of there being different departments. At the moment of my writing, there are 29 unreleased dinos listed on Gamepedia. This is something the art department could have done instead of the dinos in the expansion pack. Not to mention all the new mechanics of the dinos etc. So using different departments as an argument for them to work on an expansion instead of the core game doesn't hold! The only thing I can agree on there is that they need money and fair enough, but they could have handled this change of what they said before soooo much more smoothly. Hyping something up and only afterwards telling people it's paid (when the previous promise was that it wouldn't happen) and simultaneously releasing a patch that doesn't even have all of the very few things listed on it - that's asking people to be upset! Especially when they're acting like nothing and not even addressing it. Bad form!

I'm not arguing against them charging for it or the price tag. I'm arguing that they made a poor release, setting people up to be annoyed; that I understand where people are coming from when they think the resources could have been better spent on the base game. I'm also arguing that I'm worried about what this means for myself and the others who, like me, don't want mythological creatures in the game and can't even escape it by not buying the game. I feel that's an attempt at manipulating people into bying it in order to feel like they can keep up and that's a really shameful move, in my opinion.

 

1 - I'm pretty sure they're not "letting them be".  Given how I see constant bug fixes, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt here and say that they're looking for them, and just haven't found them yet.  The vanishing tames has been rather inconsistent (I've had it happen and it's extremely frustrating, but I haven't been able to point out what caused it to happen), and the falling through platforms is a loading issue on servers from the accounts I've seen.  That particular issue sounds like it's going to take a *much* more involved fix as it deals with how map segments load for people, and thus more time.  Just because it hasn't been fixed yet doesn't mean they aren't working on it.

2 - I'm not really arguing that Wildcard shouldn't find bugs or that we shouldn't hope for a better standard.  What I *am* saying is that we really need to be realistic here.  What you're seeing in game is highly playable, even with the bugs.  That makes it release-quality by comparison to much larger studios.

 

3 - My comments on this were directed mostly at players who conflate the two departments.  :-)   I'm sure you've seen them EVERYWHERE -- people screaming for this and that, but not realizing that the art department doesn't handle coding and vice versa.  I couldn't tell from your initial posts that you did understand that they were different.

 

4 -- Okay, I can agree with this.  Essentially, they didn't handle the PR for this correctly.  I'm probably not the average gamer; I look at all the underlying work, and how much goes into supporting it, maintaining it, and then additional development.  Because WildCard has given pretty extensive support for their base game (while not perfect, they've been adding and adjusting a non-trivial amount), and I see how much they've put into the expansion, and for the cost, I'm willing to support them.  I *want* to see more bug fixes and additions.  And people seem to forget about the recent (and ultimately stupid) lawsuit (designed to feed investment capital firms and lawyers), and the development of primal conversion -- which all this money goes into.  On top of that, it would be really cool to see WildCard grow into a larger studio like one of the big ones, but that again, takes money.  My own perspective is that I will definitely get my money's worth out of the expansion.  Not only that, but I support continued development, and bug fixes.  Not only do I get cool new toys to play with, but I get the warm, fuzzy satisfaction of knowing that I'm helping out the other guys who don't want the xpac for whatever reason.

4.5  -- Okay, the distaste of mixing fantasy creatures with the more realistic ones on the Island is a legitimate concern.  While not my own issue, I can see why it might be for people.  I think this is the WRONG thread for such a concern (hear me out on this!).  This is a very general topic thread, and I think this concern is both focused enough and one that they can manage.  Players who don't want to mix types should ultimately be encouraged to start a thread dedicated JUST to having isolated Ark servers or pure Island servers.  If that concern stays in this thread, it's going to get too muddied for the developers (as I'm sure you know) to see, and I'm posting this just so that others with that same concern might read this and take it to a different thread dedicated to the topic so they can be heard.

[Ollorin]

3 hours ago, Orion said:

So, hold on @Jat - you mean to tell me that your small development team actually thought this was a good idea? Why?
The Island, The Center and the main game itself (Survival Evolved) is still buggy, it's still unfinished, it's still horribly optimized on the Xbox One with only a total of about a 15% performance upgrade since release. Out of all the Dinosaurs on The Ark, roughly 80% of them are useless in almost all ways except egg laying. Parasaurs and Raptors are virtually useless even in terms of egg laying because they don't tame anything too valuable.

Ok, ok... I guess I can understand the new map and mode and creatures exclusive to a $20 DLC - I know your guys' game hasn't been doing as well lately due to your major inability to implement features and new Dinos without them being either incredibly buggy, incredibly overpowered, or incredibly useless (Diplo). Griefers and Trolls have been decimating your Official servers on both Xbox and PC to where no one really plays them anymore, they just play Player Dedicated servers with horribly modified settings.

But, you know what I can't understand? Now you're letting people who are willing to fork out another $20 for a DLC that adds to an already unfinished game be capable of transferring their Character, Gear, Tames and everything else from Scorched Earth to The Island - basically, Official Servers on The Island are screwed furhtermore, because people can bring entire fleets of Wyverns, Stone Golems and even Death Worms to The Island and decimate a server with them.

You've been apparently working so hard on this project that it has become blatantly obvious why there has been so little attention focused to the updates to your base game. It also explains why you've been using user-created mods such as The Center and Primitive+ to make up for your deficiency in content.

It's good to know, I guess, that you've decided to just ignore Survival Evolved and it's problems, and instead work on Scorched Earth. You're going to lose a lot of your player base over this.

^ This.  Wildcard isn't going to see another dime from me until they follow through and actually give us a finished core game.  Then and only then will I think about forking over any more cash for content.

 

BTW devs, thanks for the door......    Is that really all you could manage?   If so you REALLY need to STOP working on DLC and focus on what customers have already paid you for with the promise that it would be a finished product someday.