Don't buy this game! I won't!

[TigerNuno]

I was curious about this game, I've just played the 60 minutes preview on Xbox One. Don't buy the game. I won't. Here's my 2 cents. How frustrating.

First off, I hate this Microsoft 60 minutes preview dealio. Just because of it I'm more inclined to never buy a game that uses this terrible preview style. Old days demos that don't have a time limit are much better. Just limit the content, a player would only play the 1st level and then not have access to the rest of the game. This would be user friendly, nice, and I can try out the game as long as I want before I buy, make up my mind. Not with a 60 minutes limit. I hate that. It's rude. It's obnouxious. It's frustrating.

Really game? 24,6 GB on my console just for 60 frustrating minutes? How ridiculous. I deleted the game as soon as the 60 minutes is over. What a waste of time and space.

During 60 minutes what could I do? Die, die, die. Pick up wood from trees. Die, die die. Swim. Die. Get cold, get hungry, die, die again and die some more, still clueless. 20 minutes gone by. What now? Respawn again. Die, respawn, die, respawn. How in the world can I get some food and eat? I try to kill animals, almost all of them kill me instead. I can never get food. Finally, when I manage to kill an annoying small animal, what do I think? FINALLY! FOOD! But nooooooo. All I can do is drag its body?!?!? DILO? What for? Why can't I eat it? Why can't I cook it?

I drag it to the fireplace and set the fireplace on fire to cook the dead animal. Doesn't work. I can't do anything with the dead body. How stupid. 40 minutes gone by. I'm still clueless. All I can do is pick up wood and die.

The controls are so bad and confusing, that when I found other humans, I opened the wheel with "Y", then moved the cursor up to join their tribe or whatever but I never know if I joined their tribe or not, the text is not even readable, there are 2 sentences on top of each other that don't let me read properly anything.

I realize I need 1 wood and 10 the other thingy (which I have), to build a stone pick. I think that if I create one, maybe I can hunt better, kill animals better and finally find some food to not die starving.

I have no clue about how to pick up rocks to build the stone pick. I found rocks all over the place on the floor. I try to punch them to pick them up, doesn't work. I can't even pick up rocks!!!!!!???????? #$ $#$%$ #$% ......... #$%&ing $hi% There are no controls explained anywhere, not even online. How frustrating.

I turn to google searches and youtube:

"ark survival how to pick up rocks"

"ark survival how to eat"

"ark survival how to get food"

20 or 30 frustrating search results later, I can't find help on how to play this frustrating game. I still don't know what controls pick up rocks and how to gather food to eat.

Guess what, 60 minutes are over, this game didn't even give me time to google search a way to pick up rocks and gather food. Thanks Microsoft for a terriblly bad preview experience, because it's limited to 60 minutes.

Now I won't buy this game, never. No way. I suggest you do the same.

[GP]

12 minutes ago, TigerNuno said:

Finally, when I manage to kill an annoying small animal, what do I think? FINALLY! FOOD! But nooooooo. All I can do is drag its body?!?!? DILO? What for? Why can't I eat it? Why can't I cook it?

When you kill a creature, you need to keep hitting it until it disappears. Each time you hit it you'll get meat.

 

12 minutes ago, TigerNuno said:

I drag it to the fireplace and set the fireplace on fire to cook the dead animal. Doesn't work. I can't do anything with the dead body. How stupid. 40 minutes gone by. I'm still clueless. All I can do is pick up wood and die.

Once you've hit the dead creature enough to get meat you then put it in the fire.

 

12 minutes ago, TigerNuno said:

I have no clue about how to pick up rocks to build the stone pick. I found rocks all over the place on the floor. I try to punch them to pick them up, doesn't work. I can't even pick up rocks!!!!!!???????? #$ $#$%$ #$% ......... #$%&ing $hi% There are no controls explained anywhere, not even online. How frustrating.

Did you look at the Controller layout in the options? I believe picking up rocks is with 'Y', but i'm not 100% on that with the Xbone controller.

 

12 minutes ago, TigerNuno said:

Now I won't buy this game, never. No way. I suggest you do the same.

You gotta do what you want to do, but this forum, the Reddit forum and the Steam forum is full of tips and guides to help people. There's a wiki: http://ark.gamepedia.com/ARK:_Survival_Evolved_Wiki which is FULL of helpful information to learn what you need to do.

 

[Bloodshok]

So because you couldnt figure out the game in 60 min you dont want anyone else to buy the game now?

[WindsweptDragon]

So because you didn't like it or were able to get it too work nobody should buy it ? 

Another point of view would be .....this games great, everone should buy it .......just not until they set up more servers. ( I want the game to do well, just jot at the expense of me being able to play)

[Jen]

TigerNuno,

I am sorry to hear that you have an unpleasant experience with your trial. 

ARK is a considerably complex open world game which can be difficult to master, especially in such a short amount of time. I can understand your frustration, you feel like it is our fault that you were unable to figure out these things that you wanted to do and it ruined your experience.  Reading up about the game before starting your trial may have improved your experience and would have given you some basic information on what to expect. The Xbox version of the game does come with Game Guides that can be found in the Pause Menu, and there is a very detailed database all about ARK on it's wiki page. 

I remember my first few days with ARK very fondly now. I spent a lot of time dying, a lot of time losing where I built my tiny thatch base, but also a lot of time learning new things and picking up tips and tricks along the way. The thrill of taming your first dino after hiding in the night trying to collect enough berries for it, the first saddle you make and the first dino you ride, those are incredible feats of accomplishment when they come! 

ARK is a game that comes with it's own learning curve, there really isn't anything else like it out there. It is harsh and unforgiving, it is difficult and sometimes rage inducing. But that is also what attracted me to it. You must take risks, often times your life, in order to get ahead. You will lose what matters most before you can build your empire. But that in itself is the thrill of surviving. 

I think if you gave ARK a second chance, you may experience that for yourself. 

[TigerNuno]

22 minutes ago, GamerPerfection said:

When you kill a creature, you need to keep hitting it until it disappears. Each time you hit it you'll get meat.

Each time I hit it I eat meat????? Wow. Now I know. In the game I had no clue. The game could at least give me a visual warning. Like a popup message or something that told me: "you've eaten 10 food". Or "food++".... "food > >> >>>"... "hunger decreased".... Something to let me know. A newbie like me would never know, since the game doesn't give a visual or audio indication. It's not intuitive. Or how about the sound of my mouth eating? That would be another kind of intuitive indication. I don't agree with no indication whatsoever. It's not even realistic. In the real world I know when I'm eating. I can feel it. In this game I could never tell that hitting a dead corpse = eating. Kinda absurd, unrealistic. I eat with my mouth, not with my fists. So it's not realistic at all. Besides, hitting a corpse, in my opinion, is nothing like eating. Doesn't make sense. There should be a different control or button just to eat. 

22 minutes ago, GamerPerfection said:

Once you've hit the dead creature enough to get meat you then put it in the fire.

 

Did you look at the Controller layout in the options? I believe picking up rocks is with 'Y', but i'm not 100% on that with the Xbone controller.

Yes. With "Y"???? Well if I get close the fireplace, I see a popup message on the screen that tells me: "Y" to light a fire (come on baby light my fire). That's a clue, that's some help. Why doesn't a similar popup show up near rocks to help me know how to pick up rocks? Again, not intuitive like fireplaces or dead bodies, that also show the "Y" clue on the screen.

22 minutes ago, GamerPerfection said:

You gotta do what you want to do, but this forum, the Reddit forum and the Steam forum is full of tips and guides to help people. There's a wiki: http://ark.gamepedia.com/ARK:_Survival_Evolved_Wiki which is FULL of helpful information to learn what you need to do.

 

I know this forum is meant to help and discuss the game. But in 60 minutes I don't have time to spend time on this forum. I have to be in the game, playing, trying, making mistakes, learning, and I like intuitive games that let me learn as I go, with practice. That's why I didn't like my experience with Ark. Thanks for your tips, anyway.

[ZeagaX13]

A lot of the things you pointed out, I struggled with too! Don't worry about it man it's all good, it's all about learning the game before you can do anything in it. Let me just tell you my experience.

I started the playing the trial version of the game around the 18th in this last month. I was really excited because I've been wanting to play it, I just didn't want to buy it because I didn't know if I'd have anyone to play it with. Eventually two of my friends wanted to play it two so we started playing. However, before that, I played the tutorial. Same as you, I was absolutely clueless. "Oh, okay so it just starts me off?" I've never seen anyone play ark because I never wanted to really watch the gameplay, I mainly just waited till it got to console to really give a damn so to speak haha. Anyways, I'm walking around, there's a yeti, two brontos, and some trikes and a turtle. I fiddle with the controls and I'm thinking alright this seems easy enough. I figured the inventory, how to get wood and thatch, make items, you know the simple stuff. Then I was noticing I needed stone. How in the world am I supposed to get stone?! I can't punch the rocks . I looked around and someone in chat eventually said the same question I had on gathering. Then someone answered and said look into the settings and check the controls. Jerk coulda just said press the action button ( Y ). Anyways, there it was, all the controls I needed and then I wondered, what's all these stats I have? In the pause menu is something called a game guide. I went to it, and it told me all the basic information I needed to know in about 10 minutes.

I figured how to get food, wood, stone, etc. and soon enough I was able to actually survive and manage myself fairly easily, eventually I taught my friends how to better play the game and soon we were hooked. It's a little difficult to learn at first in some way, but I got the hang of it and once I did I really just wanted to play the game. While in the trial I eventually got to make a speak and I saw a trike and was like, "Oh man, this trike's gunna get it!! " and the trial ran out right when I threw my first spear. It sucked it ran out, but it being only 35$, I figured, "You know what, I really liked the game the short amount of time I was playing it and I'm thinkin' ima just buy it."

I've been playing it a lot, so much I didn't even realize two weeks have gone by since my friends and I started it. I'm now lvl 69 in our tribe, we have a giant wood wall around our base with a huge stone gate, we also have 4 direwolves, a Trike, Carno, Trex, Spino, Anklyo, Parasuar, Turtle, two eagles, two dilos, and of course.... four dodo birds.
(We had 5 dodos but my friend joey decided to use it as a test dummy for our C4 Charges we made... -.-)

Either way, the game is incredibly fun and there's always something to do. You'll literally never find yourself saying "I don't know what to do, there's nothing to do." You either have to feed your dinos, go get food for yourselves, build the base better, make more storage, go kill some alphas, go cave diving, go to get ore from the volcano or the mountains, build a second base near valuable resources... the list goes on and on because there's so much to do it's incredible. The game is truly awesome in every sense of the word. My suggestion to you honestly, find a tribe that will take you in and they'll help you learn the ways of the game. The game has it's few minor bugs but that's just what they are is minor and that's about the same for all other games. Honestly, if you loved playing games where you have to survive and make a name for yourself so to speak, this game is for you. There's not often going to be handouts, things will take time, and progression can be slow near end-game. However, the fun never ends, and this isn't even the full game yet because there's more content to come.

Give it one more try; even if you have to buy it, because I'm telling you, it's work the 35 bucks.

[GP]

9 minutes ago, TigerNuno said:

Each time I hit it I eat meat????? Wow. Now I know. In the game I had no clue. The game could at least give me a visual warning. Like a popup message or something that told me: "you've eaten 10 food". Or "food++".... "food > >> >>>"... "hunger decreased".... Something to let me know. A newbie like me would never know, since the game doesn't give a visual or audio indication. It's not intuitive. Or how about the sound of my mouth eating? That would be another kind of intuitive indication. I don't agree with no indication whatsoever. It's not even realistic. In the real world I know when I'm eating. I can feel it. In this game I could never tell that hitting a dead corpse = eating. Kinda absurd, unrealistic. I eat with my mouth, not with my fists. So it's not realistic at all. Besides, hitting a corpse, in my opinion, is nothing like eating. Doesn't make sense. There should be a different control or button just to eat. 

Actually, that's not quite what I was getting at. Once you've killed the creature, then continue to hit it until it disappears. Each time you hit the creature after you've killed it the screen will display what resources including meat you get each time you hit it. The uncooked meat will then be in your inventory ready to cook or eat.

When you get close to a rock (we are talking the very small rocks on the ground aren't we? not the boulder size rocks?) it should display to you what you can do to pick it up. If you are talking the big boulder size rocks then you need a weapon to hit them with and then you'll take stone and other resources from it.

The game is very intuitive in some ways, other ways it is not. But sometimes it may take a while to learn how it is intuitive. Also i'm talking from experience on the PC, but i'm sure it is the same on the Xbox version.

All I'd say is try not to let your first experience determine you decision. I'd say take a little bit of time and do some reading on this forum and the wiki I linked to get some prior understanding, you may then realise things that you didn't in the trial. Then rethink your position.

[FireStormRising]

Sorry you had a bad experience.  I started with a friend that picks this stuff up really quickly, whereas I was ready to rip my hair out.  I watched a beginning tutorial video and everything made much more sense. Mind you, I still died all the time, but I understood what I was doing wrong and what I needed to do......and I take take unnecessarily stupid risks. . 

I could never play this game on an Xbox, because the controller and I don't get along.  I find the PC controls much easier to master, but that's a personal thing.  Once you get the basics of resource collecting and managing stuff in your inventory and crafting, all that frustration goes away.....and is replaced with the frustration of Raptors eating your face, falling to your death, being stung by scorpions and eaten alive.  Yeah, this game is awesome.

Edited to mean that I love this game and not a sarcastic this game is awesome, for clarification.  

I would suggest you take a moment to look at the beginner videos on the Steam Ark pages, because I don't think they have all been moved to this site yet.  After watching them, you may feel differently and want to try again.  

[rpicardi1]

Do you always play a game for the first time not knowing how to play it and expect to win? If you have no idea how to control your character in a game that continues on while you are trying to figure out what to do, you are going to get quickly frustrated.

Read up on the Wiki. Watch the You Tube videos of game play. Not the trailers, but the ones put out by gamers such as Star Snipe or Partially Royal. Then, start out with single player because if you try jumping on to multiplayer, you will be wiped out in no time. Image is PC controls and early X-Box control

[ZeagaX13]

Also, it's not supposed to display something as of press y for picking up some things, such as being in a shrub or the little rocks you need to grab before crafting because if it did, there would be interaction options everywhere and it would be very distracting. Huge rocks you can't mine until you have the pick. You get the stone by going to the little rocks lying about and pressing Y on them to pick them up.

If anything do what GamerPerfection said. Look up some tips and tricks, watch a few videos of people playing the game even to see how and what they do. After that, then go ahead and make your decision if you will buy it or not.

Also, I do feel that it would be nice if they had a slight tutorial. Maybe before you spawn it will say. "We've notice that you appear to be spawning in this server for the first time! Are you new? If so, would you like a simple tutorial to get you started?" (Yes or No) Then it would explain to you the basics. Topor is the level of sleep/exhaustion, The ham looking icon is your food/hunger level, the water droplet is your hydration/water level, the + is your health, etc. You can look up what all the stats mean on the ark survival evolved wiki, but for the sake of a tutorial, they'd explain all of that.

After learning the stats, they'd say "Alright, now you might end up pretty hungry in a few minutes, let's work on you'll start to survive." Then they would tell you how to move, use objects and then how to get materials in order to craft and also telling you how to craft and unlock the engrams to be able to craft things such as houses, weapons, armors and torches or campfires.. Once you've leaned all that, they could tell you to make a campfire and after the fire is ready to go and collect some meat from an animal. The game could even make it like a small little quest-line to give a tad more xp to get people started. Eventually you'd have to make a spear probably and then they'd tell you, "Now that you're armed, go out and kill something for food." Now, naturally everything dinosaur-like will just give you meat, however it would tell you to kill like a trike or a trilobite, or a coel even. Something that should be easy pickins. Once you finish killing it, it will tell you, "Hit the corpse with a pick axe to try to gain meat from it's body." While you're doing so it could also explain that picks are better for certain things, such as thatch from trees, flint, oil and metal from rocks, and even meat from bodies. Then it could tell you axes are best for gathering wood, hide, pelt, keratin, and stone from rocks. That way you'd know the basics to tools. After you've collected one or two meats, then it will tell you to go to a campfire that has fuel in it and cook the meat. Once you get to the campfire and open it up, it'll tell you to read the top description where it tells you to play fuel in the fire pit along with meat to cook it. Once you finish cooking the meat it will tell you, "Now you've learned the basics, would you like to go more in-depth?" If you chose to do so, it would educate you on more advanced things like building a house, making armor, making crops, building a wall, joining or creating a tribe, etc.

I don't really think you should be given bonus xp for that however since all that can take loads of time and would power level people tremendously. Either way, if someone needs that or not is on them but really, it's better to learn all that on your own. Trial and error my friend, makes the worst of us better and better.

[TigerNuno]

36 minutes ago, Jen said:

TigerNuno,

I am sorry to hear that you have an unpleasant experience with your trial. 

My biggest frustration was not about the game itself, but because of Microsoft's 60 minutes preview system which I hate. 60 minutes is not time enough to experience a demo version of this game or any other game. 59 minutes after my demo session started, what I was doing? Searching online for how to gather food, how to eat, how to build a stone pick axe. I wasn't finding a simple tutorial on how to do it, or what is the button on Xbox One to pick up rocks. Suddenly, the game is rude to me and tells me the 60 minutes are over. What a jerk. This is MIcrosoft's fault for the terrible preview system.

Wow, 24,6 GB just for 60 minutes and to not let me play the basics, not let me find help online???? Come on Microsoft. You should know better. All I knew how to do was light a fire and pick up wood by punching trees. And you might ask how I know that punching trees gives me wood? Because of some youtube videos I've watched a long time ago of people doing just that. As you can see I did some "research" before my trial started, and I've learned how to pick up wood. But I find theory too boring, I don't have the patience to read instruction manuals. I like to learn as I try something. That is the best way to learn.

36 minutes ago, Jen said:

ARK is a considerably complex open world game which can be difficult to master, especially in such a short amount of time. I can understand your frustration, you feel like it is our fault that you were unable to figure out these things that you wanted to do and it ruined your experience.  Reading up about the game before starting your trial may have improved your experience and would have given you some basic information on what to expect. The Xbox version of the game does come with Game Guides that can be found in the Pause Menu, and there is a very detailed database all about ARK on it's wiki page. 

A simple in-game tutorial for newbies would help.

Press A to Jump. Press Y to light a fire, or pick up rocks. Press B to open the inventory. Press X to punch someone, something, trees, or animals. Press LB to verbally insult dinos. Press RB to jetpack (just kidding). Press LT to eat food in front of your eyes. In real life we already know how to eat. We don't need a tutorial.

Honestly, I just want to play the game, learn as I go, not read texts online about it. I will read something after I start playing and feel the need to read. I usually do that.

By "your fault", are you talking about Wildcard Studios? You work for Wildcard Studios? Well, I don't know anything about that company. As I said, I don't think my frustrations are Wildcard's fault, but Microsoft's fault for the terrible 60 minutes preview system that made it harder on me and didn't give me enough time to search online for help on how to do basic stuff in the game. In my opinion, a demo shouldn't have a time limit, like in the old days, demos that came with magazines for example.

I also found many things that I didn't like about the game's interface, inventory (not easy and intuitive to navigate), notifications not easy to read or missing at all, interactions with the world and other humans, etc. But such things could be changed and improved by Wildcard in the future, with patches and updates, to make the game better.

36 minutes ago, Jen said:

I remember my first few days with ARK very fondly now. I spent a lot of time dying, a lot of time losing where I built my tiny thatch base, but also a lot of time learning new things and picking up tips and tricks along the way. The thrill of taming your first dino after hiding in the night trying to collect enough berries for it, the first saddle you make and the first dino you ride, those are incredible feats of accomplishments when they come! 

I believe those achievements felt good for you. But you said your "first few days". So, I take it you weren't limited to the 60 minutes preview. That way it's much better and easier for you to have all the time in the world to learn how to play the game at your own pace.

You see, I start the 60 minutes preview of this game (or any other game). What if I receive an important phone call just after the preview started? Blah blah blah, blah blah blah, blah blah blah on the phone, and 30 minutes of the preview are gone. GREAT! I can never get them back in my life. Thanks for nothing, Microsoft, geez! Then something comes up and I need to be AFK for 10 more minutes. Next thing you know, I only had time for 20 minutes of gameplay. Which is ridiculous.

36 minutes ago, Jen said:

ARK is a game that comes with it's own learning curve, there really isn't anything else like it out there. It is harsh and unforgiving, it is difficult and sometimes rage inducing. But that is also what attracted me to it. You must take risks, often times your life, in order to get ahead. You will lose what matters most before you can build your empire. But that in itself is the thrill of surviving. 

Yeah, we must take risks in life and in games, but games are also supposed to be fun and give us a good time. Ark is very frustrating. Anyway, thanks for the tips and inspired writing. I hope you are riding a T-Rex by now, like a baws. Just kidding lol. I don't even know if that's possible in the game but I bet you know.

36 minutes ago, Jen said:

I think if you gave ARK a second chance, you may experience that for yourself. 

I wonder if you want to sell me the game... Lol.....

[rpicardi1]

Sorry you had the miserable experience from Micro$oft. Us PC users, who started out in June last year, had no such preview. Facts are, we had to learn how to play the game and develop the Wiki. After all, Ark is still under development. Our latest learning experience, taming the giant kangaroos, a herbivore, and finding out they only eat rare mushrooms.

Once the game is on official release, there should be a tutorial on how things work, possibly, a training session, which many other games have available.

Meanwhile, stay on the beach, learn how things work, make weapons and clothes as quickly as possible, and watch your back.

 

From my story on the first day;

I stare into that gem. It lights up with a holographic inventory of my character and a bunch of other information. In the top center is my name and Level 1. Below is a 3-D picture of my naked body. Sure doesn't look like me, I must be some kind of avatar. To the right are a digital clock rapidly displaying the hours and minutes, day one for a date, and temperature along with something called equipped items, I guess those are clothing given their descriptions. As they are blank, along with the center 3_D picture of my naked body, I can confirm that I am wearing nothing. Below are health and body related stats in percentage values. I see my food and water very slowly dropping from 100%, so I assume that is a stat for how hungry or thirsty I am getting. On the left is the inventory items. All the boxes are blank except for a gem shaped one labeled “Specimen Implant” with a weight of 0.01 pounds. That must be the gem I am staring into. Below is a Quick Item Slot bar that holds ten items. The Inventory has two listings, Inventory Items and Crafting. I select Crafting.

Two items appear in Crafting boxes, a stone pick ax and a primitive torch. Examining them I see a list of items needed to make one. The pick ax needs a stone, a wood, and ten thatch. The torch needs a stone, a flint, and a wood.

OK, seems that I have a built in holographic computer. But, how am I going to construct a pick without any tools? Walking along the ground, I pick up a loose stone. It vanishes as soon as I grab it. Where did it go? I look into the gem and see in one of the boxes, Stone, weight 0.5 pounds. Seems though that the implanted gem is not only a holographic computer, it also serving as a backpack.

Now, how do I get wood and fiber given when I pick up a stone to hit a tree with one, it vanishes into my virtual backpack? I walk over to a small tree. A holographic message appears “Hit object to harvest.” I pick up another rock. It vanishes just like the first. Disgusted, I smash my fist into the tree. OUCH! That hurt. A holographic message appears, “Added two Thatch”. I punch that tree some more. More thatch and a wood appears. My hand is hurt and bleeding when the tree finally falls down and vanishes. Yet, It heals in minutes. I stare again at the gem. The inventory shows wood, stone, and thatch. I go to the Craftables and see that the pick ax icon is now a different color. I select it and select “Craft Item.” A couple of seconds later, minus one stone, wood, and ten thatch, there is a pick ax in my inventory. Now, how to use it? I select “Use Item.” The pick ax appears on my 10 slot bar in the 1 position and in my hand ready to use. Neat, The gem is not only a built in holographic computer and backpack, it also contains a built in primitive workshop.

[ZeagaX13]

9 minutes ago, TigerNuno said:

You see, I start the 60 minutes preview of this game (or any other game). What if I receive an important phone call just after the preview started? Blah blah blah, blah blah blah, blah blah blah on the phone, and 30 minutes of the preview are gone. GREAT! I can never get them back in my life. Thanks for nothing, Microsoft, geez! Then something comes up and I need to be AFK for 10 more minutes. Next thing you know, I only had time for 20 minutes of gameplay. Which is ridiculous.

Just saying though, it seems like you are basing your whole argument that the game is terrible because an outside party that didn't develop the game but markets it made a mistake. 60 minutes really isn't enough for a game like ark, however that's not Wildcard Studio's fault. The game is incredible and it's only going to get better. Microsoft always finds ways to **** something up because it's Microsoft sadly and it's what they do. However, that's got nothing to do with the people who make the games. See, if Wildcard Studios intentionally released the trail for the game to be 60 minutes, well all well, hate them for it. Thing is however, that's how all game previews are on XB1.

Anyways however, some thing you pointed out kinda don't make sense. If you have a phone call, quit the game so you don't waste your minutes; same thing if you have to go do something for awhile. The time is only used up while the game is running so if you waste a trials time by leaving the game running while you're off doing other things, that's your own fault, no one else.

15 minutes ago, TigerNuno said:

I hope you are riding a T-Rex by now, like a baws. Just kidding lol. I don't even know if that's possible in the game but I bet you know.

This is entirely possible, we have a T-Rex named Captain Crunch with a red, black and pink saddle. She's very intimidating and we like to call her CC for short. She's gunna get herself a Man-Rex pretty soon because she needs to make us a super baby with 50k health and 2k damage!!!

[TigerNuno]

37 minutes ago, GamerPerfection said:

Actually, that's not quite what I was getting at. Once you've killed the creature, then continue to hit it until it disappears. Each time you hit the creature after you've killed it the screen will display what resources including meat you get each time you hit it. The uncooked meat will then be in your inventory ready to cook or eat.

I apreciate you took the time to give me a few useful tips.

Still, after you explained that, I'm not sure if I ate a dead animal in my 60-minute preview or not. I know I killed at least 2 small animals. They were uncounscious on the ground. I continued to punch them over and over again until I killed them. I punched the hell of out them. I dragged their body (because the game was not a jerk this time and told me which button to press to drag its body). Still I don't know if I at least ate a little or not. I know I ate like 1 berry I picked up from somewhere, my hunger level was 0 (I was starving). After I ate the berry, my hunger level went up to like 1.5..... For 1 second. And decreased to 0 again LOL. So eating that was no help at all.

I get what you explained, but in my opinion, I don't like the game like so. I think it's not intuitive, it's not realistic, makes no sense. What's the point of punching a dead body over and over again to pick it up and finally have it in your inventory and then open the inventory, move the cursor, look for the body, select it, move the cursor again (without a mouse takes longer), then select use and FINALLY, FINALLY EAT IT! Omg. It's easier to eat in real life. Eating should be so much easier in the game. Like, I see a dead body on the ground, I press or hold "Y", or Left Trigger, I hear my mouth eating in the game and there it is. Eating. Not that hard to program! Learn from Evolve, which is a fun game. To eat, all you have to do is press and hold the left trigger. You hear the mouth eating and feel the vibration on the controller.

37 minutes ago, GamerPerfection said:

When you get close to a rock (we are talking the very small rocks on the ground aren't we? not the boulder size rocks?) it should display to you what you can do to pick it up. If you are talking the big boulder size rocks then you need a weapon to hit them with and then you'll take stone and other resources from it.

I think I know what you mean, I saw other humans breaking big rocks with their stone axes. I didn't have a clue about why they were doing that in the game, but at least I saw it.

As for the small rocks you mention, yeah I think so. I took long walks along many beaches, looked at the floor for a long time, I think I saw many small rocks. I'm an intelligent person. Then how come I wasn't able to pick up 1 single rock? I blame it on the game.

[rpicardi1]

5 minutes ago, TigerNuno said:

As for the small rocks you mention, yeah I think so. I took long walks along many beaches, looked at the floor for a long time, I think I saw many small rocks. I'm an intelligent person. Then how come I wasn't able to pick up 1 single rock? I blame it on the game.

The USE button on the X-Box controller, E on the PC, performs many functions including picking up the stones on the beach, picking berries and fiber, interacting with other objects such as lighting the firepit, getting on and off saddles, etc...

It is a lot to learn, yet, many of the functions, such as moving your character and using weapons, are common commands in FPS games.

Open world survival games are complex by nature with a learning curve. The good thing with Ark is you don't lose the experience you have gained when your character gets killed. You also have a short time window to find your dead body and recover your stuff assuming what killed you isn't waiting for a second go around.

Best advise, play single player until you are comfortable with the game mechanics. You can pause single player to think things out. You can quit and come back in later with the game as you left it. Those are two things you cannot do in multiplayer which runs 24-7 if you are playing or not, plus, no one can steal your stuff from your sleeping character when you are not online. BTY, the X-Box version is greatly accelerated in gathering, leveling up, taming speed, and other factors. That makes play a lot easier and less grinding.

My Rexes are named Barney after the purple dinosaur and Bertha. They are both gray in color.

[MrDarthSidious]

2 hours ago, TigerNuno said:

I was curious about this game, I've just played the 60 minutes preview on Xbox One. Don't buy the game. I won't. Here's my 2 cents. How frustrating.

First off, I hate this Microsoft 60 minutes preview dealio. Just because of it I'm more inclined to never buy a game that uses this terrible preview style. Old days demos that don't have a time limit are much better. Just limit the content, a player would only play the 1st level and then not have access to the rest of the game. This would be user friendly, nice, and I can try out the game as long as I want before I buy, make up my mind. Not with a 60 minutes limit. I hate that. It's rude. It's obnouxious. It's frustrating.

Really game? 24,6 GB on my console just for 60 frustrating minutes? How ridiculous. I deleted the game as soon as the 60 minutes is over. What a waste of time and space.

During 60 minutes what could I do? Die, die, die. Pick up wood from trees. Die, die die. Swim. Die. Get cold, get hungry, die, die again and die some more, still clueless. 20 minutes gone by. What now? Respawn again. Die, respawn, die, respawn. How in the world can I get some food and eat? I try to kill animals, almost all of them kill me instead. I can never get food. Finally, when I manage to kill an annoying small animal, what do I think? FINALLY! FOOD! But nooooooo. All I can do is drag its body?!?!? DILO? What for? Why can't I eat it? Why can't I cook it?

I drag it to the fireplace and set the fireplace on fire to cook the dead animal. Doesn't work. I can't do anything with the dead body. How stupid. 40 minutes gone by. I'm still clueless. All I can do is pick up wood and die.

The controls are so bad and confusing, that when I found other humans, I opened the wheel with "Y", then moved the cursor up to join their tribe or whatever but I never know if I joined their tribe or not, the text is not even readable, there are 2 sentences on top of each other that don't let me read properly anything.

I realize I need 1 wood and 10 the other thingy (which I have), to build a stone pick. I think that if I create one, maybe I can hunt better, kill animals better and finally find some food to not die starving.

I have no clue about how to pick up rocks to build the stone pick. I found rocks all over the place on the floor. I try to punch them to pick them up, doesn't work. I can't even pick up rocks!!!!!!???????? #$ $#$%$ #$% ......... #$%&ing $hi% There are no controls explained anywhere, not even online. How frustrating.

I turn to google searches and youtube:

"ark survival how to pick up rocks"

"ark survival how to eat"

"ark survival how to get food"

20 or 30 frustrating search results later, I can't find help on how to play this frustrating game. I still don't know what controls pick up rocks and how to gather food to eat.

Guess what, 60 minutes are over, this game didn't even give me time to google search a way to pick up rocks and gather food. Thanks Microsoft for a terriblly bad preview experience, because it's limited to 60 minutes.

Now I won't buy this game, never. No way. I suggest you do the same.

Your feeble skills are no match for the power of the Dark Side

[TigerNuno]

1 hour ago, FireStormRising said:

Sorry you had a bad experience.  I started with a friend that picks this stuff up really quickly, whereas I was ready to rip my hair out.  I watched a beginning tutorial video and everything made much more sense. Mind you, I still died all the time, but I understood what I was doing wrong and what I needed to do......and I take take unnecessarily stupid risks. . 

I could never play this game on an Xbox, because the controller and I don't get along.  I find the PC controls much easier to master, but that's a personal thing.  Once you get the basics of resource collecting and managing stuff in your inventory and crafting, all that frustration goes away.....and is replaced with the frustration of Raptors eating your face, falling to your death, being stung by scorpions and eaten alive.  Yeah, this game is awesome.  

Thanks for sharing your story. I guess this game and its players really need group meetings, like the AAA, to vent their frustrations.

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I would suggest you take a moment to look at the beginner videos on the Steam Ark pages, because I don't think they have all been moved to this site yet.  After watching them, you may feel differently and want to try again.  

That is the problem. My 60-minute preview is over now. Lol. I can't play the game anymore and thanks to Microsoft they were very frustrating 60 minutes.

[TigerNuno]

2 minutes ago, MrDarthSidious said:

Your feeble skills are no match for the power of the Dark Side

Lol are you lost? These ain't the Battlefront forums.

[WindsweptDragon]

You could try contacting MS support, tell them the problems you had and see if they can reset your profile so you can try again.

[HighFlyer15]

 

1 hour ago, TigerNuno said:

Each time I hit it I eat meat????? Wow. Now I know. In the game I had no clue. The game could at least give me a visual warning. Like a popup message or something that told me: "you've eaten 10 food". Or "food++".... "food > >> >>>"... "hunger decreased".... Something to let me know. A newbie like me would never know, since the game doesn't give a visual or audio indication. It's not intuitive. Or how about the sound of my mouth eating? That would be another kind of intuitive indication. I don't agree with no indication whatsoever. It's not even realistic. In the real world I know when I'm eating. I can feel it. In this game I could never tell that hitting a dead corpse = eating. Kinda absurd, unrealistic. I eat with my mouth, not with my fists. So it's not realistic at all. Besides, hitting a corpse, in my opinion, is nothing like eating. Doesn't make sense. There should be a different control or button just to eat. 

6

The post by GP didn't mention anything about eating by punching, but you wrote all this because you read it wrong.
Many people make mistakes in anger or get even more frustrated when they're already upset, so as others have suggested I would tell you to give the game another go once you've calmed down and gotten to a fresh state of mind.

Once you've gotten over the hump of learning how to find resources and get food the game really opens up and you'll find a great experience  Don't let your first impressions, based on control misunderstandings, ruin what could be a great game for you.

[TigerNuno]

57 minutes ago, rpicardi1 said:

Do you always play a game for the first time not knowing how to play it and expect to win?

I don't expect to win, Ark is a game that takes forever, the point is not to "win", or reach 90,000 points and win. It's a persistent game.

57 minutes ago, rpicardi1 said:

If you have no idea how to control your character in a game that continues on while you are trying to figure out what to do, you are going to get quickly frustrated.

Yes I have an idea. I knew how to control my character and do many things in the game. Too bad there wasn't a in-game tutorial to give a few quick tips and teach newcomers how to play the basics. That would be a nicer, more user friendly, more intuitive game. I think discovering by myself that I need to punch a dead body in order to pick it up or press X + Y + LT + pause + start to simply pick up a rock, is not fun, doesn't appeal to my intelligence in solving puzzles, it's only frustrating.

57 minutes ago, rpicardi1 said:

Read up on the Wiki. Watch the You Tube videos of game play.

Actually, I did watch many youtube videos about this game a long time ago. That's how I learned that punching a tree = picking up wood.

57 minutes ago, rpicardi1 said:

Not the trailers, but the ones put out by gamers such as Star Snipe or Partially Royal. Then, start out with single player

I think this 60-minute preview is multiplayer only, doesn't have a single player option. Even if it had, I would never play a game like this in single player, it's meant to be a multiplayer game. Life is too short to play a multiplayer game in single player.

57 minutes ago, rpicardi1 said:

Image is PC controls and early X-Box control

Acutally, I did look at this image during my preview. If I try to learn how to pick up rocks by looking at the controller help, what do I learn? NOTHING. The only button 'here I could think is used to pick up rocks (or objects in general), is the "Y" button because it says "Use". Well that's of no use to me. When I saw small rocks on the beach I pressed everything, even the "Y" use button, nothing worked to pick up a rock.

[TigerNuno]

18 minutes ago, WindsweptDragon said:

You could try contacting MS support, tell them the problems you had and see if they can reset your profile so you can try again.

Well that's an idea. I could try that. If I REALLY REALLY REALLY liked this game lol.

Microsoft is so stubborn, my bet is they would never accept to give me another preview.

But my whole point is I hate their 60-minute preview system and don't agree with it. Then why ask for a new 60-minute period? A demo for a game like this should be enjoyed for as long as I want, no time limit. Not like this.

[Bain]

7 minutes ago, TigerNuno said:

Well that's an idea. I could try that. If I REALLY REALLY REALLY liked this game lol.

Microsoft is so stubborn, my bet is they would never accept to give me another preview.

But my whole point is I hate their 60-minute preview system and don't agree with it. Then why ask for a new 60-minute period? A demo for a game like this should be enjoyed for as long as I want, no time limit. Not like this.

So you expect to have ark for free? Endless time to slowly learn the game?? I've read all of your posts- you are either quite young( which isn't meant as a negative) or this is your first ever gaming experience. 

I cannot fathom how in that 60 mins you didn't look at a rock and try every button if you were struggling that much. You say you did- but obviously you didn't if you couldn't get a single rock... 

And finally, you obviously do want to give it another chance or liked it somewhat as you have been posting in here for a while now. If your issue did in fact lie with Microsoft you would be in their forums. 

[TigerNuno]

1 hour ago, ZeagaX13 said:

I figured the inventory, how to get wood and thatch, make items, you know the simple stuff.

I take it you also play on Xbox One? I also figured many parts of the inventory on my own. I don't like it. It's too complicated to navigate. Too many button presses to go anywhere in the inventory. Too much info in 1 screen. Too badly organized. Too confusing. Just my personal opinion.

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Then I was noticing I needed stone. How in the world am I supposed to get stone?! I can't punch the rocks .

Welcome to one of my main frustrations in the preview: how to pick up rocks.

Why is the game a jerk and not show us a popup saying Press "Y" to pick up the rock when near the rock? If that's the way to do it. This system works for campfires, why not for rocks too?? Sounds like it's broken, makes no sense.

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I looked around and someone in chat eventually said the same question I had on gathering. Then someone answered and said look into the settings and check the controls. Jerk coulda just said press the action button ( Y ).

Lol, so not only the game is a jerk to us, there are also jerks playing who will tell you to just read the manual or help screens LOL. Geez, some people!!! How helpful, NOT!

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we also have 4 direwolves, a Trike, Carno, Trex, Spino, Anklyo, Parasuar, Turtle, two eagles, two dilos, and of course.... four dodo birds.
(We had 5 dodos but my friend joey decided to use it as a test dummy for our C4 Charges we made... -.-)

Lol sounds like a zoo.

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Either way, the game is incredibly fun and there's always something to do. You'll literally never find yourself saying "I don't know what to do, there's nothing to do." You either have to feed your dinos, go get food for yourselves, build the base better, make more storage, go kill some alphas, go cave diving, go to get ore from the volcano or the mountains, build a second base near valuable resources... the list goes on and on because there's so much to do

Ok.... But I played for 60 minutes and I've already seen everything in the game? I mean, campfires, dinos, animals walking around, trees, stones, rocks, beaches, lakes, sky, distant buildings full of lights that look like discos or casinos, day/night cycle, small bases or huts... And that's it. I have nothing new left to see in the game?

If you say there's lot of things to do, I believe in you, but still, this sounds very monotonous to me. Always looking at the same things over and over again.

Gather food, feed animals, feed ourselves, light fires, go kill dinos, doesn't sound varied and very appealing ot me. Sounds very monotonous. Anyway, if you like the game, good for you. Have fun. Everyone is different and has different tastes.

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Give it one more try; even if you have to buy it, because I'm telling you, it's work the 35 bucks.

I would spend 35 bucks to buy other games right now, not this one.