Pipinghot

As far as I know this isn't something Wildcard has ever discussed or even hinted at. When you say "in-game criteria" do you mean lore/story criteria? The main (and only that I'm aware of) criteria is that you ascend to the next story-map (which is to say, the next paid DLC map in the original ASE series). Even though WC published 3rd party fan-made maps as free DLC in between the paid-DLC maps, they never referenced the free maps in the story, lore, or ascension videos, so all of their references are limited to their own maps, the paid maps that were created by WC employees. But in terms of story, to the best of my knowledge there are not any forward-looking elements in the story telling, nothing that foreshadows the map you're going to be send to when you ascend (other than the ascension video itself). It's all retro-active story telling once you reach the new map, with the lore justifying in hindsight why you're now "here" at the new location.

My personal opinion is that this is what they want, to be delisted and take the company private. This could involve an additional layer of shenanigans with some form of bankruptcy (which could very well let them shrug off current debt load) or it might be as simple as getting delisted and then using private equity to pay off their current debts. Mind you, I don't know exactly who constitutes "they" at this point, not sure what stake the 4 founders of WC still have in WC/Snail. For starters there's Shi Hai (and his wife) who effectively own all of Snail China (I think), all of Snail USA and something like 97% of all WC shares. At this point, Shi has a long history of making money for himself even on failing games/ventures. For example, look at how much money the parent game Snail (China) has made on games that they never finished and ultimately shut down, Snail has a solid history of abandoning games & players. Even the electric car company that failed doesn't tell us anything about his personal net worth. The visible fortune of the companies he owns, or has owned, are not a good metric to measure his own personal fortune. Like with most people who play the "I'm a rich person game" at his level, his personal finances are completely opaque. Beyond Shi, there are the four founders of WC. I've never seen any good reporting on their personal net worth's, whether their own fortunes have risen & fallen with WC or whether they're all made good money in spite of WC's business failings. This is, after all, a game that made at least $2B during the good times, if those 4 people were at all smart they took home a bunch of money that they moved into other investments. So, whoever "they" might be at this point in time, there's no evidence to believe that getting delisted will hurt any of them financially, and there are good reasons to believe that they are tanking the stock in order to privatize the company (because any money that they could have made by the company being public they already made some time ago). Getting delisted isn't the end of a company (unfortunately), quite often it's the very thing that gives the founders/owners an opportunity to open up other avenues of reaping profits from the company. After all, it's so much easier to be shady and underhanded when you don't have to deal with the fiduciary and reporting requirements of being a public company. For all we know, ASA was nothing more than a dog & pony show, designed to present the appearance that they were trying hard to save the company when in reality they knew that they were moving towards privatization all along. I know that sounds like a conspiracy theory (and it might very well be, I would be more than happy to be wrong about this) but owners of companies do these sorts of things all the time (especially nowadays, when so much of the business world is rushing headlong away from public companies and towards private equity ownership). I could be wrong, maybe they really are going down the drain honestly and some other company will buy the properties (and if that happens there's a good chance it will be by some other unsavory company like Tencent or Ubisoft that won't really improve the game). But hey, maybe ARK etc. could get bought by a better company... I just wouldn't bet my marble collection on that outcome. They have plenty of options. Even if their failures are 100% honest that doesn't mean they'll lose control of WC nor lose control of ARK, etc. I would like to see that happen, I'm thinking that even Tencent would be better than Snail, but it would be surprising if any that actually happened.

You can, but do you actually do it? There's a reason Joe's asking this question. When you say you get wyvern's milk "very often", when was the last time you were there, as it a day ago, 5 days ago, 12 days ago? He's trying to figure out whether you accidentally waited too long and the decay timer removed it, it's a legit question. This happens to people all the time - someone logs in every day but they forget to go refresh the decay timers on their taming trap or secondary base, maybe they go there once every 5 days but they skipped a visit and didn't realize it. Even if you log in every day that trap might have despawned from the decay timer if you didn't visit it recently enough. So, when was the last time you visited that location before it despawned?

There's no doubt that WildCard wants it to be permanent, they're hoping that having a bunch of garbage interesting activities for players to do will keep players interested in the game/garbage festival. They're hoping that ARK = Fortnite will become a successful money making scheme.

It was still a cash grab, which wouldn't be okay even if WC did a good job (which anyone who's being honest with themselves knew wouldn't happen). You've been in this game since at least 2021 (maybe longer, but that's when your forum account started), so you should have long since known better than to defend them in the first place. Again, no one should defend "cash grab bs" in any game, ever. Anyone who does has only themselves to blame for the game they end up with.

Why did you before? No one should ever defend cash grab bs, anyone who has ever defended cash grabs has only themselves to blame.

Nothing can be done about it unless you can get your country to pass better consumer protection laws for video games. It's a lovely thought but good luck with that. Until or unless that happens, you only choice is to vote with your dollars. If you don't like a game company then don't buy their products. Unless you're good at getting legislation passed that's your only option.

Weeks? Try 8 years. Mind you, I feel your pain, ARK is a bug-ridden mess, but there's nothing new about that. If people choose to keep paying for a game of this (low) quality, from a company that has lied in many different ways, this is how the game will be managed. Again, I feel you, but they're not going to become a better company.

And you can transfer lots more stuff via the upload, what you can carry on you is only part of the picture. Right back at ya', bad suggestion is bad. No matter how they balance the game, even if it was perfect, it would still be harder for new tribes. PvP in ARK is brutal and destructive, which is how it's intended to be. Your version of balance is not the dev's version of balance. Unless you have something useful to suggest don't bother.

That's not what uploads are for. People have figured out that they can use upload to save stuff, and the devs allow it, but the point of uploads is for server transfers. It's never been intended to be a form of safe storage.

"It's already a problem, so WC please make the problem worse," that makes no sense. Anything that makes it harder for griefers is better. Maybe not perfect, but it's still better than saying, "Hey griefers, it's open season have fun." It's more convenient but it's not "essential". Making things harder for griefers is worth the price of making taming a little bit harder.

Yes. All of these threads you've been in have been about honesty and integrity, which you are making clear you've never understood. Every one of these threads has been caused by WC saying one thing and doing another, talking out of both sides of their mouth, making false promises about what their players can expect. Nearly every conversation for every game that discusses P2W issues is about honesty and integrity, because nearly every company that adds P2W features to their game lies about them. Otherwise known as <drumroll> dishonesty. And the core issue is promising players a level playing field but then adding P2W features that were never disclosed until after people had bought the game. You know, the stuff that you keep failing to understand. You really need to look in a mirror once in a while, your level of failed self-awareness is astounding. I would suggest you take your own advice, but it's clear you're either not willing or not able to follow along. Failed red herring #149. That's been explained in multiple threads. You're either willfully ignorant or incapable of learning how people lose when P2W content is added to a game, or even when a company misleads them about non-P2W content. It seems like you should understand by now that there is a difference between being honest and being dishonest, but apparently these are concepts that bamboozle you. Honest capitalism and dishonest capitalism are not the same thing. Honest selling of products and dishonest selling of products are not the same thing. Fully disclosing information to customers and deliberately concealing and obfuscating information from customers are not the same thing. Truth and lies are not the game thing, and yet here you are many posts later still incapable of telling the difference. These are not difficult concepts, and yet you've never been able to grasp them, which is why you're back here yet again, failing to understand the discussion and arguing about the wrong things. Yup, you definitely need some mirrors in your house. Failed red herring #150. Congrats, achievement unlocked.

Never said it is, you can stop your straw man arguments any time. But you won't, because that's how you roll. Nope. Wrong again. Never said they were. More of your usual straw man arguments. Nope. Wrong again.

Still completely wrong in your understanding of the discussion. This isn't about capitalism, and never has been, it's about honesty and integrity. You continue to fail to understand the discussion and argue about the wrong topic. Swing and a miss. Just one more thing you're wrong about.

A lie of omission is still a lie, no matter how many times you try to deny it this basic, fundamental fact will still be true. WC deliberately mislead people and implied things they knew were false right from the beginning, that's lying.