Pipinghot

Yeah, agreed. In no way do I think nor suggest that this was a good thing to have happen. Personally I think it's evidence that WC/Snail mismanaged their business to be in the position in the first place. If people see this arrangement as a good reason to be unhappy with WC/Snail then they'll get no argument from me. Agreed, it shouldn't have been a commercial necessity in the first place. Of course I don't know all of the in's and out's of WC's business, but the results speak for themselves. When a company has to agree to onerous contracts because they've gotten into excessive debt, clearly they've done something wrong. ASA is essentially players crowd funding WC/Snails mismanagement of their business. I'm all in favor of people voting with their dollars, and sadly it looks like a lot of people are ok with being treated like an ATM by WC/Snail. Glad to hear they responded to you appropriately.

That's not a bug, they made that choice deliberately. I'm not suggesting you should like it, if you're against the decision that's certainly your right. It just shouldn't be in a list with bugs.

WildCard was $1M behind in payments for the ASE Official server network, and Nitrado lent them an additional $4M, putting WC in debt to Nitrado for a total of $5m. This is why WC signed the exclusive contract with Nitrado. There's more to the story, of course, like the revolving debt that Snail/WC are floating, but as it pertains specifically to Nitrado it's their $5M that explains the exclusive contract.

Basically, you have to learn how to manage your base the way people did in the early days of ARK. Mind you, I understand that it's frustrating if you've only played ARK with cryopods, but once you wrap your head around a few ideas it's not that hard to manage. A couple of points that will help you get started: 1) Since pteras don't have speed anymore, put all of those points into stamina. It's a little less convenient, but In the end you will still be able to tame argy's about as easily. Being able to lead them for a longer period of time, which means you have to land less often and fewer chances to get ambushed on the ground, will mean that you're safer in a ptera than you used to be. As long as you manage your stam so that you can take off again if there's an emergency, never let it get too low, you'll find it ends up being about the same. 2) Use wagon trains (follow) for harvesting runs. Let's say you have 3 argy's that were Lvl 90 when you tamed them, rather than the single Lvl 150 you're used to. Have the argy's follow each other 1-2-3 and then you fly Argy #1. 3) Have mini-bases in areas where you want to harvest something specific. Build a mini-base near the polymer, tame a good predator in that area, then use that predator to kill stuff and collect the polymer. Then use a bed to go back to your base, fly your argy's up and carry the poly back. Or, alternatively, use the poly right away at your poly-farming mini-base and then carry back the items you made from the poly. It's less convenient, but it's easier than it sounds once you get used to it. 4) Since you talked about "Dino Storage V2" I'm assuming you're playing on SP. If that's the case then you can change the setting which will let you level up flyer speed. Or if you're on an unofficial server make sure you find one that uses this setting or that uses a different mod to make things better. Playing the game without cryopods requires players to come up with more creative solutions, and it definitely slows things down because you have to spend more time getting things home to your base or carrying materials around, but once you get the hang of things, it will stop feeling difficult.

Buy again and start over. Each platform sells copies only for that platform, you can't share characters between the different platforms, even with crossplay This does, however, raise an interesting question. Let's say you're playing for a while on Steam, and you're playing on a server that's going to have crossplay later, once the consoles get the game. When the Console version comes out you might be able to buy your console copy, create a new character on that server, and get invited to your existing tribe with the new character. I'm just speculating that this would work but it seems like it would. Having said that, do you really want to buy two copies of the same game when you can just wait a couple of weeks for console?

That's always been true in the game, it's just that when the game is working as intended stuff spawns behind you. There are many variations of this being a long running joke with players, when you see a dino spawn from the sky. I mean, what you've shown is obviously a bug (and it's pretty funny btw, thanks) there shouldn't be that many together and they shouldn't be in front of you, but scenes like that have been happening all along.

That's a pretty good description of ARK in general. At every stage of development there are obstacles to overcome, materials that need to be farmed, and things you need to accomplish in order to make the next stage of the game work better for you. Until you get to the very end-game there will always be something that's scarce or hard to get, and which exact things those are will depend on the map. Metal can be hard to come by on The Island, Ovis are hard to find on The Center, other resources are hard to get on Scorched Earth, and so on. Everywhere you go in ARK, every time you progress, there is some form of scarcity that you have to work to overcome somehow, whether it's by finding the right tames or building a secondary base on another map (obviously you can't do this yet). That is both the frustration and the joy of ARK, you'll never have easy access to everything, part of the art of playing the game is figuring out what your solutions are for overcoming various types of scarcity.

There has only been one teaser/trailer that I'm aware of, the piece that was released at the XBox Partner Preview, if there are others let me know where to find them. The trailer that was released at the XBox Partner Preview, just 4 days ago (Wednesday, Oct 25) was touted by WC, and subsequently by the gaming press, as a "gameplay trailer", "game play reveal trailer", and other similar descriptions. It wasn't pushed as merely a trailer, but specifically a gameplay trailer. Tons of people have been asking WC for gameplay footage for months, and this is what WC said they were going to give people. For example: "Studio Wildcard has finally released a gameplay trailer for Ark: Survival Ascended during the Xbox Partner Preview showcase." https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/xbox/ark-survival-ascended-gameplay-finally-hatches-in-a-new-trailer-during-xbox-partner-preview-showcase Considering how many of those scenes looked very much like scenes from previous trailers released by WC, it seems highly unlikely that they were true gameplay footage, which is what people were told was coming. Whether you wish to call it a launch trailer, or a teaser, or any other description, it was touted as a gameplay trailer, but whether there was any true gameplay footage in that trailer is highly debatable, much less enough to legitimately call it a "gameplay trailer". In no way am I suggesting that it's wrong, in general, to include rendered video in a trailer. Movies, books, games, , etc., pretty much every entertainment media creates trailers, advertisements or blurbs that are designed to get attention and are quite often not representative of the content of the movie/book/game, that's nothing new. But when you tout a "gameplay trailer" then the clear majority of it should be obviously identifiable as video capture while playing the game, not rendered video. When we consider just how terrible the performance of the game was at release, even on high end of many, many people, it's pretty obvious that the trailer wasn't really gameplay, but that's what people were told they were getting. Even if some of those scenes started as gameplay captures they were thoroughly massaged after the fact.

Well there I am, hoist by my own petard, not examining the evidence carefully enough before posting. I should have made a side-by-side comparison of the scenes the way that invincibleqc did, it's even more obvious with both of them contained in the same screenshot. So... I'll take the hit, gotta admit I was wrong about it being re-used video.

So it's basically Conan?

It's a survival game, not a simulation of real life. Mind you, I get your point about survival, if you can outrun threats too easily then they're not threats, that's a valid point of view. Just make sure you don't use arguments based on "real life" in a game where your character is not a human being but is instead a manufactured humanoid called a "survivor". Your character isn't a real life human, it's something else.

Now that we've established you're (probably) not a sock puppet... [Edit: I'm leaving this post here for continuity, but in the post below Invincibleqc proves that I was mistaken.] You're making my point for me. Some of the moments included in the trailer (which, you apparently need to be reminded) was touted by WildCard as a gameplay trailer) have been floating around for years which means, by definition, they are not from ASA, and on top of that not from gameplay. There may have been scenes in that trailer which were truly new, but not all of them, and based on those facts it's highly unlikely that even the new scenes were from ASA gameplay. I've been told by moderators we're not supposed to link youtube content providers, so you'll have to go to youtube and search for the name. Start with "LtBuzzLiteBeer". If you watch his ARK videos published during the last 6 months or so, you will see the scene of the Rex bursting through the wooden gate over and over. It is a very old video clip, and it's not even from ASE gameplay, it's a rendered cinematic. So again, neither gameplay nor ASA. There are other scenes that I don't remember specifically where I've seen them before, but they're not new. * Scene - Character riding a trike accompanied by two characters on equus and another riding a megatherium and one on a rex. * Scene - multiple characters riding gallimimus, running past a bronto and a stego. * Scene - bosses being shown quickly in order - megapithecus, dragon, broodmother, cinematics that have been around for a long time. There are others that are familiar, but in the interest of fairness they might just be similar to older clips. For example, the first scene of the survivor waking up on the beach is very similar to the original ARK trailer, but it's not identical, it looks like that's probably created recently and it just intended as an homage to their original. But what it does not look like is ASA gameplay, it looks like a rendered video. Congrats on your ability to look up words on the internet, you're obviously proud of your search skills. Of course we all know what a trailer is, but this was touted as a "Gameplay trailer", which is not the same thing as a cinematic trailer made up of rendered video scenes. Furthermore, portions of it are not even from ASA, they've been around since ASA. So again this supposed "ASA gameplay" trailer is neither ASA nor gameplay. Neither is lying about it being a "gameplay trailer".

If you're being honest with yourself, you had to know this was coming... 1) https://survivetheark.com/index.php?/forums/topic/709919-is-there-a-way-for-me-to-go-under-the-mesh-to-retrieve-my-dodos 2) Also, youtube, "ASA mesh" (Not going to include the links here, since in no way do I want to encourage meshing, but if you need the proof of just how badly mistaken you were you can find it). Title = Another Ark Survival Ascended Mesh Spot... Title = How To MESH in ARK ASCENDED ASA Any Cave in 2 Sec @Survivetheark FIX This. Wildcard Title = ARK Survival Ascended Mesh Method (Mesh Anywhere) ...and more. So yeah, there's something to mesh into.

"Chill out on the negative reviews on steam"

LoL, that was a funny bit of irony, well played. No, he really doesn't. He's talking about reviews, not bug reports. Complaining about complaining has no point other than to try to silence people from registering their dissatisfaction. Bug reports need to include more technical detail, but reviews don't. A review only needs to contain the opinion of the reviewer with whatever reasons they believe are good enough to support that complaint. The OP was talking about Steam reviews, you're talking about finding troubleshooting on the forums, two completely different things. A cynical person would suggest that you're trying to use someone else's thread to make this about you and use it as an opportunity for your own axe grinding. You know, like a forum troll does. Good thing I'm not a cynical person.

There's a lot to unpack here, but this is a good place to start. It's always nice to be able to start on a point of agreement, and we agree on this. And that, alone, would be a good enough reason to negative review-bomb the game. It doesn't affect me either, but no matter who it affects it was a scumbag move and everyone should be at least a little irritated with a publisher that would try to pull garbage like that. Calling out scumbaggery shouldn't depend on who is being affected and who is not. There's a lot of wiggle room for discussing how happy or unhappy people should be about normal things, like a reasonable amount of bugs in a release, but when a publisher deliberately screws a portion of their player base that's the kind of thing that should raise red flags for everyone, not just the people who are affected by it. I'm not saying that everyone on these forums needs to post criticisms of WC because of malfeasance like this, but I am saying anyone who doesn't understand (and tries to criticize) and outpouring of anger when things like this are being done is complaining about the wrong thing. Complaining about people complaining, especially when the complaints are super legitimate is, to put it kindly, a bit silly. It's worth remembering that the entire point of this thread was complaining about people complaining even through their reasons for complaining were completely legit. It's pretty amusing when people who complain about complaining fail to see the irony in their own complaints. Yeah, you are watering them down. To criticize people's complaints, is by definition, attempting to minimize their concerns. Whether anything will come of it or not is immaterial, it still comes down to criticizing people's right to express valid criticisms that are being expressed. If you truly didn't want to water down their concerns then you'd just let them talk, be silent about it, and move on to some other discussion. WC & Nitrado reversed their attempt to deliberately screw people over with their server shenanigans. So yeah, constructive. I'm not suggesting that was only because of these forums, it was a combination of forums, Twitter, Discord, content providers and people voting with their dollars by getting refunds. It was the collective voices of their customers that forced WC/Nitrado's hand and convinced them that their attempt to screw people was bad business. By any reasonable definition that's constructive. That's true. There's very little that any individual can do, it's only through the collective force of customer's voices and actions that messages get through to them, and therefore it's important that as many people as possible express their complaints. One person complaining doesn't accomplish anything, but thousands of people complaining does, which is all the more reason that anyone who wants to see the company's respond to player needs shouldn't waste their own time by complaining about complaining. WC, Nitrado and Snail are not kind, gentle companies, they do not have a history of good customer service and a bad history of making anti-customer decisions. And that's not even talking about outright scumbaggery like banning players who attack Snail's employee tribe in PvP, even if we just limit this discussion to their company treatment of customers it should be clear that they don't react unless there is strong push back from as many people as possible. Which is fine, because that's not what's happening. If you're interpreting people complaining about WC, Snail & Nitrado as slamming on the game, then you're badly misinterpreting the criticisms being made. People complain the most when they care about something, the vast majority complaints are because people really like ARK, they want the implementation of the game to be as good as the idea of the game, and they're tired and frustrated that the owners of the game don't do a better job. People are not bashing "every party involved", they're bashing the people who are responsible for these bad, often neglecent, and sometimes even malicious, decisions. Oh not just right now. If you really had read "dozens" of my posts as you claimed you did, then you'd know that I'm not a fan of a whole lot more than just "right now". No, there's not. I'm not a content provider with lots of watchers/listeners, so instead I remind people that their true power as consumers is to withhold their money from a company that is neglectful and deceitful is a darned good thing to do. Reminding people of how to exercise their power as consumers and customers isn't "regurgitating" anything, it's just good advice. Wow, that's a fascinatingly twisted-logic version of what happened. No, your false dichotomy is obviously wrong. The idea that you are a sock puppet account was not the "only possibility", it was just the possibility that made the most sense at the time. The first thing you did after creating your account was to repeat arguments that were suspiciously similar to argument that had just been made by a different account. That's a big red flag for a sock puppet account. But hey, if you want to tell the world that after "years of lurking" I was the one person who was so important you just had to create an account to respond to me, who am I to turn down that kind of adulation from a fan. Apparently I'm the person who inspired your personal passion to stop being passive and take action. You're welcome.

I think it's stored in a text file in one of the game directories, which should mean that you can edit the file to get rid of the stuff you don't like. Having said that, I'm basing this on old, old memory. You'd need to do some googling to see if you can find a thread or article that talks about it.

So far WC is saying November, but obviously wait and see.

No, it was intentional, which is proved by the fact that they wrote the EULA to reinforce that decision. Yes. They were trying to see if they could get away with it or if there would be enough of a backlash for them to reverse the decision. You obviously have the right to buy and enjoy the game if that's what you want, but there's no reason for anyone to make excuses for them deliberately trying to rip off customers.

1) It's silly to call them "dramatists", it was a legitimate complaint against two companies (WC & Nitrado) that were trying to abuse customers. 2) Nothing about that suggests it was an oversight. They crafted language for the EULA that demonstrated their choice was made with deliberate intent.

Of course I saw it coming, which has nothing to do with the argument you presented in your previous post. You made an argument about profitability, and responded to that argument. Whether anyone saw this coming or not is immaterial to the argument you presented.

Speaking of IQ tests you might want to work on your math skills. If Nitrado gets a monopoly on paid server hosting, all of the money that people used to pay to other hosting companies is going to get paid to Nitrado instead. That is how a reasonable person would expect them to get their money back. If their existing pricing structure is enough to make a profit before being granted an exclusive agreement by WildCard then that pricing structure will make even more money for them after the exclusive agreement even if they didn't raise the prices by a single penny. Your logic (and the math implied by your logic) is broken. As long as their previous pricing model was profitable (and we have to assume it was because they're a business, not a charity) then there is no reason to raise the prices other than to rip off players because they have the exclusive agreement. If they were profitable before then they would be even more profitable now, even without raising prices, and that is how people thought "Nitrado was going to get their money back".

I don't know, like I said you'll want to look it up and then sign up. I mean, it's possible that someone on the forums will know the answers to questions about that program, but I don't think it's likely. I think your best bet is to find it, sign up and then ask questions once you're registered.

WildCard has a program for content providers to sign up with them. I don't remember the name but I'm sure with some googling you can find it.

Sorry, don't know anything about that, have not looked into it at all.